Since the president's power to pardon is unconditional and unlimited he cannot commit obstruction of justice by pardoning someone - Paul Manafort or Joe Arpaio, for example.
Since the president's power to fire anyone in the justice department is unconditional and unlimited he cannot commit obstruction of justice by firing someone - James Comey or Robert Mueller, for instance.
Did Gerald Ford obstruct justice?
Time for a novel interpretation of the law or the constitution?
Update, 11242017.
The power to pardon is, expressly and by its nature, a power to lawfully obstruct justice.
Just that very thing, and only that, is what it is for.
Not so the power to fire underlings, use of which to obstruct justice is criminal.
So far as I can see, the only way a president can obstruct justice lawfully, without committing a crime, is by way of the power to pardon.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
What if Republicans had got their way?
Especially Texas Republicans?
What if the government rejected all responsibilities for anything that it did not bear in the 18th Century, as conservatives of their ilk demand?
No FEMA, no money for National Guard assistance, no assistance from the Navy, the Coast Guard, or any military, no gigantic relief and reconstruction package in the tens of billions, nothing from the feds at all for damage from Harvey.
In the 18th Century, the general government had no responsibility for and no involvement in dealing with natural disasters.
Before the Progressive Era, the feds would have done nothing, have been able to do nothing, have been expected to do nothing about such things.
And back when Obama needed money for hurricane mess on the East Coast many seriously conservative Republicans voted no.
Mike Pence in 2005 demanded cuts in Medicare to pay for federal money to deal with Katrina damage in Louisiana.
The weather folks are now saying by the time this is over some areas in or around Houston will have had 60 inches of rain from Harvey.
What if the government rejected all responsibilities for anything that it did not bear in the 18th Century, as conservatives of their ilk demand?
No FEMA, no money for National Guard assistance, no assistance from the Navy, the Coast Guard, or any military, no gigantic relief and reconstruction package in the tens of billions, nothing from the feds at all for damage from Harvey.
In the 18th Century, the general government had no responsibility for and no involvement in dealing with natural disasters.
Before the Progressive Era, the feds would have done nothing, have been able to do nothing, have been expected to do nothing about such things.
And back when Obama needed money for hurricane mess on the East Coast many seriously conservative Republicans voted no.
Mike Pence in 2005 demanded cuts in Medicare to pay for federal money to deal with Katrina damage in Louisiana.
The weather folks are now saying by the time this is over some areas in or around Houston will have had 60 inches of rain from Harvey.
Monday, August 28, 2017
The manufacture of outrage
Good to see nobody at the left wing noise machine is taking time off for the Hurricane or the August recess.
Morning Digest: GOP candidate for Pennsylvania governor goes on anti-Semitic tirade about Soros
A bum rap, but they are often that, and the left will repeat it in their loudest outdoor voices, just the same as if they cared.
Morning Digest: GOP candidate for Pennsylvania governor goes on anti-Semitic tirade about Soros
A bum rap, but they are often that, and the left will repeat it in their loudest outdoor voices, just the same as if they cared.
Weather hell in Texas, the Gulf states
Harvey will drive 30,000 to shelters, FEMA says
Tropical Storm Harvey, now spinning near Port O'Connor, Texas, is forecast to move back into the Gulf of Mexico today, the National Hurricane Center said.
It will meander over the Gulf for a couple of days before making a second landfall somewhere near the Texas/Louisiana border, likely on Wednesday.
Harvey is then expected to slowly move northeast across Louisiana and Arkansas as a tropical depression from Thursday into Saturday.
As it spins offshore, the storm is expected to dump an additional 15 to 25 inches of rain through Friday over the upper Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana, exacerbating the life-threatening, catastrophic flooding in the Houston area, the hurricane center said.
Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches over the upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area.
"Reliable weather forecasts still show taking whatever rain has already fallen around Houston and doubling it over the next 4-5 days," said WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue.
It will meander over the Gulf for a couple of days before making a second landfall somewhere near the Texas/Louisiana border, likely on Wednesday.
Harvey is then expected to slowly move northeast across Louisiana and Arkansas as a tropical depression from Thursday into Saturday.
As it spins offshore, the storm is expected to dump an additional 15 to 25 inches of rain through Friday over the upper Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana, exacerbating the life-threatening, catastrophic flooding in the Houston area, the hurricane center said.
Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches over the upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area.
"Reliable weather forecasts still show taking whatever rain has already fallen around Houston and doubling it over the next 4-5 days," said WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
A day at the movies
Went to see Dunkirk at the AMC South Hills Village theater in Bethel Park, PA.
An excellent movie, in its actiony, docudrama, no plot or story kind of way, but no reason to see it twice.
Was it the best war movie, ever?
Phooey.
A slew of them made in the sixties and seventies about the same war were at least as good, though it was outstanding and beautifully filmed.
It felt very real.
Even frighteningly so, at times,
As for the experience, it was a one-stop lesson in why people don't go to the movies, any more.
Start with the line, a single line for both ticket purchase and food and drink purchase, so whether you wanted food and drink or not you had to wait while every dim bulb ahead of you scratched his head and his ass, figuring out what he ought to buy for food and drink, calling out across the lobby to ask the kids what they want, and so on and on.
And then there was the price, $ 8.00 plus tax for a Sunday matinee, no senior discount allowed.
And then it got worse.
I got there ten minutes before showtime and so expected to watch, and did watch, ten minutes of advertising.
And then I got to watch twenty minutes of additional ads and previews.
And then they put the wrong film on the screen.
Somebody reported the error and in about five minutes the screen went blank and the lights came on.
And then we looked at a blank screen for another ten minutes.
And then we got to watch yet another preview before the actual movie - the correct movie - came on.
But the screen curtains didn't properly adjust, so we got to watch the whole thing with two or three feet cut off on each side.
Nobody ever fixed that.
I paid eight dollars for all this.
It occurred to nobody to offer us our money back, or even a rain check, to compensate for these horrors.
AMC South Hills Village theater in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
Remember that name.
A name that will live in infamy.
About that pardon for Arpaio
Bear in mind that according to its Democratic critics opposition to immigration is prima facie proof of racism to the point of exterminationism.
And pretty much anything Republicans favor, except for the few who favor open borders, is instantly and furiously branded racist.
Trump most of all.
Which is not to say it's always a bum rap, if exaggerated.
You might ask yourself what is worse, American whites who would prefer to maintain the safety of their majority status in the USA, whites seeking political disenfranchisement and disempowerment of nonwhites, or whites seeking to make an exclusively white homeland of our always multiracial country.
The first probably includes nearly all whites, the second rather few, and the last fewest of all.
And you might also ask what are these several groups willing to do, or see done, for the sake of their aims.
The first group probably are not looking at much but immigration policy, with mass deportation of illegals as radical as any of them are willing to get.
As for the second group, gerrymandering, requiring photo ID, and aggressive purging of voter registration rolls are about the worst they are prepared for.
The third group include fans of Hitler and The Turner Diaries, which means they are - or at least claim to be - oven-ready exterminationists.
Trump and his Bannonite, Buchananite friends and supporters seem to be of the first group.
Some of those folks are also, no doubt, in the second group.
As for maintaining the whiteness of the whites, I can't imagine a court reversing Loving before a swastika flag flies over the capitol.
Democrats would do much better with white voters if they could calm the fears of that first group of whites, on which the race-baiting GOP so successfully plays.
Both fears of becoming a minority and fears of what would happen to them then.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Bet you missed it
3 headlines the White House hopes you'll miss as Hurricane Harvey hits
Transgender individuals? Banned from joining the military.
Convicted Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Officially pardoned.
Maybe the pardon was to eclipse the next point.
Another Bannonite kicked out.
Controversial White House adviser Sebastian Gorka? Out of a white House job.
Fox says he returned to Breitbart.
All three headlines popped after 6 p.m. Friday as TV news broadcasts and websites turned their attention to Texas, where Hurricane Harvey was preparing to make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane -- the most powerful to hit the US since 2004.
Update, 08272017, there are reports Arpaio has returned to selling his long-time birtherism, claiming he has proof O's birth certificate is a fake.
Transgender individuals? Banned from joining the military.
Convicted Sheriff Joe Arpaio? Officially pardoned.
Maybe the pardon was to eclipse the next point.
Another Bannonite kicked out.
Controversial White House adviser Sebastian Gorka? Out of a white House job.
Fox says he returned to Breitbart.
All three headlines popped after 6 p.m. Friday as TV news broadcasts and websites turned their attention to Texas, where Hurricane Harvey was preparing to make landfall as a Category 4 hurricane -- the most powerful to hit the US since 2004.
Update, 08272017, there are reports Arpaio has returned to selling his long-time birtherism, claiming he has proof O's birth certificate is a fake.
Hiram R. Revels, the US Senate, 1871
I hold it to be the duty of this nation to discourage it [race prejudice against blacks], simply because it is wicked, because it is wrong, because it is not approved of by Heaven.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Do the cable newsies really think everyone in the country wants to watch Hurricane Harvey all day long?
Maybe everyone in the world?
Setting up failure
You will not get rid of Trump by primarying him.
He will crush all challengers, as he did in 2016.
Even if he achieves nothing of what he has promised in his first term.
He alone speaks for the mass of Republicans' trailer trash agenda and trailer trash resentments.
The loyalty of those voters has nothing to do with standard Republican fiscal conservatism or even social conservatism.
And certainly nothing to do with globalism.
These people are the flotsam among the voters who were successfully drawn to the Republican Party by decades of demagoguery about God, guns, race, and class.
These are the white trash voters all that bullshit managed to get to pull the R lever in spite of the party's openly plutocrat agenda of unremitting class war.
Unsurprisingly, they have little understanding of and no interest in the stupid, cruel, vicious agenda of actual conservatives and real Republicans.
Theirs is the agenda of the demagogues, and Trump is their one and loyal champion, win or lose.
Win or lose.
It is their misfortune that he is an utter blowhard, without the least real competence or commitment.
He is a Muppet, and his is a Potemkin presidency.
Hacks, liars, and ignorants
People on the cable news/propaganda networks.
On MSNBC, more than once beginning with the Charlottesville coverage, someone has claimed to be frightened that the Klansmen nowadays let their faces show, not fearing identification.
Making them seem scarier than they are is part of the effort to convince us we need hate speech laws and even to criminalize these organizations, outright.
But Rachel Maddow ran numerous newsreels of Klan demonstrations going back to the 1920s, and the white robed and hooded thousands and perhaps tens of thousands all let their faces show, every time.
What's different, today?
Today's Klansmen are far fewer, too low-budget for robes, and not engaged in the actual terrorism of their forebears, what with night riding, church bombing, lynching, shooting, bullwhipping, and raping.
They are much, much less fearsome than their forebears, reduced to a losing battle of demonstrations by mere hundreds against the removal of monuments to the Lost Cause.
And their political clout is next to nothing - a very great fall from the days when they nearly chose the nominee for president of the Democratic Party, and when a Democratic president helped legitimate and erect a national regime of segregation and Jim Crow.
Left wing sources report an uptick in the number of white racist groups, and in their membership, since O's election.
Probably true and certainly easily believed.
All the same, we are a very long ways from the Klan in its heyday, or even of the civil rights era, when it was already far from its heyday.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Not that it isn't shocking, anyway,
but the Klansmen who beat, tortured, and terrorized blacks for voting for Republicans seem often to have been well known to them, having employed, worked with, or traded with them for long.
Proceedings of the Ku Klux trials in Columbia, SC, 1871.
Send your Orthodox Jewish son in law
to broker a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Um, maybe not.
Kushner’s Mideast Peace Talks Draw Growing Skepticism From Palestinians
Um, maybe not.
Kushner’s Mideast Peace Talks Draw Growing Skepticism From Palestinians
Some righteous left-girl on MSNBC right now
wants Twitter to block tweets from Trump because it's hate speech and anyway he's so reckless he could start a nuclear war with Korea with a tweet.
She soooo needs an enema.
Even though she has a point.
Something is very wrong with women
or pop culture.
Nobody thinks men crave homosexual action heroes who beat up dozens of girls per scene.
Much less that we want to watch, well, you know.
Just saw Atomic Blonde.
Wait.
Wait.
Do they think they're doing this for the men in the audience?
Bozo bashes McConnell and Ryan
He made campaign promises he can't keep, and he's shedding blame.
His followers accept that.
Trump is their id, the Congress and the courts are an infuriating superego.
McConnell praises Trump in Kentucky, minutes after Trump criticized him
Joe Arpaio
A county sheriff, he had no authority to enforce immigration law, but he for decades and despite orders to stop it would stop people, apparently with adequate reason, on suspicion of being in the country illegally, hold them on that account and often on no other, and try to (?) hand them over to immigration authorities.
He defied court orders to knock it off.
That is why he was charged with criminal contempt, for which he faces punishment.
He is a hero to anti-immigration enthusiasts, including white nationalists, and lovers of Trump's wall such as, er, Trump.
He seems to be an object of actual hatred and much vilification from the left.
He is not being punished for doing his job.
Apparently, he is being punished for illegally doing somebody else's job.
Yet another idiotic remark of Holbach
Ce sont des fanatiques, des prêtres et des ignorans, qui font les revolutions ; les personnes éclairées, désintéressées et sensées, sont toujours amies du repos.
And here is a stupid non sequitur with a baleful future.
[I]l est aisé de voir que ce sont en particulier les préjugés religieux qui ont corrompu la politique et la morale.
Ne sont-ce pas des idées religieuses et surnaturelles qui firent regarder les souverains comme des dieux?
C’est donc la religion qui fit éclore les despotes et les tyrans[.]
Yes, these are harmful religious ideas.
Are they not also harmful political ideas?
And perhaps there are also political ideas that are not religious, but are nevertheless harmful?
See Fascism, Nazism, Communism.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
What happened?
More than once in public life, men publicly attempted to intimidate and humiliate Hillary Clinton.
Now she publicly considers what maybe she should have done by way of pushing back on those ocassions, but did not.
Including tell Trump he could not intimidate her, as he stalked her on the debate stage.
She didn't do those things.
She didn't push back.
She says it's because she chose caution lest she seem too aggressive to voters.
An obvious alternative is that she was just frankly out-and-out intimidated.
Every time.
Not what she wants us to think.
Now she publicly considers what maybe she should have done by way of pushing back on those ocassions, but did not.
Including tell Trump he could not intimidate her, as he stalked her on the debate stage.
She didn't do those things.
She didn't push back.
She says it's because she chose caution lest she seem too aggressive to voters.
An obvious alternative is that she was just frankly out-and-out intimidated.
Every time.
Not what she wants us to think.
Barcelona Jihaders intended a lot more harm
Barcelona Terrorists Planned to Kill Hundreds and Strike Cathedral, Says Suspect
Be glad the bomb maker's place blew up.
Be glad the bomb maker's place blew up.
Yeah, it was Comey's late intervention
12 Days That Stunned a Nation: How Hillary Clinton Lost
Ed Rendell on MSNBC says it was two things, a hidden Trump vote (people lied to pollsters) and Comey's announcement to the public he was looking again at Hillary's emails.
Still, we should always bear in mind that, despite all that, the voters chose her.
The Electors chose Trump.
Ed Rendell on MSNBC says it was two things, a hidden Trump vote (people lied to pollsters) and Comey's announcement to the public he was looking again at Hillary's emails.
Still, we should always bear in mind that, despite all that, the voters chose her.
The Electors chose Trump.
An orgy of craziness in Phoenix
Trump unwinds after the sober Afghanistan speech
Every awful topic he could think of to say the worst things about.
More lies per breath than any other politician I have ever heard.
A repulsive display.
Among other things, he included a threat to shut down the government if he doesn't get his wall, he blamed the Dems for trying to prevent it, and he suggested Arpaio would eventually be pardoned.
Lots else, too much to mention.
Every awful topic he could think of to say the worst things about.
More lies per breath than any other politician I have ever heard.
A repulsive display.
Among other things, he included a threat to shut down the government if he doesn't get his wall, he blamed the Dems for trying to prevent it, and he suggested Arpaio would eventually be pardoned.
Lots else, too much to mention.
Lies and omissions of Donald Trump
A parable illustrating the difference between a partial quote and a misquote, and a quiz.
The mayor of Madrid and his City Council decide to remove statues of Franco and other Nationalist leaders of the Spanish Civil War from a public park and announce the decision to the public.
Neo-Nazis, Fascists, skinheads, and a variety of other radical right racists and anti-Semites, known to oppose the EU and immigration across the Mediterranean, schedule a demonstration to protest the removal of these statues of persons they hold in honor and to support eurowhite racism.
A somewhat larger number of citizens schedule a counter-demonstration, both supporting removal of these statues of persons whom they execrate and supporting the EU and immigration while opposing racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism, and Fascism.
The day comes and the demonstrations occur with some little violence, one person among the counter-demonstrators being killed by a racist driving his car into a crowd of them on the street.
The same day, the controversial rightist Prime Minister of Spain speaks to the nation about these events.
The prepared remarks contain the sentence, “I condemn in the most forceful words the bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred on display in these events.”
Scenario 1, a misquoted sentence.
The Prime Minister actually says, “I condemn in the most forceful words the bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred – on all sides, on all sides - on display in these events.”
Facing stinging criticism, a few days later he condemns the demonstrators for racism, etc., omitting criticism of the counter-demonstrators.
The left press appreciates the difference but complains it took him so long to get this much right.
And then on a third occasion a bit later he returns to attacking both sides, to the fury of the left press.
Castigated as a racist in the press of the left for more than a week for disguising the truth of the events and asserting a false moral equivalence between the racist demonstrators and the anti-racist counter-demonstrators, the Prime Minister speaks at a rally to his partisans.
He complains to his supporters that the press has accused him of racism because of the couple of days delay in his second response to the events of the Madrid demonstrations.
The complaint is true but misleading, as it omits reference to his damning first response cited by the press as evidence for their charge, as well as their claims he has disguised the truth of the event and he has asserted a moral equivalence between the demonstrators and the counter-demonstrators.
Reading from papers held in his hands, he quotes, “I condemn in the most forceful words the bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred on display in these events.”
He insists to his audience, “I said that.” (That is false) “That is what I said about those events.” (That is also false)
Scenario 2, a partial quote omitting a sentence.
The Prime Minister actually says, “I condemn in the most forceful words the bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred on display in these events. Bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred on display on all sides.”
Facing stinging criticism, a few days later he condemns the demonstrators for racism, etc., omitting criticism of the counter-demonstrators.
The left press appreciates the difference but complains it took him so long to get this much right.
And then on a third occasion a bit later he returns to attacking both sides, to the fury of the left press.
Castigated as a racist in the press of the left for more than a week for being slow to respond, disguising the truth of the events, and asserting a false moral equivalence between the racist demonstrators and the anti-racist counter-demonstrators, the Prime Minister speaks at a rally to his partisans.
He complains to his supporters that the press has accused him of racism because of the couple of days delay in his second response to the events of the Madrid demonstrations.
The complaint is true but misleading, as it omits reference to his damning first response cited by the press as evidence for their charge, as well as their claims he has disguised the truth of the event and he has asserted a moral equivalence between the demonstrators and the counter-demonstrators.
Reading from papers held in his hands, he quotes, “I condemn in the most forceful words the bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, and hatred on display in these events.”
He insists to his audience, “I said that.” (That is true) “That is what I said about those events.” (That is false)
For ten points, which Scenario do The Duce’s remarks to his supporters last night about his earlier remarks about the events at Charlottesville most resemble?
Speaking of moral equivalences, Trump and his supporters on the right insist on a moral equivalence between the founders of the American republic who celebrated equality but owned slaves and the traitors to it who scorned equality and fought a war to keep slavery going.
A claim they share with many who despise America, its whole past, and its white people if not all its people.
Win the peace?
Carl Schurz, in a speech in the senate on May 19, 1870, castigates the Democrats (he is a Republican) for delaying national reconciliation by denying the legality of the Civil War Amendments and telling their voters in the South all the hated results of the war, of the Union victory, can yet be undone.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
The Duce, in Afghanistan as in Korea, abandons his campaign isolationism
America First?
Not so much.
The Duce will not cut and run in Afghanistan, as he has promised for decades, including during the campaign.
Instead, he repeats the globalist bullet point that has left him unmoved for all these years, that if we leave the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and even ISIS will take over the country and use it as a terror launch pad.
He does not say against whom or why that is, in his anti-globalist opinion, our problem rather than someone else's.
He promises victory, and makes no other commitments.
He blames Pakistan and others for not helping enough.
He is still torn between his globalist defense and national security leaders and the nationalist, America First idea represented in the White House, now, only by him, I think, and only fitfully.
No details at all what he will do beyond sending more troops, and that he has abandoned "artificial time deadlines" and will employ only qualitative measures to decide what to do as we go along.
He didn't say, but nobody expects a troop increase outside the range of 1 to 6 thousand, though some are reading his remarks as a globalist victory in yet another respect, leaving the commitment open to an unlimited number of troops for an unlimited length of time.
Breitbart is not happy.
It's interesting that several talkers on MSNBC who ran with the globalists against Trump's Buchananist, America First isolationism during the campaign and during the entire propaganda war about Russia - remember all that panic about walking away from NATO? - , came out last night for total withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Come to that, their position on Korea has been equally both incoherent and disingenuous, with the true globalists opposing the Trumpite idea of abandoning SK and Japan and maybe also walking away from Australia and New Zealand but rejecting any military effort - though they know nothing else will work - to prevent NK neutralizing our alliances with SK and Japan by building nukes that can reach the US, given that no sane president would risk Chicago for Seoul or Tokyo.
Can you imagine for a second Chris Matthews, who last night insisted we abandon Afghanistan, demanding the US go head to head with Russia over Riga, Kiev, or even Warsaw?
Not a chance, but he and the rest of the folks on MSNBC wrung their hands with the best true globalists at every sign of lack of commitment to NATO and Article 5 by The Duce, only a few short weeks ago.
The only way to account for all this and make it cohere is to assume they, MSNBC, are committed to a policy of cowardice and bluffing.
Or just to a policy of denouncing Trump as much when they like what he's saying or doing as when they don't.
BTW, Trump opened his speech with the platoon sergeant's rejection of racism, the blood of patriots is all the same color.
He denounced bigotry and pled for tolerance.
Senator Chris Murphy, D Conn, is on MSNBC right now espousing the realistic globalist line that since we can't build an Afghan government strong enough to stave off the Taliban without us - Trump's promised victory - we will have to stay there indefinitely in sufficient force to prevent it ourselves if we don't want Afghanistan to become a Taliban platform for terrorism.
Not so much.
The Duce will not cut and run in Afghanistan, as he has promised for decades, including during the campaign.
Instead, he repeats the globalist bullet point that has left him unmoved for all these years, that if we leave the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and even ISIS will take over the country and use it as a terror launch pad.
He does not say against whom or why that is, in his anti-globalist opinion, our problem rather than someone else's.
He promises victory, and makes no other commitments.
He blames Pakistan and others for not helping enough.
He is still torn between his globalist defense and national security leaders and the nationalist, America First idea represented in the White House, now, only by him, I think, and only fitfully.
No details at all what he will do beyond sending more troops, and that he has abandoned "artificial time deadlines" and will employ only qualitative measures to decide what to do as we go along.
He didn't say, but nobody expects a troop increase outside the range of 1 to 6 thousand, though some are reading his remarks as a globalist victory in yet another respect, leaving the commitment open to an unlimited number of troops for an unlimited length of time.
Breitbart is not happy.
It's interesting that several talkers on MSNBC who ran with the globalists against Trump's Buchananist, America First isolationism during the campaign and during the entire propaganda war about Russia - remember all that panic about walking away from NATO? - , came out last night for total withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Come to that, their position on Korea has been equally both incoherent and disingenuous, with the true globalists opposing the Trumpite idea of abandoning SK and Japan and maybe also walking away from Australia and New Zealand but rejecting any military effort - though they know nothing else will work - to prevent NK neutralizing our alliances with SK and Japan by building nukes that can reach the US, given that no sane president would risk Chicago for Seoul or Tokyo.
Can you imagine for a second Chris Matthews, who last night insisted we abandon Afghanistan, demanding the US go head to head with Russia over Riga, Kiev, or even Warsaw?
Not a chance, but he and the rest of the folks on MSNBC wrung their hands with the best true globalists at every sign of lack of commitment to NATO and Article 5 by The Duce, only a few short weeks ago.
The only way to account for all this and make it cohere is to assume they, MSNBC, are committed to a policy of cowardice and bluffing.
Or just to a policy of denouncing Trump as much when they like what he's saying or doing as when they don't.
BTW, Trump opened his speech with the platoon sergeant's rejection of racism, the blood of patriots is all the same color.
He denounced bigotry and pled for tolerance.
Senator Chris Murphy, D Conn, is on MSNBC right now espousing the realistic globalist line that since we can't build an Afghan government strong enough to stave off the Taliban without us - Trump's promised victory - we will have to stay there indefinitely in sufficient force to prevent it ourselves if we don't want Afghanistan to become a Taliban platform for terrorism.
Boundless joy
April 22, 1870, Frederick Douglass's joy at the ratification of the 15th Amendment is boundless.
His speech at Albany, New York.
He says with this there is nothing more for the Freedman to ask.
The former slaves, the black men, are free, are citizens, are guaranteed due process and the equal protection of the laws, are equals with all others.
Now they may rise or fall, like anyone else, according to their character and merits.
And the nation will be all the stronger for its being made up of Chinese, Jews, Africans, Europeans, and all sorts, he says.
At least that night, his joy was boundless.
But things went badly at once, with southern resistance so determined and violent Congress passed three enforcement acts authorizing the president to mobilize troops and federal supervision of congressional elections, banning organizations like the Klan, and authorizing the president to suspend habeas corpus.
The Democrats bitterly resisted all of them in the names of federalism and states rights.
See also Carl Schurz's remarks on enforcement in the senate, May 19, 1870.
Monday, August 21, 2017
Get out of Afghanistan? Not on your life.
Bozo has insisted for years we should just cut and run.
He even campaigned on getting the heck out of Afghanistan and much of the rest of the Middle East, while also insisting, rather incoherently, that we should absolutely crush ISIS, and fight terrorism everywhere.
He is expected tonight to announce troop increases for Afghanistan.
The generals' argument is always to state the alternative.
If we leave, the Taliban will take over the country again and the whole place will go back into the business of exporting terrorism against us and our allies.
Years ago, George Will suggested we remove our ground troops and use seaborne air power against terrorists, their training areas, etc.
No sale, for whatever reason.
In 2008 somebody asked John McCain when the war in Afghanistan would be over.
He shrugged and said maybe a hundred years.
He may be the only politician who ever spoke realistically and honestly about Afghanistan.
Come to that, in a discussion of the disappearance of high paying manufacturing jobs in steel, coal, and auto making he was asked what could be done to bring them back.
He said those jobs were not coming back, ever.
He lost that election.
He even campaigned on getting the heck out of Afghanistan and much of the rest of the Middle East, while also insisting, rather incoherently, that we should absolutely crush ISIS, and fight terrorism everywhere.
He is expected tonight to announce troop increases for Afghanistan.
The generals' argument is always to state the alternative.
If we leave, the Taliban will take over the country again and the whole place will go back into the business of exporting terrorism against us and our allies.
Years ago, George Will suggested we remove our ground troops and use seaborne air power against terrorists, their training areas, etc.
No sale, for whatever reason.
In 2008 somebody asked John McCain when the war in Afghanistan would be over.
He shrugged and said maybe a hundred years.
He may be the only politician who ever spoke realistically and honestly about Afghanistan.
Come to that, in a discussion of the disappearance of high paying manufacturing jobs in steel, coal, and auto making he was asked what could be done to bring them back.
He said those jobs were not coming back, ever.
He lost that election.
Climate change? Nothing to see here.
Trump Administration Dissolves Federal Climate Advisory Committee
President Donald Trump’s administration has dissolved a federal panel of scientists and other experts tasked with helping create and implement new policy based on the latest climate change research findings.
. . . .
A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which established the panel in 2015, confirmed Sunday that the Department of Commerce would not renew the charter for the Sustained National Climate Assessment’s Federal Advisory Committee.
President Donald Trump’s administration has dissolved a federal panel of scientists and other experts tasked with helping create and implement new policy based on the latest climate change research findings.
. . . .
A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which established the panel in 2015, confirmed Sunday that the Department of Commerce would not renew the charter for the Sustained National Climate Assessment’s Federal Advisory Committee.
Just begging for war, aren't they?
The problem has not gone away just because the press moved on to Charlottesville and beyond.
North Korea Warns Australia: U.S. Military Alliance a ‘Suicidal Act’
Australia’s decision to support the U.S. in any possible future military conflict with North Korea has been called a “suicidal act” by Pyongyang.
The official North Korea news agency KCNA noted that the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had vowed his country’s military would fight alongside the U.S. if the latter was attacked by North Korea.
As Breitbart News reported, Mr. Turnbull made his call earlier this month after North Korea threatened a nuclear attack against the strategic American territory of Guam in the Pacific.
He told an Australian radio network, “America stands by its allies, including Australia of course, and we stand by the United States.
“So be very, very clear on that. If there’s an attack on the US, the ANZUS Treaty would be invoked and Australia would come to the aid of the United States, as America would come to our aid if we were attacked.”
. . . .
“This is a suicidal act of inviting disaster, as it is an illustration of political immaturity, unaware of the seriousness of the current situation,” KCNA said.
“Australia followed the US to the Korean War, the Vietnamese War and the ‘war on terrorism’, but heavy loss of lives and assets were all that it got in return.”
North Korea Warns Australia: U.S. Military Alliance a ‘Suicidal Act’
Australia’s decision to support the U.S. in any possible future military conflict with North Korea has been called a “suicidal act” by Pyongyang.
The official North Korea news agency KCNA noted that the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had vowed his country’s military would fight alongside the U.S. if the latter was attacked by North Korea.
As Breitbart News reported, Mr. Turnbull made his call earlier this month after North Korea threatened a nuclear attack against the strategic American territory of Guam in the Pacific.
He told an Australian radio network, “America stands by its allies, including Australia of course, and we stand by the United States.
“So be very, very clear on that. If there’s an attack on the US, the ANZUS Treaty would be invoked and Australia would come to the aid of the United States, as America would come to our aid if we were attacked.”
. . . .
“This is a suicidal act of inviting disaster, as it is an illustration of political immaturity, unaware of the seriousness of the current situation,” KCNA said.
“Australia followed the US to the Korean War, the Vietnamese War and the ‘war on terrorism’, but heavy loss of lives and assets were all that it got in return.”
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Marriage plans
When Lopukhov and Vera happily talk of their future married life, she wants to model it on his friendship with Kirsanov, a fellow med student with whom he shares rooms.
No shared room and bed for them.
But fellow students sharing rooms expect not to be together forever, nor even for very long.
They expect to move on with life, start a career, and generally they expect to get married.
And when they marry they will almost certainly expect to have children, many intending, expecting, or hoping to raise them together with their spouses.
It's far more than a temporary arrangement between friends.
And often involves a shared room and bed.
Oh, and not a word about sex.
Perhaps there isn't to be any?
L has spent much time explaining to her materialism and a rather mushy psychological egoism, which she accepts.
But despite what he tells himself it appears his love for her is selfless and his marriage to her involves considerable sacrifice.
Her love for and marriage to him are quite genuinely selfish, however.
A plot summary l have seen says she will want to dump him for Kirsanov, and L will kill himself to clear her way.
She and K will then live happily ever after.
The book is said to have been an inspiration, as responsible for the Russian Revolution as Uncle Tom's Cabin for our Civil War.
Go figure.
An egregious, race-baiting lie
Diana Ratcliff writes
Why is it that the death of a white woman at the hands of a white supremacist group has finally gotten the attention of white folk?
Why have we been turning our heads the other way for so long?
Seems to me it got the attention of the media that were already lasered in on Charlottesville, especially the Democrat media, as an opportunity to bash Trump and the Republicans during the August recess, and as an alternative to the Korea story.
That a counter demonstrator was killed made Charlottesville a better opportunity for that, as well as (case in point) for bashing white America, pretty much all of white America, for racism.
Editor's note: Diana Ratcliff is a cousin of Heather Heyer. A political science graduate of the University of Michigan, she interned in the US Senate and worked on Al Gore's presidential campaign staff. She is now studying nursing.
Why is it that the death of a white woman at the hands of a white supremacist group has finally gotten the attention of white folk?
Why have we been turning our heads the other way for so long?
Seems to me it got the attention of the media that were already lasered in on Charlottesville, especially the Democrat media, as an opportunity to bash Trump and the Republicans during the August recess, and as an alternative to the Korea story.
That a counter demonstrator was killed made Charlottesville a better opportunity for that, as well as (case in point) for bashing white America, pretty much all of white America, for racism.
Editor's note: Diana Ratcliff is a cousin of Heather Heyer. A political science graduate of the University of Michigan, she interned in the US Senate and worked on Al Gore's presidential campaign staff. She is now studying nursing.
A rather forcible reminder
This entire Charlottesville episode has very forcefully reminded me that very nearly everybody in America is to the right of MSNBC and probably CNN, including most Democrats, and especially including most white Democrats on issues having to do with race.
And the tail of the distribution extending rightward to and beyond Fox News is, I think, considerably greater than the tail extending leftward to and beyond MSNBC or CNN, especially when you consider issues of race.
Not sure about Breitbart, which I place further to the right than Fox News.
And the tail of the distribution extending rightward to and beyond Fox News is, I think, considerably greater than the tail extending leftward to and beyond MSNBC or CNN, especially when you consider issues of race.
Not sure about Breitbart, which I place further to the right than Fox News.
What were the president's sins, actual or merely alleged, in connection with Charlottesville?
Rather than denouncing only the racist demonstrators, he denounced violence on "all sides" with equal fervor, though the violence in Charlottesville seemed mostly to come from the demonstrators rather than the counter-demonstrators and the violence killed only one victim, Heather Heyer, one of the majority of counter-demonstrators who were not antifas.
He expressly and emphatically, as is his way, denounced racists and nazis in his earliest remarks and in about every second sentence of his later remarks, but got into a heated exchange with the press (on Tuesday, I think), insisting "the alt.left" (apparently the antifas) were as bad as the alt.right, seemingly talking about their violence, though I suppose he may also have been thinking about their actual politics, in many cases somewhere to the left of the Khmer Rouge or the Shining Path, though in most perhaps not sufficiently articulate for that.
He embraced with fervor the Zinnite line favored by whites (e.g., Pat Buchanan) and blacks (e.g., Al Sharpton) racist in any degree that pretty much all the heroes of the American republic were morally in much the same boat, from the Founders who owned slaves but embraced universal equality in their ideals of government to the Confederates who rejected universal equality even as an ideal and tried to wreck the Union to save slavery, and to the white supremacists who later built and defended the regime of segregation, citing this moral claim angrily to the press as an argument against the current movement to take down Confederate monuments.
Both the equation of the antifas with the neo-Nazis and that slippery-slope argument against taking down monuments to the Lost Cause have less currency among Democrats (a bit more than half, at a guess) than GOPsters (better than 80%), both at large and among leaders and office holders.
In the media, both enjoy widespread acceptance at GOP outlets and close to none in Democratic outlets.
He expressly and emphatically, as is his way, denounced racists and nazis in his earliest remarks and in about every second sentence of his later remarks, but got into a heated exchange with the press (on Tuesday, I think), insisting "the alt.left" (apparently the antifas) were as bad as the alt.right, seemingly talking about their violence, though I suppose he may also have been thinking about their actual politics, in many cases somewhere to the left of the Khmer Rouge or the Shining Path, though in most perhaps not sufficiently articulate for that.
He embraced with fervor the Zinnite line favored by whites (e.g., Pat Buchanan) and blacks (e.g., Al Sharpton) racist in any degree that pretty much all the heroes of the American republic were morally in much the same boat, from the Founders who owned slaves but embraced universal equality in their ideals of government to the Confederates who rejected universal equality even as an ideal and tried to wreck the Union to save slavery, and to the white supremacists who later built and defended the regime of segregation, citing this moral claim angrily to the press as an argument against the current movement to take down Confederate monuments.
Both the equation of the antifas with the neo-Nazis and that slippery-slope argument against taking down monuments to the Lost Cause have less currency among Democrats (a bit more than half, at a guess) than GOPsters (better than 80%), both at large and among leaders and office holders.
In the media, both enjoy widespread acceptance at GOP outlets and close to none in Democratic outlets.
CNN Jake Tapper asks Adam Schiff, what about antifa violence?
CNN
With a giant red on blue sign under his chest saying "ANTIFA SEEKS PEACE THROUGH VIOLENCE," Adam dodges the question and goes back to the bullet point that criticizes the president for not unequivocally condemning racism and racist violence.
Which the president actually did, of course, from his first comments on the mess in Charlottesville.
Moments later, Rick Santorum, replying to a young black woman who had denounced embedded and entrenched racism in this country, systemic racism, mass incarceration, and income inequality (by race?), Nina Turner of Our Revolution, rejected that all whites are "somehow racist" (as did she), as well as the idea of "systemic racism."
I turned it off at that point, not waiting for him to get to income inequality and mass incarceration.
He was stumbling over his words and she was aggressively trying to interrupt in rather a hostile tone.
With a giant red on blue sign under his chest saying "ANTIFA SEEKS PEACE THROUGH VIOLENCE," Adam dodges the question and goes back to the bullet point that criticizes the president for not unequivocally condemning racism and racist violence.
Which the president actually did, of course, from his first comments on the mess in Charlottesville.
Moments later, Rick Santorum, replying to a young black woman who had denounced embedded and entrenched racism in this country, systemic racism, mass incarceration, and income inequality (by race?), Nina Turner of Our Revolution, rejected that all whites are "somehow racist" (as did she), as well as the idea of "systemic racism."
I turned it off at that point, not waiting for him to get to income inequality and mass incarceration.
He was stumbling over his words and she was aggressively trying to interrupt in rather a hostile tone.
"This is a red line!" says John Kasich
Tell the Chinese if the NKs develop nukes they can hit us with we will strike them (the NKs) however we have to to do away with the nuclear threat.
If they don't want that and they don't want to risk what could happen as a result they need to make the NKs abandon their nuclear project.
Kasich said all that to Jake Tapper on CNN just now.
If they don't want that and they don't want to risk what could happen as a result they need to make the NKs abandon their nuclear project.
Kasich said all that to Jake Tapper on CNN just now.
Hope Trump ignores them rather than working off his frustration and anger with DC and the press by bashing somebody
Somebody like Kim Jong Un.
North Korea warns of 'merciless strike' ahead of US-South Korea drills
North Korea warned Sunday that the upcoming US-South Korea military exercises are "reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war."
Pyongyang also declared that its army can target the United States anytime, and neither Guam, Hawaii nor the US mainland can "dodge the merciless strike."
The messages in Rodong Sinmun, the official government newspaper, come a day before the US starts the Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises with South Korea.
Regularly scheduled and routine exercises that Trump could not possibly cancel without sending the most cowardly signal.
Although Bannon might get a laugh out of that.
It would certainly shake up the globalists.
North Korea warns of 'merciless strike' ahead of US-South Korea drills
North Korea warned Sunday that the upcoming US-South Korea military exercises are "reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war."
Pyongyang also declared that its army can target the United States anytime, and neither Guam, Hawaii nor the US mainland can "dodge the merciless strike."
The messages in Rodong Sinmun, the official government newspaper, come a day before the US starts the Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises with South Korea.
Regularly scheduled and routine exercises that Trump could not possibly cancel without sending the most cowardly signal.
Although Bannon might get a laugh out of that.
It would certainly shake up the globalists.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Boston
On MSNBC, the Free Speech Rally in Boston on the Common, and the counter-demonstrators all around the area.
They say 20,000 counter-demonstrators far outnumber the demonstrators, no number give for them.
Police have been actively taking from people anything that could be used as a weapon except signs.
So far it looks like the CDs are demonstrating, in their view, against hate but not hate speech, not in favor of denying First Amendment protection to the extreme right.
The Ds are supposedly not the racist far right seen in Charlottesville, but libertarians and others on the right who are there to insist on and support First Amendment rights for all.
So they claim.
The CDs describe the Ds as "so-called free speech demonstrators, wink-wink."
How would they have described the very numerous left-wing free speech demonstrators of American history, I wonder.
MSNBC has shown precious little sympathy with the idea of free speech for all since the mess in Charlottesville began.
In recent decades, it seems the mainstream-ish left and many leading Democrats have grown more and more favorable to criminalizing speech that has been protected in the past, and advocacy that has been protected in the past.
Update, 08202017, 1012 hrs EDT.
A photo of the CDs shows a row of them carrying a sign stretching almost across a broad Boston street, "We will not accept a fascist America."
The CNN story is running a video of a helpful interview with a Holocaust survivor who must be nearly a hundred years old, and black and white video made by the allies when they found the death camps.
Right around the corner, it is.
According to some.
They say 20,000 counter-demonstrators far outnumber the demonstrators, no number give for them.
Police have been actively taking from people anything that could be used as a weapon except signs.
So far it looks like the CDs are demonstrating, in their view, against hate but not hate speech, not in favor of denying First Amendment protection to the extreme right.
The Ds are supposedly not the racist far right seen in Charlottesville, but libertarians and others on the right who are there to insist on and support First Amendment rights for all.
So they claim.
The CDs describe the Ds as "so-called free speech demonstrators, wink-wink."
How would they have described the very numerous left-wing free speech demonstrators of American history, I wonder.
MSNBC has shown precious little sympathy with the idea of free speech for all since the mess in Charlottesville began.
In recent decades, it seems the mainstream-ish left and many leading Democrats have grown more and more favorable to criminalizing speech that has been protected in the past, and advocacy that has been protected in the past.
Update, 08202017, 1012 hrs EDT.
A photo of the CDs shows a row of them carrying a sign stretching almost across a broad Boston street, "We will not accept a fascist America."
The CNN story is running a video of a helpful interview with a Holocaust survivor who must be nearly a hundred years old, and black and white video made by the allies when they found the death camps.
Right around the corner, it is.
According to some.
Hey, right on the verge
Seems like a lot of people on MSNBC have convinced themselves America is on the edge of a fascist/Nazi/Klan takeover, just like Italy in 1922 and Germany in 1933.
Or so they claim.
The left, like the right, never stops breeding loonies and liars.
Or so they claim.
The left, like the right, never stops breeding loonies and liars.
What America thinks of all that
Dreher: Trump Is More In Touch Than You Think
Looking at issues related to race and the Confederate monuments, the numbers are way to the right of, say, MSNBC.
And there's more.
Including some conclusions.
The news media have been seriously distorting public reaction to Trump’s handling of Charlottesville.
Whether this is a matter of only seeing what they want to see, or a matter of the talking heads being concentrated among coastal elites of both parties, is a matter of conjecture.
True, a slight majority of Americans think Trump didn’t go far enough, but judging from the coverage and commentary, you would have thought at Charlottesville, Trump met his Waterloo.
It didn’t happen.
Charlottesville is not nearly a big a deal to Americans as it is to the media and coastal elites.
That seems a bit spurious.
To the extent that they editorialize - and nowadays they do that a whole lot - the media are not attempting to report but to mold public opinion.
As was surely obvious from the polarization of the media on this point, with CNN and MSNBC going with the liberal establishment while Fox and Breitbart went with talk radio and the alt.right.
And that, as it happens, made the latter coincidentally but not intentionally (though no doubt gladly) more reflective of American opinion as a whole.
Still, Dreher is right that white liberals and pretty much all white supporters of Democrats who think the monuments to the Confederacy ought to come down are unable or unwilling to answer black extremists, though they do not agree with them and are very uncomfortable with the apparent racism of their views.
That is, the views of those blacks who seem to support our republican form of government but refuse to allow honor to the whites who created it - Washington, Jefferson and so on - because of what those same whites did to their ancestors - or, anyway, people the same color as their ancestors.
(They do not notably resent the blacks of Africa whose ancestors captured and sold theirs into slavery, or those black ancestors themselves.
They may know but they don't care that pretty much everyone in the world had slaves when American whites had slaves, and that American and other whites have done more to end slavery all over the world than anyone else.)
Like whites who identify with those who committed the wrongs of the past and are unfortunately moved to celebrate them to defend their self-respect, these blacks identify with the victims and resent those wrongs as if they themselves bore the stripes of the lash, hating the very sight of those who committed them.
In the West, there are similar people who want to renew the Indian Wars, at least rhetorically.
We will hear from them.
Russians and other Europeans seem to have no problems like these with their histories of serfdom, every bit as recent as our history of slavery, or only a little less.
(Though the Tsar Liberator might face differing judgements on his reign from Russians, Poles, and Turkmen.)
Well, the serfs and their owners were the same color, and their descendants cannot be recognized as such on sight.
Lucky Europeans!
Looking at issues related to race and the Confederate monuments, the numbers are way to the right of, say, MSNBC.
- A strong majority (62 percent) of Americans favor leaving the Confederate statues standing as historical markers
- Overwhelming numbers of Republicans (86 percent) favor this, as do 61 percent of Independents
- The only group with a majority favoring removal (57 percent) are “Strong Democrats” — as opposed to “Soft Democrats,” who slightly favor keeping them (52 percent)
- When defined by political ideology, only Liberal/Very Liberal people muster a majority for taking statues down (57 percent). Among self-described Moderates, 67 percent favor leaving the statues standing. A whopping 81 percent of Conservative/Very Conservative people favor the statues staying in place
- Unsurprisingly, the Northeast is the region of the country most in favor of removing the statues — but even there, a majority (53 percent) backs leaving the statues standing
- Here’s a stunner: 44 percent of African-Americans polled believe in keeping the statues standing. Of Latinos, 65 percent believe the statues should remain
- Comfortable majorities — no less than 60 percent — in each age cohort support the statues
- This is barely an issue with white Evangelicals, 85 percent of whom back the statues. Only nine percent favor removal, with the rest unsure
And there's more.
Including some conclusions.
The news media have been seriously distorting public reaction to Trump’s handling of Charlottesville.
Whether this is a matter of only seeing what they want to see, or a matter of the talking heads being concentrated among coastal elites of both parties, is a matter of conjecture.
True, a slight majority of Americans think Trump didn’t go far enough, but judging from the coverage and commentary, you would have thought at Charlottesville, Trump met his Waterloo.
It didn’t happen.
Charlottesville is not nearly a big a deal to Americans as it is to the media and coastal elites.
That seems a bit spurious.
To the extent that they editorialize - and nowadays they do that a whole lot - the media are not attempting to report but to mold public opinion.
As was surely obvious from the polarization of the media on this point, with CNN and MSNBC going with the liberal establishment while Fox and Breitbart went with talk radio and the alt.right.
And that, as it happens, made the latter coincidentally but not intentionally (though no doubt gladly) more reflective of American opinion as a whole.
Still, Dreher is right that white liberals and pretty much all white supporters of Democrats who think the monuments to the Confederacy ought to come down are unable or unwilling to answer black extremists, though they do not agree with them and are very uncomfortable with the apparent racism of their views.
That is, the views of those blacks who seem to support our republican form of government but refuse to allow honor to the whites who created it - Washington, Jefferson and so on - because of what those same whites did to their ancestors - or, anyway, people the same color as their ancestors.
(They do not notably resent the blacks of Africa whose ancestors captured and sold theirs into slavery, or those black ancestors themselves.
They may know but they don't care that pretty much everyone in the world had slaves when American whites had slaves, and that American and other whites have done more to end slavery all over the world than anyone else.)
Like whites who identify with those who committed the wrongs of the past and are unfortunately moved to celebrate them to defend their self-respect, these blacks identify with the victims and resent those wrongs as if they themselves bore the stripes of the lash, hating the very sight of those who committed them.
In the West, there are similar people who want to renew the Indian Wars, at least rhetorically.
We will hear from them.
Russians and other Europeans seem to have no problems like these with their histories of serfdom, every bit as recent as our history of slavery, or only a little less.
(Though the Tsar Liberator might face differing judgements on his reign from Russians, Poles, and Turkmen.)
Well, the serfs and their owners were the same color, and their descendants cannot be recognized as such on sight.
Lucky Europeans!
Elsewhere in the Jihad
Finland stabbings being treated as terror attack, police say
Stabbings in the Finnish city of Turku that left two people dead and injured eight others are being treated as acts of terror, police said.
"The incidents were initially investigated as murders, but in the light of further information received during the night, the offenses include now murders with terrorist intent and their attempts," police said.
An 18-year-old Moroccan citizen was taken into custody after the attacks.
Stabbings in the Finnish city of Turku that left two people dead and injured eight others are being treated as acts of terror, police said.
"The incidents were initially investigated as murders, but in the light of further information received during the night, the offenses include now murders with terrorist intent and their attempts," police said.
An 18-year-old Moroccan citizen was taken into custody after the attacks.
On Reflection
Maybe Brown was not wrongly decided, and Plessy was.
The more I read of Smith, especially in light of current events.
Friday, August 18, 2017
The indigenista dogma
Grist for Buchanan's mill, these Children of Zinn, whether they know their spiritual father or not.
At no point did Indians collectively own or claim to own all of the current continental territory (contiguous or not) of the USA.
At no point did they collectively own or claim to own any territory at all.
Throughout their history, they were divided into nations and tribes as mutually hostile and prone to moving about as those of Europe.
And it was not unusual for those hostilities to result in ethnic cleansing or even genocide, from partial to utterly complete extermination of enemy peoples.
There is no basis whatever for the current racist moral dogma that every inch of the New World belonged by right collectively to the Indians, from whom current and past white occupants stole what they have.
No more than for the dogma current in white nationalist circles that Europe is rightfully the collective territory of the eurowhite wing of the somewhat broader white race, and everyone now there who is not a eurowhite is a morally criminal invader.
And every such person trying to go there, Mediterranean and black refugees and migrants especially.
What about those Confederate monuments? Dreher vs Buchanan. Standard conservatism vs Buchananite White Nationalism
Of course, Buchanan's line is Bannon's and Breitbart's and Coulter's and Trump's.
Pat Buchanan: America’s Second Civil War
In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier.
Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off.
Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln’s suspension of the right of habeas corpus.
Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America.
Rod Dreher: Buchanan’s Shameful Defense Of White Supremacy
I was stunned just now to read the disgusting, racist, indefensible thing that Pat Buchanan has written in his syndicated column in response to the Confederate statue controversy.
. . . .
Buchanan is not meditating on the tragic nature of history, as any conservative worth the name must do.
No, in this column, Buchanan is defending white supremacy, straight up.
It is abhorrent, and must be rejected in the strongest terms by conservatives.
If this is where the Right is going, it can go right off that racist cliff without me.
It grieves me to see a conservative writer and thinker I have long admired, even if I did not always agree with him, descend to the gutter like this.
But it has happened, and it is shameful.
It is intolerable.
He has crossed a bright red line.
No, no, no!
Conservatives, this is not us.
It cannot be us.
We cannot put up with this.
Buchanan, of course, and those in bed with him from Breitbart to The Daily Stormer, are taking the same line in this fight over the Confederacy as some of the people who used to chant, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Western Civ has got to go!"
The line that the core of America, American history, and Western Civilization, what made it all and made it all great from start to finish and from inside to out, has been white racism.
At last, the Children of Zinn, The Nation of Islam, and The Aryan Nation agree!
Pat Buchanan: America’s Second Civil War
In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier.
Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off.
Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln’s suspension of the right of habeas corpus.
Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America.
Rod Dreher: Buchanan’s Shameful Defense Of White Supremacy
I was stunned just now to read the disgusting, racist, indefensible thing that Pat Buchanan has written in his syndicated column in response to the Confederate statue controversy.
. . . .
Buchanan is not meditating on the tragic nature of history, as any conservative worth the name must do.
No, in this column, Buchanan is defending white supremacy, straight up.
It is abhorrent, and must be rejected in the strongest terms by conservatives.
If this is where the Right is going, it can go right off that racist cliff without me.
It grieves me to see a conservative writer and thinker I have long admired, even if I did not always agree with him, descend to the gutter like this.
But it has happened, and it is shameful.
It is intolerable.
He has crossed a bright red line.
No, no, no!
Conservatives, this is not us.
It cannot be us.
We cannot put up with this.
Buchanan, of course, and those in bed with him from Breitbart to The Daily Stormer, are taking the same line in this fight over the Confederacy as some of the people who used to chant, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Western Civ has got to go!"
The line that the core of America, American history, and Western Civilization, what made it all and made it all great from start to finish and from inside to out, has been white racism.
At last, the Children of Zinn, The Nation of Islam, and The Aryan Nation agree!
As for Dreher, well, he is lying about Christianity as Christian conservatives, and especially Evangelicals, commonly do, attributing to it the ideas of its pagan and Enlightenment enemies.
Sam, in Supernatural, Season 12: Dean, you killed Hitler. Dean: Awesome!
Dean:
Dude, I killed Hitler.
I think I deserve some pie.
Dude, I killed Hitler.
I think I deserve some pie.
Al Sharpton discovers the difference
Right now on MSNBC, he demands how anyone can equate people only revered for trying to destroy this country in order to defend slavery and people who are revered for founding this country who also owned slaves, as though the idea is utterly preposterous.
Barcelona update
Deadly Barcelona attack is worst in a day of violence in Spain
Spain saw one of its most violent days in recent memory as a spate of incidents throughout the country appeared to be connected to a terror attack Thursday in Barcelona that left 13 people dead and more than 100 injured.
Authorities said they are working under the assumption that two other deadly events, a terrorist incident in the seaside city of Cambrils and a house explosion farther down the coast in Alcanar, were linked to the van attack in Barcelona that had ISIS taking credit.
. . . .
Here are the latest developments in a tragic day:
The Barcelona attack was one of the most deadly in Spain since more than 190 people were killed in a March 2004 attack against commuter trains.
Spain saw one of its most violent days in recent memory as a spate of incidents throughout the country appeared to be connected to a terror attack Thursday in Barcelona that left 13 people dead and more than 100 injured.
Authorities said they are working under the assumption that two other deadly events, a terrorist incident in the seaside city of Cambrils and a house explosion farther down the coast in Alcanar, were linked to the van attack in Barcelona that had ISIS taking credit.
. . . .
Here are the latest developments in a tragic day:
- Two suspects -- one from Morocco, one from the Spanish enclave of Melilla -- were arrested in connection with the Barcelona attack, Catalan Police Chief Josep Lluis Trapero said.
- One suspect in the Barcelona attack is on the run. "The driver abandoned the van and escaped from the area," Trapero said.
- About 115 kilometers to the southwest, there was a second attack early Friday. Catalan police tweeted that five suspected terrorists were killed in Cambrils. Emergency officials said six civilians and a police officer were injured.
- One person was killed in an explosion at a house in Alcanar, around 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Barcelona.
- Catalan police said early Friday they are "working under the hypothesis that the terrorists taken down in Cambrils were related to the events that took place in Barcelona and Alcanar."
- A driver ran over two police officers at a security checkpoint in Barcelona, police said, and the driver was found near the city. The two officers suffered minor injuries and did not need hospital treatment, police said. It was unclear whether that incident was related to the terror attack.
- ISIS' media wing, Amaq, said the perpetrators of the Barcelona attack were "soldiers of the Islamic State." However, ISIS has not explicitly claimed responsibility.
The Barcelona attack was one of the most deadly in Spain since more than 190 people were killed in a March 2004 attack against commuter trains.
Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney Pens Powerful Message Calling On Trump To Apologize For Charlottesville Remarks
I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president's Charlottesville statements.
Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn.
His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard.
But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.
The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president's words.
Why?
In part because the morale and commitment of our forces--made up and sustained by men and women of all races--could be in the balance.
Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America's ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished.
And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?
In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means.
Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants.
But today they wonder.
Where might this lead?
To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?
The potential consequences are severe in the extreme.
Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme.
He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize.
State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville.
Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute.
And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.
This is a defining moment for President Trump.
But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children.
They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching.
Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.
I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president's Charlottesville statements.
Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn.
His apologists strain to explain that he didn't mean what we heard.
But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.
The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president's words.
Why?
In part because the morale and commitment of our forces--made up and sustained by men and women of all races--could be in the balance.
Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America's ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished.
And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?
In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means.
Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants.
But today they wonder.
Where might this lead?
To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?
The potential consequences are severe in the extreme.
Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme.
He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize.
State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville.
Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis--who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat--and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute.
And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.
This is a defining moment for President Trump.
But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children.
They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching.
Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.
Will he leave? (Please?)
Trump Support Falls With Increased Speculation That Trump Will Be Impeached Or Resign To Avoid Prison
A lot of Democrats have made peace in their heads with the idea a Pence presidency would be better than this, even though he might be more effective at advancing a standard conservative agenda.
And more Republicans are thinking the damage to themselves, to their agenda, and to their party might well be less, even given the "transaction costs" of a nasty process and the displeasure of those angry, "forgotten men" who are already furious at Washington and the establishment GOP.
Countdown?
Are Republicans discovering they have absolutely got to abandon all traces of the Southern Strategy and what it has done to their party?
How much of the party will be left if they really do that?
A lot of Democrats have made peace in their heads with the idea a Pence presidency would be better than this, even though he might be more effective at advancing a standard conservative agenda.
And more Republicans are thinking the damage to themselves, to their agenda, and to their party might well be less, even given the "transaction costs" of a nasty process and the displeasure of those angry, "forgotten men" who are already furious at Washington and the establishment GOP.
Countdown?
Are Republicans discovering they have absolutely got to abandon all traces of the Southern Strategy and what it has done to their party?
How much of the party will be left if they really do that?
The Pershing lie trotted out as advice to Spain
Trump on Barcelona: Recalls US War on Spain, Brutal Occupation of Filipino Muslims
The Duce just loves this story from one of those idiot emails the nitwit right forward to each other, that has been debunked repeatedly.
That he so loves this story of a fictional, violent war crime celebrating and encouraging amused contempt for Muslims is revealing, and so is the fact that he used this story of a fictional atrocity in a phase of the very real Spanish American War ostensibly to give encouragement to Spain and its people.
Sensitivity training, anyone?
The Duce just loves this story from one of those idiot emails the nitwit right forward to each other, that has been debunked repeatedly.
That he so loves this story of a fictional, violent war crime celebrating and encouraging amused contempt for Muslims is revealing, and so is the fact that he used this story of a fictional atrocity in a phase of the very real Spanish American War ostensibly to give encouragement to Spain and its people.
Sensitivity training, anyone?
MSNBC against the red states of the South
Velshi is reporting on the current war between blue (and heavily black) cities and their red (and mostly white) state governments over the removal of monuments to the Confederacy, black Democratic city governments against white Republican state governments.
MSNBC is covering the conflict and taking sides, the coverage itself a spotlight on the soft-on-racism GOP.
MSNBC is covering the conflict and taking sides, the coverage itself a spotlight on the soft-on-racism GOP.
The Governor of Maine
Gov. LePage: Removing Confederate Statues Just Like Tearing Down NYC 9/11 Memorial
Maine Governor Paul LePage told WGAN-AM's Ken Altshuler and Matt Gagnon that the idea of lefties wanting to get rid of Confederate monuments is just like going to "New York City right now and taking down the monument of those who perished in 9/11. That, it will come to that."
Maine Governor Paul LePage told WGAN-AM's Ken Altshuler and Matt Gagnon that the idea of lefties wanting to get rid of Confederate monuments is just like going to "New York City right now and taking down the monument of those who perished in 9/11. That, it will come to that."
Rasputin defenestrated
Steve Bannon out
The Rasputin of Buchananism in foreign policy, in undermining the deep state, in economic and racial nationalism, is out.
In his descriptive terms, his nationalist faction has ultimately lost to the globalists of the deep state and establishment DC.
Didn't make it to today's national security meeting at Camp David, called to finally decide what to do about Afghanistan, where the generals and the globalists want to send more troops and Bannon wanted to hand over the war to mercenaries who would eventually be the Afghans', not our, employees.
And Trump was leaning toward Bannon.
The story is he submitted his resignation August 2 to be effective August 14.
Hmm.
Update, MSNBC broadcasts audio of exultant cheers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange greeting the announcement of the firing of Bannon.
The lemmings have had a bad week, what with Bozo proudly displaying his hooded Americanism.
Stocks turn mixed after bouncing on Bannon's exit
Stocks were mixed Friday after recovering from early losses on reports that Steve Bannon, one of President Donald Trump's top advisors, is leaving the administration.
The Dow had dropped about 140 points since Monday, said Velshi.
Update, a source now says it was Kelly who decided Bannon had to go and got Trump to sign off.
A sympathizer on a panel at MSNBC says with dismay the firing means the globalists have won, the nationalists will be swept out of the White House and wherever Bannon was able to put them.
She was thinking of the whole America First thing - trade, immigration, and isolationist foreign policies - that was in fact the beating heart of Trump's ideology, of Buchananism.
I hope she's right.
The Rasputin of Buchananism in foreign policy, in undermining the deep state, in economic and racial nationalism, is out.
In his descriptive terms, his nationalist faction has ultimately lost to the globalists of the deep state and establishment DC.
Didn't make it to today's national security meeting at Camp David, called to finally decide what to do about Afghanistan, where the generals and the globalists want to send more troops and Bannon wanted to hand over the war to mercenaries who would eventually be the Afghans', not our, employees.
And Trump was leaning toward Bannon.
The story is he submitted his resignation August 2 to be effective August 14.
Hmm.
Update, MSNBC broadcasts audio of exultant cheers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange greeting the announcement of the firing of Bannon.
The lemmings have had a bad week, what with Bozo proudly displaying his hooded Americanism.
Stocks turn mixed after bouncing on Bannon's exit
Stocks were mixed Friday after recovering from early losses on reports that Steve Bannon, one of President Donald Trump's top advisors, is leaving the administration.
The Dow had dropped about 140 points since Monday, said Velshi.
Update, a source now says it was Kelly who decided Bannon had to go and got Trump to sign off.
A sympathizer on a panel at MSNBC says with dismay the firing means the globalists have won, the nationalists will be swept out of the White House and wherever Bannon was able to put them.
She was thinking of the whole America First thing - trade, immigration, and isolationist foreign policies - that was in fact the beating heart of Trump's ideology, of Buchananism.
I hope she's right.
Literary taxonomy
There is such a thing as didactic poetry.
And there are such things as pedantic novels.
Anyway, this one.
Presumptuous and patronizing to the reader and to his characters in authorial intrusions.
What is to be Done?
Update.
Rattling on about psychological egoism.
Jejune, insipid, fatuous, arrogant, and dogmatic.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
One Trump ally has had it
Corker: Trump hasn't demonstrated the stability or competence to be successful
He's the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee.
Sen. Bob Corker slammed President Donald Trump's handling of the racially motivated protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, charging that the President "has not demonstrated he understands the character of this nation."
The Tennessee Republican told reporters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday that he thinks there must be "radical changes" within the White House.
"The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to be successful," Corker said, according to a video posted by local news website Nooga.com.
"He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today, and he's got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that," Corker added.
He's the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee.
Sen. Bob Corker slammed President Donald Trump's handling of the racially motivated protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, charging that the President "has not demonstrated he understands the character of this nation."
The Tennessee Republican told reporters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday that he thinks there must be "radical changes" within the White House.
"The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to be successful," Corker said, according to a video posted by local news website Nooga.com.
"He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today, and he's got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that," Corker added.
Barcelona attack
Van plows into Barcelona crowd
What we know so far
What we know so far
- A van has plowed into a crowd of people in Barcelona, killing 13 and injuring more than 50.
- Local police have confirmed that the incident was a terror attack; they have arrested one man.
- The number of dead is "bound to rise," according to local officials.
- The incident took place near Las Ramblas, an area popular with tourists.
- Police have told people to avoid the location, in the center of the city.
- Catalan emergency services have requested the closure of metro and train stations in the vicinity, according to Reuters.
Reportedly, the numbers are expected to rise.
Breitbart says a Moroccan from France, Driss Oukabir, is in custody.
He has a Facebook page that allegedly indicates this was Muslim in motivation.
Nothing to say it was terrorism rather than a mere hate crime, but I doubt we can expect Breitbart to be fussy about the difference, any more than (increasingly) partisans on the other side of America's racial conflicts.
Nothing to say it was terrorism rather than a mere hate crime, but I doubt we can expect Breitbart to be fussy about the difference, any more than (increasingly) partisans on the other side of America's racial conflicts.
And nothing in the reports to distinguish terrorism out of Muslim solidarity (remember the Boston Bombers?) from terrorism motivated by Islamic radicalism.
Actual, religious Jihad, that is.
Update, revised to 12 dead and 80 wounded, 2 so far known involved, ISIS claiming responsibility with unknown veracity.
Some suggestions others are or were involved, and other attacks may happen.
Police still hunting.
These guys are a lot more serious than that schmuck in Charlottesville.
Actual, religious Jihad, that is.
Update, revised to 12 dead and 80 wounded, 2 so far known involved, ISIS claiming responsibility with unknown veracity.
Some suggestions others are or were involved, and other attacks may happen.
Police still hunting.
These guys are a lot more serious than that schmuck in Charlottesville.
What about Jefferson, huh?
Dang, just when all this was going so well for the Democrats and the anti-Confederate cause.
Al Sharpton: Defund The Jefferson Memorial
As if to vindicate Trump and the racist right . . .
Al Sharpton: When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you are asking me to subsidize the insult of my family.
Charlie Rose: Then I repeat Thomas Jefferson had slaves.
Al Sharpton: And I would repeat that the public should not be paying to uphold somebody who had that kind of background. You have private museums. You have other things that you may want to do, but that's not even the issue here, Charlie. We're talking about here, an open display of bigotry announced and over and over again.
Of course, that monument is not there to celebrate slavery or to commend Jefferson for owning slaves.
It was not put there as an affirmation of racism and white supremacy.
It is there to commend the revolutionary for the Declaration of Independence.
Can or should America consent to have no monuments to its past leaders?
Who among them was without sin?
And haven't we forgotten the Indians, who might have a grievance, too?
(If the Indians collectively owned the New World and late arriving whites were racial and racist invaders don't eurowhites collectively and racially own Europe?
Al Sharpton: Defund The Jefferson Memorial
As if to vindicate Trump and the racist right . . .
Al Sharpton: When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you are asking me to subsidize the insult of my family.
Charlie Rose: Then I repeat Thomas Jefferson had slaves.
Al Sharpton: And I would repeat that the public should not be paying to uphold somebody who had that kind of background. You have private museums. You have other things that you may want to do, but that's not even the issue here, Charlie. We're talking about here, an open display of bigotry announced and over and over again.
Of course, that monument is not there to celebrate slavery or to commend Jefferson for owning slaves.
It was not put there as an affirmation of racism and white supremacy.
It is there to commend the revolutionary for the Declaration of Independence.
Can or should America consent to have no monuments to its past leaders?
Who among them was without sin?
And haven't we forgotten the Indians, who might have a grievance, too?
(If the Indians collectively owned the New World and late arriving whites were racial and racist invaders don't eurowhites collectively and racially own Europe?
Aren't those refugees steadily streaming across the Med racist invaders of the Aryan homeland, just as the alt.right probably say?)
PS. Given Al's past in the Brawley affair, should he be allowed a place of honor, the bully pulpit of MSNBC?
Perhaps he has never quite gotten over his then attitude toward white people and America.
Is that not an insult to all of white America?
Just asking.
If the narrative at MSNBC and elsewhere in Democratic anti-Trumpland starts to go this way it will soon enough start driving white Americans back into the arms of the GOP.
They will hold their noses and sit next to David Duke, if they feel they have to.
PS. Given Al's past in the Brawley affair, should he be allowed a place of honor, the bully pulpit of MSNBC?
Perhaps he has never quite gotten over his then attitude toward white people and America.
Is that not an insult to all of white America?
Just asking.
If the narrative at MSNBC and elsewhere in Democratic anti-Trumpland starts to go this way it will soon enough start driving white Americans back into the arms of the GOP.
They will hold their noses and sit next to David Duke, if they feel they have to.
Larry O'Donnell on Lee
For the Union dead.
Lee, the traitor
When Lee and his army came to Pennsylvania they kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South every black they could find.
Lee, the traitor
When Lee and his army came to Pennsylvania they kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South every black they could find.
More want to impeach Bozo than support him
And that was before Charlottesville.
Poll: 40 Percent Now Support Trump Impeachment
Four in ten Americans now support the impeachment of President Donald Trump — a ten point jump in the last six months — according to a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The survey found that 40 percent of Americans — including nearly three-quarters of Democrats but just seven percent of Republicans — back impeaching the president and removing him from office. That’s compared to 30 percent who said the same in February.
Trump’s overall favorability rating in the poll stands at 38 percent favorable, 56 percent unfavorable.
The PRRI survey was conducted August 2-8, before last weekend’s white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Trump’s statement that “both sides” deserve blame for the resulting violence has prompted criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Poll: 40 Percent Now Support Trump Impeachment
Four in ten Americans now support the impeachment of President Donald Trump — a ten point jump in the last six months — according to a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The survey found that 40 percent of Americans — including nearly three-quarters of Democrats but just seven percent of Republicans — back impeaching the president and removing him from office. That’s compared to 30 percent who said the same in February.
Trump’s overall favorability rating in the poll stands at 38 percent favorable, 56 percent unfavorable.
The PRRI survey was conducted August 2-8, before last weekend’s white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Trump’s statement that “both sides” deserve blame for the resulting violence has prompted criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Laura Ingraham defends Bozo the Troglodyte
Krauthammer Calls Ingraham's Defense Of Trump A 'Cop-out'; They Battle Over Trump's 'Moral Disgrace'
After Laura praised the president's Monday statements on Charlottesville and mostly blamed the media for Trump not staying on his agenda and falling into "a pundit trap," Charles Krauthammer lit into her, saying, "To critique what he did today on the grounds that it distracts from the agenda or was a tactical mistake, I believe is a cop-out."
"What Trump did today was a moral disgrace," Krauthammer said.
"This was instigated, instituted, the riots began over a Nazi riot riot, Nazi rally. The only killing here occurred by one of the pro-Nazi people."
Krauthammer said Trump's actions today exposed that Monday's remarks were a "hostage statement " and not Trump's real views.
Ingraham said, "If you are going to say Donald Trump is racist or is stupid, or some dumb troglodyte who is just doing a hostage tape, I guess you can tell all our Fox viewers that."
"And I resent that you said it was a cop-out, what I said on this set."
She continued, "To critique what he did today is what we were asked to do on the show today. I'm not going to pass moral judgment on whether Donald Trump is morally on the same plane as you are, Charles. I'm sure you are a better person than he is."
After Laura praised the president's Monday statements on Charlottesville and mostly blamed the media for Trump not staying on his agenda and falling into "a pundit trap," Charles Krauthammer lit into her, saying, "To critique what he did today on the grounds that it distracts from the agenda or was a tactical mistake, I believe is a cop-out."
"What Trump did today was a moral disgrace," Krauthammer said.
"This was instigated, instituted, the riots began over a Nazi riot riot, Nazi rally. The only killing here occurred by one of the pro-Nazi people."
Krauthammer said Trump's actions today exposed that Monday's remarks were a "hostage statement " and not Trump's real views.
Ingraham said, "If you are going to say Donald Trump is racist or is stupid, or some dumb troglodyte who is just doing a hostage tape, I guess you can tell all our Fox viewers that."
"And I resent that you said it was a cop-out, what I said on this set."
She continued, "To critique what he did today is what we were asked to do on the show today. I'm not going to pass moral judgment on whether Donald Trump is morally on the same plane as you are, Charles. I'm sure you are a better person than he is."
Charlottesville, and beyond
Meanwhile, assuming, as does not really seem likely, that the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators actually were equally violent, the Dems and their supporters who seem to insist that does not mean they are equally to blame seem to subscribe to the view that if two ex-cons get into a fight in a bar the one with the worse criminal record is to blame.
Possibly, many of them are doing exactly what they mean to do, totally exonerating the violence of the antifas, for whom MSNBC (for instance) has provided a bully pulpit and for whom they have shown indulgence - while at least showing a soft spot for denying First Amendment protection to the Nazis, the Aryans, and all the white organizations, anyway, committed to agendas of racial hate.
That would be a piece of Constitutional Disobedience for which I have no sympathy, and I find it dismaying that in recent years the defenders of the First Amendment have been much more often on the right than on the left.
By the way, the author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook, Mark Bray, was on MSNBC, the other night, arguing that since only violence in the end brought down the German and Italian fascists we ought to use violence now to keep them - er, to keep American fascists, I mean, or, er, racists - from gaining power.
Of course, they are about a lot more than anti-racism and those they are anti- extend far beyond fascists (pretty much none of them are actually that) and racists, and Bray was an organizer in the Occupy movement when it became anti-capitalist and pro-Anarchist, but never mind.
If only someone had done that in the Germany of the 30s, he said, overlooking the fact that someone did, as those in his movement generally know very well.
The Weimar hard left had their own street-fighters, and between them the Nazis and the Reds raised a lot of hell in Germany.
Didn't work.
Obviously, those supportive of the novel handling of the First Amendment I mentioned above have similar views.
They might ask themselves how that's working out, right now, in Europe - and particularly how effectively decades of prohibition of Holocaust Denial and of publication of Mein Kampf in Europe - a precedent to which Geert Wilders implicitly appeals in suggesting a ban on the Koran in the Netherlands - have prevented the rise there of the same sort of populist extreme right as supports Trump in the US.
All the same, this seems to be an idea Democrats keep coming back to.
Recall the laments of leading Democrats that actual Koran burners and Terry Jones, who threatened it, could not be prosecuted owing to that inconvenient First Amendment.
A feature of the Constitution they lamented again at the time of widespread 2012 protests, on or just after September 11, in the Muslim world of a You Tube video mocking Mohammed put up by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, whom they shamelessly persecuted in shocking abuses of power.
Possibly, many of them are doing exactly what they mean to do, totally exonerating the violence of the antifas, for whom MSNBC (for instance) has provided a bully pulpit and for whom they have shown indulgence - while at least showing a soft spot for denying First Amendment protection to the Nazis, the Aryans, and all the white organizations, anyway, committed to agendas of racial hate.
That would be a piece of Constitutional Disobedience for which I have no sympathy, and I find it dismaying that in recent years the defenders of the First Amendment have been much more often on the right than on the left.
By the way, the author of Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook, Mark Bray, was on MSNBC, the other night, arguing that since only violence in the end brought down the German and Italian fascists we ought to use violence now to keep them - er, to keep American fascists, I mean, or, er, racists - from gaining power.
Of course, they are about a lot more than anti-racism and those they are anti- extend far beyond fascists (pretty much none of them are actually that) and racists, and Bray was an organizer in the Occupy movement when it became anti-capitalist and pro-Anarchist, but never mind.
If only someone had done that in the Germany of the 30s, he said, overlooking the fact that someone did, as those in his movement generally know very well.
The Weimar hard left had their own street-fighters, and between them the Nazis and the Reds raised a lot of hell in Germany.
Didn't work.
Obviously, those supportive of the novel handling of the First Amendment I mentioned above have similar views.
They might ask themselves how that's working out, right now, in Europe - and particularly how effectively decades of prohibition of Holocaust Denial and of publication of Mein Kampf in Europe - a precedent to which Geert Wilders implicitly appeals in suggesting a ban on the Koran in the Netherlands - have prevented the rise there of the same sort of populist extreme right as supports Trump in the US.
All the same, this seems to be an idea Democrats keep coming back to.
Recall the laments of leading Democrats that actual Koran burners and Terry Jones, who threatened it, could not be prosecuted owing to that inconvenient First Amendment.
A feature of the Constitution they lamented again at the time of widespread 2012 protests, on or just after September 11, in the Muslim world of a You Tube video mocking Mohammed put up by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, whom they shamelessly persecuted in shocking abuses of power.
And if there had been no violence at Charlottesville?
There would have been no occasion to protest that both sides do it, no opportunity for that misleading equivalence.
The White House might have been asked for comment on the movement to take down Confederate monuments.
The White House and those who support it and The Duce, himself oppose that movement.
And for comment on the fact that the organizers or the Charlottesville march, "Unite the Right," to protest the removal of such statues and the renaming of a park previously named for a Confederate leader, were all of them white supremacists and nationalists of the most extreme ideology, anti-Semites of the deepest dye, like the neo-Nazis, the Aryans, and the Klan, and that nobody else seemed to be there but them and counter-protesters.
Nobody was there but the Klan and the Nazis.
What does that say about the cause?
The White House might have been asked why the flag of and monuments to the Confederate States of America, defeated traitors and enemies who tried to wreck the Union in order to perpetuate black slavery forever, are revered anywhere in the USA, today, and how anyone who reveres and defends them can claim to be a patriotic American.
And how anyone who marches under, or with people who march under, Nazi flags can make such a claim.
The answers would not have been any better than the ones we actually got to the questions actually asked, probably.
The White House might have been asked for comment on the movement to take down Confederate monuments.
The White House and those who support it and The Duce, himself oppose that movement.
And for comment on the fact that the organizers or the Charlottesville march, "Unite the Right," to protest the removal of such statues and the renaming of a park previously named for a Confederate leader, were all of them white supremacists and nationalists of the most extreme ideology, anti-Semites of the deepest dye, like the neo-Nazis, the Aryans, and the Klan, and that nobody else seemed to be there but them and counter-protesters.
Nobody was there but the Klan and the Nazis.
What does that say about the cause?
The White House might have been asked why the flag of and monuments to the Confederate States of America, defeated traitors and enemies who tried to wreck the Union in order to perpetuate black slavery forever, are revered anywhere in the USA, today, and how anyone who reveres and defends them can claim to be a patriotic American.
And how anyone who marches under, or with people who march under, Nazi flags can make such a claim.
The answers would not have been any better than the ones we actually got to the questions actually asked, probably.
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Cool your wheels
No, don't even try to criminalize white racists or their speech per se.
No, don't pretend the antifas, committed to initiating violence against people speaking, demonstrating, or otherwise supporting ideas or agendas they hate and label, almost always falsely, as fascist, are on the side of the angels because they oppose a particular tribe of devils.
The Communists, after all, opposed the Nazis.
Somebody at MSNBC seems to have decided to take their side, to proved that there is no "moral equivalence" between the antifas and the Nazis.
Roughly speaking, the only reason that's true is that the Nazis have a program to do immense harm to nonwhites and also many whites, while the antifas only have a program to harm the Nazis.
Well, all right.
Their program makes them annoying beyond that.
But not on anything like the same scale, eh?
No, don't pretend the antifas, committed to initiating violence against people speaking, demonstrating, or otherwise supporting ideas or agendas they hate and label, almost always falsely, as fascist, are on the side of the angels because they oppose a particular tribe of devils.
The Communists, after all, opposed the Nazis.
Somebody at MSNBC seems to have decided to take their side, to proved that there is no "moral equivalence" between the antifas and the Nazis.
Roughly speaking, the only reason that's true is that the Nazis have a program to do immense harm to nonwhites and also many whites, while the antifas only have a program to harm the Nazis.
Well, all right.
Their program makes them annoying beyond that.
But not on anything like the same scale, eh?
Really?
If every time you call somebody a fascist you have to write another essay explaining what the hell you mean by that, this time, maybe you're just wasting all our time with your silly pretense that words mean whatever you, in particular, want them to mean.
This time.
The things people claiming to be rational claim to believe
Conservatism’s Damaging Game of Footsie with the Alt-Right
Jonah Goldberg famously claims that the Nazi and Fascist movements were actually leftist because the right in its essence reveres and protects the untrammeled market and the independence and power of corporations and plutocrats.
That is the meaning of "the right" to the faux conservatives of the United States of Amnesia, a country that was governed by an institutionally secular republic from birth and that never after had to endure or rebel against even lingering traces of a hereditary monarchy and aristocracy with Lords both Temporal and Spiritual.
Anyway, this narrow-minded radical who lies to himself that he and those like him are conservatives wrote this.
During the campaign, when Trump attacked the ethnicity of an American judge or the parents of a fallen Muslim U.S. soldier, the response from his defenders on the right was usually, “At least he fights!”
Such amorality was warranted, many explained, because if Clinton had won, America would be “over.”
National-security official Michael Anton, then writing from the safety of anonymity, dubbed it a “Flight 93 election” and argued that conservatives must do anything for victory or accept certain death.
In an interview with New York magazine, Anton went further.
“If we must have Caesar,” he said, “who do you want him to be? One of theirs? Or one of yours (ours)?”
The election is over.
Yet that spirit not only endures, it has intensified.
Trump’s conservative critics, or “apostates” as Conrad Black calls us, face the same ultimatum.
“The choice, for sane conservatives,” Black writes, “is Trump or national disaster.”
Jonah Goldberg famously claims that the Nazi and Fascist movements were actually leftist because the right in its essence reveres and protects the untrammeled market and the independence and power of corporations and plutocrats.
That is the meaning of "the right" to the faux conservatives of the United States of Amnesia, a country that was governed by an institutionally secular republic from birth and that never after had to endure or rebel against even lingering traces of a hereditary monarchy and aristocracy with Lords both Temporal and Spiritual.
Anyway, this narrow-minded radical who lies to himself that he and those like him are conservatives wrote this.
During the campaign, when Trump attacked the ethnicity of an American judge or the parents of a fallen Muslim U.S. soldier, the response from his defenders on the right was usually, “At least he fights!”
Such amorality was warranted, many explained, because if Clinton had won, America would be “over.”
National-security official Michael Anton, then writing from the safety of anonymity, dubbed it a “Flight 93 election” and argued that conservatives must do anything for victory or accept certain death.
In an interview with New York magazine, Anton went further.
“If we must have Caesar,” he said, “who do you want him to be? One of theirs? Or one of yours (ours)?”
The election is over.
Yet that spirit not only endures, it has intensified.
Trump’s conservative critics, or “apostates” as Conrad Black calls us, face the same ultimatum.
“The choice, for sane conservatives,” Black writes, “is Trump or national disaster.”
GOP defenders of white heritage
City of Memphis to sue Tenn. to get Confederate statues removed
FOX13 asked Reverend Jesse Jackson about Memphis' Confederate statues when the Civil Rights icon was in town on Monday.
"There are no statues of Hitler in Germany today. The losers are vanquished. We have one American flag. The heroes are those who fight to save the union from secession. Who fought to end slavery. The best America is the America without slavery," said Rev. Jackson.
Tennessee is not alone.
In several red states with blue cities, the red state governments have passed laws effectively preventing local authorities from taking down monuments to the Confederacy.
Why would anybody think the GOP is the party of the Klan without the hoods?
FOX13 asked Reverend Jesse Jackson about Memphis' Confederate statues when the Civil Rights icon was in town on Monday.
"There are no statues of Hitler in Germany today. The losers are vanquished. We have one American flag. The heroes are those who fight to save the union from secession. Who fought to end slavery. The best America is the America without slavery," said Rev. Jackson.
Tennessee is not alone.
In several red states with blue cities, the red state governments have passed laws effectively preventing local authorities from taking down monuments to the Confederacy.
Why would anybody think the GOP is the party of the Klan without the hoods?
Even at the cost of Pence?
Pence being a real conservative, both fiscal and social, I thought from the day he was elected a Trump presidency would hurt the country less than a Pence presidency, and might actually weaken the conservative project for the future.
No more.
The question now is whether getting rid of him, the process, would do too much more harm than good to be worthwhile.
How do we minimize the damage?
"We are so over!"
Stephanie Ruhle of Trump closing his Councils to head off mass resignations.
"It's like you know your boyfriend is coming to your house to dump you so you text him 'We are over! We are so over!'"
Hilarious.
Totally not convincing
White guys protesting they are not neo-Confederates, Nazis, or racists and claiming their vigorous insistence on preserving Confederate monuments is about preserving their heritage.
Hmm.
Would that work to defend statues of Nazis in Germany, I wonder?
Update.
White racists use that expression as code for their heritage of white supremacy and racism.
Hmm.
Would that work to defend statues of Nazis in Germany, I wonder?
Update.
White racists use that expression as code for their heritage of white supremacy and racism.
A vaporware government
Asked where they are on infrastructure responsible officials in the White House say "Nowhere, there is no bill, no legislative proposal."
Same about tax reform.
Of course, stirring the pot and keeping the chaos going suits the Dems and their supporters to a tee.
Same about tax reform.
Of course, stirring the pot and keeping the chaos going suits the Dems and their supporters to a tee.
Don't cite WFB to prove conservatives aren't racist
Really?
Calling on the memory of WFB chasing out the Birchers to defend conservatives, saying they must equally drive out the racists?
WFB defended white supremacy in the American South, in the then Rhodesia, and in South Africa.
I don't know that I'd want to claim WFB as a noble ancestor of conservatism while trying to defend conservatism against charges of racism
Right now on MSNBC, Rev. Al Sharpton and Craig Melvin arguing with Larry Kudlow.
Ali Velshi broke in announcing a presidential tweet dissolving two Councils of CEO's, one of them by the vote of the CEOs.
Kudlow fully embraced the GOP myth of trickle-down economics, saying what's important to him and the congressional GOP is getting to the agenda.
Tax reform, he said, - and it's well known that this is about big top-end and corporate tax cuts - will boost the rate of American economic growth to 4 %.
Velshi cut him off with scorn, saying there was nothing in the GOP plan that could do anything remotely like that, that he would grow an Afro before the US economy grows at 4 %.
Velshi is bald as a billiard ball.
Calling on the memory of WFB chasing out the Birchers to defend conservatives, saying they must equally drive out the racists?
WFB defended white supremacy in the American South, in the then Rhodesia, and in South Africa.
I don't know that I'd want to claim WFB as a noble ancestor of conservatism while trying to defend conservatism against charges of racism
Right now on MSNBC, Rev. Al Sharpton and Craig Melvin arguing with Larry Kudlow.
Ali Velshi broke in announcing a presidential tweet dissolving two Councils of CEO's, one of them by the vote of the CEOs.
Kudlow fully embraced the GOP myth of trickle-down economics, saying what's important to him and the congressional GOP is getting to the agenda.
Tax reform, he said, - and it's well known that this is about big top-end and corporate tax cuts - will boost the rate of American economic growth to 4 %.
Velshi cut him off with scorn, saying there was nothing in the GOP plan that could do anything remotely like that, that he would grow an Afro before the US economy grows at 4 %.
Velshi is bald as a billiard ball.
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