January 28, 2020

The Morning Report - 1/28/20

—J.J. Sefton

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Good morning kids. Tuesday, and despite the so-called non-bombshell of the fortuitously timed release of that excerpt from John Bolton's book that again alleges nothing that was truly illegal, rises anywhere near the level of an impeachable offence or relevant to what actually happened in the timeline of actual events, the Trump defense team yet again absolutely dismantled the Democrats case. Alan Dershowitz shifted (no pun) brilliantly in taking on this garbage by citing the leaked excerpt:

... "Quid pro quo alone is not a basis for abuse of power," said Dershowitz. "It's part of the way that foreign policy has been operated by presidents since the beginning of time. The claim that foreign policy decisions can be deemed abuses of power based on subjective opinions about mixed or sole motives, that the president was interested only in helping himself, demonstrates the dangers of employing the vague subjective and malleable phrase of abuse of power as a constitutional criteria for the removal of a president. Now it follows, it follows from this that if a president, any president were to have done what the Times reported about the content of the Bolton manuscript, that would not constitute an impeachable offense..."

The other notable defense came from former Florida AG Pam Bondi who, in defending the President's dealings with Ukraine, and with the decision to hear more potential witnesses in the balance, brought up the real criminals, blackmailers and bloodsuckers in Ukraine and in probably half a hundred other places around the globe. I mean, the Biden family:

... [Bondi] also noted that Hunter Biden was involved in business with Chris Heinz, the stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Both were involved in Ukraine - and elsewhere at a time when ending corruption was said to be the top priority of the United States and other western governments in dealing with Ukraine.

Bondi also noted that journalists had asked the Obama administration about the Bidens' conflict of interest, and that American diplomats - including State Department official George Kent and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified in the House impeachment inquiry - had raised concerns as well.

Nothing was done, she pointed out, and Hunter Biden only left the board of Burisma in April 2019, the same month that his father announced his campaign for the presidency, when under closer scrutiny than usual.

Bondi noted that the House Democrat impeachment managers had referred to "the Bidens and Burisma 400 times" in their presentation in an effort to pre-empt the argument that there was any legitimate basis, other than the president's own political interest, for asking the Ukraine to investigate them...

Other stand out speeches were given by White House Counsel Eric Herschman and Jane Raskin, and even Ken Starr fired off some well aimed torpedoes (see links below). In a sane world, not only would we never even have had the House hearings but the preponderance of evidence and the lack of even a shred of any substantive evidence or direct witness testimony that can be corroborated would have stopped this thing dead in its tracks weeks ago. Yet here we are and despite all of this, the Bolton non-revelation nothing-burger of a fart in a hurricane is all that will be needed to give cover for Pee-Air Defecto, the Maine Pain and the Alaskan Snow-Blower to side with the Democrats and call Bolton to testify and express his hurt feelings about Trump not taking his advice, which is, of course, a hanging offense in the Deep State - just like every other "witness" who witnessed nothing but their worldview torn up in their faces by OrangeManBad as he implemented policies that actually work and to America's advantage.

That will fail, of course, but what I am truly wary of is in voting for more witnesses, watch as the aforementioned RINO traitors pull a fast one with the Dems and try to block the Bribems, Eric "Whistleblower" Ciaramella or even Schiff-for-Brains from facing the Team Trump collective blow torch. Is that possible if the control of who calls witnesses and other procedural matters are controlled by McConnell or Graham? Are procedural matters even up for a vote in the first place? No matter what, Cocaine Mitch has got to read the riot act to these turds and threaten to strip them of any perk, privilege and committee chairmanship if they continue with this garbage. Meh, he should do it anyway. Romney is gone. He's angling to sabotage the President, period, full stop. He is probably deluding himself into thinking he's going to be the savior of the party in 2024. Perhaps sooner than that if he has gone off the deep end.

Circling back to Bolton, George W. Bush, who is no fan to say the least of this President, thinks he (Bolton) is not credible at all and more tellingly, Bolton's former chief of staff ripped him a new one and called on him to suspend the release of the book. In any case, as Bill Hemmer asked Democrat hack Val Demings - three times with no real response - why didn't the Democrats subpoena Bolton when Schiff-for-Brains and Gas Giant Nadler were running the House committees? Yes, Trump would've put up a fight but they could have taken him to court and probably won, all things considered with the state of the judiciary, especially in DC. But of course they didn't, and here we are.

The bottom line is, whenever this comes to an end, not only will the President be acquitted but his approval rating and perception with the public that he is the victim climb, and concomitantly the Democrats will continue digging their way past the earth's lower crust and into the upper lithosphere. Daniel Greenfield is right that as Trump derangement increases it yields diminishing returns in terms of the public's engagement and willingness to go along. In fact, just the opposite as I have stated. But it won't end. There will be more charges, yet another House panel and so on, and so on and scooby dooby dooby right up until the election and really for all time.

NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.

ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.

Follow us on Twitter: @CutJibNews

Posted by J.J. Sefton at 07:30 AM Comments



Monday Overnight Open Thread (1/27/20)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

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***


The Quotes of The Day


Quote I

"Anyone with any doubt who the bad guys are here ... be certain it is the City of Tempe, City of Phoenix, and police forces valleywide. There is no excuse for pointing an AR-15 in the face of a non-violent offender."Dustin Shomer


Quote II

“No, no, the country’s finished,” Actor Hugh Grant


Quote III

Never in human history have so many rich, pampered, cosseted people of all colors steadfastly refused to see how good they have it, or been so unwilling to defend the very system that gave them every single privilege and comfort they enjoy. They are still looking for the Magic Victim Lotto Win, even if they have to pay their own attackers, deface their own property, or put vulgar epithets on their own birthday cakes.Ammo Grrrll


Quote IV

That folly has deformed our politics. Now, in 2020, voters are faced with a choice between two parties led by conspiracy theorists and gaslighters. Instead of saving America from Trump, the Resistance may have reelected him. Eli Lake, Bloomberg Opinion.


Quote V

"The pole stigma is associated with sex work, but sex workers whether they're on a pole or not are humans, too, and shouldn't be discriminated against for providing a service as old as time," Steven Retchless, 2010 American Pole Fitness Champion.


Quote VI

If the political culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain topics, then the electorate will turn to unrespectable politicians. Mark Steyn

This is what Steyn is talking about.

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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:55 PM Comments



John Bolton's Close Ally Fred Fleitz Turns Against Him, Charging That His Book Is Unethical

—Ace

Before getting to that, let's take a look at the observation that several people have made, that the Democrats are enacting the Kavanaugh Strategy again during this fake impeachment, attempting to drag out the proceedings for maximum political benefit with a timed "bombshell" every four days to keep the circus going:

Then came the accusations by fabulist Christine Blasey Ford about an incident that took place in high school (she couldn’t provide an exact time or location) when she was sexually assaulted by a young Kavanaugh. Close on the heels of that allegation, a woman named Deborah Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh, while a college student, had waggled his penis in her face. Then we were treated to a soon-to-be convicted felon named Michael Avenatti producing a woman named Julie Swetnick who claimed that Kavanaugh ran a gang rape ring. A woman later identified as Judy Munro-Leighton claimed Kavanaugh raped her in a car.

All of these allegations were false. They were all easily batted down. But they served a common purpose. What should have been a pro-forma hearing of two or three days, followed by a confirmation vote turned into a month-long ordeal that involved a "supplemental" FBI investigation. And the volume of similarly themed allegations left some people wondering if there was a pony underneath that pile of horse dung, was Brett Kavanaugh a serial sexual predator in the Bill Clinton mode?

If one looks at the Trump impeachment trial, one sees the outlines of a similar pattern....

As the House 'impeachment managers' were making their closing case, tape surfaced of Donald Trump stating that he wanted then-ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch 'taken out.' There were some who claimed that President Trump ordered a hit on her.

Yeah, AllahPundit, the noted former preening scold of conspiracy theorists, farted that conspiracy bubble up out of the bath.

That was ridiculous but only little moreso than claiming, against all law and precedent, that the President cannot fire an ambassador whom he no longer trusts. Those tapes, by the way, were delivered to the House Intelligence Committee before it voted on impeachment and there was nothing in them that merited inclusion in the House’s impeachment evidence.

A totally bullsh** allegation of the Julie Swetnick kind, but a drip. A small point of doubt designed to get the Senate to ask for more information.

And now...

boltonford

Fred Fleitz -- who has been called "John Bolton's own John Bolton" --is calling for Bolton to withdraw his Retirement Fund venture disguised as a book.

It was crushing to read weekend press reports that my friend and former boss John Bolton plans to publish a tell-all book on his time as President Trump’s National Security Adviser. The book reportedly will be published in March 2020. Given the importance of protecting a president’s confidential discussions with his senior advisers, I strongly disagree with Bolton’s decision to release the book before the November presidential election and call on him to withdraw it from the publisher immediately.

After noting that executive privilege exists so that presidents can speak candidly with advisers without having to be guarded about every statement and question -- something that Bolton is undermining for his own personal benefit -- Fleitz notes that Robert Gates avoided doing this before Obama's 2012 election.

I haven’t seen Bolton’s book manuscript and I don’t know what’s in it. I take Bolton and his staff at their word that they did not leak the manuscript to the New York Times. But I believe they are still responsible for this leak since Bolton’s explosive book was sent to the leak-prone National Security Council for a security review in December 2019 so the book could be published in the spring of 2020. It also is inexplicable how such a sensitive manuscript could be sent to the NSC in the middle of the impeachment process. Under such circumstances, a leak of the manuscript was all but certain.

If a manuscript of this sensitivity was to be published at all, this should happen after the election, not in the spring of 2020. I don’t understand the need for a former National Security Adviser to publish a tell-all book critical of a president he served, especially during a presidential reelection campaign that will determine the fate of the country. There will be a time for Bolton to speak out without appearing to try to tip a presidential election.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who stepped down in June 2011, published a devastating book titled “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” that detailed the incompetence of Vice President Joe Biden and the Obama National Security Council staff. But because he did not want his internal knowledge of the workings of the Obama administration and his interactions with President Obama to affect the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, Gates did not publish his book until January 2014.

Gates established a principled precedent on how senior advisers to presidents should write about their experiences. Given Ambassador Bolton’s long and distinguished record of government service, I believe it is vital that he follow this precedent.


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Posted by Ace at 08:17 PM Comments

NY Post Confirms That FBI Is "Reviewing" Charges That Ilhan "Omar" Nur Married Her Brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to Defraud INS

—Ace

Don't get too excited -- this looks like another FBI cover-up.

They've accepted the information, because there is a lot of evidence of this crime, and they have to at least be seen as open to investigating, but in fact, they're not.

They will bury this.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is reviewing claims Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother, The Post has learned.

Two FBI agents held an hours-long meeting in Minnesota in mid-October with a concerned party who handed over a trove of documents regarding Omar’s 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a source with knowledge of the event said.

At the meeting, first reported by website The Blaze, the agents discussed concerns the Somali-born Democrat married Elmi, a British citizen rumored to be her brother, so he could obtain a green card and study in America, the source said.

The two agents said they would share the information with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the US Department of Education, but did not commit to opening an investigation into the firebrand lawmaker, the source said.

Nah, FBI investigations are for important, well-evidenced stuff, like Carter Page being a RUSSIAN operative.

Posted by Ace at 07:26 PM Comments

Is This Something?

—Ace

This is Blumhouse's take on Fantasy Island.

I know, I know: It sounds like they took the DNA of hot garbage and mixed it with the DNA of trash-fire.

But... I'm interested.

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Posted by Ace at 06:34 PM Comments

WaPo/ABC Poll: Trump Statistically Tied With All Democrats
Gallup: Public Satisfaction Up Bigly Over Last Year of Obama/Biden Administration

—Ace

Link.

President Trump begins his reelection year in a more competitive position than he was last fall against potential Democratic challengers, aided by rising approval for his handling of the economy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

...

Despite Americans' concerns that the economic system favors the wealthy, the latest Post-ABC poll finds that fewer than half are worried about maintaining their own standard of living, a shift from 2016, when most expressed concern about losing their financial footing.

With just over nine months until Election Day, Americans see Trump as a slight favorite for reelection, with 49 percent expecting him to win and 43 percent predicting that his Democratic challenger will prevail.

...

The national Post-ABC poll tested Trump in six potential general election matchups and finds that registered voters nationwide are roughly split between supporting the president and backing the Democratic candidates. Neither Trump nor Democrats hold a statistically significant advantage in any matchup.

Former vice president Joe Biden is currently favored by 50 percent of registered voters while 46 percent support Trump. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has 49 percent support to Trump’s 46 percent, also virtually even given the poll’s four-point margin of sampling error among registered voters.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) receives 49 percent to Trump’s 47 percent, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) stands at 48 percent to Trump’s 47 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is tied with Trump at 48 percent. Former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg is at 45 percent to Trump’s 48 percent.

...

The close matchups between Trump and Democrats among registered voters represent a contrast with an October Post-ABC poll in which Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg all held double-digit advantages over the incumbent.

On impeachment: Don't convict 49%, convict 47%.

Meanwhile, on a range of issues, Americans are much more satisfied with the current state of the country than they were in Obama's last year of 2016, and in many key areas -- from satisfaction with the economy to satisfaction with the level of crime to satisfaction with the readiness of the military -- they are greatly more satisfied.

Or, as Gallup calls it-- the country has "mixed" feelings.

Americans' average satisfaction rating for the 27 issues Gallup has tracked consistently since 2001 is now 47%. This is up three points from a year ago and is the highest since the January 2005 poll.

Today's average satisfaction is roughly on par with the level of the early 2000s. Only in 2002 was the average for this metric substantially higher than it is today. The average 53% recorded that year reflected heightened satisfaction as Americans were in full "rally around the flag" mode shortly after the 9/11 attacks.


@AndrewHClark

NEW POLL: On virtually every big indicator Americans say things are better today than they were at the end of the Obama-Biden presidency.

Economy is better (+22 points), country is more secure (+18 points), the military is stronger (+15 points), streets are safer (+9 points)...

Note that the level of satisfaction rose to 44% just before the 2012 reelections, and Obama won. It had been at a low of about 40% a year before, but rose in that last year before the election.

Now it's at 47%.

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Posted by Ace at 05:29 PM Comments

New Senator Kelly Loeffler Calls Out Mitt Romney for Attempting to "Appease the Left" By Insisting on Witnesses in the Impeachment "Circus"

—Ace

Believe all women.



@SenatorLoeffler
After 2 weeks, it's clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment. Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame. The circus is over. It's time to move on! #gapol

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Posted by Ace at 04:34 PM Comments

Democrat Tries to Quote Bible

—Ace

It's quite a ride.

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Posted by Ace at 02:59 PM Comments

Unhinged Liberal Chris Wallace Has Meltdown On-Air, Attacking Katie Pavlich and "Trump Defenders"

—Ace

People really need to boycott this piece of shit fake "conservative" network. I think everyone's tired of this MSNBC-on-Fox bullshit.

Why does anyone watch Chris Wallace's show? Why do conservatives agree to appear as "guests"?

It sounds to me like Chris Wallace completely misunderstood what Katie Pavlich was saying, or, as the Trump Deranged tend to do, ignored what she was saying and pretended she was saying something else for which he had all the Democrat Talking Points ready to go.

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Posted by Ace at 02:00 PM Comments

WHAT?! Alexander Vindman's Identical-Twin Brother Is the Deep State Official In Charge of Reviewing Bolton's Book for Declassification... You Know, the Same Book That Was Just Leaked to the Media During the Impeachment Trial

—Ace

Incredible.



Meanwhile, even the New York Times' Trump-deranged Maggie Haberman can't help noticing that Bolton seems to have pecuniary motives here:

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Posted by Ace at 01:16 PM Comments

Bolton Announces New Book and Advertising Campaign to Take Place During Impeachment Trial;
Susan Collins Says She'll Vote for Witnesses

—Ace

The New York Times claims that Bolton's book will say that Trump said he wanted to hold up aid to Ukraine until Ukraine opened an investigation into the Biden's.

This leak comes just as Bolton's publisher announces the book.

Gee, I wonder who's behind this leak.

This has the intended effect of getting the Eternal Turncoats to turn coat.

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Posted by Ace at 12:04 PM Comments

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

talking ape.jpg

"I'm writing this on Sunday night, and social media is all abuzz about material from a book John Bolton is supposedly writing about how it confirms the Ukrainian quid pro quo.

"I'm not going to bother reading any further. I know it's fake news.

"I mean seriously, c'mon, if the quid pro quo hoax was true, they wouldn't have had to wait to find in un an unpublished book, even one written by John Bolton.

"All based on anonymous sources.

"Right.

"Remember the big bombshell about a depressed Trump stumbling around the White House in his bathrobe, chugging Diet Coke & watching the Gorilla Channel?

"Remember how the Mueller Report was going to be the end of Trump? The wheels are closing in and all that?

"And it was all fake.

"Couple possibilities here: this could be a "canary trap" where Trump would have caused this information to be known by one suspect (and no one else), and if gets leaked to the press, they know who the leaker is.

"Another possibility is that journalists are a roomful of cats, and Trump is a prankster with a laser pointer and they're jumping all over each other trying to get that infernal red dot, which keeps disappearing mysteriously and reappearing on the opposite wall.

"But we'll get it this time, the journalists yowl. Oh look, it's over there. Come on, boys, after it!

"And the laughter is Trump as he tucks into his second scoop of ice cream."




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Posted by OregonMuse at 11:13 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Gris Picasso.jpg

Portrait Of Pablo Picasso
Juan Gris

Posted by CBD at 09:30 AM Comments

The Morning Report - 1/27/20

—J.J. Sefton

pinobolto.jpg

Good morning kids. Start of a new week and its deja-vu all over again. So what took two whole days and half the oxygen produced by the Amazon rain forest for the Democrats to make their "case" and present their "evidence" in the Senate was utterly decimated on Saturday by the President's team of impeachment managers in less than a couple of hours. In fact, it was such a thorough evisceration that Senator John Barasso said that when the transcript of Schiff-for-Brain's perverted, pornographic fantasy of the Trump-Zelensky phone call that he used to open the House hearings was read back and mocked in the Senate, he watched as "the blood drained from Adam Schiff's face." Yes, that's all well and good but the fact is that most Americans had completely tuned out after Thursday and certainly Friday, and no one was going to be watching on a weekend. In any case, Schiff-for-Brains' and Nadless' insane ravings turned off the wrong people; the four GOP swing Senators they were hoping to vote with them for more witnesses.

That was the state of play until yesterday, when, speaking of Amazon, a section of former NSA John Bolton's upcoming book was "leaked" via Bezos' behemoth in cahoots with the Slimes and it just happens to contain a passage that claims President Trump indeed demanded a "quid pro quo" from Ukraine in exchange for investigating Joe Bribem. How's that for fortuitous timing. It seemingly gives the RINO squishes cover to vote to extend this fiasco and call for witnesses, instead of killing this garbage and acquitting the President by the end of the week. Then there's this little nugget; it turns out that Lt. Col Vind-Bag's brother Yevgeny is the person at the NSC in charge of clearing publications before they're released. No conflict of interest there, right? The President has, of course, categorically denied this and called the contents of the transcript bullshit, and a stunt to sell books.

It's so risible and patently transparent a fraud, yet the Democrat-Media Complex keeps trotting it out time after time. In this case because they have absolutely nothing left. No matter what they claim or how loud they claim it, all you have to do is read the transcript of the phone call between Trump and Zelensky as well as look at the timing of events and the fact that Ukraine received all of the aid promised by Trump with essentially zero delay - unlike Obama who, despite a treaty to come to Ukraine's aid in the event of trouble after they agreed to disarm, didn't lift a finger to help as Russia gobbled up the Crimea. Whatever requests to investigate the Bidens were in regards to ongoing corruption investigations and election interference both there and over here. Yet again, the Democrats want to crucify Trump because he might have wanted to do something or thought about doing something, despite the fact that he never did anything except his job in dictating and executing American foreign policy.

Yet again, this is a gigantic Food-of-the-Gods squirrel nothing-burger that will ultimately come to naught. If indeed the squishes squish and we do extend this garbage, the Dems will get exactly what they want, but not quite the way they want it: Bolton as well as the Bidens, Eric "Ciaramella" Whistleblower and maybe even Schif-for-Brains himself will be flayed by Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow. Should be fun to see how he answers why he, Schiff, has buried his contact with Ciaramella under the guise of being a state secret. Bring it on.

NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.

ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.

Follow us on Twitter: @CutJibNews

Posted by J.J. Sefton at 07:07 AM Comments

Sunday Overnight Open Thread (1/26/20)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

daily-man-up-202001170Adaily-man-up-20200116-1019.jpg


***


The Quotes of The Day


Quote I

“We have been consistently concerned about the impacts of technology and automation on the livelihoods of working people, especially when they have no voice in how technology is used in their workplaces, Graham Trainor, president of the Oregon AFL-CIO


Quote II

"Increasing housing and ensuring equity across our City is my top priority, which is why I am so proud to open San Francisco’s first Trans Home on Washington Street. This new program will provide trans people with the safety and support they as they find a permanent home in San Francisco," Mayor London Breed


Quote III

“I’ve been in a lot of dangerous situations, both in and out of the Marines and I’m confident in my ability to handle them. But it doesn’t mean I wasn’t afraid of her.”Ben Feibleman, Former Marine and Columbia University student


Quote IV

"All states have their own protections for waters within their borders, and many regulate more broadly than the federal government," "Our new rule recognizes this relationship and strikes the proper balance between Washington, D.C., and the states." Environmental Protection Agency chief Andy Wheeler


Quote V

“I don’t suffer fools gladly. I’m honest and I’m truthful and I told him straight away he couldn’t be a freeloader. Iris Jones, a British pensioner aged 80


Quote VI

“But to me, when I see the president do this, you know, as someone who’s been around awhile, I saw Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan didn’t do this. George W. Bush, his dad [George H.W. Bush], none of them did it. Why does Donald Trump think that this is good? It divides the country.” Juan Williams


I got booted off of Twitter for asking him if he was retarded. I should have told him to pull his head out of his ass at the same time.

Divisive?

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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:44 PM Comments

Gun Thread: Space Force!! [Weasel]

—Open Blogger

space force pic scaled.jpg

Let's hear it for the gol' danged SPACE FORCE!! I don't know about you all, but that's a spiffy logo right there! And apparantly it made the liberal retards cry so it's even better. Thank you President Trump! I wonder what sort of cool death ray guns the SF will eventually have... anyone care to hazard a guess?

Let's find out what else has been happening in the world of guns this week, shall we?

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Posted by Open Blogger at 07:00 PM Comments

Food Thread: Haggis...The Other White(ish) Meat

—CBD

friedmars.jpg

A Grace Before Dinner, Extempore

O thou who kindly dost provide
For every creature's want!
We bless Thee, God of Nature wide,
For all Thy goodness lent:
And if it please Thee, Heavenly Guide,
May never worse be sent;
But, whether granted, or denied,
Lord, bless us with content. Amen!
-- Robert Burns

If you think that Robert Burns Day is simply a vehicle for a discussion of Haggis, you would be mostly correct. And while it is Scotland's most famous dish, and one that is unfairly reviled, the Scots have a bit of a food tradition, and not just fried candy bars. And yes, I have had one or two, and they are every bit as good as one would imagine!

There is a recipe below the fold for "Cullen Skink," which is a marvelous smoked fish soup from Scotland. I have mentioned it before and I will undoubtedly mention it again, because it is easy and delicious.

It's easy to make fun of Scottish cuisine because so much of it seems so familiar to us, and that makes sense because a fair number of Americans can trace their lineage back to Scotland and England and Ireland, which share some culinary traditions, though not a common language.

But the English are doing wonderful things in their kitchens, and so are the Scots. Maybe not cutting edge stuff that, let's face it, nobody eats, but good quality traditional foods upgraded with some newer techniques and great quality ingredients.

Just take a stroll through a farmers market and you will see what I mean. It's happening here also (and has been for years)!

But back to Bobby Burns! Eat Haggis. Really. It's fantastic.

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Posted by CBD at 04:00 PM Comments

CoronaVirus: A Shep Smith Special Report

—CBD

WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! RUN AWAY!

The breathless reporting from pretty much every source, with the exception of Michael Fumento in the NY Post is typical of the no-nothings in the media and their tenuous relationship with logic and the Scientific Method and pesky little things like data and numbers and statistics.

And the facts are very, very thin. We don't know much other than what the Chinese government is telling the world, and I believe them about as much as I believe that Epstein killed himself. Maybe it's worse than they are reporting. Maybe it is overblown to deflect attention from other things in China, like Hong Kong! And maybe it is just like most of the other diseases that emerge from China and then fizzle in developed countries because we are healthier, cleaner, have better medical care and more efficient ways to get that care to the people who need it.

I have no idea how this will shake out. Is it the next pandemic, with hundreds of millions dead? Maybe, but I doubt it. Is it the next SARS? Probably. And how many Americans died of SARS? From the CDC:

In the United States, only eight persons were laboratory-confirmed as SARS cases. There were no SARS-related deaths in the United States. All of the eight persons with laboratory-confirmed SARS had traveled to areas where SARS-CoV transmission was occurring.
For all of American medicine's faults, we do a pretty good job of minimizing the severity of things like the flu and TB and Measles and Pertusis and all sorts of diseases that are major killers in other parts of the world. Will I take a trip to Wuhan? hell no. But until there is evidence of this virus being a significant health threat in the developed world I will not worry too much.

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Posted by CBD at 02:15 PM Comments

Perhaps The Days Of Blank Checks For Every Crazy Academic With A Grudge Is Ending?

—CBD

Probably not, but making it uncomfortable for academia's anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-market economics proclivities is always a good thing. Georgetown Gets a Title VI Wakeup Call

Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.) won't be retiring from the House until next year, but he's already left his mark on academe. This past tax day, he sent Education Secretary Betsy DeVos a letter objecting to the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies' (CMES) use of federal Title VI funds for the anti-Semitic performance of a Palestinian rapper at UNC in March. A flurry of communications between Department of Education (DoE) and UNC officials resulted, most notably the ominous August DoE letter detailing CMES' myriad violations of Title VI regulations.

Almost overnight, the higher education lobby suffered an emotional meltdown, House Democrats expressed their "concern" by demanding a raft of DoE documents, and academics fretted that public support might become contingent on performance rather than privilege.

As Lenin (or Marx) famously never said..."The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Maybe we are finally noticing that unqualified support for the rabid America-Haters in our universities is not a very good idea. The good thing is that they are , in the main, cowards, and will fight only when in a crowd. So cut them out of the herd and end their funding, one anti-Semite at a time.

So much of this funding can be controlled by the various departments (thanks to Chevron vs. NRDC), so a chief executive who isn't a dog-eating America hater might be able to do some real damage to the embedded progressives in our ivory towers.

Posted by CBD at 12:15 PM Comments

Sunday Morning Book Thread 01-26-2020

—OregonMuse

washington univ law library 01.jpg
Washington University Law Library St. Louis, Missouri


Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), the low-class, the outcasts, the lower castes, and other deplorables. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, and if I had to wear a crotch flower like that, I'd look surly, too. By the way, I've got ugly pants pics queued up until mid-May. So if you think I'm going to eventually run out, don't get your hopes up.



Pic Note:

The library houses one of the largest collections of books on East Asian law, with more than 4,700 titles and 12,500 volumes dedicated to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean law.

And it may look old, but it's not:

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this library is that while it looks like it could have easily been constructed when the university opened in 1853, it was actually completed in 1997. Architects from Hartman-Cox -- who also designed Georgetown's law library -- set out to design a library to fit seamlessly with the older buildings on campus, taking inspiration from other academic areas. The result is the Tudor-style reading room, with wooden arches and 19th-century-style lamps, all set in a brick castle.


It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Timely...

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Posted by OregonMuse at 09:00 AM Comments

EMT 01/26/20

—krakatoa

Happy Sunday!

Posted by krakatoa at 06:00 AM Comments

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (1/25/20)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

happy-hour-20200121-1023.jpg


***


The Saturday Night Joke

An older couple decides to retire for the evening. The husband was almost asleep as his head hit his pillow, but his wife felt a little romantic and wanted to talk.

She says, “You know, when we were courting, you liked to hold my hand”.

Wearily, he reaches across and holds her hand for a few seconds, and then tries to get back to sleep.

A few moments later she says, “After that, you used to kiss me softly”.

Mildly irritated, he turns over and gives her a peck on the cheek and again settles down for the night.

Thirty seconds later she says, “Then after that, you used to bite me lightly on my neck”.

Angrily, he throws back the bed covers and gets out of bed.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“To get my teeth!”


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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM Comments

Saturday Evening Movie Thread 01-25-2020 [Hosted By: Moviegique]

—OregonMuse

Weathering With You

We memed ourselves, as the kids these days say, by going out to see this at the "special premiere" showing, because we didn't realize it was going to get a wide opening the next week. For a Japanese anime like Weathering With You (Makoto Shinkai's follow-up to his smash hit Your Name, based on his novel) "special premiere" means you're in a theater packed to the gills with weeaboos who are going to cheer inexplicably at some things and weep loudly at the emotional parts.

weathering 01.jpg
Like this but with pasty, pudgy Americans.


Oy.

If you'll recall, Your Name was a movie that struck me as so odd because it had these crazy good reviews, and as you're sitting down to watch it, it basically starts up in full, standard Japanese-highschool-sitcom-anime mode, complete with a theme song that would not be out of place on Crunchyroll. And the first two-thirds of the movie is just a very good, light-magical-realism romantic comedy about a teen boy and girl, strangers, a hundred miles apart, who switch bodies at random.

And then it just ups the stakes to an existential level, cranking up the romance to a capital-R Romance, with lovers whose destinies entwine those of thousands of other people—people who may, in fact, just die if the two of them don't figure out what to do.

Quite a surprise, well done, and dramatically increasing expectations for Weathering With You.

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Posted by OregonMuse at 07:03 PM Comments

Saturday Afternoon Chess Thread 01-25-2020

—OregonMuse

GM Ju Wenjun 01.jpg
GM Ju Wenjun (CHN)



Pic Note

Congratulations to Ju Wenjun for retaining her World Women's Championship title. This is actually a three-peat. For the country of China itself, it's a five-peat. The Chinese women basically own this title, having held it a total of 22 years since 1991.

Moviegique will be along later with the movie thread. As always, the chess/dress pr0n thread is an open thread, so there is no such thing as an off-topic comment.



Beginner Problem - White To Play (422)

White can capture Black's rook for the win with this one surprising move!
(Reminder: 2 knights alone cannot force checkmate)

Hint: The first move is not a check


20200125 - Problem 1.jpg
8/8/8/8/8/2Nk4/2r1N3/KB6 w - - 0 1


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Posted by OregonMuse at 05:20 PM Comments

Ace of Spades Pet Thread

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

funny-pic-dump-12.png


***


Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Take a break from whatever you were doing and enjoy the world of animals.

Let's escape politics and current events for the next couple of hours.

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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 03:00 PM Comments

Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread 1/25/20 [KT]

—Open Blogger

amarll.jpg

Hello, gardeners, putterers and dreamers. Anybody starting to get cabin fever? This thread is here to help. My cousin (not the one with the geraniums in her basement) writes:

My amaryllis are cheering us up on this cold,cold, cold day. The red one is on its second round. It has already had 24 blooms in December.

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Posted by Open Blogger at 01:13 PM Comments

President Trump goes to Davos [KT]

—Open Blogger

swizdgtrr.jpg

Swiss dog listens to President Trump's address

Well, while we were grappling with domestic issues and the news about the Wuhan virus this past week, President Trump went to Davos. The young dog above does not live in Davos, but the normal people of Switzerland, and maybe some of their pets, seem to keep track of what is going on in Davos. Some trends seem to have emerged this year among the movers and shakers who assembled there. A piece in Politico suggested that the Davos crowd did not get too excited about President Trump this year.

Conversation was instead dominated by three seething conflicts that many participants see as existential in their long-term implications for the global order.

-- There is the conflict over the future of capitalism.

-- There is the conflict over the future of technology.

-- Above all, there is the conflict over the future of the planet.

On the "future of the planet", it is remarkable that Greta Thunberg was considered to be the person of the moment. Perhaps one reason the Politico piece took such a ho-hum attitude about Trump is that he highlighted the failed predictions of climate activists. (h/t J.J. Sefton)

Then he said this:

We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate our liberty. America will always be the proud, strong, and unyielding bastion of freedom . . .

Sgt. Mom had a nice piece on how environmentalists now "make the most perfectly hissable villains, because they almost invariably make matters worse in the long run."

On the "future of capitalism", in a post about whether professional economists are idiots, here is an interesting statement from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Wharton MBA, mathematical finance PhD and author of Skin in the Game and The Black Swan:

The professional economist is the specialist who is instrumental in designing various measures of government interference with business.

I will leave it to people who have more background in economics than I do to sort out the actual post.

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Posted by Open Blogger at 11:15 AM Comments

Saturday Morning Coffee Break

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

rise-shine-20150708-27.jpg


***


Yup, Saturday morning is here. Let's take a look at a few things that didn't get too much if any attention here at the AoSHQ this past week.

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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:00 AM Comments

EMT 01/25/20

—krakatoa

The coup attempt is almost over.

The democrats have owned the field up to this point and in the end managed to burp their wad all over their precious new G.I.Joe bibs.

Now, finally, the grown ups get the stage.

Posted by krakatoa at 05:50 AM Comments

March For ONT

—WeirdDave

Happy Friday Morons. Say, did you ever look at satellite imagery of your house? I figured I'd take a peek at mine. Hey, wait a minute!

a hole.jpg

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Posted by WeirdDave at 09:57 PM Comments

Stunning and Brave: Female (Mostly) Bernie Supporters Tweet Pictures of Themselves Under the #HotGirlsForBernie Hashtag

—Ace

Bumped. This got stomped earlier.

Jesse Kelly (@jessekellyDC) is retweeting out the pictures of these Socialist Sirens.

They're, uh... well, some people say that confidence is sexy.

I guess that includes unwarranted confidence, right?

By the way, I wouldn't say all of these girls are ugly or anything.

But when you post pictures of yourself under the hashtag #HOTgirlsForBernie, well... people have the right to decide if you're actually "hot" or just... delusional.

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Posted by Ace at 07:50 PM Comments

Man Chokes His Girlfriend When She Complains That She's Tired of Watching the Impeachment Trial;
Another Man Murders His Pro-Trump Boss

—Ace

The reality-based community.

A Pennsylvania man grew so "upset" while watching the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, he allegedly choked and punched his girlfriend when she suggested they watch something else.


...

When the woman told Clark she "would like to watch something else," he began to curse at her and called her "dumb" and "stupid," USA Today reported. She was on Clark's lap when she attempted to calm him down, but he began choking her with both hands to the point that she could barely breathe, documents state. When she broke away and tried to leave, Clark punched her twice and pushed her several times.

Another member of the #DemocratWinnersClub murdered his pro-Trump boss after getting into an argument with him.

A worker with anti-government views fatally stabbed his Trump-supporting boss at a highway construction site and placed an American flag next to the body after they got into a political argument, deputies in Florida said Tuesday.

Mason Toney, 28, was charged with first-degree murder for the killing of William Knight on Monday, according to an arrest affidavit from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

Co-workers told investigators that Toney and Knight were friends outside of work despite their political differences. Knight was an “outspoken American" who was "pro-Donald Trump," while co-workers described Toney as “anti-government and very outspoken in his beliefs that the government is bad and out to get him," according to the arrest affidavit.

Prediction: These stories will get 1/1,000,000th of the play that the 2nd Amendment rally violence -- violence which was eagerly anticipated by the left, but which sadly did not materialize -- got.

Are we going to get any media chatter on the need for Democrats and liberals to moderate their tone for fear of setting off their large numbers of mentally ill followers, or is that just for conservatives?

Even with so many Bernie Bros actively calling for violence?

Obviously the left is happy to see their political enemies attacked and killed. James Hodgkinson proved that.

This is amusing:

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Posted by Ace at 06:49 PM Comments

Joni Ernst: I'm Tired of Liberal House Mangers Lecturing Us About the Ukraine When Four of Them Repeatedly Voted Against Providing Ukraine with Lethal Aid

—Ace

Seems like the Nadler/Schiff/Lofgren Charm Offensive is working like gangbusters.

Thanks to Tami.

Meanwhile, playwright/screenwriter David Mamet says Trump has turned out to be a great president, and says the left's reaction to him is "psychotic."

Which I personally don't take as metaphorical. I take it as literal. And I agree.

"The reaction to Trump to me is fascinating," Mamet said. "And one day I started looking at it and squinted my eyes. If you take a Freudian analytical concept, turn it inside out -- flip cause and effect and see if the dream makes sense. So if we flip cause and effect, the reaction to Trump -- which is psychotic -- is equal I believe hydraulically to the reaction to a charismatic leader."

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Posted by Ace at 05:58 PM Comments

Trump: "It is my profound honor to be the first president in U.S. history to attend the March for Life!"

—Ace

It's hard to take people who are plainly more liberal than conservative shrieking "Trump's not a real conservative" when for 40 years those same undercover liberals have strongly advised GOP presidents to stay away from the March for Life.

Is Trump really a conservative?

I don't know. Is my lawyer really on my side? If he keep doing a good job at pressing my claims in court and defending me from accusations, do I care if he's "really on my side" or just on my side because I pay him?

Is my lawyer acting like he's on my side just because he loves me or due to the facts that our interests align, and he can expect to profit by advancing my interests?

Does it matter?

You know, Milton Friedman said, approximately, never count on a politician to "do the right thing." Only count on politicians to do things which are in their own interest.

And Donald Trump has, for whatever reason, decided that advancing the conservative cause is in his own self-interest.

Meanwhile, the NeverTrump critics of the billionaire's-playground "conservative media" have an entirely different set of interests -- career interests which include making sure they're always considered "safe and reasonable Polite Company Conservatives" who can be hired by Michael Bloomberg and other leftwing media tycoons, and making sure their columns comport with the political and economic imperatives of the identities-concealed AEI corporate/billionaire donors paying their home mortgage payments.

Trump acts as if he's on my side.

Which the True Conservatives never do. The "True Conservatives" only seem to get emotionally invested in politics when it affords them a chance to attack real conservatives and make a show for their liberal friends of "patrolling their own."

Always eager to build up goodwill with possible future liberal employers... at the expense of losing all goodwill from actual conservative voters.

These guys are "not on your side." They do not write for you. You are not their clients.

You are their commodity, the thing they package up and sell to their actual clients, their employers, their donors.

Ever wonder why they spend so much time trying to convince conservatives of the rightness of liberal ideas, and so little time trying to convince liberals of the rightness of conservative ones?

So here's that Fake Conservative Trump, doing what "Real Conservatives" have always lacked the courage to urge presidents to do.

Or have been paid not to urge them to do.

"Unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House," Trump declared. He mentioned his administration's efforts on the Mexico City Policy, a pro-life rule on Title X funding, support for the Little Sisters of the Poor, new rules preserving faith-based adoption, and his 187 confirmed originalist federal judges.

"Sadly, the far-left is actively working to erase our God-given rights, shut down faith-based charities, ban religious believers from the public square, and silence Americans who believe in the sanctity of life," the president declared. "They are coming after me because I am fighting for you and we are fighting for those who have no voice, and we will win."

Given that it was during last year's March for Life that the "True Conservative" grifters in our movement decided to use their influence to slander a pro-life 16-year-old for the crime of Being White While Protesting, it's a great time to re-read Julie Kelly's carpet-bombing of the "Call Out 'Conservatives'" who gleefully join the left whenever possible.

On Sunday afternoon, as the media's narrative fell apart and the reality of the situation came into view, National Review quietly removed Frankovich’s article from its website. Rich Lowry, the outlet's editor, explained in a very brief post that he and Frankovich had been duped by a "hoax" and that Frankovich's "strongly worded post" had been taken down. Lowry also deleted a few of his own tweets that inaccurately portrayed the incident.

That was it. Rather than acknowledge that the editor and deputy editor for a once reliable and thoughtful conservative magazine were complicit in mob-shaming teenage boys attending a pro-life rally, they quickly excused their behavior as nothing more than gullibility. There was no apology, save for this quasi mea culpa. There was no "calling out" other conservatives who also had participated in the viral assault on innocent young boys.

Two NRO articles addressed the the media’s malfeasance in the matter. In particular, "Nathan Phillips Lied, The Media Bought It," wrote Kyle Smith.

But the fact that editors for National Review also bought into the various lies escaped mention. This also included senior editor Jay Nordlinger, who deleted a January 19 tweet that read, "the images of those red-hat kids surrounding and mocking that old Indian are unbearable. Absolutely unbearable. An American disgrace." Jonah Goldberg hand-waved away Frankovich's vicious post as just "different people reaching different conclusions or having different opinions."

Goldberg and Lowry also retweeted false accounts of the event to their hundreds of thousands of followers, inviting even more people to join in in the public lynching of a boy.

So, what motivated a seemingly measured man like Frankovich to pen a midnight hit piece on teenagers? What compelled Lowry and Nordlinger to join the outrage mob, and Goldberg to defend their choice? Why do NeverTrump (or even SometimesTrump) "conservatives" like Lowry more often than not side with the Left's mercenaries in the media who are hellbent on destroying this presidency and the people who support it? After all, these are the same folks who warn us on a daily basis that the president cannot be trusted, that he’s a dishonest purveyor of the truth, and that his cult-like followers have no ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

The easy explanation for their bad behavior this weekend would be confirmation bias, the propensity to select or ignore evidence to support a specific viewpoint. Anti-Trump "conservatives" long ago decided that Donald Trump not only is unfit for office, but that his supporters are ignorant rubes with racist tendencies. (NR's David French wrote recently that Trump is the reason for a supposed--but actually imaginary--rise in white supremacy.)

In an interview Monday night, Goldberg again defended his side’s confirmation bias by invoking another tactic--false equivalence. "The confirmation bias that says, ah ha, this proves that the people I disagree with aren’t just wrong, they're evil, which is rampant on both sides of the aisle these days." Contrary to how Goldberg tries to sell it, it's pernicious on one side: His.

But this time they crossed a line.

Yes, this time they made it quite clear with whom their true political/cultural allegiances lay. The masks slipped, a little too far to recover in time.

And I think we all really want to have more "True Conservatism" preached at us by people who gleefully join with the left in viciously slandering pro-life teens.

And we need to have "accountability and honesty" preached at us by people who refuse to this very day to admit their role in the mob savaging, or confess what bad wiring might have caused them to do so.

Posted by Ace at 04:58 PM Comments

lol: Washington Post/ABC Poll Is Bad News For Democrats, Impeachment, and Bill Kristol's Billionaire Dark Money Donors

—Ace

Cry.

President Trump's approval rating has climbed to match the highest of his presidency, boosted by majority approval of his economic stewardship even as Americans remain deeply divided on whether the Senate should remove him from office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The Post-ABC poll finds 44 percent of Americans approve of Trump's overall job performance and 51 percent disapprove. While views of Trump remain negative, Trump's approval rating is significantly improved from his 38 percent mark in late October.

A 56 percent majority approves of Trump’s handling of the economy, up 10 percentage points from September and his strongest rating on his marquee issue since entering office. By contrast, 39 percent approve of Trump’s handling of his impeachment, while 50 percent disapprove.

...

The nationwide survey, which overlapped with the start of arguments in Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate this week, finds 47 percent of the public saying senators should remove Trump from office and 49 percent saying they should not. Those views are similar to a Post-ABC poll in December, in which 49 percent supported Trump's removal while 46 percent were opposed.

The numbers are "similar," yes, but now reversed.

A friend underscores that this is a poll of adults, not likely voters and not even registered voters. Which is traditionally the very best sample for Democrats, and overcounts Democrats.

More: TheJamesMadison points out this finding from Gallup: Satisfaction Surpasses 40% for First Time Since 2005

Meanwhile...

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Posted by Ace at 03:41 PM Comments

Clarence Thomas: Bending the Long Arc of History

—J.J. Sefton

ClarThom.jpg

Besides President Trump, arguably one of the most transformative figures to emerge onto the American political landscape in half a century is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas. Yet, it's not his stellar legal mind, reflected in scores of brilliant opinions he has penned over the course of his nearly 29-year career at the highest court in the land that earns for him that status. Sadly, it is merely for the fact the he is a black man who, after coming of age in the repressive Democrat Deep South and even embracing the black radicalism of the late 60s ultimately had the scales fall from his eyes and dared reject the political Democrat-Left plantation. But when he was nominated to take the seat vacated by Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court that he became not only their worst nightmare, but an existential threat.

Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, a new documentary slated for release at the end of the month, is a powerful journey back in time, told mostly by Thomas in his own words, and in some segments by his remarkable wife Ginny and mentor and champion, former Senator John Danforth. Justice Thomas takes us from his childhood in the sleepy Gullah hamlet of Pin Point, Georgia, to life with his mentally unstable mother in the slums of segregated Savannah, and then ultimately to be rescued by his grandparents, where his no nonsense, hardworking grandfather, Myers Anderson, became that crucial guiding force that nurtured both his intellect and his character, and in Thomas' estimation "the greatest man I have ever known."

From childhood in the 50s through the 60s all the way to adulthood in the 70s and early 80s, a common theme that Thomas weaves throughout is disillusionment. First, with the Catholic Church then the black radicals he gravitated towards, with "the soft bigotry of low expectations" that characterized the disastrous Democrat-Leftist social and racial policy he felt after graduating from Yale Law, and later, as chairman of the EEOC under Ronald Reagan, where he saw firsthand the hypocrisy of black leaders blaming the President and Republicans for problems destroying their constituencies that they themselves were doing nothing to fight.

Along with the writings of Ayn Rand and Thomas Sowell, all of these experiences molded Justice Thomas' conservative worldview. In 1990, he was nominated and confirmed to the DC Circuit, but a little over a year later when President George H.W. Bush tapped him for a seat on SCOTUS, all hell broke loose. The way in which the Democrats, the supposed party of racial equality, civil rights, justice and all the rest went after Thomas was just breathtakingly vicious. For me, and many others, it was a seminal moment in my becoming politically aware, at least of recognizing the hypocrisy, viciousness and lust for power that we are now seeing raging out in the open with the Democrat-Media Complex. The situation was very much in doubt until Thomas himself took the stand and defended himself by excoriating those who would destroy him for having the gall to exist and thrive as a black, as an American without the need of Leftists and Democrats for his survival.

He weathered the storm, but the attacks on his integrity, intellect and humanity have not ceased (along with the recent attempts to beatify Anita Hill in the wake of #MeToo). In fact, the only lesson the Democrats took away as they licked their wounds was to make sure not to rely on only one liar to throw up on the witness stand but multiple liars (see: Kavanaugh, Brett, Trump, Donald J.).

I came away from watching this excellent documentary deeply moved, almost to tears at points, but nevertheless inspired and hopeful for the future. Despite all he has had to endure, Justice Thomas still has a wonderful sense of humor and humanity seen in his interaction with young law school students as well as when he is on the road in his Winnebago, touring America with his wife during his time off from the Court.

As Dr. King once said, "the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice." By his incredibly brave act of self-preservation and defiance in the face of what was being done to him - and continues to be done to him - Clarence Thomas may very well have fired the shot heard round the world in opening a lot of eyes as to who and what the Left really are. That's what I mean when I say "transformative."

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Posted by J.J. Sefton at 02:45 PM Comments

Lisa Murkowski: Why are the Democrat House Managers Demanding That We Go Through the Hassle of Calling Witnesses Whom They Themselves Refused to Call?

—Ace

At Hot Air, quoting the Hill:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has been seen as a swing vote, appeared wary of a legal fight, characterizing House Democrats as trying to get the Senate to go through a legal battle they bypassed.

"It's kind of like the House made a decision that they didn't want to slow things down by having to go through the courts," she said. "And yet now they’re basically saying you guys need to go through the courts. We didn't but we need you to. That's kind of where we are."

That doesn't mean she's against calling witnesses. She's flighty and liberal.

But the Democrats can't be happy to hear the one indispensable "Republican" making the Lindsey Graham case against calling witnesses.

More: Susan Collins was so "stunned" by Jerry Nadler's claim that anyone who voted against the rules the Democrats wanted was engaged in a "cover up" that she wrote to John Roberts, demanding that he caution the House managers.

This, I suppose, was what prompted John Roberts' "Both sides" missive a few days ago.

More: Via Twitchy, not-cute bimbo Alisyn Camarota offers a brief criticism of Adam Schiff before being, it appears, told by Jeff Zucker through her earpiece to get Back on Message.

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Posted by Ace at 01:45 PM Comments

Senate GOP Aides Increasingly Confident They Can Wrap This Up Without New Witnesses

—Ace

NeverTrumpers sad!

Republican aides in the Senate believe it is increasingly likely that Democrats will fail to convince enough GOP Senators to call additional witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.

Democrats, who face a 53-47 Republican majority, need at least four Republican votes and no Democrat defections to call witnesses after opening arguments, but 10 senior staffers to key Senate Republicans say that flipping more than three votes will be a tall order, according to a report from Axios.

Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Joni Ernst of Iowa were all targeted initially by Democrats, after several signaled willingness for witnesses in the buildup to the trial.

Thom Tillis s expressed doubts about the need for witnesses a week ago, and he's not impressed with the Democrats' "continuous loop" of "Impeachment by repetition:"

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Posted by Ace at 12:30 PM Comments

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

talking ape.jpg

"So today is the day of the annual pro-life march in Washington DC. It has been held every year on the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973.

"Most of you probably know about this annual march. Perhaps some of you have attended one or more of them. But those of you who have never heard of it can be excused for not knowing about it, because even though it routinely draws over a hundred thousand participants, the media, in years past, didn't report it. They just pretended that a march consisting of tens of thousands of people, men, women, and children, didn't happen. Not until recent years, when the growth of conservative media forced their hand.

"Anyway, media coverage is not what I want to talk about today. What I want to talk about is that, for the first time in its history, the president of the United States is one of the march's scheduled speakers.

"And this is a remarkable thing. Not just that a president is doing this, but who that president is. Donald Trump, of all presidents. Who would've believed five years ago that the first president to address the biggest annual gathering of pro-life people in the country would be Donald J freakin' Trump?

"We have had other pro-life presidents. But I've been of the impression that they don't really like us all that much. I mean, those of us who consider ourselves social conservatives. They like our votes, and they do appoint mainly conservative judges, but it's not like they do much else, and it's like they're holding us at arm's length. George Bush 1 definitely didn't really want to have anything to do with us, and I think even Reagan was kind of stand-offish. Planned Parenthood routinely gets funded, year after year. It's been mostly lip service and failure theater.

"So the only president who ever diminished Planned Parenthood's funding is the thrice married, perhaps adulterous, not-known-for-being-particularly-conservative-until-his-election Donald Trump. He also sent an ambassador to the U.N. to tell the global elites, sorry no, abortion is not a human right.

"And now, perhaps even as you're reading this, President Trump is addressing the March for Life crowd. He went out of his way to be seen with us, to be identified with us, and to signal his support us in a very public way, and not just him, but his entire administration.

"How is this possible? I know this isn't a religious blog, so I crave your indulgence here, but the only explanation I have for this is that God made it happen.

"I think God is giving us what we want, only He is doing it in such a way that we can't take credit for it ourselves. Because if Trump were a SuperConservative president doing SuperConservative things because he was elected by SuperConservatives like us, we would boast in the wonderfulness of our SuperConservative policies and positions and say, look at the wonderful thing we did. But we can't do that, because Trump is no SuperConservative and heck, we didn't even LIKE the guy and only voted for him because the only alternative was a corrupt old drunk. And this is something the NeverTrumpers and the French Davidians can't understand and get all huffy because of all the support a president they despise enjoys. And so they join with the left in cursing his supporters, which, you know, is probably not going to endear you to them, but you've now burned pretty much all of the bridges, so have a nice life trying to grift from your new pals on the left. Anyway, look, Donald Trump is a very flawed man, we all can see that, but God can draw straight with crooked lines, and that's what we're seeing.

"I've always liked this quote from Ben Franklin, so it is what I'll leave you with:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"



I'd like to hear your stories on this, so I'll prime the pump by telling you mine: I was during my first or second year at college and I live on a "co-ed" dorm floor, and the girl next door to me had lots of boyfriends, some of a temporary nature. I wasn't one of them, but we liked to talk and one time she happened to mention that she didn't like taking the pill (I forget why), but she didn't like her boyfriends to use condoms, either, because she didn't like how they felt. So naturally I asked her what she would do if she got pregnant. "Oh, I'd just get an abortion", she said. I was stunned. At that time in my young life, about age 20-21, I was an idiot and a hedonist who believed in nothing but doing whatever brought me immediate gratification, but something about the casual, flippant way she said she'd take a human life chilled me to the bone. That was when I decided I had to pro-life and that was over 40 years ago.

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Posted by OregonMuse at 11:16 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Guglielmi River.jpg

The River
O. Louis Guglielmi

Posted by CBD at 09:30 AM Comments



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"Without evidence," as CNN would say, Lawrence O'Donnell proposes new conspiracy theory that Trump whacked Qasem Suleimani to keep Bolton from squealing on him
I don't see Oliver Darcy pressuring Twitter to ban him any time soon
"White people 'can't dance' because white-ness is a traumatized state that is disconnected from the body."
Who wrote this racist rant? "I'm a genderqueer therapist of colour (Japanese) based in both Unceded Coast Salish Territories (so-called Canadian Pacific North West) and Tio'tia:ke (so-called Montreal)." You don't say.
A commenter notes: "They love to 'other' people based on race. We used to have a word for that."
Don Surber: The 4th Anniversary of National Review's Suicide NoteAlso see: The Unbearable Lightness of Peggy Noonan
We have known for years. But Mayor Pete makes it official. No room for Pro-Life backers in the Democrat Party. [Mis. Hum.]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweets: "The news out of China is alarming, because the corona virus causes a new-monia that we don't know how to treat. We could handle the old-monia." [CBD]
Kobe Bryant apparently killed in helicopter crash.[Mis.Hum.]
Prince Charles flew 16,000 miles in just 11 days using three private jets and one helicopter before proudly posing with Greta Thunberg in Davos
Because conserving is for the little people [CBD]
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is delusional. I guess we saw things differently today. [Mis. Hum.]
Covington Catholic school bus involved in fatal accident. Wrong way driver deceased, kids OK.[Mis. Hum.]
BREAKING NEWS The Babylon Bee purchases it's biggest satire competitor CNN. [Mis. Hum.]
Cats Caught Breaking Into Human Body Farm To Feast On The Dead "the same cat returned to the same woman almost every night over the course of 35 days to eat." [dri]
"He lost me:" Adam Schiff alienates GOP moderates even further with closing argument
ICYMI: George Stephanoplous frantically gives the "kill" gesture to get Trump's lawyer off the air
RIP Mr. Notsothoreau
Oliver Darcy, one of CNN's Deplatforming Pressure Lobbyists (and a former member of the #Paycheck "Conservative Media"), attacks Fox for stopping coverage of the impeachment in favor of something that people actually might want to watch
It's weird how many of these "conservatives" hired and promoted by the "conservative media" immediately become hardcore liberals when CNN waves a check at them
The obsessive stalker continues stalking obsessively
The stalking continues. Generally this is the stalking CNN engages in before a full-court press for a doxxing, blackmail, or deplatforming push.
BBD (Buffet Buster Deluxe) Ana Navarro of dubious Republican heritage was on The View and comes up for air to attack Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Looks like 'ol BBD and Skipper Bill have been hitting up the buffets together. [Mis. Hum.]
What a surprise, Bill Kristol and George Conway have another grift, another assholish troll move
They're such grifterish little pussies. It's seriously embarrassing. Just shut the f*ck up already you pathetic little queeflings. And George, why don't you work on what's really bothering you, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure you do
Must be nice to have endless piles of liberal billionaires' money to spend (taking a nice little cut for yourselves, naturally -- gotta keep those bloated >40% BMI figures). In fact, I think it's just terrific that almost the entirety of the "conservative media" is being paid by liberal billionaires. Which might have something to do with why conservatism never actually wins.
Jonah Goldberg is an American "BBW" pornographic actress best known for her first film I Am Curious (Donut)
What a ditz.
Best Wings song ever
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