The News Junkie lists 27 Trump accomplishments in his first two weeks:
1. Trump erased all mentions on the White House web site of “climate change.” He did that within ONE HOUR of taking the oath of office.
2. Trump issued an Executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare”
3. Trump returned the bust of Winston Churchill to the oval office
4. Trump withdrew America from the TPP treaty
5. Trump erased all Spanish language from the White House web site. It is now “English Only.”
6. Trump issued an Executive order starting the construction of “THE WALL.”
7. Trump issued an Executive order banning funding to foreign pro-abortion groups
8. Trump's new Secretary of Defense, James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, took the fight to ISIS by bombing them 31 times on his first day as the new Secretary of Defense
9. Trump announced temporary ban on refugees from Syria and Middle Eastern war zones
10. Trump imposed a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding new contracts or grants
11. Trump announced a ban on visas from dangerous Muslim-majority countries with inadequate screening
12. Trump announced the end of “Sanctuary cities” and the defunding of federal funds for any city that chooses to continue breaking the law
13. Trump announced the hiring of 10,000 new border agents
14. Trump signed an Executive order demanding the Secretary of Homeland Security publish a weekly list of violent crimes committed by illegal aliens
15. Trump signed an Executive order freezing the hiring of non-essential federal employees
16. Trump said out loud the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”
17. Trump stopped payment on Obama’s final hour giveaway of $220 million to the Palestinian Authority
18. Trump used Executive orders to give the go-ahead to the long-stalled Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines
19. Trump got the State Department’s entire senior management team to resign in frustration.
20. Trump announced his intention to withdraw From Climate & Environmental Accords Along With UN Funding Cuts of 40%
21. Trump tweeted “Ungrateful TRAITOR Chelsea Manning, who should never have been released from prison, is now calling President Obama a weak leader. Terrible!”
22. Trump announced he’ll begin a major investigation into voter fraud in the 2016 election
23. Trump got the chief of the Border Patrol to leave the agency in frustration at having to actually do his job!
24. State Dept. Arms Control chief fired while on airplane; Trump, told to turn around and fly back!
25. Miami-Dade mayor orders jails to comply with Trump crackdown on ‘sanctuary’ counties
26. Trump White House abruptly halts Obamacare ads.
27. Trump appoints Neil Gorsuch to U.S. Supreme Court, a Justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Weaponized Empathy
Dystopic writes about how the Left uses Weaponized Empathy.
Nobody on the right is to be allowed empathy. The Progressives don’t want to share their toy.Read more here.
...To the person seeming the most victimized go the spoils.
...Vote for my candidate, or you’re a bad person. It’s guilt-tripping Weaponized Empathy deployed as a form of peer pressure. I’ll hate you, unless you do what I say.
...Weaponized Empathy can be used on non-human targets. It’s one of the chief weapons in the environmentalist movement’s arsenal. They post pictures that have nothing to do with the place where the drilling will occur. Pristine wilderness, frolicking deer, and bountiful forests… when the proposed site is an ice-filled tundra where pretty much nothing grows.
Here is the New York Times blaming future trans suicides on a nebulous group of supposed haters (implied to be Conservatives). So you don’t even need anything concrete in order to to use the weapon. At least the picture of the child in Syria was legitimately about a dead kid, even if it was used to cynically manipulate people into accepting a political position. Now we are talking about theoretical deaths, not actual deaths. Theoretically, says the Progressive, somebody might kill themselves because you don’t like what they are doing.
...And let us not forget the photo of Michael Brown most often circulated by the media, showing a proverbial teddy bear.
Meanwhile, explicit instruction was given out to not show the video of Michael Brown, a big, burly man, robbing a convenience store earlier on the same day. We’re only permitted to show the nice pictures of such folks, right?
Courage
Glenn Reynolds links to a piece by Thomas Lifson at American Thinker, reporting that Milo Yiannopoulus plans to return to UC Berkeley. Glenn then posts at Instapundit this poster of Little Rock.
The "Bullet"
Mike Mcrae reports in Science alert,
Astronomers spot a strange, supersonic space cloud screeching through our galaxyRead more here.
Powered by a rogue black hole.
While focussing on the remains of an exploded star roughly 10,000 light-years away, a team of Japanese astronomers have stumbled across a mysterious cloud of molecules tearing through the Milky Way. So quickly, in fact, they’ve nick-named it the unknown phenomenon the 'Bullet'.
The cause of this cloud’s ridiculous speed isn’t clear, but so far all signs suggest it's been sent hurtling through space thanks to a rogue black hole.
On account of their light-sucking talent, black holes aren’t known for being all that easy to spot. They sometimes reveal themselves by stealing material from a nearby star, heating it up and forcing it to emit X-rays.
A rejection of the elites
At The Guardian, John David Danielson gets it!
America is deeply divided, but it’s not divided between fascists and Democrats. It’s more accurate to say that America is divided between the elites and everybody else, and Trump’s election was a rejection of the elites.Read more here.
That’s not to say plenty of Democrats and progressives don’t vehemently oppose Trump. But the crowds of demonstrators share something in common with our political and media elites: they still don’t understand how Trump got elected, or why millions of Americans continue to support him. Even now, recent polls show that more Americans support Trump’s executive order on immigration than oppose it, but you wouldn’t know it based on the media coverage.
During his first two weeks in office, whenever Trump has done something that leaves political and media elites aghast, his supporters cheer. They like that he told Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto he might have to send troops across the border to stop “bad hombres down there”. They like that he threatened to pull out of an Obama-era deal to accept thousands of refugees Australia refuses to admit. They want him to dismantle Dodd-Frank financial regulations for Wall Street and rethink US trade deals. This is why they voted for him.
The failure to understand why these measures are popular with millions of Americans stems from a deep sense of disconnection in American society that didn’t begin with Trump or the 2016 election. For years, millions of voters have felt left behind by an economic recovery that largely excluded them, a culture that scoffed at their beliefs and a government that promised change but failed to deliver.
...Part of Obama’s appeal was that he promised to end the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, restore America’s standing in the international community and pursue multilateral agreements that would bring stability. Instead, Americans watched Isis step into the vacuum created by the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. They watched the Syrian civil war trigger a migrant crisis in Europe that many Americans now view as a cautionary tale. At home, Isis-inspired terrorist attacks took their toll, as they did in Europe. And all the while Obama’s White House insisted that everything was going well.
Amid all this, along came Trump. Here was a rough character, a boisterous celebrity billionaire with an axe to grind. He had palpable disdain for both political parties, which he said had failed the American people. He showed contempt for political correctness that was strangling public debate over contentious issues such as terrorism. He struck many of the same populist notes, both in his campaign and in his recent inaugural address, that Senator Bernie Sanders did among his young socialist acolytes, sometimes word for word.
In many ways, Trump’s agenda isn’t partisan in a recognizable way – especially on trade. Almost immediately after taking office, Trump made good on a promise that Sanders also made, pulling the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and proclaiming an end to multilateral trade deals. He also threatened US companies with a “border tax” if they move jobs overseas. These are not traditional Republican positions but they do appeal to American workers who have watched employers pull out of their communities and ship jobs overseas.
In his inaugural address, Trump said: “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, DC, and giving it back to you, the people.” To be sure, populism of this kind can be dangerous and unpredictable, But it doesn’t arise from nowhere. Only a corrupt political establishment could have provoked a political revolt of this scale. Instead of blaming Trump’s rise on racism or xenophobia, blame it on those who never saw this coming and still don’t understand why so many Americans would rather have Donald Trump in the White House than suffer the rule of their elites.
Side effects
Do you, like me, suffer from excess stomach acid? If so, you probably take one of those anti-acid or anti-reflux drugs, which are very effective in reducing the ill effects of those acids and reflux. Karen Weintraub reports in Scientific American,
Over-the-counter packages of Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec tell you to take the pills—known to doctors as proton-pump inhibitors, or PPIs—for just two weeks at a time unless otherwise directed by a physician. Yet drugs of this best-selling class prevent heartburn and ease related ailments so well that patients—particularly those who suffer from a condition called GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease)—are often advised to take the medications for years. By decreasing acid production in the stomach, the agents prevent the caustic liquid from backing up—or refluxing—into the esophagus, where it can cause pain and can damage the food tube's delicate lining.Read more here.
In recent years, though, safety questions have been raised about prolonged use of the blockbuster drugs. (The medications appear to be safe when taken for a short period, as directed.) Some studies, for example, have linked continuous treatment with proton-pump inhibitors to serious infections caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile. Presumably something about lowering the acid environment of the stomach allows the pathogens to survive when they otherwise might not. Other investigations suggest long-term changes in the stomach's acid content can lead to improper absorption of several vitamins—such as B12—and minerals, triggering bone loss, among other ill effects.
Perhaps the biggest surprise came last year when two studies linked the regular use of proton-pump inhibitors to conditions that were seemingly unrelated to the acid levels of the stomach. One of the studies, published in JAMA Neurology, found that the drugs increased the risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease; the other, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggested a greater risk of kidney problems.
...Without conclusive data, physicians and patients have to balance the need to prevent the ill effects of excess stomach acid and reflux with the desire to avoid potentially serious—if theoretical—side effects from long-term use of PPIs.
...Whenever one of Staller's patients at Mass General says he or she wants to stop taking a PPI, he likes to perform a simple test. He has the person stop taking the medication for a week and substitutes Tagamet or another H2 blocker. (Stopping a PPI cold turkey, without adding another drug, typically causes a rebound effect, pushing the stomach to produce even more acid than it otherwise would.) He also recommends cutting back on acidic and spicy food for the length of the test. Then he sees if the patient is still bothered by heartburn at the end of a week, especially during the day, when gravity should help prevent acid from rising up into the throat. The persistence of heartburn indicates the presence of a more severe problem, Staller says. And thus, the benefit of taking a daily PPI outweighs the risks in such cases.
The calculus, obviously, is different for everyone. For Vicki Scott Burns, a children's book author in Bolton, Mass., PPIs are “the lesser of two evils.” She says her quality of life is vastly better on the drugs. Others might reach an alternative conclusion. In the end, Staller and other health experts advise patients and their physicians to gather and evaluate as much information as possible before making a decision—and to be prepared to change course if new evidence comes to light.
Reasons to be optimistic
Andrew Klaven attended the National Prayer Breakfast and came away optimistic. Read his take at PJ Media.
Why Trump is not a fascist
This poster comes from Bookworm, as do these words:
It’s serious business when Google — with its unimaginable reach and control over people’s understanding of their world — does what every single Leftie since WWII has done: conflate “fascism” with “right-wing.” I’ve been banging this gong for years. Rather than do yet another lengthy post, I’ll confine myself to a few brief remarks and then provide links to just a few in the laundry-list of posts I have on the subject.Read more here.
A few words from fascism’s creator, Benito Mussolini:
The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.
All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.
Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.
Both fascism and communism are subsets of socialism. Fascism allows ostensibly private ownership, provided that this ownership, like everything else within the fascist state, is subject to state control. Communism simply does away entirely with the illusion of private ownership.
The fascist fight against communism in the 1930s (which led many British and American people who were scared of communism to embrace fascism) was not, as people then thought, a fight between communism and its opposite. It was an internecine battle between two closely related authoritarian ideologies.
There is no Hitler in America, because Hitler was a deranged psychopath and our politicians, no matter how awful they are, are not deranged psychopaths. However, it is noteworthy that one American political party desperately desires to bring everything within the ambit of the state, while the other is committed to shrinking the state’s reach as much as possible. I leave you to decide which party advocates which policy, and which policy is likely to secure true individual liberty.
Monica Crowley highly respected
Andrew C. Mcarthy comes to the defense of Monica Crowley at National Review.
My friend Monica Crowley was the subject of a major hit job by CNN a few weeks back. She is a serious scholar, but she was portrayed as a serial plagiarist who never had an original idea in her head. The emotional toll of the uproar caused her to withdraw from her appointment by President Trump to be the senior director of communications at the National Security Council.Read more here.
It is the country’s loss. Over the last two decades, Monica has been one of the most effective commentators on the national scene regarding the geopolitical challenges confronting the United States, and in particular the phenomenon of jihadist terror catalyzed by sharia-supremacist ideology — radical Islam. As much as anyone I’ve encountered, she has been invaluable: communicating the threats, debating them, and defending sensible national-security measures.
All writers make mistakes. But Monica’s have been blown wildly out of proportion, to the point of smear. The well-regarded copyright attorney Lynn Chu has done a careful study of the plagiarism allegations and posted her findings on Facebook.
How do you respond when someone calls you "thin-skinned?"
Ann Althouse is interested in the word "thin-skinned."
Back in June 2016, I had a post "About the anti-Trumpers insult of the moment: thin-skinned":Read more here.
Hillary said it: Trump is "thin-skinned and quick to anger [and] lashes out at the smallest criticism." And now Elizabeth Warren has said it: "Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and serves nobody but himself,"
So let's think about this word. My first thought is, it's just an old trick to get your interlocutor to stop talking, like saying he's being "defensive." Who has not encountered an antagonist who criticizes you and then, when you respond, says something like: "Oh, I guess I hit a nerve" or "Don't be so defensive" or "You're awfully thin-skinned" or "You need to grow a thicker skin"? It's a call for unilateral disarmament! They want to keep attacking you, while you demonstrate how good you are at not fighting back. To be called "thin-skinned" heightens the aggravation yet if you react, they'll glory in your proving of their point. Aha! So you are thin-skinned! They knew it!
You've had that experience, haven't you? What did you do? 1. Accept the insight into your personality problems and try to model forbearance and a willingness to absorb blows without lashing back, 2. Withdraw from this fight and resolve to extract yourself from future discussions that might cause you to feel that you need to fight, 3. Confront your antagonist on his self-interested, phony psychoanalysis and insist on your right to respond to his attacks with commensurate forcefulness, 4. Ignore the distraction of the meta-conversation — the conversation about the conversation — and just keep fighting hard on the substantive issues that you were already talking about, 5. Take up the challenge of turning it into an argument about psychological shortcomings and hurl some equivalent insults at your opponent.
Now that you've thought about how you respond to this conversational gambit, think about what you want in a President. Maybe a good President needs all 5 options (and more), but it's obvious that all #1 all the time — or all #2 — would be absurd. I like ##3 and 4. Trump seems to like #5 —"If she wants to go the low road, I'm fine with that... I can handle the low road if I have to do it" — or at least he knows how to make his opponents feel they're not going to win that game.
But maybe Hillary and Elizabeth Warren think that "thin-skinned" is the one mean insult that can work, because it's the one where, when you try to return fire, you seem to be confirming their assessment. They also like it because it seems to fit a strategy of scaring people. The idea is that a thin-skinned President might lose his temper and take us into a war. Do people believe that? We've been in a lot of wars, but did they ever arise from a President getting mad? There have been bad decisions to go to war, but I think these had more to do with grim, sober analysis or with political calculation. Still, there's always the idea of the button. Hillary followed her "thin-skinned" remark with: "Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?"
Exposed!
A blogger named Ethan Ralph has exposed the identity one of the rioters at UC Berkeley.
Yes, he was one of the masked "antifa" thugs violently stopping Milo Yiannopolous from giving a speech. Guess what? He has been on the payroll at the university! His name is Ian Dabney Miller.
Read more here.
Yes, he was one of the masked "antifa" thugs violently stopping Milo Yiannopolous from giving a speech. Guess what? He has been on the payroll at the university! His name is Ian Dabney Miller.
Read more here.
"Useful idiots in the MSM fall for the propaganda because it fits their agenda."
CDR M writes at Ace of Spades,
Every day the MSM just gets worse and worse. Take this for example. Al-Qaeda says Trump has ignited 'the flame of jihad' with Yemen raid. Seriously? Like they haven't been targeting us already for decades? The flame of jihad is always burning with these idiots.
Boycott the boycotters!
That loud noise you are hearing may just be Bookworm, who is screaming mad at the companies that are boycotting people who supported Donald Trump.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Democrats are doing what they managed to do successfully in the South with Jim Crow for almost 100 years — they’re creating a boycott against entire communities of people based on typical Democrat bigotry and prejudice. The only difference is that, this time, it’s the Republicans who are the new blacks. This is a fine irony considering that it was the Republicans who led both the first Civil Rights movement freeing the blacks from slavery and the second Civil Rights movement freeing the blacks from the old Jim Crow.Read more here.
Saturday, February 04, 2017
Compare the media treatment of Trump to their fawning worship of Obama
At Breitbart, Tom Tancredo asks us to
compare the worshipful treatment of Obama to what Trump has experienced since winning the election on November 8. The establishment press won’t even accept the legitimacy of Trump’s election, much less the strong points of his policy initiatives. They won’t let go of the popular vote versus the Electoral College. That is not ignorance of Civics 101; it is part of a political strategy to demonize and delegitimize the entire Trump program.Read more here.
The media has openly joined the campaign by the Democratic Party and the “Social Justice” left to deny that President Trump has any policy mandates whatsoever. The narrative is this: since his presidency is illegitimate to begin with, it is okay to use violence to obstruct him at every point.
Trump is justified and very smart to communicate with the American people directly and not expect the media to convey his messages fairly. Too many of them have become angry partisans in the left’s demonization strategy, and they need to be short-circuited.
Conservatives and constitutionalists have seen media bias for half a century, and America has survived it. Yet, never has that bias and that vituperation been so uniform and vicious as what we see waged against President Trump. When it is coordinated with the near-uniform cultural bias in the entertainment and educational institutions, a triad of treachery emerges to challenge the very foundations of civic order.
Yielding to Temptation
Valerie Jarrett is very proud of all the criminals Obama released from prison.
My San Antonio has this story:
My San Antonio has this story:
A San Antonio man who was freed from life in prison by President Barack Obama is back behind bars after allegedly crashing his vehicle into another motorist and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal Thursday.
Jailed from the time of his arrest in 1990, Gill earned a legal education inside prison libraries and successfully petitioned the then-president for a second chance after his court appeals were exhausted.
He was taken to federal court Friday, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad ordered him held without bond pending a bail hearing on Feb. 16. Gill is charged with possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.
He again faces a potential sentence with a mandatory minimum, five years, and could get up to 40.
On this date in history...
One of the reasons I like to read the Mostly Cajun All American and Opinionated blog is the daily feature he has called This Date In History.
1992 – A Coup d’état is led by Hugo Chávez Frías, against Venezuelan President Carlos Andrés Pérez, and Venezuela starts a downhill slide, unless you’re connected to Hugo Chavez. When Chavez becomes a ‘good communist’, as in a DEAD communist, his replacement is even goofier. Watch Venezuela. The Obama regime was taking notes. At last report, the annual inflation rate in this socialist paradise is 780% and people have eaten their pets.Go here to see what else happened on this date in history.
Brothers
Have you noticed that the Daily Caller seems to get a lot of scoops? Investigative reporter Luke Rosiak has this scoop:
Three brothers who managed office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers were abruptly relieved of their duties on suspicion that they accessed congressional computers without permission.Read more here.
Brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.
Three members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.
Mind control technology
Scott Adams writes,
We’re connected to social media like a great hive mind. And thanks to scientific advances in datametrics, the social media companies now have almost perfect mind control technology. We connect to the hive mind, the social media giants decide who sees what messages, and they program us individually. You get different persuasion than I do.Read more here.
Rush: "He’s gonna have to get up to speed"
At WND Joe Kovacs reports that Rush Limbaugh
unleashed on the commander in chief Tuesday for what he called a “serious” problem, keeping numerous officials from former President Obama’s era in his own administration.Read more here.
Monday night, Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defiantly refusing to defend his executive order closing U.S. borders to refugees and people from predominantly Muslim countries.
“She should not have been there in the first place, and it’s not the fault of the Senate for not confirming [Sen. Jeff] Sessions already [as attorney general]. And it’s not the fault of anybody but Donald Trump,” Limbaugh said on his national broadcast.
“Donald Trump is singularly responsible for this woman being there. She should have been let go on Day One with every Obama appointee.”
Limbaugh wondered aloud when those on the political right were going to learn how those on the left are in full attack mode all the time.
“They do not believe in the kind of civility that we believe in. The left is simply a bunch of mean-spirited extremist bullies who are not interested in cooperating, working together, being civil or any of that. Sally Yates and every other Obama appointee should have been gone within 30 minutes of Trump taking the oath of office. That is his fault for not doing so.”
Limbaugh said he wasn’t sure why Trump kept Yates on for 10 days into his administration, but he theorized that it’s because Trump is “not ideological.”
“He’s gonna have to get up to speed on it,” said Limbaugh. “It’s not enough to know that he faces opposition. I’m sure he knows that. I’m sure his eyes are being opened each and every day. I’m sure he’s seeing a side of these people that he used to think were his friends. But until he is able to get up to speed and understand that he is fighting liberalism, socialism, extremism bordering on near communism, he’s not gonna understand what he’s up against.”
The United States has dispatched a Navy destroyer
The Conservative Tribune reports,
The United States has dispatched a Navy destroyer to the Gulf of Aden off Yemen to protect shipping from an Iranian-backed militia that attacked a Saudi Arabian vessel this week, two U.S. officials told Reuters.Read more here.
The USS Cole, which has its own past with suicidal Islamic terrorists, arrived in the vicinity of the Bab al-Mandab Strait off southwestern Yemen, where it will patrol and escort vessels, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
New sanctions imposed on Iran
Conservative Tribune reports,
In response to Iran’s comments, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Iran on Feb.3, according to CNN. While exact specifications regarding the news sanctions were not immediately clear, the Trump administration disclosed that 25 individuals and companies were affected by them.Read more here.
"Antifa"
Have you heard of the term "Antifa?" It is also known as the "Black bloc." These are the violent thugs wearing black masks and committing acts of violence in places like Berkeley.
American presidents and Hitler
Regie Hamm writes at Regie's Blog,
the truth about Nazis isn’t funny at all. It’s bloody and horrible and gut churning. And it involves machine guns and butchery and inhumanity on a scale that takes your breath away. Nobody is really a “soup Nazi” …unless they served it in a concentration camp.Read more here.
The idea of comparing an American president to Hitler is just as absurd …from any angle, in any context. The American system ITSELF pretty much prevents “Hitlers” from showing up. And America ITSELF is anathema to what Hitler was trying to create. An American ANYTHING or ANYONE is hard to fit into the Hitler model. It’s just not apples to apples.
There are some fundamental things to understand about Hitler:
1. He took over a small, failing state that didn’t have separated government, enumerated powers or checks and balances. It’s difficult for a guy like that to show up here, in this system.
2. His entire political career was violent from the beginning. There was always death in his wake. He didn’t just suddenly “turn” violent. It was a pattern …as it always is with sociopaths. This is THE most important thing to watch; the violence. I always keep an eye on who is rioting …breaking things …throwing rocks and bombs. It doesn’t make them Nazis. But it signals how far they’re willing to go.
3. He entered office with his own personal military construct (the SS) with allegiance to him ONLY. They would carry out things the regular military would never carry out: i.e. the murder of private citizens and political opponents. Nothing like that exists or COULD exist in America. We simply wouldn’t allow it.
4. He didn’t start out just killing Jews. He started out euthanizing people with special needs …for the betterment of the care-givers’ lives. (You can decide which side of the aisle favors the extermination of “inconvenient” people).
5. He disarmed the population, then nationalized healthcare and education. (Two-out-of-three of those are Bernie Sanders moves …But, guess what? Bernie isn’t Hitler either …not by a long shot)
The list goes on and on. But the deal is this:
Hitler was a real life murdering sociopath. He wasn’t just a charismatic speaker who incrementally fell into bad behavior. He wasn’t just a racist corrupted by unfettered power. In other words, you or I probably couldn’t end up being Hitler. A garden variety KKK leader probably couldn’t end up being Hitler either …or a community organizer …or a New York real-estate tycoon. It’s not that easy or simple.
NONE of our American presidents have ever been Hitler. But the people of Germany certainly thought FDR was a murdering dictator when B-17s started dropping bombs on them. This is why you have to KNOW what you believe and why you believe it. Good guys and bad guys are often in the eyes of the beholder. And they often look similar in the fog of conflict. I would imagine Japanese Americans in internment camps wondered if their president was Hitler-like. Nope. Horrible act …but not close to Hitler.
To that point, ironically, the American president who could’ve actually been likened to Hitler (before Hitler) in some of his methods was …wait for it …Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln broke more constitutional law than any other president in U.S history. He imprisoned political opponents without due process. He suspended habeas corpus. He was personally responsible for the deaths of six hundred thousand people.
He invaded countries that had declared their own sovereignty and forced them back into a union they didn’t want to be a part of. He unilaterally annexed Nevada, without 60 thousand residents, (a pre-requisite for becoming a state) in order to carry it and win the 1864 election. In other words, he pretty much rigged it.
And when he was killed by the highest paid and most famous actor of his day (ironic …don’t you think?), the actor screamed “death to tyrants!” (in latin) because the man thought he was being a patriot for ridding the world of a dictator. But he wasn’t …and he didn’t.
Lincoln did all of those things to end and win the Civil War. And today we love him for it …as we should. Because in the end, his vision was right …even though his methods were suspect in the heat of the moment.
When people think they’re seeing a Hitler, they might actually – sometimes – be seeing something closer to a Churchill. Before WWII everyone thought Churchill was the big bad wolf. His own people hated him and thought he was a Hitler type character (again …pre-Hilter). But he just kept saying, “guys …I’m telling you. This Hitler guy is the real problem. Not me.” And he turned out to be right. There’s a difference between an abrasive leader who makes you uncomfortable …and a despot.
Now, people are comparing Donald Trump to Hitler. And the countdown has officially begun, to …well …I don’t know …but something really bad. I get that someone who is combative with the press and who wants to vet refugees and shut down open immigration fits the bill some are always looking for when it comes to finally getting their “Hitler” villain.
But if you study enough about it, you realize the guy vetting and banning refugees is probably not Hitler …the guy CREATING refugees probably is.
If we keep looking for Hitler in every United States president we disagree with, we’re not going to recognize the real one when he actually shows up …in a different country.
R
Where are the Trump tweets on this one?
Breitbart reports,
In a related story, Breitbart also brings us this news:
In an unusual move, a federal judge in Washington State granted a nationwide emergency order on Friday night blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting immigration travel, declaring the order unconstitutional. The Trump Justice Department can now appeal the order on an expedited basis.Read more here.
In a related story, Breitbart also brings us this news:
The U.S. State Department will allow people with valid visas into the United States, a department official said on Saturday, in order to comply with an opinion from a federal judge in Seattle barring President Donald Trump’s executive action.
“We have reversed the provisional revocation of visas,” the State Department official said in a statement. “Those individuals with visas that were not physically canceled may now travel if the visa is otherwise valid.”
Friday, February 03, 2017
Two Weeks!
Guest post by Suzann Darnall
President Donald John Trump has been in office for a mere two weeks, yet he has done more good for America than former President Barack Hussein Obama did in eight years. Partly because President Trump has spent part of his time undoing some of the damage left behind by the Obama presidency. And, all indications are that President Trump is just getting started on his promises to make America great again!
I think an important aspect of the Trump presidency is that he went into this job with the idea of working. Pretty much every day. He obviously does not sit around thinking about and planning his next golfing vacation or beach getaway. He is not shown leaning back in the Oval office with his feet on the desk. He is at work. Among other things he is doing the work it takes to get Americans back to work.
His two weeks of work has seemed in some ways like a two week dream vacation for some of us . . . at least emotionally. The ever increasing burden of worrying about what next big disaster will come out of Washington, DC has been pretty much lifted for the time being. While all is not perfect, the apparent cessation of the assault on America by our own government is cause for a bit of relaxation and celebration. I almost feel like we are being allowed to play while our president works, instead of the other way around. Which is how is was for the past eight years under the Vacationer-in-Chief.
It would seem that putting a businessman in the Oval Office is good for business ‘cause he gets right down to business. The business of being a leader, a commander, and a decision-maker. He is not about to just sit around to wait and see what happens. He is planning, preparing, and making things happen.
To me, it seems that the same traits which made Donald Trump a success in his personal and business lives will make him a success in his political life. He is a wheeler-dealer, for sure, but seems to eschew the idea of shady, underhanded, backroom deals so popular in DC and so detrimental to the American dream. He appears to go at problems head on and in the full light of day. He says it. He does it. Quite a change from the not-so-transparent administration we suffered under the past eight years!
He apparently isn’t into “drawing lines in the sand”, either. He doesn’t quibble or cower with indecision. He tells how it is. He fires those who do not do their jobs. Don’t wanna do it his way, fine. He will fire your sorry butt, kick over your pathetic lil sandbox, and build a new Trump Tower of action amidst the rubble of your petty political playground preoccupation. He did not come to Washington to play politics. He did not come to play at all. He came to work.
If you have any doubts about that, look again at what he has accomplished in just a mere two weeks!
President Donald John Trump has been in office for a mere two weeks, yet he has done more good for America than former President Barack Hussein Obama did in eight years. Partly because President Trump has spent part of his time undoing some of the damage left behind by the Obama presidency. And, all indications are that President Trump is just getting started on his promises to make America great again!
I think an important aspect of the Trump presidency is that he went into this job with the idea of working. Pretty much every day. He obviously does not sit around thinking about and planning his next golfing vacation or beach getaway. He is not shown leaning back in the Oval office with his feet on the desk. He is at work. Among other things he is doing the work it takes to get Americans back to work.
His two weeks of work has seemed in some ways like a two week dream vacation for some of us . . . at least emotionally. The ever increasing burden of worrying about what next big disaster will come out of Washington, DC has been pretty much lifted for the time being. While all is not perfect, the apparent cessation of the assault on America by our own government is cause for a bit of relaxation and celebration. I almost feel like we are being allowed to play while our president works, instead of the other way around. Which is how is was for the past eight years under the Vacationer-in-Chief.
It would seem that putting a businessman in the Oval Office is good for business ‘cause he gets right down to business. The business of being a leader, a commander, and a decision-maker. He is not about to just sit around to wait and see what happens. He is planning, preparing, and making things happen.
To me, it seems that the same traits which made Donald Trump a success in his personal and business lives will make him a success in his political life. He is a wheeler-dealer, for sure, but seems to eschew the idea of shady, underhanded, backroom deals so popular in DC and so detrimental to the American dream. He appears to go at problems head on and in the full light of day. He says it. He does it. Quite a change from the not-so-transparent administration we suffered under the past eight years!
He apparently isn’t into “drawing lines in the sand”, either. He doesn’t quibble or cower with indecision. He tells how it is. He fires those who do not do their jobs. Don’t wanna do it his way, fine. He will fire your sorry butt, kick over your pathetic lil sandbox, and build a new Trump Tower of action amidst the rubble of your petty political playground preoccupation. He did not come to Washington to play politics. He did not come to play at all. He came to work.
If you have any doubts about that, look again at what he has accomplished in just a mere two weeks!
The Feelings Supremacy Movement
Jonah Goldberg dislikes calling Berkeley the home of the free speech movement.
The easily triggered idiot-babies of today’s campus Left who squeal, “I don’t want to debate. I want to talk about my pain” or who insist that offensive speech is no different from a punch in the face are the direct descendants of the Free Speech Movement™ because it was Berkeley where the Feelings Supremacy Movement began and where it is clearly thriving today.Read more here.
"President Trump is one person, yet he has them surrounded."
Sundance writes at the Conservative Treehouse,
Trump-time moves so fast, they don’t have time to roll out the traditional coordinated talking points. President Trump is one person, yet he has them surrounded.
...It’s the scariest thing the entire DC apparatus has ever experienced. They’re aging on TV in front of your eyes. TV Time is now measured in dog years. Each media day the pundits grow seven months worth of furrowed brow and wrinkles.
Ann Coulter was interviewed on Breitbart Daily News by Alex Marlow. What does she think of Trump after two weeks? Coulter
described her disposition after the opening weeks of the Trump presidency as “exhausted from winning so much.”Read more here.
“I’m absolutely, positively thrilled. It looks like he is going to keep all the promises. I’m so happy we elected a workaholic, a germophobic, and a cheap Scot,” she proclaimed.
Tucker Carlson interviews Milo Yiannopolous
He's to the right of Jane Fonda.
"One of the things that authoritarians hate is the sound of laughter, because they can't control what you find funny!"
"What is hate speech? It seems to be anything the Left doesn't like."
"One of the things that authoritarians hate is the sound of laughter, because they can't control what you find funny!"
"What is hate speech? It seems to be anything the Left doesn't like."
Newsweek gets schooled by Ace of Spades
Ace of Spades writes,
Newsweek Enthuses Over Political Violence, Saying "Protesters" "Schooled" Milo Yiannopolous
—Ace
@Newsweek
Milo Yiannopoulos gets schooled at Berkeley: Ferocious protests greeted the right-wing provocateur last night http://bit.ly/2k3Gtjz
7:13 AM - 2 Feb 2017
I and many others piled on Newsweek for this glorification of political violence -- but Newsweek didn't change or delete the tweet. So I guess after a night's reflection, they're happy to say that rioters, arsonists, and thugs "schooled" someone.
Gee, I wonder if Newsweek will have the same level of enthusiasm for political violence should someone come round to "school" them at their offices.
Do they think punches and bricks only fly in one direction? Are they that cocooned in baby-swaddling in their Safe Space to think violence is just a one-way Happy Fun Street?
Oh, and Gavin McInnes had his own speech violently disrupted, and he himself was pepper-sprayed in the face by a "protester."
No more milquetoast!
Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with leaders of South Korea, and addressed these comments to the Dictator of North Korea:
North Korea continues to launch missiles, develop its nuclear weapons program, and engage in threatening rhetoric and behavior.Read more here.
'We stand with our peace-loving Republic of Korea ally to maintain stability on the peninsula and in the region,' he added.
'America's commitments to defending our allies and to upholding our extended deterrence guarantees remain ironclad: Any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming.'
Federal workers resort to encryption to thwart Trump
John Sexton reports at Hot Air,
The weepy bureaucrats at the EPA have rallied and are now setting up their own resistance communication network within the agency. Politico reports:Fire them!
At the EPA, a small group of career employees — numbering less than a dozen so far — are using an encrypted messaging app to discuss what to do if Trump’s political appointees undermine their agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment, flout the law, or delete valuable scientific data that the agency has been collecting for years, sources told POLITICO.
Fearing for their jobs, the employees began communicating incognito using the app Signal shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Signal, like WhatsApp and other mobile phone software, encrypts all communications, making it more difficult for hackers to gain access to them.
One EPA employee even got a new, more secure cellphone, and another joked about getting a “burner phone.”
This underground resistance effort is also said to be communicating with “former Obama administration political appointees” on their plans. So you can probably expect lots of leaked exclusives about the EPA at the New York Times and the Washington Post, none of which will mention that the former President’s people are passing them the information. In fact, these people are so proud of themselves that they are already leaking their existence to the media before they’ve even done anything.
Imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton had won the election and a group of partisans at Customs and Border Patrol decided to start an encrypted network to stay in contact with former Trump campaign staffers. I have little doubt this would be considered extreme and dangerous. The word “sedition” would likely appear in print somewhere. If there was any question about cutting the EPA’s budget before, there won’t be now.
And this is just one example of bureaucrats lining up to undermine the new administration. The State Department has been passing around a dissent letter and at the Department of Labor employees have created a petition to block the nomination of Andrew Puzder because they don’t like his risque burger ads.
Trump will study this "dumb deal."
Our Twitter President also weighed in on a "dumb" deal Obama made with Australia:
Bravo, Mr. President!
“Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!”
Bravo, Mr. President!
"Black bloc" rioters
Ann Althouse reads the Washington Post, so we don't have to. From the Post's coverage of rioters in Berkeley:
The demonstrators included “Black bloc” protesters, who wear masks and black clothing to present a unified front as they disrupt events, making it difficult for police to recognize individuals in the group. They are often seen at protests organized by groups such as Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street, destroying property and setting fires. They torched a limousine in Washington last month on the day of Trump’s inauguration, and a group spray-painted buildings and smashed electrical boxes during a demonstration in Portland, Ore., earlier in January. When a group of them arrived at Berkeley, it swiftly changed the tenor of the peaceful demonstration....Read more here.
NO FEDERAL FUNDS?
Trump tweets about the lack of free speech at Berkeley:
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?
Trump on Paris terror attack: "Get Smart, US!"
The Daily Mail informs us,
A terror probe has been launched in Paris after a machete-wielding man was shot while attacking four soldiers outside the Louvre.Read more here.
The suspect was shot five times in the stomach and is in a critical condition.
He was shouting 'Allahu Akbar' - Arabic for 'God is the greatest' - according to the Paris chief of police, and reportedly had paint bombs in his backpack.
A source close to the investigation claims the suspect is an Egyptian man who arrived in France at the end of last month.
An unconfirmed report by TV network LCI names the suspect as 29-year-old Abdallah EH, who arrived in France on a flight from Dubai on January 26. He was not known to security services, the network states.
A source told Reuters: 'According to the investigation's initial indications, it was an Egyptian national.'
After being refused entry to the Louvre, he pulled out the weapon and was shot by a soldier, officials have confirmed. A paratrooper is believed to have suffered a minor head injury.
US President Donald Trump tweeted following the attack in the French capital: 'A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.'
No such club ever existed
In today's Chapter One of Fake News, The New York Post and the Daily Mail both have egg on their faces. The Daily Mail reported, "DailyMail.com reveals how Gorsuch set up a club called 'Fascism Forever' at his prep school outside D.C. in protest at staff's left-wing tendencies. The New York Post then piggybacked on the story. Ed Whelan reports at National Review, that the high school states that no such club ever existed.
Earth to newspaper reporters: High-school yearbook editors sometimes have a sophomoric sense of humor. I am reliably informed that no such club ever existed and that there was instead an inside joke among friends in the senior class that parodied political debates happening at the school. A contemporary of Gorsuch’s at the school also tells me that yearbook editors added stuff to student blurbs without their permission. All of this also leads me to doubt the yearbook’s claim that Gorsuch was a “Believer in The World According to Ward.” Update: Gorsuch’s high school confirms what should have been obvious to everyone: that no such club ever existed and that the yearbook blurb was tongue-in-cheek.Read more here.
Thursday, February 02, 2017
The Seinfeld Show saw it coming.
Bookworm remembers this episode where Kramer doesn't want to wear an AIDS ribbon, even though he is willing to march with people who choose to wear the ribbon. Not good enough. Must wear the ribbon. So say the totalitarian, politically correct marchers.
Will there be consequences in the next election?
Paul Bedard reports at the Washington Examiner,
Democrats are falling into disarray over President Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch, with Senate leaders refusing to meet the acclaimed judge despite a growing parade of support from other party leaders.Read more here.
While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has 'dissed the federal appeals judge, 20 prominent Democrats, including former President Obama's top lawyer, have endorsed Gorsuch.
The list, provided to Secrets and shown below, included the son of former top Carter aide Hamilton Jordan who said, "Having worked closely with Judge Gorsuch as one of his law clerks, I can attest that he is a compassionate and courageous public servant who cares deeply about the rule of law and the critical role of an independent judiciary. He approaches each case as I believe a judge should: with an open mind and a real ambition to get it right. The Senate would do well to confirm him."
Administration officials confirmed that Schumer and his leadership team won't even grant Gorsuch a courtesy call.
Self-proclaimed leader of Portland's Resistance a sodomist and sex abuser
T.V. station KGW reports,
A leader in Portland anti-Trump protests has been accused of four counts of second-degree sex abuse.
Micah Rhodes, 23, was expected in court Monday. According to booking papers, the sexual abuse accusations are for statutory, non-forced rape.
He is a self-proclaimed leader of Portland's Resistance, a group which led disorderly anti-Trump protests.
According to an affidavit, the case involves sex with a teenage boy.
The boy said he met Rhodes in 2015 via the Grindr dating app. He told Rhodes he was 17 and Rhodes told him that he had a record of sexual crimes and needed to exercise caution. The boy said despite that, they had consensual sex in Gresham and Troutdale.
Rhodes was interviewed by police on Jan. 25 and on Jan. 28. Both times he waived his Miranda rights, according to the affidavit. He acknowledged meeting the boy via Grindr and said the boy told him he was 17.
Rhodes did not admit specifically to sex in Gresham but said he may have had sex. Rhodes did admit to sex taking place in Troutdale, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit does not specify what led police to the victim and Rhodes now. It does say that in 2015, the Oregon Youth Authority informed Portland police that Rhodes reportedly confessed that year to having sex with the victim. At the time, Rhodes was on parole for first-degree sex abuse and first-degree sodomy crimes.
Trump the negotiator
Scott Adams writes,
If you see one phone call as an event that stands alone, you’re missing the story arc. Everything is an ongoing negotiation with Trump. Australia and Mexico just had to sleep on the idea that their relationship with the United States is worse today than yesterday. And it sends a signal to other leaders that lecturing President Trump with an eye toward grandstanding or embarrassing him isn’t the strongest strategy. He probably needed to make that point one way or another. That’s done. Now let’s see if the next foreign leader decides to lecture him or not. I’m thinking no.Read more here.
How secure are Pakistan's Tactical Nuclear Weapons?
Sajid Farid Shapoo writes at The Diplomat,
Responding to U.S. concerns about Pakistan’s frenzied race to develop battlefield nuclear weapons, Lt. Gen. (retd.) Khalid Kidwai, the former head of Pakistan’s Strategic Planning Division, said that TNWs were there to stay and Pakistan was not apologetic about that fact.Read more here.
Pakistan takes immense pride in its nuclear capability, which is indeed formidable. But it is time Pakistan conveyed its nuclear maturity by talking more about its nuclear security provisions. Such debates would create awareness amongst the Pakistani masses about their individual responsibility toward their country’s nuclear arsenal. It would also deter attempts by non-state actors to involve the local population in any sabotage attempts against nuclear facilities.
The innately unstable civilian-military dynamic, the risk of an internal rogue threat, the highly charged domestic jihadi environment, and rapidly multiplying TNW arsenal combine to put Pakistan near the top of the list of global nuclear threats. Unless these adversarial threats are eliminated, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will continue to be a source of high threat perceptions. Pakistan needs to appreciate that a robust and impregnable security system is essential not only for its own nuclear stability, but also for global peace and security.
Time for some tough love
Nonie Darwish, born and raised in Egypt, is the author of "Wholly Different; Why I chose Biblical Values over Islamic Values". She writes at Gatestone Institute,
Early this morning an Arabic radio station in the Middle East called asking my opinion about President Trump's ban on refugees and citizens of seven Muslim nations. The radio host, who sounded angry over the ban, was a Christian Arab. She was surprised to hear that I supported the ban and think that it should have taken place the day after 9/11.Read more here.
She then asked me if I knew any Arab American activist who was against the ban because she wanted to interview someone against the ban. She seemed shocked to hear that I do not have any Arab or Muslim friends who are protesting the ban, and that many immigrants of Islamic and Middle East origin support the ban and are fed up and embarrassed by what jihadists are doing.
She said that all she sees on CNN and other channels are riots that portray almost all Americans supporting Muslims and against Trump. I am upset over the success of the leftist propaganda all over the Middle East. It brings back memories of the life of the hate indoctrination and misinformation I lived under for most of my life.
What would Muslim countries do to the West, I asked, if 19 American terrorists flew airplanes into Arab capitals and their government and military headquarters? What did she think Arabs would do if every week or so American terrorists would conduct synchronized killing sprees all over the Muslim world, gunning Muslims down, blowing them up with homemade pressure cookers, ramming into crowds with trucks? There was silence.
She then started calming down and said that of course she is against terrorism, "but". I asked: "Do you see what jihad did to your Christian community in the Middle East?" She was silent for a minute, then it occurred to me that she might be afraid to continue the conversation because her bosses were probably Muslims.
I was sure she was going to hang up on me, but to my surprise she asked me to please hold. Then she was back, live from the studio, and started interviewing me and asked the same questions on air. I poured my heart out in Arabic to the Arab listeners.
The lesson here is that Arabs are hungry to hear the truth; this Arab station, instead of rejecting these ideas, ended up putting them on air. The lesson America needs to learn is that the West is not doing Muslims (especially the reformists) a favor by constantly treating them as children who should be shielded from reality.
Muslims need to know that the world does indeed have a justifiable and legitimate concern about Islam and actions done in the name of Islam by Muslims. Muslims need to look at themselves in the mirror and see the world from the point of view of their victims. Instead, the West is sacrificing its culture, values, laws, pride and even self-respect. Muslim culture needs a wake-up call telling them that, sooner or later, non-Muslim nations will close their doors to any kind of Muslim immigration if the jihad culture continues. That will also be a strong message to Muslims already in the West who still believe in jihad
Let's hope and pray
hat tip Theo Spark
I think one reason I like this so much is that I have been sawing a lot of firewood lately!
The "resistance"
Here is Ace of Spades on the "resistance:"
The Democrats are doing what their partisan base demands. I get that.
But I seem to remember the media and other allegedly-neutral institutions castigating Republicans for "obstructing" Obama -- as their own base desired. (And Republicans only partially blocked Obama, and they voted dutifully for all his cabinet picks.)
We cannot have a country in which one party is praised for obstruction and the other demonized.
If there are two classes of citizenship in a society, then we have no society. We just have the law of the jungle in which violence can be expected to solve many disputes.
"the left is determined to sacralize every flighty thought that gets into their heads"
Ace of Spades takes up the subject of progressive politics as a religion.
...traditional religions are nicely circumscribed as far as their scope and ambition. I know what topics a traditional religious outlook will take an interest in -- those related to sex, marriage, childbirth, and the sanctity of life.
Most religions -- except for Islamism, which isn't really a religion but a totalitarian political movement with a quasi-religious justification -- focus chiefly on the metaphysical and the transcendent. They focus on the Kingdom to Come, not the temporal kingdoms of earth.
Therefore, fewer issues are sacralized. Someone who is focusing on your eternal soul is not, therefore, focusing on your healthcare decisionmaking.
The left politicizes everything, and given the left's increasing cultishness, that means they religicize everything. Everything -- not just a few rules about sodomy and marriage and abortion -- becomes a Sacred Principle which must be fought for with the passionate fury of the zealot, from whether private religiously-based organizations must pay for a woman's $9 per month birth control pills to whether the Pagan Deceiver Milo Yiannopolous can be allowed to step foot upon the sanctified ground of Berkeley Auditorium 3C.
The article linked above pairs nicely -- or pairs ominously -- with this excellent rumination on the death of liberalism (the good sort of classical liberalism) due to the left's insistence on there being only two categories of temporal actions: Those which are forbidden, and those which are mandatory.
The nutshell of his thesis is this: Liberalism was discovered -- not invented, but discovered -- in reaction to the very bloody religious wars that swept through Europe in the 1600s and 1700s. The previous rule that Politics Was Everything and whoever had the throne could inflict his will on everyone, down to mandating what god a citizen should bow to, resulted in endless war, death, misery, and mutual hatred and suspicion.
Classical liberalism was discovered (he's keen on insisting on this word) as a way of avoiding the religious wars that killed 8 million people. The state would be more rules-light, and leave more freedom to citizens, thus reducing the incentive to, or need for, resort to violent bloodshed when Your Guy wasn't on the throne.
He calls this rules-set "a minimum viable politics" -- the minimum possible state interference with the habits and preferences of citizens, yet still preserving of social stability and order. And this minimum viable politics necessarily was a pluralistic politics, permitting all sorts of sharply-disagreeing religions and philosophies. The main thing a "minimum viable politics" focuses on outlawing is illiberalism which itself threatens the minimum viable politics -- thus, a minimum viable politics focuses on protecting people's right to religious conscience, right to free speech and free thought, right to have a say in how they are governed (and later, by whom they are governed).
It does not mandate the tiny particulars of what you must or must not do. It does not require that you bake a cake for someone, for example. Rather, it mandates that you must respect others' freedoms.
Because the alternative is a return to the Thirty Years' War and bomb plots and priests hiding in priest holes as the King's Men search the town for them.
The left is of course undoing all this, turning our rules-light system into a very rules-heavy system, in which virtually everything is illegal, and what little is not illegal, is mandatory. It is reversing pluralism -- and the result of reversing pluralism will be what the result of an end to pluralism has been in the past.
Which is civil war, or, at best, not full civil war but roving bands of Religious Enforcement Vigilante night-riders who terrorize outsiders and pagans with the support and aid of their correligionists.
Which we're seeing more and more of.
Politicians, "journalists," and "celebrities" are actively encouraging punching people they call "Nazis" (which means anyone who disagrees with them; they should just say "Pagans") and "setting it all on fire."
The TV director who made this pronouncement said to open a history book -- it's the only way, she advised.
She should open a history book herself. She should point to me a single case where rampant political violence from one faction was not quickly met by equal or even greater political violence from the factions that were being preyed upon.
Does she think people are going to sit back and let themselves be beaten because the "arc of history" demands they take their lumps agreeably?
No, sister. Soon the people you punch will start punching back, and then, not long after that, they'll start punching first.
And what moral ground will you have to object to it? Your rules, Vagina Warrior.
If the left ever did bother to open a history book, they'd discover that every illiberal, gloriously bloody revolution invites its own equally bloody counter-revolution, it's own Vendee, its own final Thermidor.
If a thing is sacralized, that means you are bound by conscience and God Himself to fight for that. If an enemy is demonized, your are bound to slay that demon.
The more which is sacralized, the more blood, the more maimings, the more fires, the more murders.
In a minimum viable politics, people are free to sacralize what they will, assuming they do not break the rules of minimum viable politics and resort to vigilante violence to vindicate their religious beliefs.
But the left is determined to sacralize every flighty thought that gets into their heads -- like that men with penises should be free to use women's room, and if little girls are bothered by seeing a man's penis, why, they must just "overcome" their "discomfort" at seeing an adult man's penis -- and they are also determined to use the violence of the state or the violence of private vigilantes to enforce those Sacred Lunacies.
It won't end well. It will end, eventually. But not well, and not without many, many casualties, of both the guilty and innocent kind. Mass political violence is like a tornado, and tornadoes do not discriminate between the virtuous and the vicious.
They just kill everything in their path.
Progressive politics: a dogmatic and intolerant religion
John Daniel Davidson writes at The Federalist,
The consternation and outrage we’ve seen in response to President Trump’s executive order on immigration has little to do with the policy as such. Restricting immigration from certain countries is nothing new; President Obama did it, as did presidents Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, and Reagan.Read more here.
Rather, it has everything to do with the elevation of progressive politics to the status of a religion—a dogmatic and intolerant religion, whose practitioners are now experiencing a crisis of faith.
...Conservatives sometimes invoke religion in policy debates, but it’s usually not because they’re trying to make a religion out of politics. Most often, it’s in reaction to progressives’ insistence that religious beliefs be cast aside when they impede the political agenda of the Left—like when Obama tried to fine the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Catholic nuns, $70 million for refusing, on religious grounds, to participate in a government scheme to distribute birth control.
...That progressive politics should carry the force of religious belief should not come as a surprise. For the Left, politics holds the promise of paradise on earth. Through the instrument of government, progressives believe they can right the world’s wrongs, punish the wicked, feed the hungry, outlaw bigotry, and perhaps even save the earth from climate change. All they need is control of government and sound policies. If everything that matters is at stake, then everything is justified in the pursuit of political power.
...Such a faith necessitates an obsession with politics, and provokes a burning desire for control over the levers of government power. If we are consumed by politics in the age of Trump, it is not because of Trump. It is because progressives have made politics into a god, and their god is failing them.
Picking up the pieces from Obama's failures
Stephen Green: "A little bit of toughness, instead of a lot of niceness, precludes a lot of nastiness!"
Bill Whittle: "Obama had an opportunity to discuss this with the American people during the last eight years. But, if the President of the United States cannot even say the words "Islamic terrorists," what else do you expect from the American people other than emergency responses to a crisis that has been developing for the last eight years?"
Scott Ott: "Trump is rolling back the impression that America is weak, that America is kow-towing before foreign Muslim powers, that America doesn't care what is happening to her people."
Bill Whittle: "Obama had an opportunity to discuss this with the American people during the last eight years. But, if the President of the United States cannot even say the words "Islamic terrorists," what else do you expect from the American people other than emergency responses to a crisis that has been developing for the last eight years?"
Scott Ott: "Trump is rolling back the impression that America is weak, that America is kow-towing before foreign Muslim powers, that America doesn't care what is happening to her people."
The challenge Tillerson faces
At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance reminds us that our new Secretary of State faces huge obstacles within his own Department.
Suffice to say, anyone who has followed DC politics for any substantive amount of time is aware of the inherent ideological issues within The U.S. State Department. Filled with bureaucrats whose career has been at the epicenter of left-wing globalist advocacy.Read more here.
If you go back to rethinking the larger State Dept. challenge, Rex Tillerson will essentially be in charge of a U.S. Department that is comprised almost exclusively of Kerry/Clinton/Obama/Bush/UniParty/GOPe big “G” Globalists.
When you accept the scope of the challenge, and recognize their best interests will involve working earnestly and diligently to undermine the structure of a Trump administration at every opportunity; perhaps only then can we identify the specific challenge and how Tillerson is uniquely skilled to deliver results.
Deconstruction and realignment while simultaneously managing/controlling the amount of damage internal agents can do toward larger administration objectives is a tenuous undertaking. Taking the rotting vehicle down to the frame and cutting out the cancerous rust is going to be an epic battle with few Washington DC supporters as Trump endeavors through the restoration phase.
It can be anticipated the leadership within both wings of the UniParty (Democrat and Republican) will actually prefer to impede such an effort:
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things. … Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.”
~ Niccolo Machiavelli
"It must be a shock to you to see a genuinely elected democrat is doing what he was put in to do!"
Nigel Farage socks it to the E.U. politicians. Watch all the way to the end, which is the climax of his speech.
Rex Tillerson sworn in as Secretary of State
Mike Pence swears in Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. Trump: "This is a man who is respected all over the world, even before he begins!
"Freedom is a gift from God, not from government."
President Trump speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast. "The world is in trouble, but we're gonna straighten it out. Believe me! That's what I do; I fix things! We will be a safe country. We will be a free country. We will be a country where all citizens can practice their beliefs. As long as we have God, we are never, ever alone. We here in Washington must never stop asking God for the wisdom to do His will."
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
"Closed to the press"
Charlie Spiering reports at Breitbart,
President Donald Trump traveled to Dover military base to pay his respects to the Navy SEAL who was killed in action during a military raid in Yemen.
The president boarded Marine One at the White House White House with his daughter Ivanka Trump, as Vice President Michael Pence, his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and chief of staff Reince Preibus, watched him leave on the South Lawn.
The departure was deemed off the record by White House staff until the president landed, but Trump’s visit will remain closed to the press.
"It's time to let parents choose, and to make schools accountable to their customers."
Ace of Spades brings us this bad news.
Fake Conservatives Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski Announce They'll Be Voting Against Education Secretary Nominee Betsy DeVos
—Ace
This means that she starts with only 50 votes, at most. One less than that, actually, because Jeff Sessions won't be a Senator for long (and governor will have to appoint a replacement -- and I don't know how long that takes).
Without the new Liberal Twins, the best she can hope for is a 50-50 tie, assuming a Sessions replacement willing to vote for her, with Pence breaking the tie with an Aye.
The Liberal Twins say they're against her because she doesn't seem All-In on the current education system, but rather seems All-In on school choice and vouchers.
And that is her biggest selling point. The system is failed. It has failed for 50 years, despite nonstop headlines Education In Crisis and constant tinkering and supposed fixes from the Department of Education.
It's time to let parents choose, and to make schools accountable to their customers.
"it drove us to the polls, quietly and without fanfare, like assassins in the night."
Warden writes,
My apologies to Warden. I had originally thought this piece was written by Oregon Muse, and gave him credit.
...As someone who has been following politics since high school, I tend not to trust my own instincts what the average voter thinks. I'm simply to close to the subject. My wife, however, is a fairly low-key traditionalist who doesn't care to immerse herself in that world and so I use her as my political weather vane.Read more here.
And so I knew that there was a storm brewing when she snapped down her phone over breakfast one day after reading Facebook and told me how sick and tired she was of her friends' political posts.
"When they say those things," she fumed, "they're talking about our family."
"I'm so sick and tired of being told that I'm a bad person because I disagree with someone's position on abortion or transgender bathrooms. Who do they think they are to tell everyone what they're required to believe?"
The hurt had turned to anger and quiet resolve.
The left sought to reprimand the right. What they did was alienate it. Their social media echo chamber only served to steel conservative misgivings about Donald Trump, if for no other reason than we simply couldn't abide by being pushed around for another 4-8 years.
It's one thing to know that your friends disagree with you. It's another to realize that they think you're stupid, uneducated, a bigot, bully, sexist, jerk and everything that's wrong with the world.
It's then that you realize that it's not just the institutional left that yearns to place its boot on your neck, it's your left-wing neighbors, friends, coworkers and even family. When you see attacks on regular citizens cheered and reinforced by people on Facebook, your worldview changes radically.
You can no longer believe that they don't really understand what they're voting for. It becomes clear that they do--they're voting to turn you into a second class citizen, an "other" who is not due the same rights and courtesies as their exalted tribe of Right Thinkers.
We loathed Obama and all the Marxist cockroaches surrounding him. Now we were beginning to loathe his supporters.
Donald Trump had exposed the press for the lying, shameless partisan hacks that they are. But social media exposed the soft left, the formerly passive Democrat party support.
This is why the left never saw it coming. They took over public spaces and shouted down the opposition with personal attacks. Horrified conservatives withdrew from engagement, but we didn't disappear.
We seethed with resentment and contempt.
And it drove us to the polls, quietly and without fanfare, like assassins in the night.
The left still doesn't know what hit him. They're still too busy screeching, insulting, protesting, rioting, and trying to manipulate the rules to ask the simple question: Why?
I'll tell you why. We see you. We see what you've become. And we're not having what you've been dishing out any longer.
My apologies to Warden. I had originally thought this piece was written by Oregon Muse, and gave him credit.
"We are officially putting Iran on notice!"
National Security Advisor Mike Flynn interrupted today's Spicer press briefing to "put Iran on notice." View the video of Flynn here.
"When you’re reduced to championing the rights of mentally ill men in sundresses, you have run out of victims."
Z Man writes,
...That’s an important lesson to keep in mind when watching the antics of the Left of late. Their lunacy is not directed at the rest of us. They don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about what’s happening. Their public acts are about signaling to the rest of the believers. By holding protests and making fools of themselves in a public way, they are providing support for one another as they work through the disconfirmation. Like herd animals, they are huddling together in the face if danger. It is pure instinct.Read more here.
If they were left to sit alone at home, they would have no one around to help them through their doubts. These are people whose entire sense of self is dependent on the identity of the group, so getting out and “making their voices heard” lets them focus on something other than the disconfirmation. Trump as Hitler provides a short-term bridge between the failed prophecy and whatever comes next for the New Religion. They can tell themselves that their faith was not wrong, it was just subverted by mysterious forces, or Hitler.
In the mean time, the rage of the true believers will result in more public displays of incoherent misery. The reason they have no point is they cannot face the cause of their pain. It has nothing to with Trump or his policies. It is an unspeakable rage at having failed to reach the promised land. The rage is a distraction and a source of comfort to the believers as the Cult of Modern Liberalism comes to terms with the great disconfirmation of the last decade. Let’s hope they to make their way through it.
The logic of the Left
Bookworm, who posted this poster, reminds us of Godwin's Law. In 1990 American attorney Mike Godwin wrote,"if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler."
Sanctuary cities
Victor Davis Hanson wrote about sanctuary cities last year.
There are an estimated 300 or so jurisdictions -- entire states, counties, cities, and municipalities -- that since the early 1980s have enacted “sanctuary city” laws, forbidding full enforcement of federal immigration law within their jurisdictions.Read more here.
The liberal Migration Policy Institute conceded that there are over 800,000 illegal aliens with criminal records, nearly 700,000 of them with felony arrest records.
Those numbers, of course, reflect only those who have been arrested and faced trial, not the unknown number who have committed crimes without being apprehended or charged. In some sanctuary cities, lawlessness among undocumented immigrants has reached epidemic proportions.
Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute found that two-thirds of all outstanding felony warrants in the city of Los Angeles involved illegal aliens -- as well as 95% of outstanding murder warrants.
Sanctuary cities are on record as having released over 10,000 known criminal aliens into the general population whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were attempting to deport. In addition, hundreds of thousands of criminals are currently protected from deportation as they await trials and sentences. Among them, most infamously, is Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a seven-time convicted felon and five-time deported illegal alien who was not turned over to ICE by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department that held him in custody on a drug charge. He was instead released just weeks before he murdered Kate Steinle.
...Nullification, neo-Confederate, tribal, and cynical are the proper epithets for such cities, which are best summed up as “cities of nihilism.”
Vote integrity
At The Hill, J. Christian Adams points out that there will be several cases before the Supreme Court on various voting rights issues. Gorsuch gets nominated just in time! Read more here.
"reaching new levels of Tokyo Rose disinformation and propaganda."
Sundance writes at The Conservative Treehouse,
The level of absurdity from the official media channel of the U.S. Department of State, CNN, is reaching new levels of Tokyo Rose disinformation and propaganda.Read more here.
♦ ‘President Trump’s temporary pause and reassessment of visa approvals, combined with the implementation of “extreme vetting” will make our mid-east allies unhappy’… they say.
♦ ‘President Trump’s request for a reevaluation of our relationship and structure with NATO will make our European allies unhappy’…. they say.
Let’s think about this factually and logically. Who are these “mid-east allies” who would be upset? Seriously, think about it.
President Trump has already formed good foreign policy relationships with: Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), Fattah Abdel el-Sisi (Egypt), King Abdullah II (Jordan), King Salman (Saudi Arabia) and influential agent Vladimir Putin (Russia). OK, so these guys are in the “All Good” column of ongoing discussions etc.
Syria (Bashir Assad) is trying to put a country together from the ashes of a civil war started by Obama’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood. Libya has no central government thanks to Obama/Clinton/Rice/S.Power , and is in a state of total governmental crisis. Yemen is even worse than Libya and Iran is now testing ballistic missiles.
So what ally exactly is going to be “unhappy” with a Trump policy enhanced visa scrutiny? Seriously. Genuine question. Who? Who over there is going to be unhappy?
Turkey? They are not on the restriction list. (though IMHO they should be).
Brexit is ongoing to remove the U.K. from the European Union (27 member states). Prime Minister Theresa May and President Trump are earnestly working on bilateral trade and security. U.S.A and England are on good terms and Winston Churchill looks daily upon President Trump’s desk.
France is attempting to join the U.S. and U.K. amid team freedom with Frexit. Election forthcoming. The non socialist “normies” in France always get along with Americans. Heck, without us they’d be speaking German in The Louvre. Their election is a few months away, and the freedom candidate Marine Le Pen is in the lead.
So that leaves Germany’s Angela Merkel and 25 EU countries (26 if they let in Turkey). And they have been talking for over a decade about putting an EU defense force, and EU military together.
What exactly do they still need NATO for?
If the EU is indeed an assembled group of unity nations, like they claim it to be, then why can’t they form their own version of NATO?
Muslims rape Christian women, beat up Christian men, in Nigerian Christian church.
Thomas Williams reports at Breitbart,
In a recent attack, some 90 Muslims stormed a Christian church in eastern Uganda, beating and tying up the men present before raping 15 of the Christian women.Read more here.
The assault was reportedly a “revenge attack” against the pastor of the Katira church for allegedly converting Muslims to Christianity. Along with the violence perpetrated against the congregation, the mob also carried off the pastor, the Rev. Moses Mutasa, and severely damaged the church property.
...The event occurred on the evening of January 15, but has just now come to the attention of international media. Now, two weeks after the attack, the church’s pastor is still missing, along with eight other Christians from his congregation who were kidnapped with him.
...Although Uganda is about 85 percent Christian and only 11 percent Muslim, some eastern areas of the country have Muslim majorities, such as the district where the church attack occurred. The latest assault follows a series of persecution incidents against Christians in eastern Uganda.
The media is the opposition party, and the Democrats are digging their own grave.
Michael Goodwin writes in the New York Post,
...Trump aide Steve Bannon was on target when he called the Washington media “the opposition party.”Read more here.
Don’t take his word for it. Stick a toe into the toxic sludge that passes for straight-news coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times and others.
Look for the use of tell words like “Muslim ban” to describe an executive order that is no such thing. Look for hero worship of protesters, immigrants, refugees, lawyers rushing to the barricades and congressional critics.
Look, too, at the Twitter feeds of editors and reporters from those papers and the major networks. You’ll see their embrace of everything anti-Trump, further evidence they are part of a movement to obstruct the president, not cover him.
...My prediction is that Dems are digging their own grave and their revolt against his legitimacy will, in the short term at least, boost Trump’s popularity. Most Americans will conclude he is honestly trying to fulfill the mandate he won and that the fevered rush to destroy him is neither principled nor patriotic.
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