The Red Century, Nostalgia for Communism At NY Times

New York Times’ Communism Series -- Red Century & Lies about Socialism | National Review:

A good one from Jonah on the series at the Times waxing nostalgic for the "good old days" of the USSR. I agreed with Jonah that the "Women Had Better Sex Under Communism" was especially wacky. The column gets a bit long, however I think it is very important to understanding the "progressive/socialist/communist" mind.

It is perhaps hard to understand now, but at that time, in this place, the Marxist vision of world solidarity as translated by the Communist Party induced in the most ordinary of men and women a sense of one’s own humanity that ran deep, made life feel large; large and clarified. It was to this clarity of inner being that so many became not only attached, but addicted. No reward of life, no love nor fame nor wealth, could compete with the experience. It was this all-in-allness of world and self that, all too often, made of the Communists true believers who could not face up to the police state corruption at the heart of their faith, even when a 3-year-old could see that it was eating itself alive.

There are essentially only two beliefs that give meaning to human life. The first is some version of transcendence -- that there is a God, a "power" that is beyond mere physical matter, and has created all we see and ourselves as well for an eternal purpose. The second is the materialst vision that matter is all. While this materialist vision ought to mean that meaning is not possible, since all is mere randomness, including whatever thoughts we might believe we have, man truely does not live by bread alone.

He MUST have faith, so the materialist conjures some idea of "basic goodness" -- instilled "somehow" by blind chance, to create his article of faith that man is "somehow good". Communism promised that if religion and other "opiates of the people": could be removed, the mass of humanity would quickly become a workers paradise here on earth.

The article then talks of Russia's long term actities in "meddling" in the US to fan racial and class tensions in the interest of tearing our political system apart. Naturally, the left was largely unconcerned about this activity since it aligned with their vision -- attempts to move the US to a communist state were seen as generally positive by the left, so most were OK with them, and highly outraged by efforts from Americans to expose those efforts (McCarthyism).

Today, the supposed efforts from the Putin regieme to de-stabalize BOistan are naturlly horrific for the left. One wonders what Putin's objectives beyond fanning the already extreme flames of disunity in BOistan are -- perhaps Trump is a KGB agent and will turn BOistan into the sort of oligarichal kleptocracy that todays Russian seems to be? It seems strange to me -- what is the Davos directed Administrative State of BOistan anyway but a kleptocracy for "The Party" and their "1%"?

Oh, and there are a number of memes / tweets in the column about how "real socialism has never been tried" along with this gem, The Iron Law of Oligarchy" from Robert Michaels in 1911. Bob and I would get along well ... I believed that the Constitution could prevent the takeover of our nation by administrative State, however Bob tells me it was inevitable.

According to Michels all organizations eventually come to be run by a "leadership class", who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons, political strategists, organizers, etc. for the organization. Far from being "servants of the masses", Michels argues this "leadership class," rather than the organization's membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization's power structures. By controlling who has access to information, those in power can centralize their power successfully, often with little accountability, due to the apathy, indifference and non-participation most rank-and-file members have in relation to their organization's decision-making processes. Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountableare prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members.[2]

Having only written versions of this a few hundred times, the fact that it was all known in 1911 merely gives me another reason to be humble. There is truely nothing new under the sun.

In general, a column worthy of the read!


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Proof BO DOJ Colluded With Russia

Bombshell Revelations about Russia and Obama’s Department of Justice | Power Line:

I've covered the fact that tens of millions of dollars flowed to "The Clinton Fund -- Funds, for Clintons" so that Russia could abscond with 20% of our urainium resources -- the "Urainium One" deal itself is a matter of public record. The documentation of the bribery and kickbacks as well as documentation of the BO DOJ turning a blind eye is what is covered in the linked column and in the articles from "The Hill", a middle of the road political publication.

The congress and the president need to PROSECUTE Crooked Hillary -- if not Slick and BO as well.

Yes, the Deep State, including all the lifer bureaucrats at DOJ, FBI, CIA, commerce, state, etc, etc will do all they can to save "their people" the Clintons, etc, and it may well not be possible to get Hillary in prison and some sense of justice returning to BOistan, but it should be attempted.

BOistan is a VERY corrupt place -- certainly the vast majority of the Republican party is just as in on it and corrupt as "The Party" (TP-D). As least Trump will tweet out the truth -- it remains to be seen how many will take the time to understand just how high level and well documented the corruption really is. The media will be doing everything they can to suppress this.

"It's bad, you know".

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Repeal the Second Amendment, NY Times

Repeal the Second Amendment - The New York Times:

I applaud this article for it's honesty. OF COURSE the left wants to repeal the 2nd Amendment! As the article boldly admits  ...

Maybe it’s because they argue their case badly and — let’s face it — in bad faith. Democratic politicians routinely profess their fidelity to the Second Amendment — or rather, “a nuanced reading” of it — with all the conviction of Barack Obama’s support for traditional marriage, circa 2008. People recognize lip service for what it is.

The article leads in with the classic shibboleths about "more guns = more crime" ... Of course you can find a study to "prove" nearly anything, but the fact is that if you remove our liberally governed heavily gun controlled murder capital cities ... Chicago, DC, Baltimore, New Orleans, etc,  our murder by gun numbers are like Swtizerland. The big lie that is used to pump them up beyond the murder rates for our Democrat disaster area cities is SUICIDE by gun -- as Australia discovered, get rid of the guns and people kill themselves at the same rates by other methods. Humans are resourceful.

Deaths from guns at home? PLEASE! If you really care, outlaw swimming pools ... 3,500 drowned a year, 700 of them children under 14 ... does anyone really "need" a swimming pool?

Naturally, you can't even trust a liberal when they tell you what they are going to do in the headline  ... they DON'T want to "Repeal the 2nd Amendment", which would require a Constitutional Amendment. No, they want the SCOTUS to overturn it from the bench! "Unconstitutional"? No doubt the non-existent "Privacy Clause" includes some "riight" for you to be free from the fear that your neighbor has a gun. There is no "law", Constitutional or otherwise beyond liberal power ... at least in their minds.

Repealing the Amendment may seem like political Mission Impossible today, but in the era of same-sex marriage it’s worth recalling that most great causes begin as improbable ones. Gun ownership should never be outlawed, just as it isn’t outlawed in Britain or Australia. But it doesn’t need a blanket Constitutional protection, either. The 46,445 murder victims killed by gunfire in the United States between 2012 and 2016 didn’t need to perish so that gun enthusiasts can go on fantasizing that “Red Dawn” is the fate that soon awaits us.

Oh, the "Red Dawn" thing. After Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nicaragua, etc, etc, the left continues to imagine that a dedicated local armed citizenry has "no chance" against either a rogue government trying to usurp the right to bear arms, or against an invading outside force. The "Red Dawn" reference is to a movie in which armed Americans foiled a old cold war Soviet invasion.

The left is all about "fantasy", and not very much about either history or American reality. Naturally, when a Republican president attempts to deploy troops anywhere, the left will point out the "futility of attempting to suppress guerilla warefare" -- consistency, like history or reality is not a liberal value.

The only "value" that the left/liberal/progressive mind cares about is POWER. Certainly, the removal of the right to bear arms would be a major step for them in making totalitarian government control much easier, so it is completely unsurprising that is their goal -- this article was just a tiny bit more honest than most on the subject.










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The Adminstrative State, "Sue and Settle" Trumped !

The Important Story You’re Not Hearing Much About | Power Line:

To quote Brer Rabbit "Please don't throw me into that briar patch!".

Most people will have never heard of this technique, but it is blindingly simple. You run a federal agency like EPA. You want more power so you can get more money, employees, etc, AND you can attack political enemies and write allowances for poltical friends.

SO, you contact a freindly interest group, say "The Sierra Club", and have them SUE YOUR AGENCY because they claim that you have not regulated something enough! Maybe you go to court and "lose", thus meaning you now "must" do the extra regulation you wanted to do, OR, you just settle out of court with the friendly interest group that sued you, gaining the power you wanted -- AND, maybe giving them + your and their lawyers a nice monetary settlement. SWEET!

Not any more. TRUMPED!

This of course will get VERY little coverage since the agencies / groups involved don't really want this looked at, however it is certainly one of the real reasons they absolutely hate Trump!

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Anxiety, There But For God's Grace

Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety? - The New York Times:

A very long article that reinforces the fairly well known fact that anxiety is an epidemic in the US.

In 1985, the Higher Education Research Institute at U.C.L.A. began asking incoming college freshmen if they “felt overwhelmed by all I had to do” during the previous year. In 1985, 18 percent said they did. By 2010, that number had increased to 29 percent. Last year, it surged to 41 percent.

Why? Well the article covers cell phones, social media and helicopter parents with "maybe". Religion, broken homes, lack of institutions like "Boy" Scouts and such is not touched on -- no chance at all that embedding youth in organizations that have been used for thousands of years as frameworks for the maturing process, MIGHT have had a good effect, and tearing them all down may have had a bad one.

Nah, you "can't turn the clock back".

The pinnacle of meaningful prose in the article is this:

“The million-dollar question of raising an anxious child is: When is pushing her going to help because she has to face her fears, and when is it going to make the situation worse and she’s going to have a panic attack?” Allison told me. “I feel like I made the wrong decision many times, and it destroyed my confidence as a mother.”

As anyone who works with people with mental / emotional issues will tell you, there are basically two kinds of people that have problems ... those who are too tight, and those who are too loose. "Counselling, psychotherapy, etc are often about "tightening or loosening".

Typical comments are like "I must do X, I should do y, I can't do z" ... this person likely needs some loosening, too judgemental.

Or you might hear, "I don't really care", "I just don't know what I want to do", "nothing really matters". "it's all just a meaningless game ..." ... such a person probably needs some tightening.

I was an anxious kid, and to some degree still am an anxious adult. If I were growing up today with the level of anxiety that I had, I'd likely have been in all sorts of special care and probably still be up in Barron talking about all the things that I "couldn't do" ... if I was alive at all.

Instead, I felt like I had "no choice", but to fight through a ton of things, often with high discomfort. If I hadn't been raised with the fear of God and Hell, suicide in my early 20's was a distinct possibility -- fear of Hell, and the knowledge of how wrong and selfish relative to my family it was to "give up" stayed my hand.

So, society declared god to be "dead", hell as froze over, and if you are anxious, you get a lot of special treatment -- and shockingly, both anxiety and suicide are breaking all records.

And nobody can figure out why.

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Ferry Crash, No Tears From Schumer

City Official Pleads Guilty in Ferry Crash - The New York Times:

I ran into an interesting article a couple days ago http://www.independentsentinel.com/a-tragic-october-anniversary-schumer-wont-be-remembering-on-sunday/

For going on roughly 2 decades now, New York’s Chuck Schumer has found something, almost anything, especially if it promoted big government, to offer an agreeable media on Sundays. He’s generally taken advantage of what’s usually a “slow news day” to either pitch or bitch about an issue in front of a friendly gaggle of reporters. There have, however, been some rare times the camera seeking Chucky has missed those free publicity love-ins. 

One notable absence was following the worst disaster in the over century-long history of the Staten Island Ferry. On Wednesday, October 15, 2003 the Andrew J. Barberi crashed full-speed in a concrete pier at St. George ferry terminal, killing 11 and injuring 165. The crash was so horrific, then Mayor Michael Bloomberg felt compelled to issue a statement saying it was not a terrorist attack.

So why is that anniversary different? Well, I wasn't going to just believe the article, so I had to go get it from the "paper of record", the NY Times.

"In a statement, Ms. Weinshall, who is the wife of Senator Charles E. Schumer, cited a list of changes introduced since the disaster, including the hiring of more staff and the purchase of advanced navigational equipment."

Isn't that special? It was enough to get her to officially unhyphenate her name!

Two things that we can glean from this:

1). The power of the media is AMAZING ... if they don't want us to know, we don't, if they DO, then how potato is spelled can become national news!

2). When Chucky looks over his glasses at us and gets all preachy and weepy, we know that it is called ACTING, and should have no effect in the real world!

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Sonderweg, Whiteness, Eldritch Energies

How Ta-Nehisi Coates Gives Whiteness Power - The New York Times:



Mostly I love this for words and concepts. "Sonderweg", a German word of "the special way" ...

In the study of German history, there is the notion of sonderweg, literally the “special path,” down which the German people are fated to wander....

I have run into "eldritch" before, but my mental meaing for it was off ... I thought of it as "related to witches", actually it is, "wierd, sinister, or ghostly" ... "Christopher Walken". A really good word for this Halloween season!



I'm pretty sure that everyone that reads this blog understands that at a basic level, "Black Lives Matter = KKK".  Everyone has racist tendencies, and when you join groups that fan those tendencies, they become toxic.

This, more than anything, is what is so unsettling about Mr. Coates’s recent writing and the tenor of the leftist “woke” discourse he epitomizes. Though it is not at all morally equivalent, it is nonetheless in sync with the toxic premises of white supremacism. Both sides eagerly reduce people to abstract color categories, all the while feeding off of and legitimizing each other, while those of us searching for gray areas and common ground get devoured twice. Both sides mystify racial identity, interpreting it as something fixed, determinative and almost supernatural. For Mr. Coates, whiteness is a “talisman,” an “amulet” of “eldritch energies” that explains all injustice; for the abysmal early-20th-century Italian fascist and racist icon Julius Evola, it was a “meta-biological force,” a collective mind-spirit that justifies all inequality. In either case, whites are preordained to walk that special path. It is a dangerous vision of life we should refuse no matter who is doing the conjuring.

 As Charles Taylor covers so well in "The Secular Age", we live in a secular world, but it is undeniably haunted -- as the quoted paragraph makes so clear. It is possible we are all fallen children of God, redeemable by Jesus if we accept his Grace .... "Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight".  OR, we are really different with everything determined materially, and we need to search for materialist "gray areas and common ground" in order to attempt to paper over our real differences.



In their desire to kill God, the modern pagans have definitely released a host of eldrich energies!







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Jesus Missing In Vegas

Jesus Campos, Vegas security guard shot before rampage, appears to have vanished - LA Times:

No, not THAT Jesus, he has been missing in Vegas a LONG time !  ... Jesus Campos, the security guard once a "hero" for interrupting the Vegas shooter, Stephan Paddock, and sustaining a wound to the leg. The later story was that he was shot BEFORE the shooting began -- the current "story" is that they can't find him.

The Vegas shooting has all but disappeared from the daily sheep feedind diet from the MSM.

I really enjoy how the LA Times finds nothing at all suspicious about this in any form -- hey, it isn't like Trump having done business in Russia in the past, a sure "sign". In this case, the article closes with:

Friends, co-workers and neighbors who know Campos described him as a private person. Still, Jaime Ruano, Campos’ neighbor, also wondered why the security guard has apparently disappeared. 

"He's a hero,” Ruano said, “and nobody knows where he is.”

Always good to end with the proper message, just in case some sheep is looking at that "special sheep" a little too closely.

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The Limits of Sexual Consent

Sex, Consent & Morality -- Culture Ruined by Sexual Revolution | National Review:

The modern pagans continue their hard work of pulling man up by his moral bootstraps. The technique works no better for morality than it does for flying.

The following from a tweet in the attached article ...

So much cultural & personal hurt due to sexual sin. Maybe the church should see its sexual ethics as a gift of common grace to the world.

There is nothing common about Grace -- it cost divine suffering beyond imagination, and yes, Grace and God's morality are a HUGE gift!

The article is short and worth the read --  mutual desire is not morality no matter how much lipstick one puts on it.

The practical result of consent-focused morality is the sexualization of everything. With the line drawn at desire alone, there is no longer any space that’s sex-free. Work meetings or restaurants can be creative locations for steamy liaisons. Not even marriage or existing relationships stand as a firewall against potential hookups.

Morality transcends -- or it isn't morality, it is just applied power. Without a transcendent standard, "morality" comes down to "might is right". At this moment, The #METOO movement has some power because of the political calculus of the left having sudden "morality" because they would like to remove Trump from power.

Transcendent morality is eternal, power faux "morality" is situational, political and transitory.


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Jonah Still In Whale's Belly

Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Hypocrisy & Mitt Romney’s “Binders Full of Women” | National Review:

I still enjoy reading Jonah Goldberg -- I've tended to love his books (Liberal Fascism,  and Tyranny of Cliches, which I need to blog on).

In general, he saw Trump, thought he was a guppy, realized too late he was a whale, got swallowed as a #nevertrumper, and is now out for a long cold ride in the dark. Thus he ends with this ...

It’s war, fight fire with fire; if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em; what about X,Y, and Z?: These are the new rallying cries on much of the right. And as much as that breaks my heart, I can’t help but want to shout leftward, “You stupid f**ks, look at you now.”

He definitely means to shout it RIGHTWARD as well ... he is REALLY pissed to be spending his time in the belly of a whale!

Jonah seems totally unable to understand the concept of cutting off your legs to save your eyes -- a trade-off I'd guess nearly all of us would make if we had to. Hillary = losing eyes, Trump = cutting off legs. If most of us made that decision, everyone would be completely unsurprised to see us "making the best of it" ... continuing to say we made the right decision even from a wheelchair, driving a special hand controlled car rather than not being able to drive ... that sort of thing.

Goldberg is Jewish and I don't believe much for practicing, as opposed to Christian, so my guess is that as a really really smart guy, he lacks the sort of metaphysical humility that says that some level of tribalism is simply not avoidabe -- there is ALWAYS going to be LESS oppribum for "our side", that is really not "hypocrisy", but rather "humanity" ... throwing morals of a sexual harrassment nature completely out the window like with Harvey, Slick, etc is where the train has left the tracks.

To declare that a grandparent MUST see their won grandchildren in the same light as all other children is just not going to happen. Deep down, I always suspect that the BIG thing that Jews have against Christians is that they know the Chrisitans believe they are "God's adopted children through the Blood of Christ", and the Jew's just don't like anyone else thinking they are God's children!

"Father would NEVER adopt other children! He has US!"

Jonah's brand of "conservative" is also somewhat Jewish -- "Trump ain't no stinkin Messiah! He eats, he drinks (with sinners and publicans no less!), he fails to wash his hands when he should, he said bad things about Pharisees ..."

Since Jonah is as least as pissed that Trump won as any D, he is REALLY not happy (whale bellies are noteably uncomfortable). The BIGGEST positive of Trump is HE WON! Again, if you cut your legs off to save your eyes, "I CAN SEE" would be a pretty sweet thing ... and focusing on how bad it is that you have no legs would really not be that helpful.

So poor Jonah keeps pining away for the lovely writing time he would have had if Trump had lost and Hillary would have won -- at least he would not be in a whale, AND, the supposed "conservatives" would still have their "moral purity".

The column is an entertaining read ... lots of mxed metaphors and stories lumped together in a bit of a "whales breakfast", but never the less entertaining.


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Pornographers, Friends And Enemies

Have dirt that could impeach Trump? Larry Flynt will pay you $10 million. - The Washington Post:

Larry Flynt, publisher of "Hustler", is willing to pay $10 million for dirt to impeach Trump ... it sounds like he might be an enemy of Trump!

He offered $1 million way back for any dirt on Republican congressmen during the Slick Willie impeachment trial, was a Hillary contributor. It sounds like he is a friend of the Clintons!

So Harvey Weinstein has been a heavy contributor to Democrat causes and a big player of the "best moral compass" in BOistan.

"Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein told the newspaper at the time. "We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe."

Ah "progressiveism" ... back in the old racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-porn, "America", the unwashed masses looked at Hollywood as Soddom to Lost Wages Gomorrah, many in BOistan find them to be "a moral compass".

The Washington Post has no problem siding with Larry Flynt, "the enemy of my enemy (Trump) is my friend!" It is the heart of the morality of power.

Does pornography exploit women? Well, not according to many of the obits for Hugh Hefner -- it LIBERATED women! To take their clothes off, leverage their sexuality for the more money and power!

Hugh, Larry, Harvey, Slick, Anthony Weiner, and a host of other men were the receipients of some of this "liberation" ... they used the truth of power to deal in the amoral coin of modern sexuality freed of those old tired American / Biblical morals.

Mostly, when "The Party" (TP-D) is in power, that is approved trafficing. Harvey did it for decades, Slick as well ... and we assume that he is still doing so. The female (does it matter in BOistan?) reporter who said that she would give Slick a BJ anytime is still around supporting TP.

We all understand that if Hildebeast was in the WH, Harvey would be getting his sexual favors like always. In BOistan, "morals" are situational .... SAYING "pussy" is supposed to do you in if you are not in good standing with TP. Taking any sort of sex you like up to and including rape is A-OK if you are a powerful member of TP in good standing. Slick Willie being the prime proof, Harvey showing that when TP loses power, their guys have something to lose.

The end of Harvey is one of the "wages of Trump" ... TP is all about POWER, and Trump winning has reduced that (although since they still own the Deep State, they have the real power). The circus of the TP MSM and organizations falling all over themselves to see who can be the toughest on Harvey is a very sorry spectacle -- we know their hearts are completely NOT in it, otherwise they would not be happy about being on the same side as Larry Flynt.

The saddest part is that they have no clue how transparent they actually are!

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Those Who Judge Us Deploreables

Behold Our Betters - Kurt Schlichter:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-human-stain-why-the-harvey-weinstein-story-is-worse-than-you-think/article/2009995

As the media ritualistically sacrifices Harvey Weinstein on the alter of situational "morality", it is good to take a short pause.

We have long ago abandoned God, and now live in a totally corrupt godless age. Havey is a distraction -- he has been doing what he was doing since at least 2000 and most likely well before. The following paragraph from the second "stain" link:

A thought experiment: Would the Weinstein story have been published if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency? No, and not because he is a big Democratic fundraiser. It’s because if the story was published during the course of a Hillary Clinton presidency, it wouldn’t have really been about Harvey Weinstein. Harvey would have been seen as a proxy for the president’s husband and it would have embarrassed the president, the first female president.

Calling it a "thought experiment" is very generous, it requires no thought -- Harvey had the Clintons paid off, no doubt Bill in both money and women. This is old tired news ... Teddy Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Gary Hart, Barney Frank (except he liked boys, so was "speical"). If you are in good standing with "The Party", TP-D, **AND** they have the power they usually do, then you can do what you want!

This has to be making Slick Willie squirm a tiny bit -- post Teddy Kennedy, TP sold it''s laughable "moral standing" completely away so that he could survive raping, fonding, BJs in the oval office, staining the blue dress, and no doubt a stream of abuse of women before and after that make Weinstein seem like a Boy Scout (or is that a "Whatever Scout" now based on announcements this week?)

Yes, Yes, Trump said "pussy" ... oh horror. We deploreables all understand that "the deal" is supposed to be to get your mind right, take a knee to TP, and THEN, if you can get some power and get in with the big shots of TP, well, then you can take the spoils of female sexual servitude like the Kennedy's, Slick, Havey, etc.

The "deal" is that this was supposed to be a one way street -- the WORST they could dig up on Trump was that he said "pussy" to some guy ... HORRIBLE! The entire media, left wing, TP (but I repeat) myself was SHOCKED! Shocked I say! That those knuckle dragging Bible pounding Red State fools would not be agahst at such boorish language ... OK, Teddy drowned his young secretary, but there is no evidence he ever said "pussy"! That word is simply beyond the pale!

Yes, BOistanis simply can't stand such a horrible word as "pussy" would be exchanged in private between adult males!

Is Harvey some sort of an indication of a changes set of values from TP? Uh, no -- as long as Slick is still walking around in public, you can rest assured that the old deal is still alive. Certainly, with Trump in power, they don't have the sort of leverage they are used to, but throwing Harvery under the bus is a mere distraction -- there have to be payoffs for TP to keep running BOistan, and some of those have to be in young, soft, sensuous female flesh -- once you trade morals for power, that is just one of the "coins" that has to be delivered ...

However, as the well worth reading "Behold Our Betters" article closes ...

So why should we normal Americans respect these people? Why should we submit to being constantly scolded, lectured, and treated as morally bankrupt simpletons anymore?

 We shouldn’t, and we aren’t, not anymore. 

 They wonder why they got Trump. 

 They are why they got Trump."

Thanks Harvey.

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Climate Change, The Faith Of BOistan

Lake Superior Drying Up Due to Climate Change! No, Wait… | Power Line:



The linked article shows the current news stories of Lake Superior being near record high levels due to Climate Change (CC), and links to articles from 2012 that lament it being near record low levels due to CC.



For the CC believer, there is no problem here -- long periods of stable weather are proof of CC, as in longer droughts or wet spells. More storms are evidence of CC as we see with the resurgance of tropical storms this year, as was the over a decade hurricane drought from '05 to this year. As I heard a scientist declare on "Climate Cast" on MPR, "At this point, all weather events clearly show the fingerprints of CC".



Humans have always enjoyed having certainty to cling to in a world that seems uncertain. It used to be Almighty God, these days it is CC. The nice thing for the CC faithful is that while there always seemed to be "scoffers" against God, you can walk vast swaths of blue state BOistan, the halls of acedemia, governent, media, etc, and never hear a peep from an unwashed "denier".  CC is a dogma that requires no Satan. In Christian theology, God was the force for good, and Satan was the force for evil. In CC, all that happens that remotely relates to weather -- often including things like unrest in the middle east (due to drought) are explained by CC.



Temprature might rise or fall, water levels may rise or fall, greenry flourish or wilt, it matters not to the holiness of CC ... all that happens in weather is explained by the truth of CC.



The reasons to believe are clear -- who wants to be seen as having low intelllect, being stubborn, being against saving the world, not willing agree with "97% of scientists"!! What kind of an arrogant fool would even consider disagreement with 97% of scientists! Clearly such a one is a DENIER through and through and must be cast into outer darkness!



Obviously, the kind of fool that belives in individual freedom, independence,  and liberty, and that is NOT what BOistan is about! Not being able to put your own thoughts in perspective and follow what the vast majority believe is NOT a value on BOistan!



The only reason to question CC is if you are not willing to remain a citizen of BOistan. CC is the law and the faith of BOistan, for the BOistani, there is no other choice.





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Fear God, Limit Confirmation Bias

Seeing Trump Through a Glass, Darkly - The New York Times:

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The fear of God is the BEGINING of wisdom.

The hammer analogy is in the tool domain, the Bible verse is in the world view, philosophical, espistemological modesty domain. As the article says ...

It won’t be drained from our political bloodstream by conservatives lecturing liberals or vice versa. We have to begin with people in our own tribe, with people who have standing in our lives. We need to emphasize greater epistemological modesty on our side and greater appreciation for the perspectives of the other side. We have to look within and see ourselves and our limitations with fresh eyes.

The "it" is the preceeding paragraph in the column ...

Confirmation bias is deepening political polarization, which is already at record levels. Our political culture is sick and getting sicker, and confirmation bias is now a leading toxin.

The purpose of the column is to get more conservatives / Republicans to hate Trump ... as if there were not a whole potload already. The core of Trump's support is from people completely fed up with DC, political parties, media, and all the happy bullshit artists that call themselves "experts".

While the "expert" that wrote the column is from the W administration, and if you were not out to convince more people on the right to hate Trump as he does, then the NY Times would not have published his column! He notices that "political polarization" is "deepening" and he was in the W administration? HELLO ... the NY Times HATED you, and they were (and are) **WAY** unconcerned about their "confirmation bias".

Having confirmation bias is like breathing for humans. When we stop having it, we get buried. Can we hold our breath? can we regulate our breathing? Sure ... on the margins, just like how we can deal without confirmation bias, without a SOLID understanding that we are not the be all and end all -- in fact, nothing here, not the planet, not the sun, not what we see as the "universe" is ultimately of any worth at all.

Only God.

So, if we recognized our smallness, mortality, powerlessness, neediness, etc, **THEN** we have a chance to rise above our individual sense of pride and our partisan tribes. I especially liked this paragraph ...

In political debates we assume wisdom resides with us and not our opponents. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that; it’s the reason we hold the views we do. And so when I see so many Republicans defend Mr. Trump regardless of his actions — invoking defenses that I am certain would enrage them if champions of a President Hillary Clinton had said the same things on her behalf — I’m convinced we’re seeing a severe case of confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs.

Has this man never sat and watched an NFL game with fans of opposing teams? Holding, pass interference, unneccsary roughness, what is a catch, etc, etc are **ALL** dependent on which team it is happening to!! This is bedrock human  nature -- I'm sure the caveman did that same thing.

So if Slick Willie gets away with BJs at the oval office and someone sets out to destroy Trump because he said "Pussy", this is not "confirmation bias", this is called being human and defending your own team. "Standards" are only standards if they are followed by BOTH TEAMS. One team following standards all the time while the other team does not is called BEING STUPID ... which is also very old. (Republicans excel at it!)

Certainly, the inside the beltway R power folks including ex-Bushies, HATE Trump ... probably even worse than the NY Times. Trump beat up on poor Jebbie after all, and WON! The Bushies would MUCH rather have had their friends the Clintons win!

And that is a major reason  Trump was elected, and why his supporters have to interest in listening to the NY Times, and even less in listening to a Bushie.

Oh, and if someone gets (or loses)  "standing in your life" on the basis of politics, you need a NEW LIFE!

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Weinstein, Batman, Understanding POWER

Harvey Weinstein Scandal: Ambition Protected Him from Exposure | National Review:

Here is a Weinstein version.

At The Cut, writer Rebecca Traister tells a dreadful story about Weinstein. She was covering a book party he hosted, and she asked him some questions that made him angry. He called her a “c**t” and declared himself to be the “f***ing sheriff of this f***ing lawless piece-of-sh*t town.” When her boyfriend — another journalist — tried to intervene, Weinstein attacked. He threw her boyfriend down a set of steps, then dragged him outside in a headlock. All the while cameras flashed. This was 17 years ago, in the year 2000. Not one of the pictures saw the light of day.

The article compares Weinstein with O'Reily and Rupert Murdock at Fox, who had less power. It fails to compare him with Bill Clinton who clearly had MORE power -- he skated because a whole nation was afraid to accept just how corrupt it really had become. So what to do? According to the article ...

No, neither Harvey Weinstein nor Roger Ailes was really all that powerful. They were vulnerable. They were vulnerable to people who were willing to support victims and tell the truth. They were vulnerable to people who just might be willing to risk their personal ambition to seek justice. But because ambition is so overwhelming — because self-interest is so powerful — these paper tigers were allowed to prey on women year after year. Why do men like Ailes and Weinstein get away with misconduct for so long? Because in certain sectors of American society, moral courage is in short supply.

But WHY is moral courage is short supply, and WHY is self interest so powerful?

My view is that unless humans consider a morality that will affect their eternal soul, corruption will only continue to get worse.  The Clinton's, Obama, Trump ... ALL show us that morality does not count on ANY side. Any politics other than totalitarianism can really only exist in a culture where moral values that affect your eternal soul are more important than money, power, fame, pleasure, etc

We are generally heading in the opposite dirction of that world -- more toward the Batman world.

But why is the jig up on Harvey NOW? Did he has been doing this FOREVER -- isn't it going to reflect badly on TP and the promises they make to guys like Harvey to see him go down?

There is another possibility -- just because you are as sure as Wienstein, Falcone or Clinton that you have the power, there MIGHT be something darker out there.

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