Hmmm… – Page 80

Perspective

Posted on March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 by Mike

Timeless wisdom from CS Lewis, shared with us by a Diplomad commenter.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Smart fella, that CS Lewis.

Permanent revolution, permanent crisis, permanent instability

Posted on March 14, 2020March 14, 2020 by Mike

All features, not bugs.

What this means is that socialism, at least revolutionary socialism, cannot function outside of a crisis. It is a last resort position a desperate people will tolerate in times of extreme duress. That’s the odd thing about the concept. It is an admission that the radical program cannot exist in easy times. It can only thrive when the people, or at least a large swath of them, are sure their existence is on the knife edge. It also means the revolution can never achieve its stated goals.

This contradiction within radicalism is important to keep in mind when looking at modern politics, broadly inclusive of current events. In America, we have been in some form of crisis since the turn of the century. Under Bush the Minor, it was Islamic terrorism that put us on permanent war footing. The ruling class stripped away most of our remaining rights in the name of fighting this existential threat. America now has political prisoners and a security state that spies on citizens.

In the Obama years, the permanent crisis over Islamic terrorism slowly gave way to a laundry list of left-wing bogeymen. Racism, antisemitism, various imaginary crimes against imaginary identity groups. The rape hoax on campus was a classic example of trying to maintain the permanent crisis. Coeds were supposed to act as if Chad and Biff were lurking around every corner, ready to rape them. Of course, this warranted preemptive strikes against Chad and Biff in self-defense.

What the last two decades have been, really starting after the Cold War, is the bourgeois version of permanent revolution. The managerial elite maintain a militant and independent approach to politics, seeing themselves outside of society. They are the revolutionary class that is driving progress by driving the revolution. When they shriek about threats to the democracy, they really mean a threat to the revolution, their revolution, the managerial revolution.

The old radicals understood something about the class war they promoted. Marxist intellectuals understood they lacked the stones to fight for their cause. These were soft men who lived soft lives. The working class, on the other hand, had lots of tough guys comfortable with violence. The bourgeois class was also full of soft men, comfortable living the liberal lifestyle. In a genuine class struggle, they would not stand a chance against the working class. They would not fight.

Ahh, but that’s one of the things that demonstrate the true genius behind Gramsci’s revision of Marx’s original revolutionary theory, see. A slow, semi-clandestine takeover of society’s culture and institutions renders it unnecessary to fight. When done according to Gramsci’s clever recommendations, the frog ends up boiled without any struggle at all.

The managerial revolution, on the other hand, is led by radials, who make many of the same assumptions. The difference is there is no working class. They destroyed it by auctioning off the industrial base. Instead they will use their power over institutions, like the police, the security apparatus, finance and so on, to intimidate the middle-class into going along with the program. The permanent crisis legitimizes endless intrusions into daily life by the managerial state,

The thing is, the permanent crisis has another flaw. It channels the natural energies of a people away from industry and community. The permanent revolution becomes a bonfire onto which is thrown the social capital of a people. For the revolutionary, society is the sum of men, exclusive of their inner connections. They place no value on the social capital they burn for revolutionary fuel, because they see no purpose in it. To the managerial class, society is just kindling.

We are getting a glimpse of this with the Chinese Flu. The federal state is paralyzed by the growing incompetence of the managerial class. State and local responses have been incoherent, because the normal social capital that would animate such a response has been largely destroyed. You cannot have a community response when there are no natural communities of people. Clusters of strangers in temporary developments named after what was knocked down to build them are not communities.

The purpose of government either eventually becomes or is from the beginning to grow, to consolidate and then expand its power over its subjects to the widest extent it can. The problem is that it’s just not possible to effectively micromanage a nation as enormous and heterogenous as this one, no matter how overgrown and intrusive the central government may become. The more power it tries to reach, the more its grasp is exceeded, and the more apparent its metastasizing failure.

Worse (for them), this escalating failure drives them to attempt to regain the upper hand by imposing a veritable blizzard of niggling laws and regulations, which only results in most of those petty edicts being either slyly circumvented, ignored, or even contemptuously defied. Lather, rinse, repeat, until one of three things happens: 1)the bloated system collapses under the weight of its own incompetence and futility; 2) the subjects rise up in righteous outrage to overthrow it, either violently or through other means; 3) the whole mess spirals down into exhaustion and irrelevance, the collapse into dissolution, decrepitude, deprivation, and utter futility more or less accepted by its population as just the natural order of things. Unless and until things get so bad that large numbers of them begin to starve, at which point see No. 2.

Why, it’s almost as if God His Own Self might have stacked the karmic deck against Big Government and all its works, ain’t it?

A brief explainer

Posted on March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 by Mike

Cpl-three weeks ago, Skeptic inquired:

Mike, why do you insist on using “Democrat Socialist” or “Socialist” as the descriptors? That is THEIR terminology. Call them what they are. Communists, Fascists, Totalitarians, Authoritarians. “Socialist” is merely the well marketed term for what they really are. I can understand retards like Ben Shapiro prattling on about “Socialism” as if he still thinks that term will dissuade anyone from voting D. I can’t understand YOU doing it.

Actually, I have a fair-to-half-decent reason for it. Some of you whippersnappers may not recall this, but see, way back in the days when Michael Steele was heading the RNC, this happened:

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Which pretty much sums up the attitude some members of the RNC have toward their chairman these days.

Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Bold mine, to highlight the exact brand of hapless roll-overism that so perfectly characterized the pre-Trump GOP, and still does for all too much of it.

Umm, HELLOOO?!? What further “opportunity” for “the media and our opponents” to mischaracterize us might you think they need, pray tell, when the rat bastards are constantly not just “mischaracterizing” but outright lying through their fucking teeth about their hated enemies, brazenly and without shame, 24/7/365? That being so, and it most certainly was and is, why NOT start dealing out some minor payback to return the favor simply by calling the Demonrats by their rightful name?

At any rate, Steele eventually got the common-sense resolution advocating for labeling a spade a spade and a commie a commie dumped, more’s the pity. But I liked the idea then, and I still like it now. So I went right on using the thing, and Steele’s No-Ball Bastards just be damned all to Hell and gone. If I remember right, and I betcha I do, a lot of the fragile Loser GOPe punditry who so indignantly harrumphed and spluttered over the outlandish, gauche WELL-I-NEVER of referring to the Democommies at least somewhat accurately then went on to blossom into the insufferable NeverTrumpTards we endure today.

Go figure.

As for “socialist” being a too-tepid term for them…well, okay, so stipulated. On the other hand, though, I am waxing indifferent at best to such fine distinctions myself. Far as I’m concerned nowadays, a Marxist is a Commie is a socialist is a Nazi is a fascist is a &c. They’re all adjacent stripes running up and down the Left/Prog/whatever barber pole, in the end adding up to the selfsame thing: iron-fisted, comprehensive top-down rule by totalitarian despots. Slice it however you like, it’s still baloney.

My grandpa on my mom’s side was a lifelong yellow-dog Democrat, as was/is the entirety of that side of the fam. Milton Hubbard, bless his dear departed soul, died in 1976—too early in the year to enable him to cast a vote for Jimmeh Peanut, which he surely would have done with enormous pride. But I am quite confident that he is rolling in his grave rotisserie-style at around 750 RPMs from seeing what a sordid, anti-American sewer his beloved party has crashed and burned into—a party of traitors, bigots, degenerates, saboteurs, liars, cheap two-bit con artists, the mentally ill, and HILLARY!™ Clinton.

My mom’s baby brother Larry, another stubborn Yellow Dog thanks in no small part to the malign influence of his parents and older siblings, happily abandoned the Treasoncrats for Trump right around the time the Donald took his fateful escalator ride, although for some years I had noticed his commitment to the Democreeps gradually weakning, while he watched them continue the long slide into hundred-proof, no-chaser moonbattery. Uncle Larry’s late-life transition was akin to Reagan’s: he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left him. And boy, you should hear him talk about his former party NOW.

As well he might. This, after all, is a party that flies into spittle-flecked hysterics at the very idea of trying to “make America great again”; that reflexively sides with the enemy in every military conflict we’ve been involved in since Korea, no matter how truly monstrous that enemy may be; that is depressed rather than cheered by splendid economic news; that vastly prefers amplifying our shortcomings and failures over acknowledging our achievements and good works; that is this very minute hoping fervently that a viral pandemic will exterminate massive numbers of their (erstwhile) countrymen, for no better reason than that political advantage from those deaths might be gleaned for themselves.

Perhaps Skeptic is right after all, and my favored Democrat-Socialist appellation IS a spot of weak tea at this point. He most likely is, admittedly, in an era when they’re openly running unabashed Marxists, Red in tooth and claw, for the nation’s highest elected offices. Better get cracking on finding something worse still to fling at those suppurating pustules, I reckon. Suggestions along those lines from all and sundry are more than welcome, natch. Meanwhile, I’ll just carry on as I have been.

Ship: SAILED

Posted on February 28, 2020February 28, 2020 by Mike

Wait, you mean to tell me that Red Bernie is a *gasp!* COMMUNIST? And that Amerika might actually be in danger of lapsing into *GASP!!!* SOCIALISM?!?

Why, SAY IT AIN’T SO, MCGEE!

Democrats are almost out of time to change the trajectory of the race, although it remains to be seen if Sanders fantasizing about Cuban literacy rates slows him down. Some Democrats are begging the New York Nondisclosure Agreement to carpet bomb the airwaves and social media with attacks on Sanders knowing that if Sanders sails into the convention with a significant lead, they will be left holding a menu with a couple of equally horrible choices, the political equivalent of Brussels sprouts or liver and onion.

Their hope to pull off a convention bait and switch works only if somebody can keep the delegate count close. But who can pull it off? Mike Bloomberg? Not without a charisma transplant and the removal of layers of baggage. So far, he and Shrill Indian have combined to net one more delegate than is currently in the hands of the candidate from Minnesota who nobody has noticed is in the race. Joe Biden? He was last seen fantasizing about running for the Senate, even as his South Carolina firewall is fraying. Pious Pete, the Bible “scholar”? Sanders could not have hand-selected a better field of awful candidates to propel him.

An increasing number of Democrat talking heads are resigning themselves to the Sanders storm rolling in and trying to prepare the ground to receive its rain. Liberal revisionists have tried out two lines while the race is still somewhat in play: the Paul Krugman he’s not really a crazy Marxist…he just plays one on TV special and the one about vote for Bernie because he won’t be able to do the crazy stuff he has promised. These are political losers, but they are just the warm-up act for the socialism revisionism to come. Today’s Democrat Sanders critics will soon pivot to singing homilies to socialism.

Um—”WILL SOON pivot” etc?

Just now noticing all this, are ya? But Red Bernie ain’t the biggest problem we have here, not by a long yard.

So how did we get to the point where the nation founded by champions of liberty is on the cusp of nominating a man who is a fellow ideological traveler with history’s greatest foes of liberty? The Democrats have been on a steady march toward this Marxist moment for generations.

Ronald Reagan, in one of the greatest American orations, delivered back in 1964, saw that we were heading toward the moment, noting that “back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.”

We are now 84 years past that 1936 Al Smith epiphany, and we are nearing the finish line, which is not surprising, since socialism is the natural destination for big-government Democrats as each successive generation ups the ante on the generation that came before.

Most Americans don’t yet appreciate just how much Marxism and its grievance-mongering offshoots have become the university mainstream in America, but this is of profound importance. America’s colleges, with a few notable exceptions, have been churning out Marxists for decades, which is why an old Marxist who looks like a madman is this year’s surprise hot political commodity.

The short-term problem for Democrats is that there are still too many older voters they need with an understanding of history who are horrified at the prospect of socialism.

But the long-term problem for Republicans is that the balance is tilting farther toward Marxism with each passing year as academia continues to crank out Marxist voters and influencers who are changing the ideological balance of society. Even if Sanders gets demolished in the 2020 election, Democrats will not tack to the center, since socialism is now the beating heart of their party. Sanders’s candidacy is the outcome of this tectonic shift, not the cause of it.

Although I’d argue that it isn’t “are changing the ideological etc,” it’s “HAVE changed,” that last bit is nothing but solid, 24k gold truth. Which then brings us right ’round to another ugly but inescapable fact, one I keep repeating: The war for America was lost long, long ago. The battle to reclaim it, should there ever be one, must be initiated in the Leftist indocrination factories we’re pleased to misnomer “public schools” to have any hope of attaining anything but the most transitory success. So far, I see no sign whatsoever that enough of us even realize that, much less that any such battle is being waged.

If the US was anything remotely like the nation it properly should be, the very idea of an avowed Marxist—particularly a buffoonish, all-thumbs crackpot as just plain stupid as Bernie The Klown—making a serious run for President would be so preposterous as to make the welkin ring with gales of laughter from sea to shining sea. Instead, somehow…well, here we all are.

America, let this once seemingly impossible concept sink in, and sink in deep: It can happen.

Sanders can win. Not just the party nod. The election.

The Wall Street Journal fretted recently: “Democrats are waking to the prospect of a nominee who wants to eliminate private health insurance, raise taxes on the middle class, ban fracking and put government in charge of energy production, make college a taxpayer entitlement, offer free health care to illegal immigrants, raise spending by $50 trillion, and tag every down-ballot Democrat with the socialist label.”

Journal editorial writers apparently believe simply repeating those erstwhile bogeymen will ensure McGovern 1972-style catastrophe for Sanders and his party in the fall.

Inquiring readers want to know: what country are they are living in?

And that “socialism” word: will younger voters really desert Sanders in droves over a couple comments praising Cuban communists? The Berlin Wall fell before a substantial bloc even drew breath. Communist China is our biggest trading partner. Millennials and beyond have a vague notion that socialism has been bad for Venezuela, but not why.

“Moderate” Democrats tried the Journal’s roundhouses on Sanders Wednesday, and didn’t lay a glove on him. Sanders countered with research purporting to show his Medicare for All budget-buster would save money. Cited praise for the Castros from the sainted Barack Obama. Ridiculed efforts to align him with the NRA.

And he pointed to strong head-to-head polling numbers against Donald Trump and burgeoning grassroots support.

Not to come off too Eyore-ish on y’all or anything, but don’t for a moment kid yourselves that it can’t happen, people. For one thing: know how our side likes to point to the humongous, wildly enthusiastic crowds every Trump rally draws as evidence of his grass-roots invincibility? Well, don’t look now, but guess who else is beginning to enjoy a similar level of support?

The above article’s title quite correctly states: “This is not McGovern’s America.” Once again: THAT, not Red Bernie or any other specific individual, is where our real problem lies.

Waiting.

Update! Did somebody mention the government schools just now?

It has been long known that American “education” institutions are spectacular failures at teaching the rising generation about their birthright to self-governance. The famous 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” declared it a national crisis that “In many schools, the time spent learning how to cook and drive counts as much toward a high school diploma as the time spent studying mathematics, English, chemistry, U.S. history, or biology.” Things only got worse.

Today, 4 in 10 Americans who are younger than 39 disagree that the United States “has a history we should be proud of,” according to a 2019 poll by FLAG/YouGov. The poll also found that half of all Americans agree the United States is a sexist and racist country, including two-thirds of millennials. Millennials showed the lowest level of agreement with the statement, “I’m proud to be an American.” Thirty-eight percent of “younger Americans do not agree that ‘America has a history that we should be proud of,’” according to the poll.

2019’s annual poll from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 37 percent of millennials think the United States is “among the most unequal societies in the world.” Despite their curricula’s obsession with so-called multiculturalism and diversity, they clearly have zero sense of what life is like in most of the world, and how that contrasts with the United States’ singular freedoms and opportunities.

The VOC poll found that 70 percent of millenials said they are likely to vote for a socialist. It also found that “57% of Millennials (compared to 94% of the Silent Generation), believe the Declaration of Independence better guarantees freedom and inequality over the Communist Manifesto.”

That poll also found that large percentages of younger Americans said communism was presented favorably in their elementary, middle, and high schools.

But of course. The one is what gets you the other. Cause and effect, man.

Yet another thing I’m beginning to sound like a broken record on, I know: Gramsci was a diabolical genius, the Long March Through The Institutions he inspired a most horrifying success.

Ain’t skeered

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

Schlichter’s title contains an unfounded assumption. But other than that, he nails it.

The D.C. establishment and their media rump-kissers went into a full-on spazz mode when President Trump continued his unbroken streak of awesomeness by appointing Ric Grenell the acting Director of National Intelligence, thereby threatening the intelligence community’s unbroken streak of failure. None of our media idiot savants – a term which is only half-accurate – thought to ponder the question of exactly how Ric’s appointment could possibly make the IC worse. Its legacy of ashes is a national embarrassment. But then, the purpose of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment is not to serve the people of the United States. Its purpose is to serve the personal interests of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment.

Dead on the money so far. But then:

Its denizens fear that this fearless patriot is going to burn down their whole shoddy edifice, and we can only hope they’re right.

Flick that Bic, Ric.

We can hope so, yeah. No real harm in keeping a positive attitude, right?

On the other hand, when has anybody seen any evidence of fear on their part, really? I haven’t. Anger? Yeah. Narcissism? Sure. Assumptions of superiority and entitlement? Absolutely. Vengefulness, pettiness and spite, a strong determination to fight in defense of their presumptive turf? Yep, yep, yep, and damned skippy.

So what real evidence can be cited in support of Kurt’s contention that they’re afraid, they’re very afraid? Or even that they should be? Yes, the Deep State establishment is shrieking, all right. Along with the rest of their ideological confreres on the Left, when are they not? They’ve been shrieking about absolutely everything Trump has done or attempted to do since November 2016, even before. In the case of FedGovCo specifically, however, I do NOT take the anguished caterwauling as evidence Deep State termites are actually afraid of anything. I think of it more along the lines of battlespace prep. Or psyops, maybe.

Kurt goes on from there to laud Grennel for previous accomplishments and overall attitude, and rightly so. Grennel’s appointment bodes well for several reasons. And this bodes even better:

Today, we’re hearing that Kash Patel, a National Security Council staffer and former aide to Devin Nunes, has been tapped as a senior advisor to Grenell. Patel has also been a loyal ally to the President and to Republicans. Patel wrote the famous February 2018 “Nunes memo,” a document which alleged that the FBI used the phony Steele dossier as the basis of their application to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. In his December 2019 report, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed the accuracy of the entire document.

The importance of having two loyal and like-minded Trump allies in place at the helm of the DNI cannot be overstated.

CBS News’ Catherine Herridge reported that Grenell has been given a mandate which is to “#cleanhouse including a “top to bottom” review of DNI operations.”

This is good news indeed. It appears that President Trump is starting the clean sweep of the government agencies he hadn’t known was so crucial early on.

It’s good news right enough, and I’m glad to see it. Nonetheless, where Kurt sees a glass at least half-full here, I can’t help but also see…well, this:

Three separate stories converged to drive home the obvious truth that America has a two-tiered justice system: the Justice Department’s decision to not indict the guilty-as-sin plotter Andrew McCabe, the attempt to give Roger Stone an outrageous jail sentence, and the Army’s decision to shrug that one of its officers attempted to orchestrate the removal of his commander-in-chief.

There are a couple of simple reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the entire federal bureaucracy is one giant Democrat machine. This cannot be repeated enough. Nearly every member of almost every single department is a Democrat.

How bad is it? Back in 2016, 95 percent of campaign contributions for the presidential race went to Her Royal Awfulness. The Justice Department overachieved, coming in at 97 percent.

Liberal scolds are always lecturing Americans on how they are racist, imperialist, misogynistic, homophobic monsters, even if they don’t know it due to implicit bias. This is nonsense. But it is curious that these same fools see no problem with implicit bias when the entire government-media-academia complex is one giant exercise in leftist groupthink.

Daniels is talking about the DoJ here, but it’s still relevant; if anything, the IC is even worse. And, as he later cautions, “Identifying the problem is far simpler than coming up with practical solutions.”

It’s as I’ve said all along: a single President is never going to be able to force the Shadow Government genie back into its bottle; no, not even Trump, not even with two terms. The nation has been lured, tugged, and/or dragged—according to which MO seemed most practical or effective at the time—consistently Leftward for nigh on a century now, with a strident, near-continuous effort beginning in the 60s. Anyone seriously thinking that all this might be corrected in a scant eight years, by just one man, isn’t really thinking. He’s dreaming.

Nothing to see here, folks

Posted on February 23, 2020February 23, 2020 by Mike

I’m SURE it’s all on the up and up.

Philip Haney, the author of “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad,” has died at the age of 73. In addition to being an author, Haney was a long-time Department of Homeland Security expert with a focus on Islamic extremism.

Reports of Haney’s death first appeared on the morning of February 22. Fox News’ contributor Sara A. Carter tweeted regarding Haney’s death saying, “Somebody I deeply respected and considered a friend Phil Haney – a DHS whistleblower during the Obama Admin was apparently killed yesterday in Southern California. Pray for his family and pray they find the person who murdered him. Still trying to get confirmation on details.”

A few quotes, emphasis mine, to set the stage:

Phil Haney spoke out against CAIR in an interview in October with Barry Nussbaum on American Truth Project.

Philip Haney: CAIR is the acronym for the Council on American Islamic Relations. It’s probably the best known Muslim organization in the country, but unfortunately, it’s also connected, irrefutably proven to be connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, the Muslim Brotherhood has been already designated in several countries around the world, including Middle Eastern countries…as a front group up to and including Hamas, which we know as a designated terrorist group itself…We’ve been continuing to track this group and other ones that are part of the Muslim Brotherhood. And I have to say with great distress that if anything, they’re more woven into the fabric of different branches of our government today, 2019 October than they were when I was still active duty within DHS. And yeah, that does seem like a bold statement. It seems like it ought to be impossible, but I think that’s what we’re going to go over today.

Barry Nussbaum: So I get it. And let’s talk specifics. So why in the world Phil with the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in the world, and certainly our number one national police force whose mission it is to protect us internally within the boundaries of the United States what the heck is the FBI doing in bed with CAIR?

Philip Haney: Well, first of all, let’s make sure to make the point that they are. This isn’t something that started years ago and was taken care of. I’m talking just in the last week or two. CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups have been meeting by invitation from the Department of Homeland Security and/or branches within the U.S. State Department to help implement and develop policy here in the United States. And before I forget it, I should mention that the new focus of the Department of Homeland Security has just released in their new twenty nineteen strategic documents, about 20 to 40 pages, is a focus on white supremacy, not so much Islamic terrorism…And that brings us to the relationship with CAIR. They have now asked groups like CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations all part of the Muslim Brotherhood to come and help them implement this new policy of focus on white supremacy.

Haney’s death was hastily declared a “suicide” by California authorities, via “a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Emphasis mine again:

A screenshot taken from Frank Andrew Bostom’s Twitter feed shows what appears to be a statement from Frank Gaffney, the Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy.

“As you may know, we lost this week one of our most brilliant, most dedicated and most devout comrades-in-arms: Philip Haney.

While the details are sketchy at the moment, Phil went missing on Wednesday in the area he called home in northern California to which he returned after the passing of his beloved wife, Francesca, following a long struggle with a series of terrible health afflictions. On Friday morning, a sheriff’s deputy finally found his body with a gunshot wound to the chest.

So, Haney committed suicide by shooting himself…IN THE CHEST?!? Nope, no malodorous funk wafting off of that entirely believable story, nosirreebob. I mean, I suppose it maybe happens that way once in a rare while. But it’s hardly the usual way of going about it, which ought to raise questions all by itself.

Why yes, there IS more to consider. Such as: did this guy ever really do or say anything so extreme and/or incriminating as to alarm some of the Ogabe junta‘s more shadowy henchmen, perhaps even enough to have him offed?

During a 2015 appearance on Fox News, Haney said that his work in the Department of Homeland Security had been curtailed and that if it were able to continue, it may have prevented the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. According to Haney, among the places that he was investigating was a mosque attended by the shooter, Syed Farook. Haney alleged that his investigation was curtailed by the Obama administration. Haney said, “Either Syed would have been put on the no-fly list because association with that mosque, and/or the K-1 visa that his wife was given may have been denied because of his association with a known organization.”

In 2016, Haney testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Senator Ted Cruz to allege that the Obama administration had acted irresponsibly with regard to Islamic extremism. Haney claimed that the administration had acted in favor of “political correctness” rather than take actions that may have prevented the June 2016 Pulse night club shooting in Orlando or the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015.

Haney also alleged that the Obama administration destroyed or changed 800 of his files relating to the Muslim Brotherhood because they were deemed offensive to Muslim people.

Hmmm. Well, okay then. But that really isn’t enough, is it? I mean, Haney would have had to represent a real, credible threat to Ogabe and his minions before they’d go to such extraordinary lengths, wouldn’t he?

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) issued a statement Saturday night on the death of Obama DHS whistleblower Philip Haney, who was found dead Friday by police in Plymouth, California. Police said the 66-year-old Haney had what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but that an investigation was “active and ongoing”.

King posted to Twitter, “Phil Haney was a friend & patriot. He was a target because of all he knew of Islamic terrorist coverups. He insured his life by archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration. Phil Haney didn’t kill himself. RIP, Phil.”

Um. Well, okay then. But hey, Haney was no doubt distraught over losing his wife. It’s scarcely unthinkable that a person in such straits might lose all hope and kill himself, right? In fact, people close to him were probably concerned about just such a possibility, I’d expect.

A statement on author Andrew Boston’s Twitter page, said that Haney had returned to California following the death of his wife. That statement also said that Haney was engaged to be married later in 2020. The statement adds that friends of Haney’s say that there was “no way” he would have taken his own life.

Uh. Well. Okay, then. Still. If Haney DID have the goods on Ogabe’s mollycoddling of Moslem terrorists; and DID seem to be coping with the loss of his wife well enough to be planning to get on with his life and remarry; and his relatively positive state of mind has been unequivocally attested to by people close to him; and he was aware that his unflinching realism concerning Moslem terrorist groups, along with his insider knowledge of Ogabe’s treasonous, criminal behavior, would seriously antagonize Ogabe And Pals…wouldn’t he then have expressed concern somewhere along the line about all this having effectively painted a bullseye on his back?

Haney’s close friend Jan Markell, a radio host, author and speaker, tweeted out this from her last conversation with Phil Haney.

My friend Phil Haney was found shot yesterday in CA. I had lunch with him a month ago. He warned something could happen to him. He was to get married in a month. It will be falsely called a suicide.

WELL. Okay, then.

Of course, it’s just absurd to go too far with all this wild-eyed conspiracy mongering. I’m sure we all feel perfectly confident that none of our most powerful professional politicians would ever dream of resorting to such outré measures just to cover their own asses. Right?

RIGHT?!?

Important note to Rod Blagojevich: better be checking your six, buddy.

Misfire

Posted on February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Mike

Hrm.

John Bolton Admits Last-Minute Impeachment Leak Was A Publicity Stunt

Curiously, the rest of the article doesn’t quite seem to support its sensational headline.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton admitted Wednesday that his testimony in President Donald Trump’s recent impeachment proceedings involving Ukraine would have had no impact on the trial’s outcome even after sections of his upcoming book leaked attempting to convict the president in its final days.

“People can argue about what I should have said and what I should have done,” Bolton said at Vanderbilt University Wednesday night during a forum with his predecessor Susan Rice, according to ABC News. “I will bet you a dollar right here and now my testimony would have made no difference to the ultimate outcome.”

“I sleep at night because I have followed my conscience,” Bolton added.

In the final days of the trial however, sections of Bolton’s upcoming book were leaked to the New York Times, featuring Bolton accusing Trump of tying the nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine with politically motivated investigations as Democrats alleged. The leak happened to come on the same day the book became available for online pre-order revealing the move as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Bold mine. Now I don’t doubt for a moment that the move WAS a publicity stunt, mind. But the above hardly amounts to Bolton himself “admitting” to any such, openly and in plain language; his “confession” in the first ‘graph is pretty specific, and obviously refers to something else altogether, albeit related.

Bolton’s acknowledgment that his testimony wouldn’t have altered the outcome of Shampeachment could be construed as kind of a left-handed, backdoor way of admitting to the leak’s publicity-stunt nature, I suppose, however great a stretch that might be. And lord knows I am not in the least bothered by our side using hyperbole and misdirection as a means of attacking our enemies, just as they’ve always done to us. But such weapons must be wielded competently, craftily, to be most effective. And they ought not be wasted on an irrelevancy, a disgruntled, treacherous non-entity whose 15 minutes of (minor) fame already ticked away.

Could be there’s a case to be made for Bolton having actually confessed to perpetrating a “publicity stunt,” somewhere, somewhen. But if there is, I can’t find it in this brief article.

“Daddy, how do airplanes fly?”

Posted on February 15, 2020February 15, 2020 by Mike

Correct answer: nobody really knows.

No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay In The Air

On a strictly mathematical level, engineers know how to design planes that will stay aloft. But equations don’t explain why aerodynamic lift occurs.

There are two competing theories that illuminate the forces and factors of lift. Both are incomplete explanations.

Aerodynamicists have recently tried to close the gaps in understanding. Still, no consensus exists.

In December 2003, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright brothers, the New York Times ran a story entitled “Staying Aloft; What Does Keep Them Up There?” The point of the piece was a simple question: What keeps planes in the air? To answer it, the Times turned to John D. Anderson, Jr., curator of aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum and author of several textbooks in the field.

What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the Times. People give different answers to the question, some with “religious fervor.” More than 15 years after that pronouncement, there are still different accounts of what generates lift, each with its own substantial rank of zealous defenders. At this point in the history of flight, this situation is slightly puzzling. After all, the natural processes of evolution, working mindlessly, at random and without any understanding of physics, solved the mechanical problem of aerodynamic lift for soaring birds eons ago. Why should it be so hard for scientists to explain what keeps birds, and airliners, up in the air?

Even as extraordinarily broad and supple an intellect as Einstein’s couldn’t suss it all out:

In Germany, one of the scientists who applied themselves to the problem of lift was none other than Albert Einstein. In 1916 Einstein published a short piece in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften entitled “Elementary Theory of Water Waves and of Flight,” which sought to explain what accounted for the carrying capacity of the wings of flying machines and soaring birds. “There is a lot of obscurity surrounding these questions,” Einstein wrote. “Indeed, I must confess that I have never encountered a simple answer to them even in the specialist literature.”

Einstein then proceeded to give an explanation that assumed an incompressible, frictionless fluid—that is, an ideal fluid. Without mentioning Bernoulli by name, he gave an account that is consistent with Bernoulli’s principle by saying that fluid pressure is greater where its velocity is slower, and vice versa. To take advantage of these pressure differences, Einstein proposed an airfoil with a bulge on top such that the shape would increase airflow velocity above the bulge and thus decrease pressure there as well.

Einstein probably thought that his ideal-fluid analysis would apply equally well to real-world fluid flows. In 1917, on the basis of his theory, Einstein designed an airfoil that later came to be known as a cat’s-back wing because of its resemblance to the humped back of a stretching cat. He brought the design to aircraft manufacturer LVG (Luftverkehrsgesellschaft) in Berlin, which built a new flying machine around it. A test pilot reported that the craft waddled around in the air like “a pregnant duck.” Much later, in 1954, Einstein himself called his excursion into aeronautics a “youthful folly.” The individual who gave us radically new theories that penetrated both the smallest and the largest components of the universe nonetheless failed to make a positive contribution to the understanding of lift or to come up with a practical airfoil design.

Can’t recollect via whom I found this one; I suspect it was probably Insty, but a bit of searching around at his place didn’t turn it up. Whoever it was, my abjectest apology for failing to acknowledge the find with a return link. It’s a fascinating article all around, if you’re into the whole aviation thing. Which, y’know, I am.

Shut up, he explained

Posted on February 14, 2020February 14, 2020 by Mike

Another complaint about Trump’s Tweeting.

In a surprising rebuke Thursday, Attorney General William Barr criticized President Donald Trump’s tweets about Roger Stone’s case and other Justice Department matters.

“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC News’ Pierre Thomas in an interview.

Trump on Tuesday blasted federal prosecutors’ recommendation that Stone serve up to nine years in prison for a conviction that stemmed from a case that started under the special counsel.

I doubt Barr is gonna get very far with that one, although I must also say I can somewhat understand his concern. As supportive as I’ve been all along of Trump’s deft, canny use of Twitter, Barr could have a point.

In essence Bill Barr is working to emphasize there’s no undue influence, and also emphasize the appearance of no undue influence. The problem, however, is that the media will create the impression of influence even if, and despite the reality of, no Trump influence.

Nothing Bill Barr does and/or says will stop the media from falsely creating a narrative that says President Trump and Bill Barr are colluding to target their political opposition.

With that reality in mind, the answers in the ABC interview as delivered by Bill Barr only pour fire on a furnace of media intent to controversialize President Trump’s communication approach.

Barr’s intention may have been good (albeit selfish), but declaring that President Trump’s free speech and opinion as an impediment to Barr’s ability is just nonsense.

Yep, pretty much. Ultimately, though, there’s a solution to Barr’s dilemma, one which is simplicity itself:

You know what would stop Trump tweeting about the DOJ? Throw someone in fucking prison already. We can see you Deep State assholes.

— The OG Hillbilly (@LauraLMonroe33) February 14, 2020

Right out of the damned park, girlfriend!

Still a ways to go

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Mike

Welcome to the party and all, I guess. But see if you can pick out the part I’m more and more tired of.

You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.

But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them.

That turned out not to be the case.

It’s pretty much your standard-issue recounting of a Lefty’s shock to learn that the bubble she’s been living in was filled all along with lies and propaganda, with nary a truth or hard fact allowed entry. Then:

I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?

To ask it is to answer it, each and every one. Now to the meat of the thing, such as it is.

Once we got inside, the atmosphere was jubilant. It was more like attending a rock concert than a political rally. People were genuinely enjoying themselves. Some were even dancing to music being played over the loudspeakers. It was so different than any other political event I had ever attended. Even the energy around Barack Obama in 2008 didn’t feel like this.

I had attended an event with all the Democratic contenders just two days prior in exactly the same arena, and the contrast was stark. First, Trump completely filled the arena all the way up to the top. Even with every major Democratic candidate in attendance the other night, and the campaigns giving away free tickets, the Democrats did not do that. With Trump, every single person was unified around a singular goal. With the Democrats, the audience booed over candidates they didn’t like and got into literal shouting matches with each other. With Trump, there was a genuinely optimistic view of the future. With the Democrats, it was doom and gloom. With Trump, there was a genuine feeling of pride of being an American. With the Democrats, they emphasized that the country was a racist place from top to bottom.

Now, Trump is always going to present the best case he can. And yes, he lies. This is provable.

Oh, izzat so? Name one, then. Name just fucking ONE. No, I do NOT mean some spurious morsel of twipe you’ve been spoonfed, either taken out of context or manufactured from whole cloth by CNN or some other pack of balls-out bullshit artists. I mean one genuine, bona-fide, shame-the-devil lie. Go ahead, I’ll wait. But not for long.

No matter how deep or complete the conversion, they always, always, always say this. Hell, the NeverTrumpTard pseudo “Right” never seems to STOP saying it. But as “provable” as the claim is supposed to be, I have yet to see even ONE of the people so blandly making it offer any of that “proof” to back it up.

Note that my annoyance in no way equates to declaring that Trump never lies, or never has lied. Exaggeration and hyperbole? Stipulated. These are both an integral part of his personality and, I believe, tactics Trump deliberately employs when he thinks them useful. Still, though, even they aren’t LIES.

Now, this woman seems one hell of a lot more broad-minded, thoughtful, and reasonable than the overwhelming majority of her fellow Lefty lemmings, so hats off to her for that much at least. Maybe if she continues along the path of this first exploratory step, she’ll find her eyes opened further—her vision becoming clearer, her intellectual horizons broader. Eventually, perhaps she’ll recognize that ALL the bushwa she’s uncritically swallowed all these years for the deceitful manipulation it really is. Such is to be hoped, anyway. I will not speculate on how likely I think it might be.

Via Glenn, who says: “I love that it was the PC meanness of SJW types in the knitting community — yes — that opened her eyes.” Heh. Indeed.

Night of the long knives

Posted on February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 by Mike

Quoth Hoft: “It’s payback time.” It damned sure is. And will be for a long, long time to come, too.

Earlier today four Mueller attorneys resigned from the Roger Stone case. This was after the DOJ lashed out at the Mueller investigators for its abusive sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone.

All four prosecutors signed Roger Stone’s sentencing memo seeking an excessive prison term of 7 to 9 years and all four are now off the case.

During his conversation with Lou Dobbs Devin Nunes teases corruption of Deep State will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Rep. Devin Nunes: Let me tell you something else…The lawyers who stepped down today the prosecutors who suggested 7 to 9 for Roger Stone. We believe that this is not going to be the only example. We believe there is other examples of things they did during the Mueller investigation that I think you and your listeners and the American people will be very interested to learn in the coming weeks. As we start to unpeel the onion of what the Mueller team was really doing. Because I would say this, when Mueller was appointed we have to ask ourselves, he walks in the door the first day and he said, “OK, show me all the evidence you got on the Russians?” They’re like, “Bob, sorry we don’t have any Russians here. We don’t have any evidence.” So what the hell did they do for two years? They set up an obstruction of justice trap. And they went after a whole lot of people who have now got sentenced. Some already served their time. And I think all of this has to be called into question now.

I’ve heaped praise on Nunes here several times before, which he richly deserves. He’s been a real bulldog right along; his work on the Mueller farce, Schittpeachment, et al was nothing less than stellar. So if he says more fecal matter is about to impact the rotary impeller for reals…well, let’s just say I’d be more inclined to take his word for it than damned near anybody else’s. He’s solid, he’s fearless, he’s honest. If anybody can be trusted to haul the Deep State/Ogabe/Clinton sleaze and corruption out into the full light of day by the scruff of its filthy neck, it’s Devin Nunes.

Is it real, or is it satire?

Posted on February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 by Mike

With the Democrat-Socialist loons lapsing ever deeper into the final throes of Marxist-authoritarian dementia, who can even tell anymore.

To Compete With Space Force, Democrats Propose Space IRS
THE FINAL FRONTIER—President Trump’s new Space Force has been stealing the imagination of the public with its forward-looking ideal. “It’s a force,” Trump explained in a press conference, “in SPAAAAACE!”

Not to be outdone, the Democrats are now trying to show they can also look to the future with their new proposal: Space IRS.

“We also are inspired by watching shows such as Star Wars,” Nancy Pelosi told the press, “and seeing someone like Han Solo, a smuggler who is obviously avoiding taxes. It makes us say to ourselves, there has to be a way to follow someone like that and see how much he’s spending at cantinas and sabacc tables and know that he’s hiding income. That’s the job of Space IRS.”

Pelosi said the Space IRS will be a constant companion to all explorers of the galaxy, making sure the government gets a piece of whatever is discovered. “There are so many distant stars — distant galaxies out there,” Pelosi said. “That’s a lot of auditing. We want to be prepared.”

Is there anybody out there who can honestly say they don’t believe they’d actually do it? Or won’t, someday? Hell, the deranged, grabby control-junkies probably have at least one panel of “experts” working the problem right now.

Californication

Posted on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by Mike

Lie down with Democrats, get up with flees.

Beset by high housing costs, crippling taxes, astronomical gas prices, wildfires, and rolling blackouts, Californians are heading for the exits. That’s sparking anxiety in places where these Golden State migrants are relocating. A mayoral candidate in Boise, Idaho, recently suggested building a wall to keep out Californians, who account for 60 percent of domestic migration into the growing state. The election of increasingly progressive candidates in Colorado sparked talk there of the “Californication” of the Centennial State.

Early last year, the Dallas News described the “California-ing” of North Texas, citing a study showing that 8,300 Californians move to the area yearly. Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a petition titled “Don’t California My Texas.”

Much of this anxiety revolves around fears that the migrants will transform the politics and culture of the places that they’re moving to—bringing an appetite for big, intrusive government. But a new survey suggests that, while plenty of people are looking to leave California, many are fleeing the state’s high costs and politics and may not be interested in voting for the same things in their new homes. The poll, by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that 52 percent of California residents are considering migrating. As these polls go, that’s exceptionally high, putting California in the same category as some other states with very unhappy residents. A recent poll in New Jersey, for instance, found that about 44 percent of its people are looking to depart, while 50 percent of Connecticut residents indicated a desire to leave the state in a 2014 Gallup poll, the highest figure among any state at that time.

The article goes on to suggest that common assumptions about who’s doing the fleeing from collapsing Red territories might be off, although the evidence I see around here says otherwise.

(Via Linda Fox)

Character flaws

Posted on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by Mike

Hate to have to do it and all, but I fear I’m gonna have to pick a few nits with the esteemed CBD’s premises here.

President Trump has many character traits that seem, at first glance, to be wonderful openings for his political opponents to make substantive inroads on his popularity with the 20% of the voters who are not firmly in one camp, and perhaps decrease the enthusiasm with which his base supports him.

Here is a partial list, in no particular order, and without vetting for accuracy. But any casual perusal of the raw sewage pouring out of the media will lend support to these tendencies.

He is undoubtedly thin-skinned,

Could be, could be. Alternative take, though, is that Trump does not suffer fools gladly, nor does he let an insult, slight, or treachery pass him by without returning the favor in spades. After seeing the deluge of pure shit he’s been indundated with the past three years, I’m okay with that myself. In fact, the more he bristles, bares the claws, and attacks, the happier I’ll be. If fighting back hard against any and all provocation is being thin-skinned—and perhaps it is—well, so be it.

Note too, though, that Trump was clever enough to entirely ignore the Shittpeachment farce in his SOTU last week, not mentioning it even once. In that case, he managed to suppress any reflexive tendency towards being thin-skinned at least enough to use forebearance to his own tactical advantage, which says a few encouraging things about him too.

is prone to exaggeration and hyperbole

Alternative take: is confident, a perennial salesman and self-promoter, and a self-made larger than life character.

uses odd grammatical constructions that seem ripe for parody

And that prevents his opponents from pinning him down, keeping them off-balance and uncertain.

has goofy hair

Hey, he’s 70 and still HAS hair. I just turned 60 and am quite frankly envious.

Is curiously uninterested in reining in a bloated federal budget

This is the one I have the hardest time disputing. On the other hand, the budget is Congress’s responsibility, not his; there just isn’t a hell of a lot he can do about it, even if he wanted to.

is a big fan of firing people, and on and on.

Another one I don’t have any problem with. Actually, in my opinion he hasn’t fired NEARLY enough people since taking office. Hopefully he gets himself good and busy with rectifying that after re-election.

I’m only needling CBD a little with this, but there is one complaint about Trump we hear constantly, mostly from people whose criticism is a lot less constructive than CBD’s and whose motives are questionable at best: his Tweeting. They claim Trump’s Twitter assaults are rude, vulgar, and a childish affront to the solemn dignity of his exalted position. They wish he would just cut it out already, relying instead on Enemedia to honestly vet and oversee his statements rather than bypassing them to communicate directly with the people via Twitter.

Stuff and nonsense. Taking to Twitter to both needle his adversaries and inform his supporters is simply Trump making good use of an extremely popular platform to reach as many people as possible, directly and without interference or manipulation by any self-appointed “gatekeepers.” FDR did pretty much the same thing:

The fireside chats were a series of evening radio addresses given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (known colloquially as “FDR”) between 1933 and 1944. Roosevelt spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his policies. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was regarded as an effective communicator on radio, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency. Their introduction was later described as a “revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform.”

The series of chats was among the first 50 recordings made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which noted it as “an influential series of radio broadcasts in which Roosevelt utilized the media to present his programs and ideas directly to the public and thereby redefined the relationship between President Roosevelt and the American people in 1933.”

I just bet the tightassed fussbudgets of that era didn’t care much for FDR’s end-run around the gatekeepers, either. I noticed a huge irony in the above-quoted Wiki, boldfaced below:

It cannot misrepresent or misquote. It is far reaching and simultaneous in releasing messages given it for transmission to the nation or for international consumption.
— Stephen Early, FDR press secretary, on the value of radio

Roosevelt believed that his administration’s success depended upon a favorable dialogue with the electorate — possible only through methods of mass communication — and that this would allow him to take the initiative. The use of radio for direct appeals was perhaps the most important of FDR’s innovations in political communication. Roosevelt’s opponents had control of most newspapers in the 1930s and press reports were under their control and involved their editorial commentary. Historian Betty Houchin Winfield says, “He and his advisers worried that newspapers’ biases would affect the news columns and rightly so.” Historian Douglas B. Craig says that he “offered voters a chance to receive information unadulterated by newspaper proprietors’ bias” through the new medium of radio.

How very odd that the Left doesn’t seem nearly so concerned about media bias or its corrosive effects these days. In fact, having been in charge of Old Media for so long now, they take its power to drive the national debate as read, viewing any challenge to its waning might as the threat to them that it truly is. It’s no wonder they’re so put out by Trump’s “unpresidential” Tweeting, and petulantly demand that he knock it off.

Behind the scenes at Limbaugh’s SOTU appearance

Posted on February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 by Mike

Rush explains how another of Trump’s pure-genius victories from the week past actually transpired.

Now, I know many of you want to know the story of the State of the Union address on Tuesday night and how that all happened, and someday I hope to be able to tell you the entire story. I can’t tell you the entire story now without divulging medical details that I, frankly, don’t want to give. I don’t want to give people an opportunity to start investigating and writing about and pronouncing opinions and this kind of thing. People know enough about what I have.

It’s late stage. It’s advanced lung cancer. But there’s good news associated with the diagnosis and the treatment. So we are where I am to have the first procedure that will set up the beginning of treatment. This is Tuesday, and it is scheduled for 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We took no clothes, Kathryn and I. We just… We went Grub City with shorts, T-shirts. I mean, the whole week’s gonna be in the hospital.

There’s no reason to take a coat and tie. There’s no reason to pack a whole bunch of stuff that you’re never gonna use. “Light” was the byword. The procedure was gonna be 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I’d have to show up for it at 12 noon to do the prep, talk to the doctors and so forth. At 9 a.m., the phone rings. I’ve got the number in my address book. So it’s the White House. I answered the phone, and they said, “Can you hold for President Trump?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Rush! Rush! How you doing, buddy? Great to hear from you! Hey, look, what are you doing later today?”

I said, “Well, I have a serious medical procedure that’s gonna start — all this — at 5 o’clock.

“Well, look, what’s the doctor’s name? I want to call him and have him delay it for a couple days ’cause I need you down here tonight.”

I said (chuckles), “Uh… (chuckles) Mr. President, um… I’m stunned.”

He said, “Look, your health comes first; there’s no question. But can’t they just do half of what they’re gonna do and then send you down here? Believe me, you don’t want to miss this. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be great. You don’t want to miss this.”

Well, I don’t know what’s up. He told me he wanted me to be his guest at the State of the Union, that he was gonna mention my name, recognize me. I hung up the phone and for the next hour and a half, I agonized — I literally agonized — over what to do. Kathryn and I are both sitting in the hotel room. As time is marching on, we’re faced with the possibility of having to ask an entire medical team to broom their schedule and reschedule to accommodate this.

An hour and a half later, I called the president back and tried to tell him no. Remember, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I have no idea. I just… He’s told me, by the way… I should say, he has told me that he’s gonna present me with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but a couple weeks from now in the Oval Office. I had no idea at this particular time on Tuesday morning that this was gonna happen at the State of the Union, and he didn’t tell me during all these phone calls.

Which is what makes this another genius Trump move. I read somewhere or other earlier this week that the reason Trump did it this way was that he felt waiting for a small, quiet WH ceremony in a couple of weeks would effectively deny Rush the wider recognition he wanted him to have, that the Fake News media would just ignore it or cover the whole thing up. Which was almost certainly correct, the safest of assumptions.

Given how the rest of the week since has gone, I also strongly suspect that Trump anticipated the explosion of rage and murderous hatred from the rancid Left, a response that has disgusted so many Normals across the nation. Trump handled this the way he did in part as a provocation he knew the frothing, flailing lunatics couldn’t possibly resist. He baited them, they bit down hard, and it ended up hurting them badly.

Again.

So I called him back around 10:30, intending to be as persuasive as I could, to thank him and just say that there was too much here to overcome to get down there, including the medical schedule. The doctors and everything have been scheduled. This story, if I could tell it — and someday, I’m gonna be able to give you every detail here. But for people that do not know Donald Trump, this story will explain him, his essence, his attitude toward life.

There simply is nothing you can’t do. There’s nothing that can’t be done, and there’s not a single obstacle that can’t be dealt with — and it’s not even hard. It’s not even… He didn’t have to stop and think for a moment about this. Now, granted he’s got presidential power. If he wants to clear us into Reagan National, if he wants to send a car for us and get us from the airport to the White House, he can do all of that — and he did, and he was willing.

But the fact was that this is what he wanted, but not for him, you see? It was for me, and he wasn’t going to let me talk myself out of it. Part of me is not wanting to create any problems for him. I mean, he’s got so many more important things to do than deal with logistics, and I told him. He said, “You think I’m gonna do it? I’ve got people here! What do you mean? I’m gonna call a guy here; in an hour, all this will be done. All you gotta do is find a way to get the clothes.”

Lots, lots more to the story at the link, all of it fascinating. We’re fortunate indeed to have these two men. The flipside, unfortunately, is that they’re both damned nigh irreplaceable. The hole created when they exit the national stage will be deep, wide, and difficult if not impossible to fill. It’s probably the only hope the Democommies have left. Somehow, we must see to it that it remains a vain one.

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