Saturday, August 31, 2019

Socialism? Really?

Victor Davis Hanson writes in part in PJ Media,
...When our schools and colleges do not teach unbiased economics and history, then millions of youth have no idea why the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Japan became wealthy and stable by embracing free-market capitalism and constitutional government. Few learn why naturally rich nations such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela -- or entire regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia -- have traditionally lagged far behind due to years of destructive central planning, socialist economics and coerced communist government.

The handmaiden of failed socialist regimes has always been ignorance of the past and present. And that is never truer than among today's American college-degreed (but otherwise economically and historically illiterate) youth.
Read more here.

Will Trump win re-election?

In my move to Santa Fe last week, I missed this August 22 PJ Media piece by my favorite historian, Victor Davis Hanson. In it Dr. Hanson lists the ways people lose elections and concludes, "Add up all these factors, and a currently unpopular Trump will still likely be harder to beat than his confident media detractors and enraged progressive critics can imagine."
Read more here.

Hallelujah

Guest post
by Suzann Darnall

We have much to give thanks for as this week and month come to an end. Although it has been a bit more than just one calendar year since we started Pete's cancer journey, it is to me as if a very long year has come to an end. Truly a reason to say, "Praise the Lord!

We have experienced blessings, answered prayers, tender mercies, and even miracles as we have traveled along this very difficult path. Friends, family, acquaintances, medical personnel, and even hospital support staff have been with us all along the way. People have cried with us and celebrated with us. And, yet, in some ways it has been just Pete and I all alone . . . except that we never felt like the Lord was not right there as we moved forward a step at a time.

There have been sorrows along the way, but joys as well. One very definite sorrow was the loss of our dear Great Dane, Blue, just last month. But, it was with a tremendous amount of joy that we welcomed our new Great Dane puppy, Jake, just this week.

Jake's arrival was so perfectly timed. Another of those tender mercies of the Lord. At least, that is how I choose to view it. I just do not believe much in coincidence when I see how often it dovetails with needs and is in answer to prayers.

Pete completed his cancer treatments a little after 9am on Wednesday. Our children and grandchildren showed up about 6pm on Wednesday for a pizza and puppy welcoming party. But, we all knew it was also a celebration of the end of radiation and chemo for Pete.

We were not just waiting for Jake to arrive, but also for Jake' brother, Blaze. Not only did Pete and I buy a puppy, our oldest daughter and her family bought one, too. And, at a little after 8pm on Wednesday evening, the puppies arrived with their transporter, a very nice man named, Frankie, who greeted us with hugs and passed along our new baby dogs.

We are still not completely done with Pete's cancer issues. He has been declared clear. Nevertheless, it will take a while for his body to recover from the effects of chemo and radiation. Then, we will have an ongoing series of checks to make sure it has not come back. But, for now, it is officially done in the main meaning. Pete has rung the bells is both clinics. He has been sent off with hugs and a few tears. We do not have any standing appointments, just the occasional follow-ups. What a feeling of freedom that is for him!

Of course, we have traded freedom from the hospital for servitude to a four-legged dictator named Jake. Where our week began with our lives dominated by the hospital, our week is ending with our lives revolving around what the puppy needs. Instead of running out the door for a treatment, we are running out the door for a puppy potty stop. Instead of eating, again, in the hospital dining hall, we are prepping puppy's meal with him anxiously dancing about with wagging tail. We sleep and wake on his whim, rather than the alarms set for hospital visits. I think it is a good trade.

We are still counting our blessings. Still looking for the tender mercies. Still giving thanks. We are just a little more joyful about it all, 'cause Pete is a little less sick, a little less stressed, and a whole lot happier. Ending cancer treatments and getting a new puppy can do that for a man.

Trial of 9/11 Plotters Finally Set for 2021


Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

In Pj Media, Robert Spencer reminds us that the plotters of 9-11 have still not been brought to trial 18 years after their hideous attack. Read the whole thing here.

Southern women have a say about hurricanes

"They was out of water, so I bought wine!" "Don't eat those cookies, they're for the hurricane!" "I hope this hurricane clears the neighbor's yard!" "This thing's gonna blow harder than a hooker at a truck stop!" "Thank God it's a hurricane and not snow!"
"The water's high, let's fish off the porch!" "The ocean's browner than a porta-potty at a prune festival."

"You're not under investigation!"

Jim Jordan is on fire throughout this video. Jason Chaffetz follows up by saying, "In my 8 years in Congress one of my biggest disappointments was the fact that the mainstream media is absolutely asleep at the wheel. I think they are actually complicent...partners in this."

Laura: "They lied to President Trump and told him he was not a target."



"The worst director in the history of the FBI!"

Rudy Giuliani on Comey: "He leaked, he lied, he violated every rule! Comey disgraced the FBI. Brennan is the brains, Clapper is the idiot! It was a clear entrapment of Trump by Comey. He was going to extort the president of the United States!"

How did they get their money?


Hong Kong police spray protestors with water dyed blue for easy arrest

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong police are spraying protestors with dyed blue waters so protestors can be marked for easy arrest!


Hillary takes a summer stroll with a friend in the Hamptons



More photos of her here.

"Egregious government misconduct!"

"The man should be completely exonerated!"

..."we must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good intentions. It is also the road to tyranny."

In the Gatestone Institute, Alan Dershowitz writes in part,
Feeling unsafe is the new trigger word for demanding censorship.

Stalin murdered those who deviated from his Truth, while "wokers" generally shun and discredit, though there has been occasional violence from elements of the hard-left toward those who deviate from their Truth. But both produce a similar result: less dissent, less reliance on the marketplace of ideas and more self-censorship.

When I was in college in the 1950s, it was the McCarthyite right that was censoring and denying due process. It was the liberal left that was defending free speech, dissent and due process. But for some on the left, this stance was self-serving, because it was people on the extreme left who were being denied these protections. Now that it is conservatives who are being censored and denied due process on campuses around the country, many on the left have remained silent. Civil liberties for me, but not for thee.

That is why I make the controversial claim that today the "woke" hard-left is more dangerous to civil liberties than the right. To be sure there are hard-right extremists who would use — and have used — violence to silence those with whom they disagree. They are indeed dangerous. But they have far less influence on our future leaders than their counterparts on the hard-left. They are not teaching our college-age children and grandchildren. They are marginalized academically, politically and in the media. The opposite is true of hard-left Stalinists. Many have no idea who Stalin even was, but they are emulating his disdain for free speech and due process in the interests of achieving the unrealizable utopia they both sought. They also have in common the attitude that noble ends justify ignoble means.

It is precisely because the ends sought by the "wokers" are often noble — racial and gender equality, a fairer distribution of wealth, protection of the environment, a women's right to choose, gay marriage — that liberals find it harder to condemn them for their intolerance toward civil liberties. But we must always remember that it is not only the road to hell that is paved with good intentions. It is also the road to tyranny.
Read more here.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant!"

No one takes more time to dig deep into important events than Sundance in the Conservative Treehouse. Yesterday he posted the 19-page document filed by General Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell.
In the 19-pages (full pdf below), Ms. Powell walks through the history of the DOJ, FBI and intelligence apparatus weaponization against Mr. Flynn and lays out the background behind everything known to have happened in 2016, 2017 through today.

From the corrupt DOJ lawyers who were working with Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele, including Mr. Weissmann, Mr. Van Grack and Ms. Zainab Ahmad; to the 2015/2016 FISA database search abuses; to the CIA and FBI operation against Flynn including Nellie Ohr; to the schemes behind the use of DOJ official Bruce Ohr; to the corrupt construct of the special counsels office selections; to the specifics within the malicious conspiracy outlined by hiding FBI interview notes of Mike Flynn,… all of it…. Is a stunning filing that many CTH readers are well prepared to understand.

I hope this comes to pass.
Read much more here.

The definition of dirty cop

Friday, August 30, 2019

Hubris and arrogance

Sundance and his commenters take a look at the Comey news here.

Trump team's strategic moves benefiting America

In the New York Post, Conrad Black outlines how the Trump administration has made important and timely strategic moves on the international arena. Read it here.

"If we allow these individuals not only to walk freely, steal our money in the form of government pensions, and worst of all, take to the airwaves to rub it in our faces, then that really is the bitter end for the republic."

In his Morning Report in Ace of Spades, JJ Sefton writes in part about the IG's decision not to do anything about James Comey.
...For a long time now, I've thought of IG Horowitz as at best a joke and worst in on the cover-up. I still have hopes for AG Barr but those are fading rapidly. If he truly, as some pundits argue, wants to restore the integrity of the DoJ and the other aforementioned Ivy League skull and bones sewers, the only way to do it is to prosecute James Comey, and as Billingsley rightly argues in his article, John Brennan. And I don't mean 30 months in Club Fed and out in 6 with a book deal and a slot on MSNBC. I mean 30 years in prison-prison where, upon completing their entire sentence, they'll make Steve McQueen at the end of Papillon look like Charles Atlas by comparison. That is, if they walk out and aren't carried out under a sheet.

If we allow these individuals not only to walk freely, steal our money in the form of government pensions, and worst of all, take to the airwaves to rub it in our faces, then that really is the bitter end for the republic. A just and stable law (to the extent we flawed human beings can ever have) of which no one is above is perhaps the central pillar to the functioning of a healthy society. We're already on a knife-edge as a nation divided politically and culturally. If Barr et al see not going after Comey and the others as a way of healing that divide, they're not only clueless but dangerously incompetent.
Read much more and click on his links here.

Hype is here to stay!

In his Essays in Idleness, David Warren writes in part,
...Now, hype seldom operates alone. It is for a purpose, after all. Malice and greed are sure to come with it. By now, a substantial part of the general population in places like Canada and the Natted States have begun to twig to this. Scare stories are the eco professionals’ principal source of money and power. The polar caps are melting, the seas are rising, there’s an invisible raft of empty plastic water bottles (and drinking straws) ten times the size of Texas. The snails in Banff are running for their lives. If any of this were really happening, there is not a thing we could do about it, beyond banning things. But around the world, hundreds of billions are raised through taxes on the basis of these various “just so” stories.

There may be something to them, however. CO2 levels are in fact increasing, in consequence of which planetary green is spreading, and forest cover is expanding splendidly. Perhaps that will provide the scare for the next generation: Killer trees!

Some workmen are just cutting a big one down across the street from me. It’s a start.

Judging from Hollywood, and the imaginative works of every human culture, people do like to be (harmlessly) scared. There will always be a market for apocalyptic narratives, as well as the utopian ones, and I should think with global village meejah, hype is here to stay. Some further reflections on that, here.

A pernicious meme narrative

From Oregon Muse's Morning Rant in Ace of Spades:
"As the various anti-Trump narratives ran into the ground by the media (Trump is in bed with Putin, Trump is insane, Trump is a failure at business, Trump is a tax cheat, Trump is pedo-pals with Jeffrey Epstein) collapse one by one like James Comey's credibility, get ready for the 'people are tired of the drama' meme, which is already starting to appear, even among some conservatives. I think it's an especially pernicious meme, because it can't really by refuted by facts or logic. It's not an argument, it's a tantrum. It's sort of like wanting to stop the war because the the sound of gunfire is just too dang loud. So what's the alternative? The only way to quieten things down, really, is to surrender: give Trump the boot, abolish the Electoral College, declare the GOP a terrorist organization, outlaw Christianity, immediately implement all of the Green New Deal, and pack SCOTUS with youthful RBG clones.

"The problem is, we can point out the error of feeling this way, tell them how stupid it is for feeling this way, explain to them how dangerous it is to allow their actions to be governed by feeling this way, but it won't stop them from feeling this way. Another reason why this meme is so pernicious is because it isn't a direct attack on Trump. All previous narratives can be dismissed as such (with good evidence, mind you), but this one focuses attention elsewhere, not on Trump, but on the unpleasant 'drama' that has accompanied him ever since the election. And it's relatively easy to shift attention away from the fact that it isn't really Trump who is causing all of the 'drama', but a whole series of malicious actors on the other side.

"Yes, it's dumb. Yes, it's ridiculous. But there it is. Collectively, Americans can do some pretty dumb things. Like elect Bill Clinton. And, as I said, if this catches on, the media will be pounding on it 24/7, and I'm not sure how a counter-narrative can be established. I only hope that the number of voters who fall for it will be small."

>

Thursday, August 29, 2019

How will you relate to them?

Katharine Schwab reports in Fast Company,
For years, Walmart has been automating its warehouses with robots that can pack and sort items as they zoom along conveyor belts. But the company has also slowly been rolling out robots that roam around store aisles alongside customers, launching in 50 stores in 2017 and rolling out to 350 in 2019. These bots are designed to scan shelves looking for items that are out of stock, eliminating a time-intensive chore that human workers no longer have to do—though workers still have to refill the shelves when the robot finds a missing product.
Read more here.

If we don't put up that sign, they will smash the windows and loot and rob the store!"

"Do not come to my house. DO NOT COME TO MY HOUSE!" Someone comes to Tim Poole's house at 4 in the morning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=875&v=eVCQhUnMn-o

More cold anger, please

In the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance gives us his thoughts about today's news about James Comey.
The FBI, DOJ, ODNI, CIA and intelligence officials were intentionally not being direct and honest with President Trump and key members of his new administration. Obviously their lack of honesty was a serious issue, and in some cases had serious ramifications.

The expressed finding by Robert Mueller’s two-year probe of ‘no Trump-Russia collusion, no Trump-Russia conspiracy, and no Trump-Russia obstruction’ has led to some hindsight reviews where anger surfaces about the now visible deception. However, there is a trap laid here and Democrats are hoping outraged voices will walk straight into it. Some are already getting very close.

At 12:15pm on January 20th, 2017, Obama’s outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote a memo-to-self. Many people have called this her “CYA” (cover your ass) memo, from the position that Susan Rice was protecting herself from consequences if the scheme against President Trump was discovered.

…This is a justification memo, written by an outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice to document why there have been multiple false and misleading statements given to the incoming President Trump and all of his officials.

This is not a “CYA” memo, this is a justification memo for use AFTER the Trump-Russia collusion/conspiracy narrative collapsed; if the impeachment effort failed.

The “By The Book” aspect refers to President Obama and Susan Rice being told by CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, that President Trump was the subject of an active counterintelligence investigation to determine if he was under the influence of the Russian government.

Even the timing of the memo, written 15 minutes prior to the end of the Obama administration, is ex-post-facto useful as evidence of the author’s intent.
Read more here.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Why no investigation into Epstein's relationships, if any, with intelligence agencies?

Jacob Hornberger writes in The Future of Freedom Foundation,
...With convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein now dead, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into prison procedures that allowed him to commit suicide. Meanwhile, women who were sexually abused or raped by Epstein when they were minors are continuing civil actions against Epstein’s estate.

But why no congressional investigation into Epstein’s relationship, if any, to intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Mossad, or any others? Have we gotten to the point where everyone is so scared to be labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that Congress is precluded from conducting a legitimate investigation into the CIA or other intelligence agencies?
Read more here.

African migrants clash with Mexican police

In the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance has video of clashes between Mexican police and African migrants who were trying to get to America by going through Mexico. Read more here and watch the video.

Based on a true story...

Guest post by Sara Agard

I was five, sitting in the back seat of my mother's white minivan. She was taking me to school at 7:45 every day five days a week. It was a normal Tuesday morning, sunny and it was warming up. Spring was approaching. Pulling up to the school you could see the pale red paint peeling off of the rooftops. The fern green doors looked raggedy and it was almost time for them to be repainted again. The champagne-colored walls felt like sand whenever I would run my small palm over them as I entered the building.

Looking up at the big windows I stared at my reflection. My hair was standing up in puffs that were supported by four beaded hair ties. Two on each side. The pink and white orbs sparkling in the sun. I walked down the hall, my black leather flats clicking behind me. As I neared Ms.K’s classroom Leah Samson appeared from around the corner.

Her long dark brown hair with a hint of red falling over her shoulders. She had curled it today. She looked pretty. But there wasn’t a day when Leah didn’t look pretty. Her skin as pale as milk was covered in freckles and complimented her cherry rose cheeks. Leah was everybody's favorite. She skipped down the hallway her friends in tow. Even her uniform was standing out and made me quite embarrassed of my own. Everyone wanted to be Leah Samson. For she was perfect and who wouldn't want perfection.

I entered the classroom. Placing my bag on its assigned hook #13. Our desks sat in a square formation. I sat in the back four desks away, one on my right and three on my left. Directly in the middle, so I could see the board. The wood was chipping away slowly, day by day. Its oak polished surface didn't look so new anymore. The black paint covering the metal looked old and rusty. The chairs were hard and made my back stiff. Every 5 minutes I would find myself shifting in the seat. The girls on the right side of the square in the last 3 desks were talking about the games they should play at lunch.

Jessica Robertson looked up and asked if I would like to join. Of course, I said yes... it's Jessica Robertson. Luscious locks of black hair falling down to her hips. Her skin was pale but it complemented her hair and her green eyes. She was the sweetest girl at this school and definitely the smartest. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Jessica? As soon as I accepted her invite, her friends giggled and snickered. They turned to one another and started to whisper. I didn’t understand what was so funny so I joined in on their laughter.

Lunch eventually came and I was so excited. Jessica had invited me to sit with her and what a delight! Everyone knew her wherever she would go. “Jessica, Jessica,” most people said “Sit with us” “Come hang out with us after lunch.” She was a celebrity around here and also just so happened to be Leah’s least favorite person or so I thought. I ran to the playground as soon as I finished my sandwich. I got on the swings with Jessica and the others. The breeze hitting my face as I laughed and smiled. I had finally made friends and I was happy.

We got bored and we decided we wanted to jump rope. Everyone knew how to double dutch. It was easy. I went to grab the orange rope lying on the ground when it was ripped from my grasp. Next thing I knew I was falling and then on the ground and felt the wood chips pierce my knees. They stuck to my palms and I could see the cuts they had left. I looked up, the blazing sun blocking my vision. A person stood in front of me blocking the sun. Leah Samson, of course. She would help me up. I figured she was going to reach out her hand like she did with others. That was until I saw the orange rope in her hand.

I opened my mouth but before I could start her voice echoed through the playground “You can’t play with this!” she yelled at me. Her once pale skin was now pink and her eyes were blazing with fury. I furrowed my eyebrows and asked in return "What are you talking about? Of course I can! It's school property; it isn't yours.” “NO!” Leah screamed as other girls gathered around. “Only white kids can play with these and you aren’t white. You aren’t one of us so go find your own toys!” She ended with a screech. My eyes started to tear up as the others nodded their heads in agreement with her. “Now we can't use it anymore because YOU touched it,” Leah exclaimed as she threw it back at me.

I could feel my eyes start to water. My vision getting blurry. I could taste the salt in my mouth and my chin started to wobble. I pushed myself up off the ground and ran. I heard their laughs and as I turned back I could still see them pointing and glaring. I ran and ran as far as my little feet could take me until I reached a fence on the opposite side of the playground. Her words kept repeating in my head. Over and over smacking me upside the head again an again.

I looked down at my hands. Parts of wood chips were inside the cuts that Leah had put there sticking out at awkward angles. Turning them other I started to sob once again. Looking at my brown skin which now had dust covering most of my arms. I wanted to be like the other girls and I wasn’t. My skin was too dark, I didn't like it and Leah certainly didn’t like it. I peered down at my legs and frowned. Wishing my complexion was just a few shades lighter and then maybe just maybe they would play with me. Reaching my hairs up I touched My kinky black hair. It wasn’t straight. I looked stupid today wearing the black puffs my mama had put in earlier that morning. I didn’t understand why I didn't look like the other girls. Why I was so ugly and hideous to them. Nobody wanted to play with the weird black girl. I hated my appearance at that moment. I hated who I was and I most definitely hated Leah Samson. I wasn’t good enough. So I questioned if I would ever be.

She had embarrassed me and everyone had watched. The looks on their faces replayed in my head over and over as I tugged on my hair. I wanted it gone. I wiped my arms and hands on my navy blue skirt wishing that the brown would go away. And then maybe, just maybe, the other girls would want to play.

Note from Bob: Sara is our adopted daughter who has been with us since she was sixteen days old. She is now a sophomore at Santa Fe High School.

Putting your money where your mouth isn't

I want that ball!

Nissan has invented something that may ruin the game of golf! Wherever you are on the green, the ball finds the hole after you hit the ball! Check out this video.



Purging...Who's next?

In the American Spectator, Robert Stacy McCain writes,
...When politics is organized around demonizing and destroying enemies, as the Democrats are now organized, no one is safe from destruction. Enraged by Trump’s election, feminists in 2017 began targeting their male “allies” with accusations of sexual assault and harassment. Ask former Sen. Al Franken or ex-NBC Today show host Matt Lauer how they feel about their erstwhile feminist friends. No amount of “progressive” credentials could save the various men targeted by the #MeToo movement, and it took an extraordinary effort by Republicans to defend Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination from the #MeToo mob. Now, if NBC’s embrace of Marcie Bianco is any indication of where the progressive agenda is leading next, heterosexuals might be the next targets to be purged.

Three years ago, Dr. Bianco explained that heterosexuality is “a patriarchal institution … a social construct that allows men to control women’s sexuality.” Feminist theory holds that males (yes, all males) are collectively complicit in the oppression of women (yes, all women). In short, men are evil and therefore heterosexuality is wrong. However obvious this theory may seem to Dr. Bianco’s Harvard-educated mind, it is rather difficult to imagine how it could become the basis of a winning electoral strategy for Democrats, although it’s arguably no less preposterous than “Medicare for All” or “the Green New Deal.” Identity politics ultimately leads to everybody hating everybody else — Bellum omnium contra omnes, the Hobbesian “war of all against all” — and if you have not yet been targeted for destruction, it’s only because Democrats have such a need for scapegoats that their hate factory is struggling to keep up with the demand for new orders. And still they wonder how Trump became president.
Read more here.

Monday, August 26, 2019

“We are now preparing to hand the gift of knowing on to new forms of intelligent beings.”

James Lovelock writes in a new book called Novacene,
The understanders of the future will not be humans but what I choose to call ‘cyborgs’ that will have designed and built themselves.
Lovelock is now over 100 years old and looks pretty spritely to me.



Corey S. Powell writes about Lovelock's ideas about what our future will look like here.

Rising from the heartland



In the Daily Wire, Ryan Saavedra brings us news of a woman in Illinois who, if elected, will be the youngest woman ever elected to serve in Congress, and one of the strongest supporters of President Trump. Read about Catalina Lauf here.

Oklahoma is leading the way to hold corporations accountable for their role in opioid distribution.

Ace has the story here.

Speaking of masks...

At the wonderful Conservative Treehouse blog, Sundance does another fabulous job explaining U.S. vs. Communist China trade wars.
The potential tariffs (25 percent on $300+ billion in goods) sit on the table as a weapon President Trump would love to start using. However, in the dance with the dragon Lighthizer and Ross have to wait for the panda mask to fully drop. Currently Chairman Xi Jinping is trying to keep the financial/investment class from noticing the panda mask is slipping. However, that ruse can’t last too much longer. Thus the dance continues.

At the 30,000/ft level China appears to have accepted that President Trump isn’t going to concede an inch. Therefore their position in the trade stand-off is timed to exhaust around the 2020 presidential election. Despite what the U.S. media are claiming, Beijing is making very visible moves to withstand more than a year of status quo strain.

All of the heavily pushed media narratives today surrounding Liu He statements are simply Wall Street multinationals, through their media allies, trying to fend off the confrontation between the U.S. and China. There are trillions at stake.

This is a battle between the U.S. and China, but also between U.S. multinationals who are financially positioned/vested on the side of Beijing. The U.S. Wall Street multinationals are trying to protect their Chinese investments by pushing a narrative that China is open to honest and fair negotiations; they are not.
Read more here.

Ripping the mask off the New York Times

Oregon Muse writes today in the Ace of Spades blog,
"Today, I do not want to mourn the passing of the NY Times, but to jeer at the misshapen thing it has become. Or, perhaps, like so many things in the age of Trump, there is no 'becoming', it always was, and the mask has just been ripped off. They have gone public with who they really are, and they are taking American journalism down with them.
"I am not sorry to see it go. I'm watching with unabated glee while it is slowly being destroyed by its current editors. Presumably, the owners are fine with this, because the editors still have their jobs and are not being thrown out on their ears and replaced with serious journalists.

"Perhaps the death of the Times happened a long time ago. Perhaps it died the day that Times reporter Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for covering up The Holodomor in the 1930s Ukraine, and it wasn't returned when his perfidy became obvious to any serious observer. But with the leaked minutes of the meeting led by executive editor Dean Baquet instructing his staff to switch gears: they basically whiffed on the Russian collusion narrative (even though they didn't really do anything wrong, according to Baquet), so now they're going to concentrate on Trump's alleged racism.

"In other words, the Russian collusion narrative was an abject failure, so let's try another one. But I thought journalism was about reporting the news, not determining in advance what the news is going to be. That's just... dishonest.

"And they don't realize how they're destroying their brand. The NY Times used to be the "newspaper of record" even though it was mostly liberal. You could actually read around the bias and get news that wasn't fake. But no longer. Now, it has degenerated into a parody of itself. It's not even up to the quality of Slate, Salon, or even the Huffington Post. It's nothing more than a left-wing blog now, blue-state clickbait, indistinguishable from the Daily Kos. Only even more obnoxious and shrill. When the history of these crazy years will be written by competent historians, it is not going to treat the NY Times kindly. It will probably be compared to the yellow journalism of the 19th century - and not favorably."

Steamed!

My son had his second freshman-level college class in sociology today. The professor openly endorsed socialism and communism. He constantly referred to Trump as the "so-called president."

Internet service again after a five day wait!

Hurrah! I have the internet! Let the blogging begin anew!

Saturday, August 24, 2019

"rebranding morbid obesity as healthy and confident at any size"

Ace of Spades shows how Gillette has been attacking traditional masculinity while celebrating a very non-traditional form of femininity -- namely, rebranding morbid obesity as healthy and confident at any size -- was Gillette's "authentic" corporate voice.

"They're liars and ideologues, not reporters and editors.

Ann Coulter documents the bias of the New York Times here.

Jerome Corsi's writing

During this time of moving to Santa Fe and having to deal with the nightmare called Century Link, I have been reading Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi. It was written in 2008. If more of us would have read the book before the 2008 election, we might have been able to avoid the Obama Nation. I knew about the book in 2008 but did not read it because of Corsi's association with a far-right website called World Net Daily. In fact, I find Corsi's writing in this book to be fair. He just objected to Obama's lies. Corsi is one who presents his points thoroughly with factual objectivity. I highly recommend the book, even though I am less than halfway through it.

Thanks to my readers!

Once again allow me to give thanks to readers who have been dropping by to see what I am writing. I really appreciate your loyalty. We are starting to get settled in our new digs, and I can't wait to get back to putting in the time necessary for the achievement of a quality site.

Babes in Toyland

Guest post
by Suzann Darnall

There seems to be an ongoing issue with the Left and all things toys. Not so much "Babes in Toyland" as "Whiny brat baby butts in Toyland"! One of their pathetic cries for equality or whatever came recently in the form of a meme featuring Barbie and He-Man. Barbie all gorgeous and shapely with her perfect hair and tiny waist. He-Man almost nude and warrior-esque with his rippling muscles and giant sword. In reality, neither of them in the least presented as anything except creatures of fantasy for the amusement of children and the collections of adult aficionados.

On this meme it mentioned the following:This is Barbie.
Throughout the years she has been the center of much controversy, because feminists claim she represents an unrealistic, unhealthy, and unfair standard of beauty, leading to a "crisis" for young girls and their self-esteem.This is He-Man.(There was nothing else written. He apparently does not cause a "crisis" in young male offspring.)

Perhaps this is the problem for the Feminazis. Maybe they would prefer that males were as traumatized by He-Man as Feminazis seem to be by Barbie. Maybe if they look to their Beta Male cohorts they will find the traumatized males to suit their narrative. But, I am pretty sure most Alpha Males are not worrying about what He-Man or GI Joe look like. Personally, I always thought GI Joe made a better boyfriend for my Barbies than Ken. But, then again, I was an Air Force brat and loved all things military!

My oldest daughter loved her He-Man characters. My youngest daughter loved her Barbie dolls. My oldest daughter was more of a "tom boy", My youngest daughter was more of a "miss priss". They were healthy and happy kids. Both are now healthy and happy adults. Both are married to good men. Both have children. Their children are healthy and happy. You see, we always looked at toys as tools for imagination, not representations of reality. Hence no crisis for any of us in so far as wanting to be Barbie or He-Man or looking for a living Barbie or He-Man.

Meanwhile, I really am the Feminazi nightmare. I was a stay-home wife and mother who is now a stay-home wife and grandmother. I like to cook and sew. I collect dolls. My in-home business is one of the classics in womanly, homemaking skills: making quilts. If that is not enough, I write Conservative essays for online posting. I guess I haven't done any of it right! Or . . . maybe I have done all of it Right (as in Republican and Red).

But, for me, toys have always been objects of joy, not threatening or scary or critical. Except for dolls with teeth. Dolls with teeth are definitely scary. Creepy even. But, otherwise, toys, particularly dolls, are reminders of the days of my childhood which were filled with great escapes into the fantasyland of my imagination. I have a walkin-in closet in my home that my husband helped me convert into what is basically a walk-in doll case for my collection. Not only do I love to show it to family, friends, and visitors, I like to just go look at it and visit my memories. Mini-vacations to the past for my mind. It is a bit of joy in a sometimes harsh world.

I think one of the problems with the Left, and Femininazis in particular, is their seeming inability to celebrate anything joyous. They seem to be so bogged down with envy, hate, and anger. Constantly looking to find fault and assign blame. Are these people completely incapable of ever counting their blessings or choosing happiness? It seems so to me.

But, while they are looking for all the sorrows in the world, ofttimes just making sorrows up to meet their current mantra, I will be happily counting my blessings . . . and my dolls. I will celebrate the remembered joys of my childhood and the current joys of my adulthood. While I am no longer a "Babe in Toyland", my husband thinks I am definitely cute enough to be his "babe", whether in Toyland or the real world. That works for me!

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Another new challenge!

Thank you for coming by the blog. This has been moving week, in which my two sons and I are moving in together in an apartment in Santa Fe. I appreciate your visiting the blog and hopefully, the chaos of moving will be over soon!

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

He is not uber careful!

Planned Parenthood gave up $60 million, but they still get $500 million from Medicaid

Several news sources are saying President Trump has defunded Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has
just forfeited $60 million in federal funding for refusing to comply with a regulation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services that will prohibit family planning clinics that receive funding under Title X from providing privately funded abortions or referring patients to abortion services.

As The New York Times noted, however, they still receive about $500 million from Medicaid, the federal program that helps provide healthcare for low-income individuals.
Read more here.

"The new face of the Democrat Party"

"Another ludicrous “woke” policy used to suppress conservative content"

Natalie Winters writes in Raheem Kassam's blog,
Another ludicrous “woke” policy used to suppress conservative content: Facebook has removed President Trump’s pro-women re-election advertisements, according to reports from tech site Gizmodo, as well as the left-wing Popular Information blog that reported a “violation” of Facebook’s terms and conditions.

Facebook policy states advertisers may not have “direct or indirect assertions or implications” about race, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, religion, or financial standing. So the Women For Trump advert was banned… for referring to women.

...Facebook wants to privately know everything about you, and sell that data. But it doesn’t want you to know that advertisers can see all that when targeting you.

Remember when advertisers were open about the demographics they were targeting? Not in digital media. Wokeness plus data mining individuals is leading to secrecy surrounding algorithms, targeting, and more.
Read more here.

Animating an actual recent event

She's sorry

"Not your run-of-the-mill cronyism!" How China gets our national security assets

Quoting Peter Scheizer, Breitbart has a story today about how Joe Biden's son got rich by helping the Chinese military.
It’s truly shocking. It’s not just your run-of-the-mill cronyism and a guy getting rich because of who his dad is. These are very serious national security issues and the Bidens just, frankly looked the other way and were glad to take the money.”

...China politically sanitizes its foreign acquisitions by involving family members of American politicians in its deals, explained Schweizer.

...Schweizer continued, “Hunter Biden got this deal with the Chinese government to set up this investment fund. They didn’t give it to Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan or anyone else that had far more experience. it’s because they didn’t need experience. What they needed was political cover, and Hunter Biden was apparently prepared to give them that cover. … This is a bipartisan problem, and you’re going to have political figures and their family members who are going to be all too glad to essentially sell out the national security interests to the United States if they can make a killing with an investment.”

...Schweizer concluded, “A guy like Joe Biden who’s been in public life for more than 30 years in government office … has to disclose a $500 campaign contribution. He has to disclose a $200 campaign contribution. He has to disclose that he owns like a $1000 in GE stock, and we have these rules because we need to know what entanglements or what relationships or connections there are between a politician like Joe Biden and his donors, so he needs to disclose that. And isn’t this good that we have this transparency? But a billion-dollar-plus deal that his adult son does with a foreign government — the Chinese government, that is our chief rival — there’s no disclosure requirement for that. None. Zip. Nada. That shows you how crazy the situation has become.”
Read more here.

Monday, August 19, 2019

They know our history!

Hong Kong protesters sing the national anthem of the United States of America.

Operation Fear coming to Britain

Something called Operation Fear is going to be placing British Brexit friends under siege during the next 60 days, according to Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse here.

Will this be the end of Don Lemon's career?

CNN's Don Lemon is being sued for actions I will let Ace of Spades tell you about.

Earthquakes in Kansas and Oklahoma?

What is going on in Kansas and Oklahoma? Overall, there has been a total of 65 earthquakes between the two states over the past week. Additionally, Michael Snyder reports that
According to Earthquake Track, there have been 2,801 earthquakes of at least magnitude 1.5 in the state of California within the past 30 days.

...only 13 percent of all California homeowners actually have earthquake insurance.

So when they lose their homes, they are really going to lose their homes.
Read more here.

"navigating around the consequences of their own liberal fantasies that fall on distant others."

Excerpts from a recent American Greatness column by Victor Davis Hanson:
Note a recent inexplicable Zogby poll that indicated 51 percent of blacks and Hispanics might support Donald Trump. How would such a supposedly counterintuitive result even be possible?

I have a suggestion: minority communities live first-hand with the violence and dangers of the gang gun culture. More policing and incarceration of guilty felons improve their lives. Secure borders mean fewer drug dealers and cartel smugglers in local communities, fewer schools swamped with non-English speakers, and social services not overwhelmed with impoverished non-Americans.

These can all be real concerns for beleaguered minorities. Yet they are virtue-signaled away by progressive elites whose own power and money allow them to navigate around the consequences of their own liberal fantasies that fall on distant others.

Add in a booming economy, rising incomes, and low unemployment for minorities, and the world of shrill yelling on the debate stage about “white privilege” seems some sort of an irrelevant fixation of the elite and privileged, akin to showing off a Gucci bag or Porsche Cayenne—but otherwise nothing to do with dangerous streets, wrecked schools, whizzing bullets, and social services that are becoming inoperative.

The next time a legislator, mayor, or governor rails about plastic straws or the Paris Climate Accord, be assured that his state’s roads are clogged, his public schools failing—and he is clueless or indifferent about it.
Read more here.

"We cannot ignore Microsoft's work in China."

Paul Bradford writes in American Greatness,
It’s Not Just Google—Microsoft Is Also Up To No Good In China

Microsoft touted its close relationship with the Chinese government at a 2018 conference in Beijing. “We’re the first global cloud partner to provide a fantastic, compliant, and legal cloud with Azure and Office365 in China. With Windows 10 Government Edition we are designing the first ever Windows 10 for government and [state-owned enterprises],” said Microsoft Greater China Region Chairman Alan Crozier.

Being “compliant” means following China’s strict rules governing internet and tech policy. These rules require companies to prohibit speech critical of the Chinese Communist Party, provide state surveillance of users, and allow the government to interfere in company policies. This is the standard cost of doing business in China.

The tech giant is a leader in artificial intelligence products for China. Microsoft has partnered with several Chinese universities to create an open AI platform and several of its employees train government bureaucrats on how to use its advanced technology. These universities are well-connected to the Chinese military, which effectively makes Microsoft a collaborator. The tech giant has denied this assertion, claiming it only works with benign academic researchers. That claim is only believable if you ignore who uses the technology developed by these humble academics.

At least three AI projects have been developed with China’s National University of Defense Technology, an institution directly overseen by the nation’s military. American politicians accused Microsoft of providing tech to persecute ethnic minorities and political dissidents.

“It is deeply disturbing that an American company would be actively working with the Chinese military to further build up the government’s surveillance network against its own people—an act that makes them complicit in aiding the Communist Chinese government’s totalitarian censorship apparatus and egregious human rights abuses,” Marco Rubio said in April.

Other tech Microsoft is tailoring to the Chinese market includes drone software and voice recognition systems. In July, Microsoft announced it would be marketing its Kinect sensor to the Chinese market. The AI business tool allows developers to experiment with depth sensing and machine learning.

Peter Thiel has emerged as one of the strongest voices opposed to Big Tech’s cozy relationship with China. In a New York Times op-ed published earlier this month, Thiel cited Ash Carter, Barack Obama’s defense secretary, who said, “If you’re working in China, you don’t know whether you’re working on a project for the military or not.”

“No intensive investigation is required to confirm this,” Thiel wrote. “All one need do is glance at the Communist Party of China’s own constitution: Xi Jinping added the principle of ‘civil-military fusion,’ which mandates that all research done in China be shared with the People’s Liberation Army, in 2017.”

...We cannot ignore Microsoft’s work in China. The tech giant needs to explain its relationship with the Chinese government and how it affects America’s national security. Our corporations should not serve America’s enemies. It’s time for them to put their homeland first—not China.
Read more here.

Gun control necessary to dictatorship

Jeffrey Brown writes in the American Interest,
...The question then will be how far the Left is prepared to go to usher in the next fascist socialist utopia. They know how much easier this will all be if the guns are taken first.

Authoritarians have always understood that gun control is political control, which is why they don’t practice it against their own supporters. Gun control is for political enemies, and both precedes and hastens the eventual purge necessary to dictatorship. It really is that simple.
Read more here.

"Our speech is violence. Their violence is speech!"

From JJ Sefton's Morning Report. Read it here and choose what links you want to click on.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

"our press, which should by now have lost all credibility, continues to destroy itself with propagandizing foolishness to assist the failing Democrats"

In the American thinker, Clarice Feldman writes,
...It’s curious that our universities are chocked to the brim with brainwashed students and fourth-rate professors and administrators who hate the U.S. and its Constitution while in Hong Kong people their age are risking their lives for freedom, waving American flags, and wishing they had a Second Amendment right to defend themselves against brutal tyranny.

As curious as that is the fact that our press, which should by now have lost all credibility, continues to destroy itself with propagandizing foolishness to assist the failing Democrats. Take the gaslighters at the New York Times, where this week a leaked transcript of its editor and his staff shows that despite having earned two Pulitzer prizes for promoting the Russian Collusion hoax, the paper is throwing in the towel on that one and is now promoting a new fairy tale, that the President is a “racist.”
Read more here.

Trump's support for Taiwan

In the American Thinker, Tiberiu Dianu reports in detail how Trump's tough China diplomacy extends also to supporting Taiwan. Read it here.

To ask the question is to answer it!

Roger Kimball writes in American Greatness,
...But suppose an American president was interested in helping out the people who live in this part of China. What should he do? Threaten the president of China? (Threaten what, by the way? War?) Or should he make soothing noises, saying that he is sure that the Chinese leader will step up and do the right thing all the while, nota bene, continuing U.S. tariffs on billions of dollars of Chinese goods?

Some of my friends have said Donald Trump should be acting more as Ronald Reagan acted in his interactions with Mikhail Gorbachev. Maybe. But it is worth noting that Reagan’s relations with the leader of the Soviet Union were not all “tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev.” They also involved a lot of blandishments, including visits to Moscow and Washington. Was all that noise? Or part of the signal that brought the Cold War to a bloodless end? Just a day or two ago, Trump suggested that President Xi go to talk to the protestors in Hong Kong. This happened even as Xi had scores of Chinese troop-carrying trucks massing on the border. Some people thought that Trump was wrong to take so mild an approach. Maybe. But maybe his combination of strong actions in the form of tariffs and, more generally, a demand for fair trade, coupled with emollient, face-saving rhetoric will be effective.

At any rate, the situation in China reminds me of one of the political philosopher James Burnham’s famous political laws: Where there is no alternative there is no problem. What’s the alternative to Donald Trump on any of these issues? Joe Biden? Elizabeth Warren? Bernie Sanders? To ask the question is to answer it.
Read more here.

Clarity

An early, bloody shot in our culture war

Paul Beston writes in City Journal about Charlie Manson fifty years on.
...In the last 25 years, more books have come out on the Manson case, some taking new angles, such as Tom O’Neil’s just-published Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. Yet the fundamental physical realities of the case, of who did the killing and who got killed, remain unchallenged, as does the premise that the killers were operating under Manson’s influence, in some degree or another. The rest of it depends on how deep you want to go.

...Over the last half century, enough people have wanted to go deeper, resulting not only in more Manson books but also in seemingly endless documentaries and specials, as well as—disturbingly—a cultish sort of fan base. The Manson murders have long been regarded as a 1960s touchstone, and like other major events of that most-analyzed decade, it has been assigned a definitional significance: the murders, we’re told, symbolized the end of the countercultural dream of peace and love.

Fifty years on, though, they might be better seen as an early, bloody shot in a culture war between rationality and irrationality, unity and tribalism, and between incremental, liberal progress and visions of apocalypse. Demythologized at last in Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as weak-minded losers, Manson’s followers stand as the opposite number, in every sense, to the Apollo astronauts, who, just weeks earlier, had pulled off the feat that might stand as the last great testament of an older, greater America: the moon landing.

...Manson was a gifted conspiracist, regardless of whether he believed what he was peddling. And Manson was an unfulfilled artist (a singer/songwriter manqué), whose outrage at failure would eventually lead him to demand—as our mass shooters today demand—that the world pay heed to his importance. When insistence fell on deaf ears, only one solution remained. Then, as now, all was chop.

...But just as another milestone anniversary resurfaces this foul and dreary story, Quentin Tarantino, of all people, comes along to remind us that old virtues remain stout enough to stand down monsters. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a Tarantino opus that contains all his hallmarks, good and bad, along with what seems a new sense of humanity and justice. The movie is being criticized for many reasons, some familiar, some specific to our perpetually aggrieved, bean-counting political tempers. In their myopia, the bean-counters cannot see that Tarantino has allowed us to imagine a way out of at least one old American nightmare. After 50 years, someone finally told the Manson Family to get lost.
Read more here.

Ain't it the truth?

Never a dull moment!

The truth

Winning

Last night President Trump had dinner with Apple's Tim Cook. Meanwhile, in China Foxconn has a $9 billion factory sitting empty. Plans were to assemble Mac computers there. Read more here.

Robber thwarted by dog



The camera person must have had a premonition that the guy was up to no good. What a wonderful dog!

Need to relax a moment?

I don't know what they were singing about, but it sure was relaxing and enjoyable!
Hat-tip Garrison Hall in the open thread at the Conservative Treehouse.

He is against communism and he wants the American Congress to pass a human rights bill.

Fox Business interviews one of the leaders of the democracy protests in Hong Kong.

“Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save.”

In today's Brain Pickings post, Maria Popova links to a book by Robert Macfarlane entitled, Underland: A Deep Time Journey.
Macfarlane writes, ...The same three tasks recur across cultures and epochs: to shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful.

Shelter (memories, precious matter, messages, fragile lives).

Yield (information, wealth, metaphors, minerals, visions).

Dispose (waste, trauma, poison, secrets).

Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save.

...We are part mineral beings too — our teeth are reefs, our bones are stones — and there is a geology of the body as well as of the land. It is mineralization — the ability to convert calcium into bone — that allows us to walk upright, to be vertebrate, to fashion the skulls that shield our brains.
Read more here.

Another huge protest in Hong Kong today

The staff of Scroll.in has compiled reports from various sources about the issues motivating today's huge protests in rainy Hong Kong. Does every family there own an umbrella? It sure looks like it!

Trump is keeping his comments low key, while some of the U.S. congresspeople and senators have been firing away against the Chinese government who they have been supporting all these years!
Read more here.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

A helpful guide



via son of sobieski

Anyone remember how men dressed in the 1970s?

MOTUS AD, as always, has lots of relevant visuals to back up her points. Yesterday she took a look at the summer of love and noted,
Something took a wrong turn in the 70s and seemingly never looked back. After the Summer of Love innocent young love never quite seemed the same.


via PowerLine

The third Saturday of August marks the world’s largest celebration of car culture in Metro Detroit and today marks the 25th anniversary of that celebration, the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Read more here.

"after the election of November 2016, that DOJ/FBI, State Department and Senate effort then became an actual coup-plot against a sitting president."

In the Conservative Treehouse, Sundance writes, Political opposition research was paid for by Hillary Clinton and created by Fusion-GPS (Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr). That oppo-research was then sent to Chrisopher Steele in the U.K. so he could launder the information and return it to the DOJ and FBI, through Bruce Ohr, as a semi-official “intelligence” product.

Within the released documents provided to Judicial Watch the last FBI interview of Bruce Ohr (May 15th, 2017) took place two days prior to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller; and one day before Rod Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House.

Throughout the interviews (full pdf below) Bruce Ohr was acting as the go-between delivering information from his wife Nellie Ohr at Fusion GPS and one of Fusion’s contract investigators, Christopher Steele.


The 302 reports are heavily redacted (sources and methods); however, we already know the majority of names underneath the redactions.

Keep in mind, as you review SSCI Mark Warner attempting covert contact, for the expressed political purpose of conducting a ‘soft coup’….. the Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mark Warner, is also a member of a very specific group known as the oversight “Gang-of-Eight”; and has contact with the most sensitive and secret covert government operations.

When you realize that senate members of the Gang-of-Eight in 2016 (Feinstein and Reid) were participating in the targeting…. and that continued into 2017 (Warner, Schumer, Burr, Ryan) with the soft coup effort against a sitting President; you begin to realize the scale of this.

The effort extends outside the Intelligence Apparatus into the halls of the most powerful politicians in DC. That’s where SSCI Security Director James Wolfe comes in; and is directly the reason why corrupt DOJ officials dropped charges against Wolfe in 2018 to control damage and mitigate risk. The truth of Wolfe leaking classified documents at the behest of Senators Warner and Burr was just too devastating.

A branch of the United States government (legislative) was attempting a coup against the elected leader of another branch of government (executive); by using planted and designated corrupt agents within the cabinet.

In 2015 and 2016 the dossier is connected to political opposition research laundered into weaponized intelligence to target a political campaign. However, after the election of November 2016, that DOJ/FBI, State Department and Senate effort then became an actual coup-plot against a sitting president.
Read more here.

In strong defense of Tucker Carlson

Kudos to the Hill, which has added Victor Davis Hanson to its list of opinion contributors. Excerpts from his latest column there:
...No one knows exactly all the factors that trigger the unhinged to shoot the innocent. And in that void of knowledge, it makes no sense either to level charges that will lead to more violence or to damn as culpable those who have not called for violence.

...(Tucker) Carlson, over the past few months and especially the past few days, has voiced some inconvenient truths that earn outrage but not refutation:

• One, while white supremacy ideology always must be monitored and can trigger the unhinged — as the El Paso shooting may turn out to suggest — it is no longer a ubiquitous movement as it once was in the 20th century.

The days of the Klan and the American Nazi Party are mostly over. They are now fringe organizations. They and others like them are derided by the public, and uniformly condemned by conservatives. To suggest that white supremacy is some all-encompassing, 21st-century existential threat to our collective security, rather than fringe extremism to be carefully monitored, is simply untrue.

• Two, Carlson emphasized that in comparison to America’s real existential challenges — homelessness, drug epidemics, the threat of Chinese mercantilism, keeping a vibrant economy going — white supremacy simply does not register with the general public as a major threat. Certainly, in terms of annual fatal shootings, the staggering death tolls in Chicago and Baltimore suggest a national crisis that is ignored for largely political reasons.

Nonwhite immigrants still sense that reality when they risk their lives to immigrate to a white-majority America. The public knows that the media’s reporting of near-daily anti-Semitic bias is far more likely to emanate from the so-called squad in the House or an unhinged speech of Louis Farrakhan than from the old suspects of the past in bed sheets and swastika armbands. Yet, left-wing anti-Semites are still welcomed or at least tolerated by many in the progressive movement.

• Three, Carlson argued that the United States, while not perfect, is a good nation of good people who daily go about their business judging others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Its Constitution and popular ethos have always been self-critical, and saw moral and ethical improvement as inevitable as the nation’s stunning technological and material advances. Compared to the alternatives abroad, a multiracial and multiethnic America works and constantly seeks to improve. And Carlson often points out that widening class differences have superseded race as the more worrisome divides in American society.

• Four, and most controversially, Carlson repeatedly has cited political opportunism as the fuel that powers these untruths. He has been unapologetic that those who falsely charge that white supremacy defines America, past and present, have clear agendas. Without such venomous charges, they cannot win popular support: “They promise some Americans reparations, they denounce others for their skin color. They call it ‘privilege.’ The entire country, they’ll tell you, is fundamentally racist and therefore, evil.”

The charge of “white supremacy” has now become the natural heir to the failed narratives of the past three years that Trump should be removed under the 25th Amendment, or that Robert Mueller would find him indictable on charges of collusion and obstruction, or that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and, thus, impeachable. All reflect a lack of progressive confidence that they can vote Trump out of office in the next election, and instead seek to use extraordinary means to abort his presidency.

• Fifth, and finally, Carlson has emphasized that the outrage machine is asymmetrical and there is no disinterested standard by which to adjudicate extremist speech and conduct.

Americans are confused over which standards suddenly are applied to whom. Do the racialist past smears of former Vice President Joe Biden or former Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) illustrate widespread hate speech? What did then-candidate Barack Obama mean when he talked of a “typical white person,” or former attorney general Eric Holder infer when he referred to “my people”? When Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) compares Israelis residing on the West Bank to “termites,” or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) cites Jewish money and Israeli politicians as running U.S. foreign policy, are there commensurate condemnations?

Why is Carlson then targeted and especially singled out among conservative commentators?

His show enjoys spectacular ratings. Once signature anchorman Bill O’Reilly left Fox, few imagined that Carlson or anyone else could resurrect O’Reilly’s time-slot audience. Carlson did. And it bothers the left that his MSNBC and CNN competitors do not resonate with the public to the same degree. That he brings in guests with opposite opinions and debates them is not seen in progressive circles as anything to be emulated — especially when leftist guests are not shy in expressing often extreme views.

Second, Tucker is an idiosyncratic, not an orthodox, conservative. He has voiced concern over the role of the Koch brothers and support for the use of tariffs to force China to trade reciprocally and fairly. The Never Trump movement especially dislikes Carlson’s views.

Lots of other Republicans do not appreciate his criticism of optional military engagements or the ubiquitous role of the U.S. military abroad. Often, his on-air conservative guests are as critical and as criticized as liberal ones.

Nor is his support for much of Trump’s populist economic agenda consistent with doctrinaire free-market economics. And the net result is that Carlson’s leftist opponents rightly believe he is not always supported by conservatives and thus can be isolated as a heretic and outlander.

Passions certainly are cresting, but the hatred is still not really proportional.

Conservatives are not swarming the homes of liberal anchors or congressional leaders.

Republicans in the House are not tweeting out the names and employers of those who donate to Biden or Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Conservatives are not organizing boycotts of companies whose board members support Warren.

Hollywood is not releasing new movies that portray conservatives hunting down and killing liberal elites, and conservative celebrities are not voicing creative ways of shooting, stabbing or decapitating liberal political figures.

Republican leaders are not alleging that the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and the recent tragedy in Dayton are the direct results of the polarizing and often shrill rhetoric of Sanders and Warren.

And progressive hosts on the major networks and cable news channels are not targeted for boycotts and firings for their often blunt views, as is now once again the case with Tucker Carlson.
Read more here.

Trump breaks records of crowd attendance in New Hampshire



From the Conservative Treehouse:
According to the Manchester Fire Marshal there were over 11,500 people inside the arena (pictured above), and around 8,000 to 9,000 outside watching jumbo screens (pic below). The total exceeds 20,000. The previous record was 11,300 for an Elton John concert.

‘The Trump people wanted the fire marshal to let more people in, and at some point they say no,’ the official said. But there were tons and tons more outside. It’s not like they couldn’t fill the place.’ (via Daily Mail)

Latest unemployment rates

The Bureau of Labor Statistics informs us that
Unemployment rates were lower in July in 6 states, higher in 2 states, and stable in 42 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

[…] Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 5 states in July 2019 and was essentially unchanged in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

[…] Nonfarm payroll employment increased in five states in July 2019. The largest job gains occurred in Texas (+35,200), Florida (+22,900), and Washington (+13,400). The largest percentage gains occurred in Utah (+0.7 percent), Idaho (+0.5 percent), and Washington (+0.4 percent).
Read more here.

Dismantling globalization, creating new alliances based on reciprocity, repatriating wealth, and blocking exfiltration


Trump at NATO

Sundance in the Conservative Treehouse brings us news from Germany today, starting with this headline. Germany Promises Lengthy Duration of Low Interest Rates – Laments Lack of Private Investment…
For all intents and purposes Germany is the EU, because German economic policy dictates the outcomes of all EU economic policy. So as the EU promises to engage in more central bank monetary printing (quantitative easing) simultaneously Germany promises to keep negative interest rates floating as long as possible.

Yes, the EU is in serious structural economic trouble; and that is likely the real reason why quivering Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to exit the political stage before the larger communal catches on.

...the reality of President Trump’s trade policy demanding reciprocity is the wrench in the EU machine. The EU is a protectionist trade system with one-way tariffs and carefully crafted non-trade barriers designed to keep position as an exporter, and limit access to their market.

The historic cornerstone of this trade system to benefit the EU was the Marshall Plan; to apply tariffs on U.S. manufactured goods as a way to finance the EU rebuilding after World War II. Seventy-five years later that same unidirectional benefit still exists. This parasitic trade policy is what President Trump is changing.

Second, it is silly to watch the German finance minister lament the lack of investment into their economic system when these same politicians advance policies like: The Paris Climate Treaty, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership; in combination with high domestic tax policies against corporations and ultra-left-wing social benefits that necessitate the need for those high tax policies.

Gee, no-one wants to invest in Germany?… Go figure!

There is nothing the EU and China can do to stop the de-globalization process; and efforts to stimulate their economy, more quantitative easing (pumping money) while the global supply chains are being shifted, are futile.

The more a nations’ economy is dependent on exports, the more exposure they have to the inherent downsides of de-globalization. U.S. multinational companies that are invested in these nations will lose their investment over time; some rapidly. This will keep the stock market volatile, yet on Main Street USA the economy is thriving.

President Donald Trump has purposefully stalled the process of globalization, and is resetting global supply chains. This is bringing massive amounts of wealth back into the United States.

In essence President Trump is engaged in a process of: (a) repatriating wealth (trade policy); (b) blocking exfiltration (main street policy); (c) creating new and modern economic alliances based on reciprocity (bilateral deals); and (d) dismantling the post WWII Marshall plan of global trade and one-way tariffs (de-globalization).
Read more here.

Just Need a Little Feel Good Today

Guest post by Suzann Darnall

I don’t know what life has been like for all y’all, but it is a little intense here from time to time. Okay, seemingly almost all the time. Not only have we been on Pete’s cancer journey for more than a year, but there was the loss of our beloved Blue just last month. However, even amidst the trials, there are joys. I decided today’s WoolyMammoth should be about the happy and let the tribulation sit this one out!

At the top of my celebration list for today is that Pete is nearly finished with his final course of cancer treatment. He has only eight treatments days left! He will be through with radiation and chemo on 28 August. Just one year and 18 days since we started along this path with his first hospital stay in 2018. It is also nice for us today that he is on his “off” days for the weekend and does not resume treatment until Monday.

Next on my list of what is good in life is our new puppy! We have finally got it all finalized and We will get to pick Jake up on 29 August. There is a bonus to the puppy happy since we will also be picking up a puppy for our daughter, Charly, and her family. Their puppy’s name is Blaze. There is a lot of good feelings to be had with the addition of two Great Dane puppies to the extended family!

Charly, and her husband, Casey, are going to come spend part of the day with us to prep for the incoming puppies. We need to clean and prepare crates. One huge crate for travel and an even larger one for my puppy to use during his “nursery” age stage. I really am almost as excited as when I was prepping baby nurseries for kids or grandkids. I do love little ones. Be it baby, puppy, or kitty. And, the bonus is getting to visit with Charly and Casey over work and lunch.

Pete and I end each day with a little bedtime ritual. We read a happy scripture verse. We say a good night prayer. There is, of course, a good night kiss (sometimes outside under the full moon), Plus, we share our “happy for the day”.

A “happy for the day” is one thing in our day that was good. It allows us to sorta kinda count our blessings. Allows us to end the day on a positive note. To look through what might have been a tough day and find at least one good happening. Or, even better, it might have us searching through a list of happy times to select our favorite. But, whether one or many, sharing our happy with each other makes us realize that life is really better than we sometimes think. We have to acknowledge that we really are usually much
more blessed than we are stressed.

Sometimes it is so hard to select just one happy that we will “cheat” and have two or even three happys in our list. But, I think that is a totally allowable cheat. After all, the more the merrier if it is counting blessings, right?

I hope for all y’all a blessed weekend. May you look back on your days and count your blessings, even if it is to only think of the one that really stood out. Go ahead and share it with a loved one, in your journal, or even on social media. Also make sure to send a lil thank you to the Man Upstairs for another day of goodness. Life truly is good. Thank you, Jesus!

China shifts priorities

Sundance reports this morning in the Conservative Treehouse that
An interesting article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlights how China is shifting their procurement priority from minerals used in manufacturing (cobalt, copper) to the acquisition of food and agriculture products.

The impact is being felt throughout Africa, where mining companies are shutting down operations because Chinese demand no longer exists.

Articles like this highlight the ancillary impacts of a weakened Chinese economy.

Despite the proclamations by Beijing about their ability to withstand the withdrawal of the U.S. as a primary customer for manufactured goods, reality shows they cannot.

There is a confluence of events all leading to radical changes just below the surface. China has been burning cash to subsidize industries impacted by U.S. tariffs. Simultaneously Beijing has lowered the value of their currency in an effort to eliminate the tariff impact in the cost of their finished goods. However, as the ideological economic conflict between the U.S. and China continues, Beijing cannot hold their position indefinitely.

...Countries that attached their economy to purchase agreements with China over the last 20 years became dependent on those exports. As China slows or stops their purchases those dependent economies are now at risk.

...And now China’s biggest weakness starts to surface. A country that cannot feed its own population even during the best of times, is now facing a downturn in economic and employment activity while the need to import food remains.
Read more here.

Raymond Arroyo lightens up Laura Ingraham

Last night Laura Ingraham and Raymond Arroyo discussed emotional support animals, including miniature horses on airlines. Also, vaping is as addictive as cigarettes. Watch the video here.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Tlaib and Omar are ineligible to serve as congressional representatives

In the American Thinker, David Rosenthal writes,
Congressional representative Rashida Tlaib and congressional representative Ilhan Omar are ineligible to serve as congressional representatives, according to American law. But they enjoy the support of every member of Congress, from both sides of the aisle.

No one may hold any public office in America who does not honestly and without reservation swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is the law, which is being ignored by virtually everyone in authority in every branch of government.

Tlaib and Omar openly oppose the Constitution. The evidence of their opposition is made clear by their support and defense of sharia, which is Islamic law that in almost every aspect is diametrically opposed to constitutional law. It is simply not possible simultaneously to support and defend both the Constitution and sharia, since the two are so completely opposed one to the other.

Tlaib and Omar did swear to support and defend the Constitution, but they committed perjury on doing so, as their allegiance is to sharia. They also both support Islamic groups aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has declared war against America, and declared the United States to be an enemy state.
Read more here.

80 years ago this summer

In PJ Media, Victor Davis Hanson writes,
...In sophisticated times, we sometimes forget that time-honored concepts like the balance of power and military deterrence -- not good intentions and international peace organizations -- alone keep the peace.

...The final ironies? The Soviet double-cross of the Western democracies eventually ended up almost destroying Russia, which bore the brunt of an empowered Germany.

The redirection of Japanese war strategy to target America finally brought the United States into World War II, which ensured the destruction of Japan and Germany.

Add this all up, and in some sense World War II really started on Aug. 23, 1939, 80 years ago this summer.
Read more here.

"the overall strategy of the left to destroy national sovereignty for the sake of creating a globalist enterprise"

JJ Sefton leads off his Morning Report with a discussion of the Left's hatred for Jews. Read it here.

Bring them here so we can red flag them!

The Babylon Bee has some hard-to-beat satire to start our blogging day.
America Offers To Trade All Of Its Communists For Democratic Protesters In Hong Kong

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American state department has come up with an ingenious plan to solve China's democratic protest problems and make our nation great again in one fell swoop.

Through some great negotiating on the part of Donald Trump, we've struck a deal to trade all of our country's Communists for Hong Kong's democratic protesters.

After the deal was made, the military began rounding up the Communists---who didn't complain, as they're all for an authoritarian state---and putting them in cargo planes. They were then flown across the Pacific Ocean and dropped off in Hong Kong before the democratic protesters in China were loaded up into the now-empty planes and flown back to America.

"This is the best deal, maybe ever," said Trump. "We'll get rid of some wackos on the left, my buddy Xi will be happy with his new commie followers, and we'll gain some great new citizens who will be really appreciative to me and never complain about anything. Greatest deal in the history of deals."

The president started to rethink his decision when the democratic protesters began to criticize his anti-Second Amendment views, and he quickly tried to put them under a "Red Flag" provision.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Coup timeline

Bookworm writes an incredibly detailed analysis of events related to the attempt by some FBI and DOJ officials to stage a coup against President Trump. She concludes with this summary.
As for whether what I describe above constitutes a coup attempt, I’m reasonably confident that it does. The documents available to the public reveal that the FBI and the DOJ deliberately and consistently lied by omission to the FISA Court. This is worse than lying to an ordinary court in which the opposing party is present and can fight back against the government claims. The FISA Court is an utterly secret proceeding that is kept from tyranny only because of the requirement that the government must make available to the judge, not only information supporting the government’s petition, but also weaknesses in the government’s petition. When the government manifestly and purposefully violates those rules, it is committing a criminal act – and in this case, it committed the criminal act in an effort to destroy, first, an opposition presidential candidate, second, a president-elect, and third, an actual president. I think that there is more than sufficient probable cause to investigate all of that.

Bookworm concludes her diligent and brilliant piece by giving a timeline of important events that took place between March 2016 and October 24 2017.
Read it all here.