Fusion GPS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-paid-for-the-trump-dossier-1501193386

Fusion GPS is a firm that is very important to anyone that wants to understand what is really happening relative to Russia.

Yet Democrats now have meekly and noiselessly retreated, agreeing to let both men speak to the committee in private. Why would they so suddenly be willing to let go of this moment of political opportunity?

Fusion GPS. That’s the oppo-research outfit behind the infamous and discredited “Trump dossier,” ginned up by a former British spook. Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson also was supposed to testify at the Grassley hearing, where he might have been asked in public to reveal who hired him to put together the hit job on Mr. Trump, which was based largely on anonymous Russian sources. Turns out Democrats are willing to give up just about anything—including their Manafort moment—to protect Mr. Simpson from having to answer that question.

It is becoming more and more clear that the "Trump Dossier", that sordid document of urinating hookers cavorting with the germaphobe Donald in Russia, was paid for by the left.

It has also become VERY clear that the motive of the Russians relative to our elections was --- wait for it ... to sow chaos and pit both sides against each other. Mission accomplished.

When your state apparatus has the same ability to self-manage as a dog does with a ball, or a cat does with a laser light, you have a problem. We clearly do. All that needs be said  is"Trump!" and our entire media and Deep State skitter toward the proffered tidbit in a frenzy. The left isn't even human anymore, they are a puppy with a shoe called Trump.

Disinformation, Ion Mihai Pacepa

https://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Strategies-Undermining-Attacking-Promoting/dp/1522605088

For those that care, the end of the USSR gave us an open window into Communism, the  USSR, and the culture of Russia, which still lives on today. One of the authors, Pacepa, was a 3 star general in Romanian security who was privy to the absolute top of the Soviet KGB. He worked with Kruschev and Soviet leaders after him up until he defected in 1978 ... he was a personal advisor to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, and accompanied on all his trips abroad.

The book is required reading for CIA personnel, and the title tells us what readers of this blog certainly have known for a long time -- the ability to dupe the west via "disinformation" has been a cornerstone of Soviet and now Russian operations since Stalin. The art of creating fake stories and getting the rest of the world to see them as "facts" is an art form honed to precision and used effectively by the USSR.

As Churchill said about Russia in a 1939 broadcast, it was then and seems will always be "A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". The idea of the "Potemikin Village" and the "Russian Dolls" of close to infinite regress is core to Russian culture and history. It is no accident that Russian Chess Masters are some of the greatest ever.

Among he "big lies" of Soviet Disinformation are it's numerous framings of Popes and Cardinals as "Hitler's Popes" or other lies involved in their war on religion. Keeping the world view of Jews as "Zionist puppeteers" pulling the strings of any non-communist governments is another of the ongoing Disinformation programs.

The book makes the case that Lee Harvey Oswald provided the KGB with critical espionage on the U-2 that allowed it to be shot down -- there is also more detail on Oswald's connections to the USSR, and the likelihood that we ended up knowing that the USSR was behind killing JFK, however LBJ thought the risk of nuclear war to great to admit what was done. Pulling strings behind the curtain and leaving the West with a bunch of wispy conspiracy theories has always been a Russian favorite.

Surprising to nobody that has read much at all, "Ramparts" magazine and later "Mother Jones" were KGB funded to influence politics in the US -- David Horowitz, was raised as a "Red Diaper Baby" (a child raised in the US whose parents were communists dedicated to overthrow of the US government) and was later editor of "Ramparts" until the Black Panthers (also with KGB connections) killed one of his friends and he became a supporter of the US and conservative principles. I read his book "Radical Son" long before I started blogging.

It is a hard read -- there is a LOT of detail, and a lot of the names are Russian / Eastern European, so it is hard to keep track of it all. I found too much time spent on only marginally successful attempts to claim the Catholic Church supported Hitler ... yes,  there are a number of people on the left that like to make that claim because of the importance of making it seem that "National Socialism" was an ideology of the RIGHT ... I cover this in detail here.

Sullivan, Intersectionality

Is Intersectionality a Religion?:

I find Andrew Sullivan to be an extremely interesting thinker. I'm guessing the number of people that agree with him on even a majority of his thoughts approximates zero, somewhat because of the variance and originality of his thinking, somewhat because it has a tendency to move around a lot.

In this article he points out the obvious similarities in methodology between Intersectionality, Trumpism, and religion. He has a tendency to provide comfort to almost none -- which is pretty standard for direct intellectual critique. The whole article is worth reading, but I found this to be the heart.

Then this: “Science has always been used to legitimize racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, ableism, and homophobia, all veiled as rational and fact, and supported by the government and state. In this world today, there is little that is true ‘fact.’” This, it seems to me, gets to the heart of the question — not that the students shut down a speech, but why they did. I do not doubt their good intentions. But, in a strange echo of the Trumpian right, they are insisting on the superiority of their orthodoxy to “facts.” They are hostile, like all fundamentalists, to science, because it might counter doctrine. And they shut down the event because intersectionality rejects the entire idea of free debate, science, or truth independent of white male power. At the end of this part of the ceremony, an individual therefore shouts: “Who is the enemy?” And the congregation responds: “White supremacy!”

Ah, "facts", one of the toughest questions in one of the toughest areas of philosophy -- epistemology. How can a being who can not explain the operation of their own (self assumed) "intelligence" be relied upon to explain anything else?

It is a topic often returned to in the blog -- look for entries with religion or philosophy and especially both as tags and you can follow the trail of this chimera -- I rate the best and most reachable place to start as "The Reason For God".

Sullivan was heavily influenced by Michael Oakeshott, yet another author that I have barely sampled and seek to become more familiar with.

'via Blog this'

Political Tribes, Group Instinct And the Fall Of Nations

https://www.amazon.com/Political-Tribes-Group-Instinct-Nations/dp/0399562850

Found the subject book by Yale professor Amy Chua to be a quick,  easy, and worthwhile  read. It seems such a perfect book to show up just as I'm closing Moose Tracks.

On page 40-41 she does a good job of quickly covering the basic science that we already know -- "our brains are hardwired to identify, value, and individualize in-group members, while outgroup members are processed as interchangeable members of a general social category".

"Humans aren't just a little tribal. We're VERY tribal and it distorts the way we think and feel".

"The key to ethnic identity is that it is built around the idea of shared blood; ... For most human beings, the family is primal".

Readers of this blog know all that, and they also know why destruction of the family is key to destruction of a culture!

She wisely spends a lot of the early part of the book discussing the US inability to recognize tribalism in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Venezuala. I was completely unaware of the degree to which the Vietnamese had been fighting against a Chinese minority that owned most of the wealth of Vietnam for a thousand years -- and we ignored that fact.

On page 46 she introduces the critical idea of a "market dominant minority" which the Chinese were in Vietnam, and are in Indonesia today: "in Indonesia the Chinese comprise 3% of the population but control 70% of the economy".

At this point it would seem easy to understand where she is headed -- something over 90% of the wealth in the US is controlled by an elite of well less than 10%, with something over half being controlled by a 1% who largely attended ivy league schools, live on one of the coasts in very large cities, and share a set of establishment values at odds with the have-nots of any color -- Asian, Hispanic, Black, White, etc.

Pretty much, she doesn't go there -- she goes to race.

On 166 she says "The Left believes that right-wing tribalism -- bigotry, racism -- is tearing the country apart. The Right believes that left-wing tribalism -- identity politics, political correctness, is tearing the country apart. They are both right."

From 21-33 she asserts that we became a "super-group" in "1965" after the Voting Rights Act, and defines a super-group on page 22 to be "a group in which membership is open to individuals of any background, but at the same time binds it's members together with a strong,  overarching, group transcending collective identity". To the extent she defines that "identity", it is "The American Dream" ... simplified to the idea that everyone can economically surpass their parents.

What she doesn't focus on much is that Christianity as the prototype super-group -- the strong overarching goal is serving Christ and others, and everyone, regardless of background is a "blood brother/sister" in the blood of Christ. Galations 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Obviously, her objective is a SECULAR super-group, which she thought the US had from 1965 to the election of Barack Obama. She notes as I have on previously page 165 that 1965 was also the year when an historically unprecedented wave of immigration, much of it non-white,  started -- this was not an accident. The elites at that point felt that America was too slow to change, so they would just change the population. Brilliantly, they also told us that Americans should avoid having children because world hunger was the "end of the world issue" of that day, similar to "climate change" today.

On page 181, she spots a little problem with identity politics ... "The demand is not for incluson within the fold of universal humankind ... nor is it for respect "in spite of" one's differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself as different."

So much for "everyone being created equal" -- try each individual being "evolved" different and special, AND demanding to be SPECIALLY respected for being different! Everyone a star! Sacrifice? Tolerance of those who do not share your particular differenc?

Not the values of identity politics!

She spends a good deal of time on things like "The Prosperity Gospel", "Sovereign Citizens", the WWE, NASCAR and a few other things to it is not clear what end -- something like a few on the left doing a "Safari to America" after Trump was elected. Clearly she, being on the left, would like to focus on the tribalism on the right.

 By the most scary estimates the FBI or the Southern Poverty Hate  Center" could come up with were "as many as" 300K members of apparently highly feared "Sovereign Citizens" ... I'd never heard of them, I've never met one even though I'm a denizen of gun clubs and crazy conservative meetings. Apparently no web site exists for this dangerous group ...  sovereigncitizenship.net was expired. There were LOTS of web hits on how much of a threat they are however. It's on the Internet, it must be true.

Would NPR listeners be a "tribe" like "NASCAR"? Since I'm a regular "spy listener", I'd certainly say so -- very much a secular humanist world view with recent movement toward "intersectionality". How about BLM? At a minium, they seem to have a lot more web presence than the fearsome "Sovereign Citizens". Amy is right about tribalism ... even if you DO have a transcendent value beyond your tribe, seeing your OWN tribe is HARD --  we just assume our own tribe is just the normal, reasonable, decent, intelligent people!

So once we had a country that Amy believes was a secular super-group, a goal of at least hers  -- and then came Obama, the proof of the existence of that super-group, and "poof" it was gone. So how do we get it back now that we are no longer going to have any dominant majority group? However, we will apparently continue to have a very elite coastal ivy league "Market Dominant Minority" of the 1% that own all the wealth?

I'd argue that even with lots of minority problems, we were much more of a sectarian (Christian) super-group than she gave us credit for well before 1965  ... that Federick Douglass could rise to the prominance he did as an ex-slave in the mid 1800's shows that much of the country held merit to be a much greater factor than race even at that time. Something about America -- I'd assert it to be our written Constitution, was enough for people to fight and die for even though we remained far from a "perfect super-group". As she points out, nobody else on the planet even sees that as a goal.

The book is a good survey of the prevalence and problems of tribalism -- it does not in my opinion acknowledge how far the generally Christian Western civilization had risen above tribalism by the apogee of America post WWII 1945 - 1965. It does show that our higher level educated "elite" no longer subscribing to the values embodied in our Constitution, and certainly losing Christianity as a common glue, has resulted in what most students of civilization and culture would assert to be a fully expected descent into tribalism ... Darwin's Cathedral is one post/book that goes into more detail here.

She provides a hugely hopeful story on page 205. A young  Mexican American Yale student, "Giovanni" lived in a poor trailer park in rural Texas near "the Joneses", who were extremely kind to his family. In 2016 he thought that due to their social media posts, they must be "racists". He told the author however, that the "Joneses exemplify a critical paradox that progressives often overlook or dismiss, to their own detriment." Despite their racist attitudes (determined by Giovanni based on social media posts), "they treat our family with nothing but love and respect, in fact, they treat my sister and me to be their adoptive grandkids".

She goes on; "I found Giovanni's story to be striking first because he was talking about racism in a way that is completely taboo among progressives (the group he identifies with). Among progressives, once someone is deemed racist, that's it. You can't talk to them, you can't compromise, and you certainly can't suggest they might be decent people just because they are nice to a few minorities.".

Perhaps Giovanni is an Easter Person (Christian)? Somewhere in his heart might he imagine that his judgement is less than ultimate, and that ALL are redeemable? For me, the saddest part of Hillary's deploreables comment was that she judged them (us?)  "irredeemable". As a Christian, it isn't the Joneses works that make them redeemable -- nor mine, nor anyones. If it were, then Christ would not have needed to die because ultimate redemption would be a matter of meeting some standard of works (vs proper social media posts as judged by "progressives"). "Morality" would  be a matter of "keeping up with the Joneses"!

We have exchanged a dominant culture where all people were at a minimum "redeemable", and at least the standard was that as a practicing Christian we were  bound to not only not judge them, but to even LOVE them! For a "progressive" culture where worth can be judged via social media posts, redemption from such posts is not possible, and such posts define your worth even beyond repeated actions! Giovanni is a rare person -- rare enough for his Yale professor to call out his behavior in not cutting off people that have been kind to his family for years on the basis of social media posts to be an "amazing hopeful sign" in this tribal nation of BOistan!

As I wait for the potential of yet another major spring snow storm, I reflect on where our culture has moved over my lifetime. In my youth and even up to middle age, it was considered wise to believe in a set of transcendent values  that included a created world with a loving God showing us how to live happily not only in this life, but eternally, and feeling gratidude to be blessed to be  living in a nation with a written Constitution, exceptional among all nations on the planet, insuring our right to think and live freely in peace with our neighbors.

We traded that for a world where this short life is all we have, the whole of Western culture is nothing but a terrible tale of oppression, and the avowed purpose of our nation is to insure that there will be nothing recognizeable in the future save "accelerating change" toward an unknown, but promised to be "progressive" future. We are required to believe in this, rather than anything we might see with our own eyes -- lest we be judged "irredeemable deplorables" by the elites driving this "progress". Oh, and "nonbelievers" in the "progressive" mantra are to be pitied -- for it is guaranteed by the elites that the "future beyond the future" is CERTAIN to be even more wonderful! What a brave new world!

Have we not been to this movie before? Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

Back When Entertainers Were Funny And Politicians Laughed Together

I'm on too many lists and too many people send me stuff ... I really enjoyed this. I used to think my folks were completely dim when they talked of "the good old days". They may have been ... and that just means I'm just as dim now. In case you are wondering, he DOES juggle as well as do comedy.

NPR, Straight Up Gridiron

At Gridiron Dinner, Trump Trades Jabs With His 'Opposition Party' : The Two-Way : NPR:

 This is worth a read -- I'd rate it 100% down the middle straight up unbiased reporting from NPR. I complain when I see them as telling us how to think vs reporting, I need to applaud them when I see them doing well.

My belief is that some of the major fault our general modern glumness is the 24x7 news stations where everything is "Special Report", "The Crisis in ... (our minds?)", "ALERT!" ...

We are on this rock for "three score and 10" give or take, and pretty much ALL of us take ourselves WAY too seriously for WAY too much of that time. At least by age 60, we have all generally had broken parts of our body, our lives, our plans, our dreams and lots of embarrassing, even humiliating experiences ... social, medical and otherwise. My belief is that one of the tasks the Good Lord gives  us in this life is to realize that ALL of it is in the blessing column ... maybe especially the parts that we judge to be "bad".

As Joseph told the brothers who sold him into slavery in Genesis 50:20 "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

Or even better (on laughter) ... God promising Sarah she would bear a son in Genesis 18

Then they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” 10 He said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will  have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door, which was behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing. 12 Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” 13 And the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?’ 14 “Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 Sarah denied it however, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. And He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

How impossible it is for old Abram becoming "Father Abraham", the root of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam? We are created in God's image, so we know that the Lord of all knows and understands laughter.

The linked isn't very long, and "feels nice" ... a flavor:

There was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a favorite object of Trump's biting comments on Twitter, getting one this time in person: "You know, it's weird, I offered him a ride over — and he recused himself!"

'via Blog this'

Russia, NRA, USSR, WFTU

Depth Of Russian Politician's Cultivation Of NRA Ties Revealed : NPR:

I'm old enough to remember when breathless NPR reporting on the superb conditions inside the USSR was a standard -- it was important at that time for Americans to recognize the benefits of the Soviet system, especially for labor -- May Day was an important holiday, a day for "Workers of the the world to unite!".

Connections between the USSR and international labor unions were well known and well understood ... the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as well as other other union organizations regularly and openly interacted and openly declared their goals to be "communist".

As an aside, I have been attempting to listen to the audio book version of "Enlightenment Now" by Steven Pinker on my travels of the past couple weeks. Pinker is at far reaches of atheist scientism, however because his "rule" is numbers, he finds the fall of communism was a gigantic boon to mans well being.

“The collapse of communism and a recognition of its economic and humanitarian catastrophes took the romance out of revolutionary violence and cast doubt on the wisdom of redistributing wealth at the point of a gun.” (Pinker)

It will be interesting to see how the various leftward forces of socialism and environmentalism shake out on Pinker's paean to "it's the best time to be alive!" Sure we are dying soul-less chemical reactions in an entropic universe, but hey, science shows you how to grab for all the gusto you can in ways never before dreamed in human history!

Just because society threw away the old morals doesn't mean it is that easy to come to agreement on new ones ... as the linked review of the book makes very clear.

The "proper NPR view" on Russia has certainly changed since 2012 when BO chided Mittens that "the 1980's called and wanted their foreign policy back". Mittens mistakenly thought Russia was an adversary, BO had to condescend to let him know they were now wonderful allies (2012) ... and must have still been in 2013 when Russia became a "diplomatic ally in Syria" as BO's "Red Line" on chemical weapons was "enforced" via Assad receiving a stern talking to from the Russians. It was also 2013 when the Clinton Foundations receipts of 10's of millions of dollars resulted in the consummation of the Uranium One deal, providing Russia with 20% of the N American uranium reserves.`

One would need a scorecard to keep track of approved NPR attitude toward the Russian Bear if you assumed they were a "news" vs a political organization. So far, given my assumption  that NPR is an arm of the Democrat Party, it is pretty easy -- interaction with Russia approved by, or benefiting a Democrat? Interaction positive, no problem!

Any form of interaction with Russia by Republican? "Collusion", very likely treasonous.

I'm guessing that since NASA is part of the Administrative State, and since the Administrative State retains it's war footing with Trump, the planned launch of BOistan Astronauts to the ISS this summer will meet NPR's test for legitimate interaction with Russia ... as long as Trump doesn't comment on it!

'via Blog this'

The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher

Link to The Benedict Option, "A strategy for Christians in a post-christian nation".

About 1/3 of the way through the book I realized that I had read another book by Rod Dreher, "How Dante Saved My Life". I enjoyed that book, and my wife actually enjoyed and made it through it as well, which is RARE for "Moose Books". I hope to blog on that book in the future as well, however this one is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for anyone who believes that they are a Christian to read.

Rod agrees with me, and I think millions of Christians in the US that we are officially and totally in a post-Christian nation, as well as post Western civilization. This is a new "Dark Age", and as St Benedict, born in 480 decided sometime around 500 as he journeyed to the shadow of once great Rome, now ruled by barbarians, it was time to found a "remnant" to keep the core of the faith, which he did at Norica, and in his "Rule of St Benedict".

As Dreher says; "Professing orthodox biblical Christianity on sexual matters is now thought to be evidence of intolerable bogotry, Conservative Christians have been routed. We are living in a new country" ... one which I label as "BOistan", but the label makes no difference, it is a barbarian nation.

On page 154, Rod quotes from Phillip Reiff: "Barbarians are people without historical memory. Barbarism is the real meaning of contemporaneity. Released from all authoritative pasts, we progress towards barbarism, not away from it.".  I've covered this fact a number of times ... "Closing of the American Mind", "Ideas Have Consequences", and others. Technology is not "advancement", it is just giving monkeys nuclear weapons without theology, philosophy and history. The beginning of wisdom is humility ... and barbarians have none of that!

One of the topics that is explained very well in this book is nominalism, as opposd  to metaphysical realism (see pages 26-29). Metaphysical realism tells us that EVERYTHING that is created has MEANING -- as Charles Taylor would say "It is Enchanted" ... or in philosphical terms "teleological".

This ought not be so hard for us to understand today ... one by one, from phones, to watches, to locks on doors, to thermostats, to labels on products (RFID), more and more of our "objects" have built in "smarts", and are often even "connected". Does it REALLY seem so "magical" that an all powerful God can and does imbdue his creation with sacred meaning ?

Well, everyone thought that was reality up until William of Occam in the 1300s. Strangely, Occam thought he was "letting God off the hook" because being linked with his meaningful universe of laws "limited him" ... so Bill (William) decided that the Christian God was to be like the Muslim "god" ... able to call evil good and good evil at his whim -- an issue covered really well (and a bit ironically) in a great book based on a speech by Pope Benedict, "The Regensburg Lecture".

Occam convinced the west that "matter is just matter" -- it has no meaning except that imposed from outside it, so "parts is parts" ... matter (including life) only means whatever we decide -- and as we became atomized individuals, each supposedly "the measure of all things", we arrived at; "my view is just as good as yours" and of course I think BETTER, so I'll call it whatever I want -- cells, tissue, a baby, etc ... it's ALL UP TO ME!

This book is WAY too rich for me to cover the MANY great points that are well made, so a couple key points ...

• We are in a post-Christian, post-virtue post-civilization age. A "dark age", likely to be FAR worse than the previous one. The World Wars and the Holocaust are likely just "warm ups" -- the ONLY thing our "culture" worships is gratification of the self!, and that has never ended well.
• "To live "after virtue", then is to dwell in a society that not only can no longer agree on what constitutes virtuous belief and conduct, but also doubts that virtue exists. In a post-virtue society, individuals hold maximal freedom of thought and action, and society itself becomes a collection of strangers each pursuing his own interests under minimal constraints". (p16)
• People feel they MUST "do things" ... have an affair, have a same sex relationship, etc because they would not be "true to themselves" if they did not. "It is in carnal desire that the modern individual believes that he affirms his individuality. The body must be the true 'subject' of desire because the individual must be the author of his own desire". (p43) 

In the end, this book also gives us at least the start on a "blueprint" to save Western civilization. We don't need to worry about saving Christianity ... God will do that. It just may well not be in "the west' -- as I increasingly believe from books like "The Divine Conspiracy". 

God REALLY means that we have free will! He is NOT going to be giving this or any other generation any huge "signs" to save us -- he gave us Christ and the Bible, as well as his divine and teleological creation pregnant with meaning. If we seek him, we WILL find him -- because as long as we are not actively turning our back on him as our current civilization is, it is absolutely not his will that ANY should perish -- UNLESS THEY ABSOLUTELY WANT TO! ... and it seems abundantly clear that the bulk of the people in the west DEARLY want to perish on their own terms, and in many cases, as rapidly as possible! 

I'll reluctantly close with this from page 234 ... 

"The mind of technological man cannot resist his heart's desires, because he has been trained by his culture not to question them. .... The Christian must rebel against this. The only impregnable fortress is metaphysical, the conviction that meaning transcends ourselves and is grounded in God. There are boundaries beyond which we cannot go if we want to live." 

We Christians need to build a lot of small communities following something like the Rule of St Benedict. Please read this book, contact me, and let's try to be the leaven ... Dreher gives us many ideas on on existing heroes of God already doing this work. 

Beliefs Are Dark And Terrifying

An insider explains how rural Christian white America has a dark and terrifying underbelly:

In the eternal sense, my title is REALLY true. Every one of us carries a VERY fundamentalist belief that either:

1. We have an eternal soul, and the issue of eternity is far larger than whatever comes up in our short stay in this mortal coil.
2.  No soul, no god, no meaning -- whoever is smartest, most smug, gets the most votes, has the most fun, etc is "king". It really doesn't matter -- "grab for all the gusto you can". Most of all, be smug while doing it! If it starts to "feel bad", drug yourself, distract yourself, or kill yourself. "Without God, everything is permitted." 

The author of the linked column is clearly in the #2 option big time -- his belief is very strong, and there is no way he is buying into "the fear of God is the BEGINNING of wisdom". He has reversed the Biblical injunction that "a fool says there is no God" to be "a fool says there IS a God!".

Par for the course for human behaviour -- this guy doesn't say it, but I heard it again recently, "to think you have an immortal soul is the height of hubris". Possibly ... the "height of human hubris" is a big stinking pile, that is for sure. Thinking that YOU can define the "height of human hubris" doesn't really sound all that humble. Peak hubris? It certainly begins with "KNOWING" that "man is the measure of all things' -- and if that is so, why not make yourself "the man".

The column is all about those dangerous, racist, Christian Fundamentalist, angry rural whites, and their "closed systems". Certainly American university campuses that are creating rules to label anything that doesn't agree with them as "hate speech" are "open minded"? Again, "closed minded" people are really not a trick to find in any crowd -- they tend to be every bit as common as hubristic people.The norm is "anyone that doesn't agree with me is closed minded!"

The key is naturally LABELS ... your hubristic closed minded "whatevers" are of course "right" and "ok" ... "righteous even", while the other tribe ... well, not so good. Let's just say "deplorable".

I'm absolutely certain that the author can find white Christians in fly-over country that DO meet every single negative stereotype he has to pile on them. To the extent they are Christians, they would be less than perfect ones -- which is the unfortunate state of 100% of us, because loving our enemies is a REALLY high bar.  However, when it comes to seeking to be like the only divinely perfect human in history (Jesus), the height of the bar should be at least checked! We all fall far short, and making that bar MUCH higher, Christians are admonished not to judge!

Do not judge lest ye be judged, and love your enemies would be good places to start for Christians. For the column author, clearly he feels clear qualification to judge!

Let's use alcoholism vs being gay as an example ... sin is sin, it makes no difference. It is possible to love your alcoholic spouse, sibling or child and hate their sin?  It is even possible for realize that controlling their sin is HARD ... they have a strong desire of alcohol, however it is killing them. You DON'T have to judge their behavior ... you can just love them and do all you can to help (rather than enable) them.

Even if the alcoholic is your "worst enemy" ... the author of the column for example (I'm joking), or a jihadist wearing a bomb -- they are fellow humans with eternal souls and in light of eternity it is almost believable that they are possible to love (for Christians)! Without eternity, the author is right. Why would anyone even consider "loving" a deplorable that is obviously "wrong, evil, racist, etc"?

That's the bar for Christians on how to think about folks like the author of this column. What is the "bar" for his closed tribe? "Might is right" seems like the most real answer. I'm guessing he might say something like "commonly held standards of decency by reasonable, well educated, "woke" people ... naturally, if tomorrow, the "standard" of "woke" includes pedophia as a disorder vs a crime, a new group of people will become deplorable. (the ones that will then be deplorable are the ones that still see pedophia as criminal/punishable/wrong).

 I don't mean to be demeaning, ALL people are closed minded about their beliefs (including me)! I had some folks get REALLY nasty with me in the early '80s when I told them that I agreed with the then evil "Ronnie Raygun" and thought the USSR would be "consigned to the ash heap of history". Their certainly that I was completely insane was at least as certain as the column author of his rightness. The "experts" had all spoken, how dare I, a mere computer programmer question them!

In deep-red America, the white Christian god is king, figuratively and literally. Religious fundamentalism has shaped most of their belief systems. Systems built on a fundamentalist framework are not conducive to introspection, questioning, learning, or change. When you have a belief system built on fundamentalism, it isn’t open to outside criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a position of power. The problem isn’t that coastal elites don’t understand rural Americans. The problem is that rural America doesn’t understand itself and will never listen to anyone outside its bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how well you listen, what language you use…if you are viewed as an outsider, your views will be automatically discounted. I’ve had hundreds of discussions with rural white Americans and whenever I present them any information that contradicts their entrenched beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they will not even entertain the possibility that it might be true. Their refusal is a result of the nature of their fundamentalist belief system and the fact that I’m the enemy because I’m an educated liberal.

'The author is too modest in his application of  "belief systems". ALL beliefs, held by ANYONE are resistant to change! His, mine, EVERYONES! Trying to convince an atheist there is a God is at least as hard as trying to convince a believer that there isn't. Trying to convince BO that fracking was drastically going to lower gas prices was just as hard in 2012 as trying to convince this guy that there are many Bible believing Christians that are every bit as "well informed" as he is! ALL of our belief systems are built on SOMETHING that we consider to be "fundamental".

Philosophy says that science MUST be falsifiable, or it isn't science (it can only be inductively true ... as fragile as the next experiment)  ... which means that if you are a true scientist, you can't use science to support ANY "belief" at all! (it is never "settled")

Oh, and BTW, if your belief system says that there is no meaning to the universe beyond pleasure, deciding that adultery is OK, gay sex is OK, transgenderism is OK ... and whatever they think of next is not "change", it is "more of the same". Much of what the left calls "progress" is the same as "I was drinking pint a day, now I'm drinking a 5th! See, I'm making PROGRESS!"

For us “coastal elites” who understand evolution, genetics and science, nothing we say to those in flyover country is going to be listened to because not only are we fighting against an anti-education belief system, we are arguing against god. You aren’t winning a battle of beliefs with these people if you are on one side of the argument and god is on the other. No degree of understanding this is going to suddenly make them less racist, more open to reason and facts. Telling “urban elites” they need to understand rural Americans isn’t going to lead to a damn thing because it misses the causes of the problem.

Nobody "wins" a "battle of beliefs" -- that is what we have elections and wars for. If you want to NOT have to have wars, having a shared set of transcendent beliefs that we all agree on, like "all men are created equal" (before God), endowed by their CREATOR with certain UNALIENABLE rights, and a written and FOLLOWED Constitution is what worked for 200 years.

Your "god" may be the sanctity of gay sex, killing babies in the womb, legal pot for all, or just "if it feels good do it", but it is YOUR GOD ... you are exactly as "open minded" to changing your view on those things as I am willing  to decide that a few thousand year old religion which billions have based their life on is "wrong". You have your pleasure to worship, I have my God to worship that I "bitterly cling to". In my system, I need to attempt to love you, in yours, however you run over me is A-ok ... as long as "it feels good". Those are very different belief systems, and it is very easy to see why they are in increasingly violent conflict.

No God, nothing "unalienable" ... all just POWER. Ballot box or bullets, take your pick -- and guys like this author are not very excited about accepting the outcome of elections that don't go their way these days!

When a 2,700-year-old book that was written by uneducated, pre-scientific people, subject to translation innumerable times, and edited with political and economic pressures from popes and kings, is given higher intellectual authority than facts arrived at from a rigorous, self-critical, constantly re-evaluating system that can and does correct mistakes, no amount of understanding, respect or evidence is going to change their minds and assuage their fears.

Yes, godless human systems have made a few "mistakes" (say 100-200 million killed by Communism), but hey, that is a FEATURE! All fixed now ... well, unless you are one of the 60 million aborted babies so far and counting.

Nazism did in 6 million nasty Jews that were one of those "old closed system" people ... one wonders if the column author sees that as a bug or a feature? Perhaps just something needing a "correction"?

Communism did in over 100 million in the last century ... many of those that had to be killed there were "closed minded", unwilling to see the brilliance of "the state" ... again, lots of Jews and Christians. If you read the whole column you really get the feeling that there just isn't much way to deal with people who won't bow to "science".  (Lysenkoism is a worthy remembrance of always listening to your state sponsored "experts") Perhaps forcing closed minded religious people to work on top notch state science projects like Chernobyl would open their minds?

Mao's "Great Leap Forward"? North Korea's nuke program? Godless humans have such a wonderful track record. Why in the world are  the hicks in fly over country so untrusting of the coastal elites expertise? Abortion is one of the current shining examples of how godless elites respect "the least of these".

Yes, beliefs CAN be "dark and terrifying". It is really a matter of what you see as a "nightmare".

Gulags, death camps, 60 million aborted, or some states not forcing everyone to celebrate gay "marriages" and celebrate 57 genders and counting?

Sadly, in a Godless world, it is all a question of power for those in power -- how many voters, divisions, state agencies, media pundits, dollars, etc.




via Blog this'

BO In The Know

FBI lovers' latest text messages: Obama 'wants to know everything' | Fox News:

Watergate was about "What did the president know and when did he know it?" ... Since there was 20 min of tape missing it was ASSUMED that he was covering up that "he knew". Oh, and the media as well as the then much less willing to be obvious Democrat State hated Nixon, so he just had to go.

At least we don't have to wonder if BO was inolved in using the FBI to attack the opposition party during the 2016 election ... we have it on text!

Newly revealed text messages between FBI paramours Peter Strzok and Lisa Page include an exchange about preparing talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey to give to President Obama, who wanted “to know everything we’re doing."

Naturally, anyone paying attention has only know that the FBI (and all government) - media collaboration is "business as usual". No reason to call it "collusion" -- come on, it has been obvious since Watergate, but if you are old enough to remember Dan Rather destroying his career using fake documents to "prove" the fake story about how good a fighter pilot W may have been 30 years ago.

The BO birth certificate and the story that W was supposedly not a very good fighter pilot  were similar, however one is NOT requiured to be a "good fighter pilot" to be president, but one at least used to have to be an American citizen to be president!

In the world of fake government agencies and fake news however, "what difference, at this point, does it make?" That was "Herself" Hillary responding to a question about 4 dead, including the US Ambassador to Libya being killed on her watch. Let's face it, relative to the government bureaucracy and the US media, she was right! Nobody cares about US Ambassadors and Navy Seals relative to Hildebeast getting what she wants -- the elite having their way is what BOistan stands for.

What is "new" is how obviously it is now all done. They are STILL certain they hold all the cards and have all the power, players like HillBilly and BO. So they broke all sorts of secrecy laws, obstructed justice, and used federal law enforcement agencies to attack their political opponents? Why not? "Rules" are for the little people ... not the Hillarys and BOs of the world!

The biggest "news" in all of this to me is that we all KNOW how Democrat Party, Administrative State and Media collaboration work against the opposition party. It happens EVERY DAY! Just look at the markets the past few days and think back to '09.

In '09, BAD news was always due to W and GOOD news was always due to BO. Market down, BUSH! Market or anthing else up/good, BO!

Now it is simply the opposite. Markets DOWN (or anything bad), TRUMP! Markets UP (or anything good), BO!

Try to even imagine Trump ordering the FBI to investigate the Democrat candidate in 2020. First of all, like Nixon trying to use the IRS against his political enemies, they would REFUSE ... as well they should! But when BO had the IRS attack conservative groups, they did not refuse -- they DID IT, and then took the 5th and everybody walked away.

Between Watergate and BO, at least the Democrat - Deep State - Media triumvirate had the decency to throw some fig leafs on and deny that they were collaborating! It's in the open now, and neither Democrats at the party or support level care -- they WANT a one party state. They no longer see any advantages in any diversity of ideas -- they are openly shutting down any dissenting ideas being discussed even at a university.

We are ALL largely brainwashed at this point. As evidence, I ask you; What exactly did the Russians **DO** to influence the election????

A few fake Facebook Accounts? Some fake news stories more fake then the many 10's of fake stories that have been exposed on CNN? Which and how many people saw those and were "influenced by them"? Trump supposedly "colluded" to do what? To get more emails from some unsecure Hillary or DNC server released? The Democrat/Deep State/Media triumvirate tells us that "Russian influence in our 2016 election" is a most grevious FACT!

What was that influence, and how many votes did it affect?

The base charge is a JOKE, it is like making an issue about how good a fighter pilot W was. It's a McG
uffin! ... a device to create a story that all the brainwashed will follow.

Here is what REALLY happened!


'via Blog this'

The Way Of The Toady

Expected Clinton Victory Explains Federal Employee Wrongdoing | National Review:

The original "toady" was supposedly the assistant who ate a toad asserted to be poisonous, so his master could display his acumen at "bringing the toady back to life". I'd rate the true magic as eating the toad and keeping it down ... ribbit!

The linked article is a litany of how each action that appears "strange" to us as taken by various syncophants, boot lickers, ass kissers, and other assorted bureaucratic vermin from the Deep State of the BO years, would merely have been "smart career moves" -- if wicked witch Hillary had just taken over the BO swamp as expected.

How could Lynch in the middle of an election have been so silly as to allow even the appearance of impropriety? Answer: There would have been no impropriety had Hillary won — an assumption reflected in the Page-Strzok text trove when Page texted, about Lynch, “She knows no charges will be brought.” In fact, after a Clinton victory, Lynch’s obsequiousness in devising such a clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton may well have been rewarded: Clinton allies leaked to the New York Times that Clinton was considering keeping Lynch on as the attorney general.

Things were going GREAT in the middle of '16 for BO, the Clintons and the entire Adminstrative / Deep State .... Trump was the candidate they WANTED to run against. They PICKED HIM ... in the judgement of the apparatus of "The Party" (TP-D) , running against Trump was a GIFT! My view is that Slick met with Lynch in Phoenix to show off the power of the Clinton machine. "Yes we CAN have a meeting between the former president and the sitting AG who is (supposedly)  investigating the former first lady now running for president! See what kind of POWER we Clintons have? It is only going to grow when the Hildebeast wins, so PAY YOUR BRIBES NOW! to the "Clinton Fund" ... funds, for Clintons!"

"Herself" winning was a forgone conclusion, settled science, a metaphysical certainty ... EVERYONE who "had a brain" and was a member in good standing of TP "knew it to be so".

Needlessly weaponizing the Obama FBI and the DOJ was akin to Hillary Clinton’s insanely campaigning in the last days of the 2016 campaign in red-state Arizona, the supposed “cherry atop a pleasing electoral map.” 

In short, such hubris was not just what Peter Strzok in August 2016 termed an “insurance policy” against an unlikely Trump victory. Instead, the Clinton and Obama officials believed that it was within the administrative state’s grasp and their perceived political interest not just to beat but to destroy and humiliate Donald Trump — and by extension all the distasteful deplorables and irredeemables he supposedly had galvanized.

I don't believe that BO so much did the "weaponization" as he allowed it to beconme obvious. There was no need to hide it anymore. He was "The One", and his handpicked successor was taking the reins of power from his royal hand. He and the Clintons pulled all the strings and the folks in the Adminstrative / Deep State were just manuvering for better jobs under the new assumed new Dark Lord.

So is Trump the "anti-TP"? Able to actually win over the  "Agents" of the Deep State? No idea ... but it is an idea worth savoring once in awhile.

'via Blog this'

Porn Adultry PRIDE Week , Christians and Pharisees

Trump & Stormy Daniels: Social Conservative Hypocrisy | National Review:

So the media tells us that Trump had a dalliance with a porn star named "Stormy" at "sometime", for which he paid her off to keep quiet about. You can trust the media, they would never be anything less than truthful about Trump, and we all know they are nothing but honest.

Jonah Goldberg is shouting "hypocrite" because "social conservatives" that didn't like Slick Willie lying under oath about asking an employee to service his wee willie in a hotel room (Paula Jones), as well as presidential "emissions" being found on the blue dress of an employee, are not concered about the alleged Trump - porn star alleged liasion / alleged payoff.

Some discussion. "Christians" are actually NOT to be judgemental about others. Jesus is famously not judgemental about the woman at the well, the prostitute washing his feet with her hair, or even the adultress who was to be stoned until Jesus drew "something" in the dirt and everyone who was supposed to stone her walked away.

HISTORICALLY, back in the old days of "America", which was a Christian Nation, Christians felt that the leader of the country ought to be a professing Christian. BOistan is clearly NOT a Christian Nation as has been well covered here and elsewhere. Much as Christ once had little to say about Pontius Pilate and Caesar, Christians have little to say about Trump -- he leads a pagan nation where they happen to live. He is not their MORAL leader, he is the leader of BOistan. In a pagan nation, you need to support the pagan least likely to crucify you.

Slick Willie was actually president during the blue dress affair, and governor at the time of the whipping it out and asking for "service" with Jones. AFIK, the "Stormy" thing (if it IS a "thing") happened when Trump was a private citizen .. AFAIK, nobody has ever went after Slick about anything prior to him being at least governor. (and I pray they don't, I REALLY don't want to hear the details!)

So what is the "issue" here? Has Goldberg confused "Christians" or "Social Conservatives" with Pharisees? My understanding is that social conservatives are against abortion, gay "marriage", and forcing communities to allow "men" into womens bathrooms and locker rooms. Most of them are probably not in favor of adultery with porn stars as a general rule, however given the rather lax morals in BOistan, if private citizens indulge and cover it up, it seems more of a "Pharisee charge" than a "Social Conservative" or "Christian" one.

It doesn't sound to me like Trump was holding "Adultry with a porn star PRIDE week". I don't believe he was in any way saying "hey, bake me a cake! My morals are YUGE and you ought to be forced to CELEBRATE them!" If Trump is seeking sexual favors from interns in the Oval Office, or paying off porn stars for dalliances while he is serving as president, then it seems that a charge of "hypocrisy" is somewhat warranted. As it is, isn't it the "PRIDE" folks that ought bear the "hypocrisy" charge for trying to claim that someone ought have "morals"? (excuse me? What is "moral" in BOistan? Forcing a pro-lifer to bake a cake celebrating your abortion?)

Do I "approve" of sex with porn stars not your wife? Certainly not! However, Jesus also did not pass judgement on the woman at the well who had five husbands and was not married to the man with whom she was currently living. My "approval" or lack thereof not the point! I believe that Christ will be the ultimate judge -- in general, he was MUCH more direct in condeming the sin of judgement (eg. "you brood of vipers") than he was for your standard, or even "significantly" sinful person. Mathew was a tax collector, and in those days, that was about as bad as it got! (our "morals" seem quite different today!)

If Trump violates LAWS while he is an elected official, than he ought to be removed -- as Slick Willie ought to have been removed for doing just that. IMHO however, the bar is MUCH higher now -- Slick WAS NOT removed, and his party was in no way interested in removing him for obvious sexual harrassment, perjury, and likely rape, as well as a long list of financial and other improprieties. BO used the IRS against conservatives and did all sorts of extra-constitutional things including funding parts of BOcare without congressional approval. These are now the new "standards" estabilished by "The Party" (TP-D). Certainly I understand that TP, and apparently Jonah, think it is somehow incumbent on "Christians" to hold their political leaders to higher standards than the "other sides" political leaders in a pagan nation.

What even is "the other side" in BOistan? As near as I can see, many in the R party would certainly be just as anxious to be rid of the pesky "Christians" or "Social Conservatives" ... I'd put Jonah in this camp. I suspect they would likely be rather happy to see those "deploreables" thrown to the lions, and would likely pay good money to sit up with Chuck S and Nancy P to watch the "festivities". ( "I've tithed my cumin today, how about you Chuck? Wow, those Lions really enjoy Christian meat")

Christians have PERSONAL standards -- to the extent we lived in a nation where those standards were shared by BOTH political parties, it was reasonable to expect politicians of BOTH SIDES to follow them. News at 11, we don't live there anymore! Where we live now, there are officially NO RULES .... which means that POWER is the only "rule".

If you like to judge others behavior, the sort of religion you are looking for has Pharisee positions ... it isn't Christianity.

'via Blog this'

Shining Cities, Shitholes, Shinola

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/politics/donald-trump-tweet-daca-rejection/index.html

I'm not a lover of coarse language. BOistan however is a place where we hear the previously "wash your mouth out with soap" word "f*ck" constantly. To be offended by "words" in BOistan, a country where nobody is able to name the total number of "genders" -- let alone what each might mean, is to carry on some sort of charade that is so foolish as to make one question where and when such a person thinks they are living. (assuming they are serious, which most aren't)

One of Reagan's statements about the previous nation of America was that we were once a "Shining city on a hill". I was honored to call that nation home -- a lot of people knew what was "trump" in that nation.

There once was a time when people believed that closed meetings were closed. If people could not be trusted to even keep to themselves what was said in a closed meetings, those people were completely not trustworthy in word or deed. They and what they said was to be ignored. 

If they talked to media sources, the reputable media would not publish it -- they did not want to publish the words of dishonorable people because it primarily reflected more negatively on the media rather than on whomever or whatever was to be stabbed in the back by the calumny. 

If what was supposedly said got out and was denied by someone in the meeting, their word was accepted without question -- the meeting was closed. Whomever claimed somethng was said had already proven themselves untrustworthy. Others at the meeting had a right to expect that what they said at the meeting was private. The person betraying that expectation had already proven their mendacity. 

The media outlets that would carry things said by those not honoring the meeting rules were "gossip rags", purveyors of "yelllow journalism". People that had any sort of standards at all knew that things were often said in closed meetings that were not intended for wider dispersal. Here is an example of something LBJ is supposed to have said hoping he could hear "someone deny it". 

I'm sure that history has LOTS of examples of presidents saying all sorts of things in "closed meetings", "off the record", etc ... here is LBJ being quite earthy ordering pants if you want some entertainment. LBJ could be VERY "earthy" ... and very racist as well, with a lot of use of the "N-word". I can't even imagine what US Grant might have said as president -- nor do I care. I certainly found W to be more "presidential" than Trump, however even his enemies give Trump credit for getting more done in his first year of office than W did in 8 ... that counts with me as well. 

"Unpresidential" is a synomym for "I don't like them" today ... we are in the presidential semen on blue dresses era -- even worse, we came close to making the "semenizer" the "First Masher". 

Anyone that knows "shit from shinola" knows what this is about -- we are in a 24x7 media, democrat and Deep State war to weaken, remove, destroy, or in any manner possible "resist" the duly elected president of BOistan. Naturally, those "resisting" groups had HUGE problems with anyone who even questioned a policy of BO ("racism" was the charge for disagreeing with a BO action). BOistan is not a failed tribal state that honors elections! 

The problem is that in BOistan, nearly nobody knows shit from shinola. The masses are generally so ill-informed and over marketed that the old derogatory term "rabble" would be a compliment. Sad back and forth sniping between tribal camps on "social media" over the latest media created "story" is what counts as "discourse". 

My personal policy is that I always replace the term "anonymous sources" with "space aliens" , and when I see "CNN" I replace it with "as reported in The National Enquirer" to determine my level of "trust". 

If you still hold a shred of sanity, this entire "story" is meaningless.

 In case Trump did say it, I too wonder why we take so many people from actual "shitholes" ... do some searches on "cholera" and countries like Hati, Yemen, etc and you may wonder as well ... "shit happens", and when you live in a "shithole", cholera also happens. Spending money so they could keep fecal material and drinking water separate would be WAY more "humanitarian" than whatever number of "refugees" we might take in. 

Sadly, if you have such sanity, I suspect you also already know the answer -- refugees vote democrat! That is why it is so important that we NOT have voter ID! While dead BOistanis often vote democrat as well, dead Hatians, Yemenis, etc don't, and thus we do actually know the sad reason why we take so many rather than fix the plumbing. 

Shut off  EVERYTHING ... America marketed itself a long way to BOistan. It will take more than marketing to get us out! 

New Man Behind Russian Curtain

The new Times origin story | Power Line:

The Wizard of Oz is often an apt metaphor for the machinations of "The Party" (TP-D) ... the best scene is "the man behind the curtain" ... sometimes even when we see that Oz is just a media illusion, they decide to change up "the man behind the curtain" to further confuse the weak minded, as in this case ...

In his column McCarthy shows the Times sending its previous origin story down the memory hole. The Times has sent it down the memory hole in order to rewrite the history it previously served up. The Times has a new origin story in the putative collusion case. Where once was Carter Page, now is George Papadopoulos.

Because TP has so much power, and because the bulk of that power is unacknowledged -- eg. the media is supposedly "unbiased", the Administrative / Deep State is still supposed to be fiction, BOTH the "powers behind the curtain", AND "reality" itself are regularly manipulated.

Take Benghazi -- four Americans, 3 SEALS and the US Ambassador were killed, the US Embassy was overrun. These are actually FACTS in the real world -- both political sides agree that these happened. However in the Benghazi case, TP tells us that not only are we to pay no attention to the "man behind the curtain", but to reality itself! Nothing to see here folks "all caused by a movie" ... move along. The FACTS hang in some limbo land where "nobody is responsible".  Four lives are lost because of ???? . well in this case, maybe a movie ... "But, what difference -- at this point, what difference does it make"?

In the Russian collusion case, 18 months after we were aprised of the supposed "crime", we still have nothing at all to show for that "crime". Even stranger, let's assume "collusion" was real. What pray tell was the mechanism to influence the election? The Russians bought some Facebook Ads? They helped some news outlet somewhere put out a "fake story"? They put drugs in the water in IA, WI, MI and PA? HOW did they "manipulate the election"? The mind boggles -- we are daily being hammered with the importance of investigating the "collusion to subvert our 2016 election" yet,  could someone give us SOME idea as to what such "subversion" would entail?

So it is hard to figure out "how", it is impossible to figure out "why". The core of the Russian economy is energy -- they paid upwards of $50 million to "The Clinton Fund" (funds for Clintons) to capture 20% of the urainium in N America. We know that the Russians have spent 10's of millions funding anti-fracking groups. So riddle me this, which candidate was anti-fracking?? Yup, Hillary -- Hillary WINNING was in the best interest of the Russians! Bernie wiunning would have been even BETTER! My guess is that their e-mail hacking was in hopes of helping Bernie -- but of course the primaries were RIGGED! Poor Russians, stuck with pro-fracking Trump!

My mind goes back to the possibility of floridated water ... perhaps that is how they "subverted the election"???

We live in a nation where most of the media -- NY Times, WaPo, the TV networks, CNN, NPR, etc are fully dedicated to the advancement of TP and it's agenda to the exclusion of all else -- especially "facts". The fact that BO was saying that any questioning of the election was tantamount to treason just over two weeks prior to the election in 2016 is WELL down the memory hole! Over a year later, questioning the election is a full time job for most of the MSM ... although any sort of hint as to "how" the nefarious Ruskies might have pulled it off is conspicuously missing, let alone "why". Motive? TRUMP! It seems plenty for the MSM -- their power comes from unicorn farts.

The McCarthy column is well worth the read ... we are so far down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass and following the yellow brick road that any attempt for most of the public to see any sort of facsimilie of "reality" from here is quite impossible.

Could it be that enough people voted for Trump in mostly "red" areas that care VERY little about Russians, Facebook, the MSM, TP, or really ANY kind of news ... "fake" or otherwise to get him elected, and now, even though we were ASSURED by the MSM that he would ABSOLUTELY wreck the economy, the Dow has gone over 25K?, they are really finding things not so very bad after his election at all?

"Deplorables" get confused -- because we have been assured that it isn't going to go below zero anymore, we ran out of oil in the 1970's, Reagan blew us all up in the 1980's, and the "era of big government" was over in the late '90s ... it is just too confusing for us stupid folks!

'via Blog this'

Proven Fascism In WI

What happened in Wisconsin: Sen. Tiffany comments | Power Line:

I covered what happened here, breaking down doors of conservatives in the early AM hours, gag rules, illegal use of private information to target other conservatives -- exactly what was supposed to be MOST abhorrent to ALL Americans! At least "McCarthyism" was about a foreign threat -- this was ONLY about partisan politics! This is the "The Party" (TP-D) using the government against it's political opponents -- just as we see now with the Deep State attacking Trump. Unsurprisingly ...

One tidbit your non-Wisconsin readers may find interesting: the administrator of the now-defunct GAB was Kevin Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy acknowledged a few years ago he was a confidant of the IRS’s Lois Lerner. They communicated frequently. Having a front row seat viewing the Troubles in Wisconsin the past seven years, I have seen the eerie the parallels between the John Doe and the Mueller investigation in D.C.

There isn't really anything surprising at all here -- prior to Trump, Scott Walker was the only leader that has shown the courage to take on the Deep State (at the WI state level) -- he very MILDLY reduced the cronyism between TP and the public unions and was saddled with statewide strikes, vandalism, threats of violence, lawsuits and a recall election.

The Deep State of WI leaked what they considered the most damning evidence -- evidence that was legally required to be kept secret to influence the SCOTUS.

On Sept. 14, 2016, the Guardian published some 1,300 pages of court-sealed John Doe-related documents. The liberal British publication used the cherry-picked, leaked records in a story that arrived a couple of weeks before theU.S. Supreme Court decided it wouldn’t weigh in on the Wisconsin matter.

Did it work? Probably -- the SCOTUS decided to not intervene. Power Line concludes another column on the issue with this ...

Let me repeat the conclusion to my post on the report last week. The wrongdoing detailed in the WisDoJ report is of the deeply fascist variety that exceeds my poor powers of denunciation. Suffice it to say that it combines the instruments of tyranny — physical torture omitted — in the service of the suppression of conservatives. The story is shocking almost beyond belief. One might ask where the outrage is, but at this point we should probably ask if anyone is paying attention.

Democracy doesn't so much "die in darkness" as it dies when a single political party controls the media, education system, legal system, and the federal / state bureaucracies as TP does in BOistan.

'via Blog this'

Waiting For The Ubermensch

Trump Haters Left & Right versus Trump Supporters: Civil War Field Guide | National Review:

A worthy article to read -- a sober and well written categorzation of the feelings of the chattering classes and the electorate in the age of Trump. The haters -- something like a third to a half of "The Party" (TP-D), so something like 20% of the electorate are of course the most visible.

The Trump haters dominate our media and the universities, the entertainment industries, Silicon Valley, the billionaire green classes, the foundations and the brigades of professional foot-soldier activists, identity-politics operatives, and the Bernie Sanders shock troops. They are frenzied because they think their 1,000 cuts have finally hit arteries — only to see Trump revive in Nietzschean fashion, emerging stronger for the wounds. To come so close to ending this nightmare only to realize they are at the alpha and not the omega of their efforts intensifies their hatred.

Most of these people were also Obama Zombies who in their "post god" world saw BO as a Nietzchean "value creator" (ubermensch). In a world without god, the only support for "values" is a "superman", and the left felt certain that "all reasonable people" MUST have been changed to the "values" of BO ... slaughter of millions of unborn, "gay" marriage, unknown genders, disprespect for the flag and the military, snide posuturing against people "bitterly clinging" to the Bible and the 2nd Amendement, etc

Strangely, the screaming and howling of the sheltered elite when 2016 didn't go as they were certain it would is a sound that causes the culture of the old "America" to come together -- at least a little.

Yet Trump hatred only solidifies the Trump base. It also reminds independents and wavering centrist Republicans that in a Manichean fight (and the Trump haters seem to envision the current landscape as just that), one inevitably chooses sides. If the choice is reduced to a crude rant at a public Trump rally or the rioters at Claremont, Berkeley, and Middlebury, a screaming Madonna, the “pigs in blanket” chanters of Black Lives Matter, and the masked marauders of Antifa, the Trump haters probably lose.

The BO and the Trump base are way more similar than either would like to admit. They are BOTH looking for Nietzschean "value creators" who attack their opposition and make them feel justified, moral and powerful. BO did it with snide smoothness, Trump does it with twittering bluster -- the same buttons are being pushed in either case.

Trump’s base is as loyal as was Obama’s. Obama’s puerile cluelessness (the Malvinas are the Falklands, 57 states, corpse-men), his divisiveness (get in their faces, take a gun to a knife fight, punish our enemies), and his venom (high-horse Christians, stereotyping police, bitter clingers, etc.) could never erode the Obama foundation, as long as he offered his faux-southern-accent act, quoted arc-of-history banalities, talked Final Four, and caricatured the rich, the businessman, and the successful. So too the Trump voter will stay to the bitter end with Trump — if he stays with them.

Being a Christian, I'm not very excited about the idea of any human being  (or even human being ... being! ;-) ) a "values creator" -- however, anyone with a marginal education who pays even a tiny bit of attention certainly has to observe the prescience of Nietzsche relative to the "superman" ... Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, and yes, to a much lesser extent, BO and Trump -- "lesser" so far, but without any shared values, morality is purely a matter of POWER, so eventually, one of the tribal groups shorn of Constitutional restraint and any sense of honoring tradition is nearly certain to defeat / gulag / kill the opposing tribe and pay the dues of "killing god" in blood and treasure.

As a Christian, I also believe in the willingness of God to intervene on the side of a people who will seek his will -- "America" could revive and with God's Grace become again "One Nation Under God". I want a leader -- and a people, that kneel humbly before God, and proudly salute the Flag!

As is always the case with man, we await the almighty -- or some mere human that is willing to pretend he is almighty. To date, God has been FAR more merciful than any of the other "strong men" who attempt to create values for the masses!


'via Blog this'

A Little Sexual Honesty

Can We Be Honest About Women?:

We live in the age of insanity, so given that we are insane, it is controversial to state that men love beautiful women and women love being desired. A little research will show that the billions of dollars spent on shoes, clothes, jewelry, makeup, breast implants, nails, plastic surgery, etc is not spent by men. Nor do married men regulary say "honey, are you SURE that you have enough shoes?"

The reason we live in the age of insanity is that we have "abandoned the natural for the unnatural" to paraphrase Romans. Our culture glorifies the unnatural -- homosexuality, strange genders without limit, pornography, and even "kink" -- I have to study "cultural awareness" for a certification at work, and "the kink community" was one of those cultures to be aware of -- google was required.

When I was in college, a "dirty book store" was a sign of a blighted area. When I came to Rochester, there were a couple on the southern (seedy) edge of downtown that the city worked hard to get removed. Now there is the "WalMart version" with the GIANT electronic sign for "Pure Pleasure" right off the I-90 / US 63 interchange south of the airport. "Progress'.

The article is worth a read through to get some more data to cover the obvious in this age where reality is the horror that may not be spoken ... "Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel"! It closes with this ...

We can’t expect people to act like machines with one another, disconnected from their own desires. Our bodies, our sexuality, and our physical longing for one another—all of these essential parts of ourselves—are beautiful. We should cultivate those aspects.

"But they are not the most important, and they can’t be acted on unchecked. We are not animals, ruled by appetites. We have deeper aspects of ourselves that need to be nurtured. We have a rational mind and moral conscience to inform us of what is right and what is wrong. We have a spirit that has a beauty all its own, and it’s a beauty that never diminishes, unlike the physical, which passes away too quickly."

I completely agree with what the author wants, however I don't think there is likely to be motion in that direction anytime soon because the spirit that IS, and is meant to be, our "true self" is denied by our modern world and we ARE expected to behave as "machines" -- machines made out of meat. Materialists (and they are a common philosophical branch in these times) believe exactly that -- there is NOTHING more to us than "meat"! We are ONLY organic machines.

The divine intention of our sexuality is to be BOTH spiritual and physical. Our insane materialist world of meat creatures celebrates strange physical sexual pairings, imaginary genders, and most of all the killing of the natural outcome of sex, children. In the insane materialist world, we have become much LESS than animals -- so we no longer understand the natural, as all animals do, and are drawn to the UNnatural.

Why? Because consciousness / spirit is decidedly not "natural" in any way that we can discern save divine intervention -- and the search for the divine, the "higher", delivers  a morality that has little to do with materialist "nature" -- red of tooth and claw. When our spirit looks up to God, we rise, when our spirit looks down to our own flesh, we fall.

Our flight from the embrace of the divine -- the transcendent, has left us to attempt to define moral structures based on power (might is right),  while feeling that the powerful "taking what they want" is somehow "immoral" according to? What? No doubt the "still small voice", but where oh where does our post modern, post truth society think that voice comes from? In confusion, many have decided to put government in the role of "god" as if humans acting in large unionized bureaucracies were somehow likely to be "virtuous".

We looked for "the good" in more government and found nothing but evil.

The "honest about men" version of this article closes with:

Much of the modern moral struggle is the war between entitlement and obligation. Raise a boy to live for himself, with a sense of entitlement, and he will often unleash that enormous inborn energy in the most destructive of ways. Raise a boy to live for others, with a sense of obligation, and that same energy can build a nation and sustain a culture. We can’t make a perfect world, but we do have a choice. Better or worse? It’s time to recognize and respond to human nature, or — despite the best of intentions — we will continue to choose to be worse.

Matt 23:11 "The greatest amoung you will be your servant". These ideas were once well understood. As we watch BOistan tear at itself like a dying animal the the words of Lincoln paraphasing the Psalm 19:9 in his second inagural comes to mind ... "The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether."

Western civilization had these answers solidly understood -- and now we are lost. 

'via Blog this'

The "Standards" Gambit

Matt Lauer’s Roast: Tom Cruise, Katie Couric, and 3 Hours of Dick Jokes | Village Voice:

We live in an age of amoral insanity, and have for a good long while. My assertion is that it is completely foolish to think of this current Democrat / media round of faux puritanism as anything other than a desperate political ploy to steal a senate seat and at least imagine they will make headway toward causing Trump to resign or be removed "somehow". If it wasn't for the stupidity of the Republican party, they would have no chance.

As a Christian, I also want to point out that there is no Biblical injunction on who you vote for -- "Democracy" was pretty much unknown in biblical times, Policy seems different. Voting for candidates that support abortion, let alone gay "marriage", or "gender" equality seems to be going out on a limb. None of us as Christians get to decide if it is "too far" for others, however (judgement is beyond our pay grade).

The supposed idea that you as a Christian "vote for the most virtuous candidate" rather than for a candidate that supports Christian policy seems doctrinally indefensible. Christians know that ALL of us are totally sinful, and that the difference between "lusting with your eyes" and actually committing adultery isn't so large in God's eyes as ours because he sees the spirit, while we only see the flesh.

The idea that "Christians must vote for a virtuous candidate" pretty much crept in with with the effort to impeach Nixon ( He SWORE on tape! that killed him in the church I grew up in). It continued with Reagan -- "how can you vote for Reagan when he is DIVORCED and rarely attends church!!!", then obviously became a "theme" as Bob Packwood and other R's were drummed out for "sexual harassment", a weapon to be used by the left without any fear of collateral damage because OBVIOUSLY, "Christians" HAD  to "vote their moral conscience" (and Democrats of course did not!).

Really? And Teddy, Slick, Gary Studds, etc, etc were then "proof" that there were no "Christian Democrats"? A sad part of modern Christianity is that MANY people who want to be identified as "christian", and apparently a BUNCH of the sort that rarely grace a church or open a Bible, like to "virtue signal" about how much they are against the "sins" of Trump, Moore, Clarence Thomas, or the next R to get the scarlet "sexual harassment" letter. It's an odd development -- they are OK with very old and serious problems on the D side, yet they are exceedingly proud of their "virtue" when the MSM tells them to tar and feather one of their supposed "own".

You know that Teddy Kennedy left his car parked upside down under water with his soon to be deceased secretary in it in '69, yet the Democrat party kept him seated as the "lyin of the Senate" until his death in 2009. He never changed his MO ... drinking, wild parties, sex with young staffers, rape accusations for his nephew when out with "uncle Ted" in FL ... Teddy set the moral standard for Democrats -- kill the unborn, kill young women if they cause you trouble, have your way with any of them that you want with impunity ... 40 years in the Senate AFTER an actual dead body in your car! The proud Democrat standard has been "If it feels good DO IT!" since the '60s.

The linked column from the Village Voice in 2008 needs to be read by all BOistanis so we can be "on the same page". Once you read it and realize it was PUBLISHED in 2008, you will know that our "sophisticated coastal elites" live to a set of "standards" like  the "standards" of Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon, Rome, etc. The behavior covered in the Voice  is simply not something to which the term "standards" apply.

Here is Katie Couric at the roast of Lauer doing a top ten about Matt ...

10. According to his wife, he’s not really an early riser, if you know what I mean.
7. When Katie did the colonoscopy live on television, doctors found Matt’s head.
“2. He loves to eat Curry.”
The room loved that one, and Ann Curry blanched. Great moment.

Here is Gilbert Gottfried ...

He had recently given Today’s Asian-American co-host Ann Curry some lessons in stand-up comedy. “People ask me, does Ann Curry’s pussy go sideways?” Gilbert said to gasps. But he was just getting warmed up.

He finished with: “How do you get a faggot to fuck a woman? Fill up her cunt with shit. Thank you.”

 Nice to know what our "betters" really think of Asian women, women in general, and gays isn't it? You probably think those lines sound "bad", which just shows that you are more of a fly-over country prude than a true sophisticated coastal elite! Remember, there were over 1500 people there and this was PUBLISHED in the Village Voice -- they figured that the "lower classes" would "take it wrong", so the blessed TP controlled MSM didn't bother to say anything -- hell, NBC did the roast!

Certainly the people "in the know" in our great Democrat / media complex fully understand that this kind of stuff goes on pretty regularly. Those people are the ELITE! They are above mere petty prurient "morals" --- they MAKE the rules! Let the flyover prudish idiots with their bourgeois values eat cake! (or maybe drink light beer in modern parlance)

So after having a guy that drowned his secretary in the senate for over 40 years AFTER drowning her, they want to tell us there is some "question" about a guy they managed to dig up some 35+ year old "charges" on being SEATED in the same senate???? Hello? This whole sorry nation sat by while Teddy sat in that body for FORTY YEARS after screwing up and ACTUALLY leaving a cold dead body of a young woman in his car!

Show me a body, or at least a 35 year old "love child" that passes the DNA test on Moore! These "accusers" are WAY old enough to be grandmas now and they didn't see fit to bring this up for 40 years? People that had even a minute sense of morality had to live with Teddy sitting in the Senate for 40 years after Chappaquiddick, and the NEW "standard" is supposed to be unsubstantiated CHARGES the same age class as Teddy's aqua parking ticket, and he stayed in the Senate after actually leaving a body?

In a sane world, NOBODY would take that seriously at all. They want the Stupid Party (R) to buy into 40 year old charges as the "new standard"? Let's see, we were supposed to believe forged documents on the "important issue" of how good a fighter pilot W was supposed to have been 30 years prior. OTOH, the fact that BO wrote a book that originally indicated he was a Kenyan, and contained lots of discussion about how his "real roots" were in Kenya and he had dedicated his life to "destroying the colonial powers" along with a few gems about "pussy", "niggers", and "filtering white blood", was not even an issue that needed covering? "Dreams" was just not something that needed to be even talked about! (old news! ... a week old if you are a D, MORE THAN 40 years if you are an R)

Here is a nice article from February of '98 when the elites were protecting Slick Willie -- you think they "care" about actual morality?

It’s easy to see how both Hoke and Clinton might have been imbued with a foolhardy fearlessness and a flatfooted misperception that they were untouchable. Washington was like summer camp, providing a suspension of certain rules and self-consciousness. If a guy knew how to play it, it was a pretty good place to swing.

Those to the manner born who’ve been in trouble -- Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, for instance, who participated in the famous “waitress sandwich” at La Brasserie in 1985, while their dates were in the bathroom -- have tended to get out of it by claiming that their boyish high jinks had simply gotten out of hand.

Here is a little more detail on the "waitress sandwich".

As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd's lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. Kennedy, Dodd and their dates leave shortly thereafter, following a friendly argument between the senators over the check.

The '98 Slick defense article closes with this ...

Now and forever, whatever is happening behind closed doors, what Washingtonians constantly emphasize is the city’s sexless environment, a notion that is partly fact, partly fig leaf. Last week, a giggling Democratic congressman was heard telling a lobbyist that part of him wanted to condemn Clinton. “On the other hand,” he said, “I want a blood transfusion from him.”

 At least since Chappaquiddick, the DC ethos has been a very seedy "summer camp". As the article makes clear, lots of Republicans tried to hide out, got caught, and lost their jobs. Democrats didn't bother to hide -- as long as the "Teddy Standard" was in place, there was no reason to. Once the "Slick Standard" came in, it is certainly no wonder that guys like Franken just "grabbed away" -- hell, even perjury in the supposed "highest office" (all be it stained with presidential "emissions") could be excused!

A lot of the "Stupid Party" (R) is happy to go for this sort of scharade, hey, at least they get to "virtue signal". The D's know all about WINNING ... they are going to "sacrifice" the village clown dwarf from loony MN who likes to actually grab private parts (not talk about it like Trump) in order to get another baby killing D in the senate. How many baby killers does it take to make a "moral quorum"?

We don't like to admit where we live. We still like to imagine we live in "America" which once even had CHRISTIAN morals! We don't live there! This has been a disgusting amoral declining state since at least Chappaquiddick, through Roe V Wade, "Borking", the Clarence Thomas Lynching, Slick Willie, gay "marriage", 57 genders ... There really has never been a "culture war", only a cultural retreat so far!

Read the Village Voice article and tell me that the "elites" in BOistan have ANY sort of "morals" beyond POWER -- WINNING--PLEASURE!!! If you find "moral people" in that article, you need to take a long sniff for brimstone and a careful listen for demonic laughter!

The ONLY thing that is going to return us to morality is a Christian revival -- and then, from our knees, we can pray that God restores "America"! DON'T let the Republican party get stuck with the "Moore Standard" -- 40 year old "accusations" never heard before with no other accusations of misbehavior over 40 years are "disqualifying", while the D party returns to the "Teddy / Slick Standard" after their short little virtue signalling scharade!

Never trust the "morality" of a party that believes that killing babies in their mothers womb is "moral". "The Party" (TP-D) is as out of power as they have been since FDR. Both the SCOTUS and the Administrative/Deep State are being attacked by Trump. They are DESPERATE, and amoral desperate people will do ANYTHING!! They still own the Administrative State (the most powerful branch of government that was never supposed to be a branch of government!), most of the media, the popular culture, academia, and even most of corporate BOistan!

Worse, there are a number of RINO R's that rather like the amoral world of TP and the Administrative State -- Trump is very much a threat to them as well, so they would love nothing better than to take him down in some sort of manufactured "scandal". If 30-40 year old "charges" are all it takes, then TP and the MSM (but I repeat myself) will be back on top and forcing you to be celebrating gay "marriage" and 57 genders again VERY soon!

'via Blog this'