March 26, 2019
The release of Robert Mueller’s finding that Donald Trump didn’t collude with Russia should settle a question his critics — and, quietly, some of his allies — have asked repeatedly over the last two years: Why was he acting so guilty?
It turns out that he was acting innocent, only in a typically combative, over-the-top Trump fashion.
The Left and the media were never willing to credit the idea that Trump sincerely believed that he was being treated unfairly — because he was.
When Trump said in his infamous Lester Holt interview that he fired James Comey because the Trump-Russia thing "is a made-up story,†he wasn’t confessing to obstruction of justice, he was stating a fact that the Mueller probe would establish 2,800 subpoenas and 500 search warrants later.
The prudent thing for Trump to do once the Mueller probe got going would have been to cooperate without complaint and bide his time awaiting his eventual vindication. Instead, Trump fought like a caged animal (while actually cooperating with the probe).
Trump is a creature of the media and cares a lot about what is said about him. So imagine him sitting in the White House and watching the media constantly suggest that a smoking-gun Russia-collusion revelation is just over the horizon, that the walls are closing in, that he might be guilty of one of the worst political crimes committed in the history of the republic — and all the while knowing that it wasn’t true.
It’s very easy to be relaxed about someone else’s reputation. (emphasis added -- this is the greatest quote I've found in a week) We saw this during the Kavanaugh controversy when progressives were outraged that Brett Kavanaugh got emotional about being falsely accused of gang rape. Trump, apparently, was supposed to be cool and nonplussed about being accused of treason.
Of course, he wasn’t, and got caught in an endless feedback loop with the press. He’d be presumed guilty in the coverage, he’d lash out and then commentators would take his reaction as further evidence he was guilty. For two long years.
As recently as a couple of weekends ago, an epic Trump tweet-storm was taken as a sign that he was completely panicked over the impending Mueller report.
It didn’t occur to anyone that he might be acting out of a sense of aggrieved, although often self-defeating, innocence. This is what got the Mueller probe rolling in the first place. Trump fired James Comey because the FBI director refused to state publicly what he told Trump privately — that the president himself wasn’t under investigation.
[...]
A news industry that should have a healthy skepticism could never apply any skepticism to its own narrative and assumptions. And so, on the question of Russia collusion that put a cloud over the White House and dominated the last two years of our public life, Donald Trump was a more reliable narrator than the media that so self-righteously scorns him.
Wonderful! Now anybody with any honesty knows the president has been right all along, and the Drive-By Media, coupled with their lapdogs in Congress, have been wrong all along.
This great article is available here: https://nypost.com/2019/03/25/the-media-took-it-as-a-sign-of-guilt-when-trump-acted-like-an-innocent-man/
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I like it. But pragmatism makes me fear that such an idea would be virtually impossible to bring to fruition. Right now, such a bill would be DOA in the House, and likely would not receive the necessary votes in the Senate. The current president would sign such a bill if it came to his desk, of course, but what if things change for the worse in 2020?As more Democrats enter the 2020 presidential race, their outrageous ideas to fundamentally change America are receiving media attention. Abolishing the Electoral College is a hot topic. Some Democratic contenders also want to shake up the U.S. Supreme Court.
Obviously, liberals’ desire to mess with the highest court in the land stems in part from President Donald J. Trump’s appointment of two conservative justices during his tenure at the White House. To lessen the generational impact of these two appointments, Democrats are all too eager to put additional justices on the bench. In a recent op-ed for Fox News, Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, provided his plan to stop Democrats from the practice of court packing with a constitutional amendment.
"America’s institutions are far from perfect. But over the past two centuries, they have provided a framework for our nation to become the most dynamic, most vibrant, and most exceptional nation in all of human history,†Rubio said.
Addressing the political tribalism he feels is purveying the country today, the Florida Senator said, "Americans need to view one another as friends, neighbors and coworkers – not Republicans or Democrats. How does a divided nation overcome corrosive tribalism? Ultimately, we need a restoration of family and community. In the meantime, we should do no further harm. To this end, I am proposing a constitutional amendment to prevent the next political and cultural flashpoint: the packing of the Supreme Court for partisan gains.â€
The amendment Rubio is proposing would keep the number of seats on the Supreme Court at nine. He explained, "There is nothing magical about the number nine. It is not inherently right just because the number of seats on the Supreme Court remains unchanged since 1869. But there is something inherently good and important about preventing the further destabilization of essential institutions.â€
"Our nation may not be on the brink of civil war or dissolution, but we are suffering a crisis of confidence and we cannot withstand further erosion of trust in one another and our institutions,†the Florida senator continued. "The rhetoric used by some of my Democratic colleagues that suggests our institutions are increasingly unable to resolve modern society’s conflicts is dangerous. The perceived illegitimacy of institutions — from local election boards all the way up to the Supreme Court — threatens to undermine the very nature of our nation. These institutions are the way Americans traditionally mediate disputes among a very diverse population. We must fight to maintain and restore them.â€
[...]
Interestingly, during a Senate Judiciary Hearing in 1983, former Vice President Joe Biden referred to court packing as a "bonehead idea.†Referring to Roosevelt’s court packing attempt, Biden said it was a "terrible, terrible mistake.†If he decides to jump into the already crowded field of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, one can only wonder if Biden’s views about court packing have "evolved†over the years.
U.S. Representative Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee, plans to introduce a similar bill in the House.
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The Electoral College was one of the few things, perhaps the ONLY thing, the Founders unanimously agreed on. Too bad a law can't be made that prevents the states from making their own laws that violate it.There has been a great debate over the best way to elect the most powerful person in the world. Republicans want to keep the Electoral College as it is, whereas the Democrats want to bring us closer to Athenian-style direct democracy. While abolishing this institution was once considered a fringe position, mainstream Democratic presidential candidates are making it part of their platform.
Currently, the president is elected by electors from each state. This system is outlined by the U.S. Constitution, and delegates the number of electors to each state’s congressional delegation. Democrats have complained in recent elections about the system currently in place — usually after losing.
This past Friday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill allowing his state to join with many others in the National Popular Vote, or NPV compact. Colorado is not the first state to join, but it does hold the distinction of becoming the first swing state become a part of it.
According to Roll Call, the National Popular Vote Compact is simply an agreement that states can join that will ensure they vote with the popular vote within their state — not based on population or electors. In essence, if enough states promise to join the compact, it could mean the end of the electoral college as it presently exists.
The District of Columbia, along with 11 other states have also signed on. Some states currently part of the compact include California, now Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and Washington.
The idea behind the movement is not all together bad. After all, what could be so wrong with wanting the popular vote to prevail in elections? Well, to determine that, one has to go back some time in American history. For example, when this great nation had only 13 colonies, the beliefs and needs of New York were vastly different from those in the other 12 colonies. However, most people resided in that area. Would it have been fair for New York to then determine who the nation elected, per popular vote? No, of course not. Opting to only use the popular vote will end up with just that bizarre of a result.
Consider the 2016 vote to get an idea of what losing the electoral college could look like in a real election today. Clinton had a popular vote of 65,853,514. Trump earned 62,984,828 votes. Now, consider what would’ve happened, had the NPV system been in play. Clinton would have won the election based only on the 3,446,281 she garnered in California. This means California would have affected the electoral votes of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, along with any other state that voted for Trump. This is not only scary, it’s downright unfair and the exact opposite of what the great fathers of the nation would have hoped to see.
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Social Justice warriors in Chicago have won a major victory; prosecutors have dropped 16 charges against hate-crimes hoaxer Jussie "pour some bleach on it" Smollett.
According to the Associated Press Smollett's attorneys say his record has been "wiped clean" and all of the felonies have been dismissed by the Prosecuting Attorneys office.
In other words, it's fine to frame the innocent in America, or at least Chicago, if you are gay and black.
Does this surprise anyone?
The Empire actor was indicted by a Grand Jury, but someone seems to have pulled some strings to get him out of trouble. Given his ties to Kamala Harris and sixties radical and now college prof Angela Davis. What is clear is that someone - someone powerful enough to get it done - intervened on Smollett's behalf.
Smollett's mother was a member of the Black Panthers, and remains close to Davis to this day.
Julia
Don't rule out the big dog in Chicago, either; Barack Hussein Obama may be keeping a low profile these days, but this is the exact kind of street theater that his "community organizer" friends would indulge in, and the BHO may well have made a few discreet phone calls.
Smollett, to refresh everyone's memory, is the gay black Empire actor who claimed to have been almost lynched by two white men who poured bleach on him, put a noose around his neck, punched him in the stomach, and said "this is MAGA country" at three a.m. in downtown Chicago (straining all credulity). It turned out he WAS assaulted on security camera, but by two black Nigerian men that Smollett worked with on Empire and paid to do it. It was a fake hate hoax designed to smear Trump supporters, white people, and help promote a bill introduced by Kamala Harris updating Hate Crimes law. Oh, and it would likely have given Smollett ammunition to renegotiate his contract for more money (as the police theorized).
Smollett needs to do serious jail time for this; it wasted police resources and, had he succeeded, would have led to violence and acrimony throughout America. Staging hate crimes is no joke. If we are to have the Rule of Law, and we have to have that to have a peaceful society and justice for all, then false accusations of this nature must be punished, and severely. Smollett needs to don an orange jumper and take to making license plates.
Is anyone surprised he is not? And Michael Flynn rots in jail for an unclear memory while talking to the FBI. There is no justice.
Here is a New York Times article about the Smollett family. Smollett brags of his mother's friendship with sixties radicals Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and Julian Bond as well as spending mother's days with Angela Davis, who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA and gave weapons to terrorists who killed a judge and two other people in a California courtroom. She went on the lam for years, then was arrested. A left-wing jury acquitted her for lack of evidence, but it was pretty clear she was guilty. (Remember this was around the same time that William Ayers was tried and acquited "guilty as hell, free as a bird! What a country!')
This is Smollett's "Aunt Angela".
I seldom agree with Rahm, but this is one time I'm solidly with him.The outgoing mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, was absolutely livid. Considering the racial and sexual overtones of the case – Smollett is black and gay – he showed real courage in denouncing the dropping of charges. From The Wrap:
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel strongly condemned the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office decision to drop all charges against Jussie Smollett, calling it a "whitewash of justice.â€
"This is a whitewash of justice,†Emanuel said Tuesday afternoon during a fiery press conference alongside Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson. "A grand jury could not have been clearer.†In a stunning reversal, all charges were dropped against Smollett Tuesday morning by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. The "Empire†star was indicted on 16 felony counts of filing a false police report earlier this month.
Johnson also heavily criticized the decision: "Do I think justice was served? No.†he said, adding that he stands behind the work of the detectives. "I’ve heard that they wanted their day in court with TV cameras so America could know the truth. But no, they chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system… I stand behind the detectives’ investigation.â€
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Our old friend Daren Jonescu has the Progressives dead to rights.
From his website Enjoying the View from Limbo:
Scratch a progressive totalitarian soul, find a person who feels pathologically weak and helpless. Hence the infinite capacity for oppressive cruelty. (In this regard, the leading progressive thinker is different from the New Zealand mass shooter only in the scope of his vision and the comprehensiveness of his intentions.) The progressive’s first instinct, his unthinking reaction, when he feels humanity creeping up at him — and he always perceives humanity as a creeping ooze — is to push down hard and climb on top.
A progressive is a coward of existential proportions. He dreams in a never-ending nightmare world, trapped amid an undulating mass of imperfection and unpredictability, with his only hope of survival being to clamber desperately atop the mass and subdue it before it swallows him. In his waking life, he calls this mass "the People,†and claims his goal is to care for the mass, and his motivation love. This mask of humanitarianism, too — the pretense of pity barely covering the sweaty face of frightened hatred — is part of his breathless effort to subdue and destroy the oozing mass of his nightmare before it annihilates him.
Read the entire essay; it's brilliant!
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One of the centerpieces of the Trump administration’s deregulation agenda is the rescission of the Clean Power Planthat was put into place by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2015 under former President Barack Obama. Comprising in part the new and existing power plant rules by the EPA, the Obama plan was to reduce carbon emissions by retrofitting existing coal power plants and making the costs of building new ones so onerous that nobody would dream of it.
more...
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March 25, 2019
Michael Avenatti, the former attorney for adult-film star Stormy Daniels, was accused Monday by federal prosecutors in New York of operating "an old-fashioned shakedown" by trying to extort between $15 and $25 million from sports apparel giant Nike, part of a string of bombshell claims against the celebrity lawyer.
Avenatti, who briefly considered a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also was charged with wire fraud and bank fraud in a separate case out of California. He was taken into custody and expected to appear in court later Monday in New York City.
Prosecutors said Avenatti tried to extort Nike "by threatening to use his ability to garner publicity to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm on the company if his demands were not met."
"As alleged, Michael Avenatti approached Nike last week with a list of financial demands in exchange for covering up allegations of misconduct on behalf of the company," FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney Jr. said in a statement. "The lofty price tag included a $1.5 million payoff for Avenatti’s client and upwards of tens of millions of dollars for the legal services of his firm – services Nike never requested. This is nothing more than a straightforward case of extortion"
The counts against Avenattiin the New York case are extortion, transmission of interstate communications with intent to extort, conspiracy to transmit interstate communications with intent to extort, and conspiracy to commit extortion. He faces up to 47 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Migod, folks, this is Mafia stuff. How, in this day in age, does a guy with the reputed intelligence of Avenatti think he can get away with this kind of thing?
Read the rest here -- it includes a video with Alan Dershowitz commenting: https://www.foxnews.com/us/michael-avenatti-accused-of-trying-to-extort-nike-for-up-to-25m-feds-say
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Two cop-killers in Chicago murdered him solely because they wanted to murder an hispanic.
According to the Belleville News Democrat:
Johnson says Jackson fired into Rivera's car. He says the suspect "settled for the first Hispanic he saw."
Strange; I am given to understand there is no racism among any of the "sun people" but that it is an invetion of 'ice people"; you aren't a racist if you aren't white, plain and simple. Needless to say, the media has been largely silent about this. Imagine if a white man killed officer John Rivera because he was hispanic? It would be running night and day on every news channel. But since it's a black perp killing a brown one, the sound of yawning is deafening.
When is America ever going to be color blind?
Final question; will hate crimes charges be brought?
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Here is an example of how the media is either woefully ignorant of our system of government OR purposefully lies to advance their own agenda. This AP article complains bitterly of how GOP control of redistricting in many states helped the Republicans in the off year election.
Since this is the AP I won't bore you with excerpted details. Suffice it to say that the Ass Press went on the warpath in search of gerrymandering. And needless to say they found it.
What of it? Redistricting is a power given to the state legislatures, and that is a matter of Federalism. The individual states are supposed to have power over the central government. It really is that simple. There is nothing nefarious about altering districts to - in fact, it is a mandate of teh Constitution. That it is done to enhance an advantage is no surprise. If the Democrats are losing this battle they need to pay more attention to the individual states. They don't, because they have used the central government to override the will of the People, especially in the middle of the country, which has to be forced into the Progressive paradise against their will.
I love this article; the AP actually quotes a student who works with Common Cause, because they can't find anyone with an opinion. They were that desperate. And the student - one Love Caesar (I do hope he or she gets a Ph.D. so he can be Doctor Love) says gerrymandering is somehow crooked because it "disenfranchises" certain voters.
Strange; the Left wants the dead to vote, people to vote multiple times, middle school kids to vote, felons, they want to overrule federalism with a compact of states to overturn the College of Electors, and they want to bring in millions of aliens to steal our franchise, but they draw the line here. These people still HAVE a vote; they just don't get to cluster with other liberals so as to put a leftist in power.
Redistricting is a part of our system of checks and balances, a part of Federalism. The Left can't appeal to Middle America. They need to quit whining.
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My latest tuppence about the Mueller thing
The Democrats didn't waste any time, they've already promised (or threatened) to subpoena Mueller to appear before their various committees. What I'm waiting for is the first person on MSNBC or CNN who says, "What did we expect, you do remember Mueller is a Republican, right?"
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If you don't think we have a problem with illegal aliens - particularly those who are under deportation orders - think again!
From Conservative HQ:
In addition, Horowitz reports there are roughly 1.1 million others from those four counties who have "pending final orders†and are close to receiving deportation orders. Those with pending final orders are usually individuals who have already been ordered deported by immigration judges but are appealing their case to the Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the appellate body of the DOJ’s administrative immigration courts.
That is a total of 1.7 million illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America with final or near-final orders of deportation. Those numbers are as of June 2018, right before the largest surge in Central Americans began over that summer and intensified in the fall of 2018 and winter of 2019. The total number of those ordered deported or with pending deportation orders for nationals of all countries of origin is 2.55 million.
To put this in perspective, this means close to 1 percent of the US population are illegal aliens already not just eligible to be deported, required to be deported under existing law.
These are just the guys who are officially kicked out! That is the population of a major U.S. city.
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The British government will not allow Christian refugees to seek sanctuary in the U.K. because ..drumroll please!...Christianity IS NOT A PEACEFUL RELIGION!
Warner Todd Houston gives us the story:
During an asylum hearing for an Iranian convert from Islam, the UK’s immigration agency claimed that Christianity isn’t a peaceful religion, and quoted Bible passages to prove their claim, the Independent reported.
The asylum seeker said that he left Islam for Christianity because Christianity was a peaceful religion and that by leaving Islam his life was put in danger. But the British court said it was clear that Christians are not peaceful people.
But they'll let Muslims - who are commanded by their Prophet and their Allah to conquer infidels and force their religion onto them, into the U.K. in vast numbers.
Oh, and it should be pointed out that Jesus was nothing but peace, not even allowing His followers to defend him from men who came to kill him. He healed a guys ear after one of his disciples cut it off defending Him. Jesus overturned the harsher Old Testament commands. But a secularist or a Muslim wouldn't know that - or care.
Britain seems hell-bent on committing national suicide. They have almost completely given up on Christianity, with the Church of England supporting all manner of anti-Christian things.
According to the U.K. Telegraph, as of 2016 there were 4.1 million Muslims in Britain; that number is expected to triple to 13 million by 2060. The Islamic population will be over sixteen percent, if all goes according to plan (Sharia plan, that is.) Also, over half of all Brits have no religion, or claim to be Jedi (which shows how venial and foolish they are, adopting the practices of a movie made for kids, for crying out loud!) That means real Christians are a rare breed in Britain. Seems to me if the British want to keep bringing in people they could use a healthy dose of Christianity.
That is fertile loam for Islam. I promise you the Muslim percentage of the population will wind up much larger much more quickly. Nature abhors a vacuum, and something will step in. In Britain that something will be Islam.
Where are men like Richard the Lion Hearted when you need them?
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March 24, 2019
So many Democrats are running for president the race feels like a March Madness bracket. If it were, the No. 1 seeds would be former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Either would be favored to beat President Donald Trump in the 2020 finals, according to the latest Fox News Poll.
Democratic primary voters were read a list of 20 announced and potential candidates for the 2020 nomination. Biden is the top choice at 31 percent, followed by Sanders at 23 percent.
California Sen. Kamala Harris (8 percent) and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke (8 percent) make up a second tier. They are followed by New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (4 percent), Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (4 percent), and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (2 percent).
The other candidates are the political equivalent of a 16th seed -- they receive less than two percent.
Eleven percent are unsure of their picks.Men, women, whites, non-whites, college graduates, and non-graduate Democratic primary voters all put Biden first and Sanders second. Sanders has the edge among those under age 45, while Biden is first for those 45 and over.
Democratic primary voters are more likely to support a candidate they think can beat Trump (51 percent) than the candidate they like the most (36 percent).
Statler and Waldorf -- excuse me, Joe and Bernie -- are way out in front of the others in the clown car, and the last time I checked, they were the quintessential Old White Men.
But even some of Joe's people Still Don't Get It. Catch this from William Katz's Urgent Agenda, pulled from Breitbart:
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s advisers are reportedly asking him to consider pledging to just serve one term in office if he wins his party’s nomination and faces off against President Donald Trump in the general election. According to a Thursday New York Times report, Biden’s advisers are discussing "a possible pledge to serve only one term†and framing Biden’s 2020 campaign "as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country.†Biden is reportedly "uneasy with the prospect of pledging up front not to seek re-election,†though, "believing that it would make him a lame-duck president before he even takes office and cripple his ability to get anything done.†His advisers are reportedly also asking him to consider announcing failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams as his running mate when he announces his candidacy. But the Times notes that, by doing so, "Biden could appear presumptuous — even imperious — by choosing a running mate before the electorate has the chance to sift the field of candidates.â€
Katz comments "This is almost pathetic. Pledge to serve only one term? Wow, what a bunch of optimists. And that places additional focus on the vice president. Stacey Abrams, a failed gubernatorial candidate, who happens to be black and female? Any qualifications?"
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Back in December I brought you the latest social science findings about the ideological meaning of . . . coffee choices. Sure enough, liberals do drink more lattes than conservatives, in part, the authors of the study speculated, because a preference for latte could somehow be connected to a more cosmopolitan, internationalist outlook, whereas the xenophobia of conservatives inclined them against liking Eurotrash beverages. Whatever. But the joke was on the latte liberals, as the authors noted that lattes actually have more domestic content than the average black cup of joe, because the milk came from all-American cows. I’m guessing, by the way, that latte liberals haven’t thought through how their lattes will suffer when the Green Nude Eel eradicates all those farting cows. (Sorry, but almond and soy milk just don’t cut it.)
The entire article is here: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/you-think-what-you-eat.phpWell, now we have a sequel, from the Journal of Computational Social Science, that looks at food preferences and ideology. Like the coffee study, conservatives tend to like and celebrate fast food, while liberals like tofu and such. Here’s the abstract, which is offered with a straight face:
Food preferences not only originate from a person’s dietary habits, but also reflect personal values and consumer awareness. This study addresses "food identity†or the relationship between food preferences and personal attributes based on the concept of "food left-wing†(e.g., vegetarians) and "food right-wing†(e.g., fast-food lovers) by analyzing social data using information entropy and networks. The results show that food identity extends beyond the domain of food: The food left-wing has a strong interest in socio-environmental issues, while the food right-wing has a higher interest in large-scale shopping malls and politically conservative issues. Furthermore, the social interactions of food left-wing and right-wing factions show segregated structures, indicating different information consumption patterns. These findings suggest that food identity may be applicable as a proxy for personal attributes and offer insights into potential buying patterns.
Now, I really have to wonder if this study isn’t a great put-on or hoax from someone emulating the merry pranksters who hoaxed the identity politics journals a few months back. Because the methodology of the study consists entirely of a detailed analysis of . . . Twitter posts! Capnip for our intelligentsia that thinks social media is the center of the universe.
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March 23, 2019
Ouch!Well, I am going to miss the full-bore SWAT-team raids at dawn against aging political factota like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort. It was really very courteous of CNN to have been parked outside the homes of those hapless victims so that television audiences all across the country could all be edified by these exhibitions of the coercive arm of state power in action. Mr Mueller could just have had one of his 17 Obama-and-Hillary supporting prosecutors ring up the latest mark and ask him to pop down to headquarters. But that would not have been as dramatic, as expensive, or as cruel.
All good things come to an end, however, and yesterday, after 674 days, the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, G-Man extraordinaire, finally came to an end when he filed his long-awaited report with the Attorney General, William Barr.
As for what’s in the report, I know exactly as much as you, Rachel Maddow, Jim Acosta, Anderson Cooper, and their brethren in the Fourth Estate, that is, nothing at all.
Nor is it at all certain that we will ever know all that much that’s in the report. Since the law prohibits the dissemination of potentially damaging information about people who were investigated but not charged with a crime, there are bound to be large sections of the report that will remain forever under lock and key, especially now that James Comey and Andrew McCabe are not in the FBI to leak them.
All we really know at this point pertains not the the contents of the report per se but rather to the future action of the Special Counsel. There will be no more indictments.
How that announcement must have stung the NeverTrump fraternity. Here they were, huddled around Bill Kristol’s Twitter feed for the last two-plus years, praying, predicting, posturing that very soon now, any day in fact, Robert Mueller would descend into their midst, the deus ex machina through whose instrumentality they were to be delivered at long last from the nightmare of Donald Trump and his unacceptable record of robust economic growth, hundreds of constitutionally-minded judicial appointments, rising wages, historically low unemployment, a more rational and business-friendly regulatory environment, deeper ties with Israel, a revitalized military, and serious attention to our immigration crisis and the growing threat of an increasing militant China. Yes, it’s been a bad couple of years for the NeverTrumpers.
And even though Robert Mueller has hung up his spurs, their travails are not yet at an end. Mr Mueller indicted a slew of individuals and three Russian companies. He extracted seven guilty pleas from various people close, or formerly close, to President Trump, from the shyster Michael Cohen, at one time Trump’s personal lawyer, to Michael Flynn, briefly the President’s National Security Adviser before he was set up by the FBI and ruined financially by the-process-is-the-punishment legal fees.
The really splendid thing about Mueller’s indictments, though, is that not one of them pertains to the ostensible subject of his investigation, to wit: possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to steal the 2016 election.
There's a lot of red meat in this article, as is typical for Kimball. And the ending is great:
Schadenfreude is an unlovely emotion, one it behooves us to renounce, especially in the midst of Lent. But I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot of it abroad in the coming weeks and months as the beady eyes of the FBI swivel away from Donald Trump onto those who have spent the last two and a half years trying to destroy him.
The whole thing is here -- please read it, you'll be glad you did: https://spectator.us/undo-2016-election-mueller/
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Bias by Google (Don't be Evil!) probably flipped at least three Congressional seats, according to a recent study.
Zerohedge:
He also supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 (just like Google!).
Down to the findings:
Epstein and AIBRT analyzed Google searches linked to three highly competitive southern California congressional races in which Democrats won, and found that Google's "clear democrat bias" may have flipped the seats away from Republican candidates. According to the study, at least 35,455 undecided voters within the three California districts may have been persuaded to vote Democrat due to the biased Google search results.
Epstein says that in the days leading up to the 2018 midterms, he was able to preserve "more than 47,000 election-related searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, along with the nearly 400,000 web pages to which the search results linked.â€
Analysis of this data showed a clear pro-Democrat bias in election-related Google search results as compared to competing search engines. Users performing Google searches related to the three congressional races the study focused on were significantly more likely to see pro-Democrat stories and links at the top of their results.
As Epstein’s previous studies have shown, this can have a huge impact on the decisions of undecided voters, who often assume that their search results are unbiased.
As I've pointed out previously, The Aviary has dropped precipitously in ranking since Google changed their algorithms and began their manipulation of information. We used to have a fairly high ranking, and it was possible to find articles from this website in Google searches, but no more. You have to specifically search for this site to find it. Our St. Louis colleague Jim Hoft has seen his Gateway Pundit drop in a similar fashion; TGP was one of the biggest sites around until they shadow banned him.
The liberals keep trying to argue that Donald Trump paying off "bimbo eruptions" is a violation of campaign finance law because it amounts to an "in kind" donation. How much is Google data manipulation worth? That is the mother of all in-kind donations.
A free press presupposes access. The war on "fake news" aka anyone who doesn't support the mainstream media/silicon valley/Democratic Party line is a purposeful attempt to smother free speech and freedom of the press. Conservative blogs ARE the free press, and we are doing the work the media Just Won't Do.
This is clearly a matter of restraint of trade.t falls under refusal to deal and exclusive dealing. What Google is doing is forcing the consumer to accept only certain companies as sellers of information. Imagine if there were only one food distributor, and that distributor decided to ban Pepsi-Cola because they had a deal with Coke. We wouldn't accept that, but we are told we must accept Google's choice for political, cultural, and intellectual consumption.
Google is essentially a Trust. Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:43 AM
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Warner Todd Houston forwards this. If you wonder why people are fleeing Illinois...
From the article:
Across the nation, the average tax rate is 1.3 percent.
Of the 37 Will County communities surveyed by LGIS, 24 have effective property tax rates higher than the state average. University Park topped the list with a 6.36 percent tax rate, Park Forest was second at 5.40 percent and Aurora came in third with a 3.84 percent rate. (The South Cook County side of Park Forest had a staggering 7.51 percent tax rate.)
In Aurora, Christine A. Summers recently lost her home at 1036 Lakestone Lane to foreclosure. Summers purchased the home in 2006 for $269,500, or $342,844 in today's dollars.
While she owned the home, she paid $79,116 in property taxes. The lender is asking $309,900 for the four-bedroom, three-bath home. Should it sell for that price, the effective property tax rate would be 25.52 percent.
These are communities just outside of Chicago.
And, in typical liberal fashion, the state of Illinois - or at least the neckless mafiosa governor J.B. Pritzker - is considering raising taxes, to further decimate the tax base.
Word on the street is that Illinois is going to secede from the United States and apply for admission to Honduras...
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:15 AM
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Turns out a majority of likely voters hold a dim view to old crazy horse, AOC. According to Newsmax:
The results of the poll conducted for the Stop the AOC PAC:
* 43.4 percent have a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez.
* 28.9 percent have an unfavorable view of her, with 20.5 percent saying they don't know enough about the 29-year-old to have an opinion either way.
* A total of 92.8 percent of those polled said they recognized Ocasio-Cortez's name.
* 61.7 percent, including 50.1 percent of Ocasio-Cortez supporters, said New York City would have been better off with Amazon's planned office complex in Queens. Ocasio-Cortez led a charge that ultimately led to Amazon pulling out of the deal.
Is anyone surprised? She won her primary because it was held in June and hardly anyone showed up. No doubt everyone was tired of the ancient warhorse Joe Crowley, too, and figured they'd give a fresh face a try. I remember when Jimmy Carter was running for President that was the exact same reasoning employed - and it was a disaster. AOC is a leftist version of Carter, only she doesn't smile as much.
By the way, I found this interesting:
"There was an element of luck here, right?†Trent said, his Tennessee drawl quickening with enthusiasm
Hmmm...her communications director is from Tennessee? This shows that there were outside forces promoting the socialist Occluded Cortex. And of course we knew that; George Soros helped fund her campaign. And of course the reconquistador O Cortez was an organizer for the Bern.
I wonder about AOC. She seems to have an impressive resume' according to her wikipedia page, but she's dumb as dirt. Given her age, it is entirely possible her parents were Soviet sleeper agents. She's a lot like Obama; puffed up resume', completely deflated intellect. It's as though someone has been grooming her for her entire life.
At any rate, the more everyone gets to know her the less they like her. Even Gallup is finding her popularity is falling as she flaps her equine lips.
One thing is obvious - a person who has been so successful in this country has no right to hate it so much. America has been very, very good to AOC and she sneers at it. When you sneer at my country you sneer at me. How could anyone support such an ingrate?
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:59 AM
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