Why Trump?

Timothy Birdnow

I'm having an argument (again) with Sherrie Mathieson about the virtues of dumping Donald Trump.

Sherrie says:

The MSM has certainly influenced anti Trump sentiment. But I don't know him personally--and

As for your fears of "Democrat Lite"--I'd risk that instead of getting another four years of Leftist rule and inevitable disaster. That's the gamble here.

Tim replies:

Sherrie Matheison you have evaluated my stance entirely wrong. I say I do not know DeSantis. I do not know who he is, what he really believes, if he can stand up to the abuse he will take, if he has any skeletons in his closet. And he is the ONLY alternative anyone is offering that is worth considering.

I am all in on Trump because he has shown he can win, he can raise money and not just from the plutocrats, he will fight, and he will do what he promises. We know none of that about DeSantis. Desantis looks good but why does he need to run now? Why risk splitting the Republicans? That alone is disturbing about his character.

And again he is the only viable alternative. I think you are chasing after a maybe which may or may not work out. i notice DeSantis STILL isn't taking the kind of beating any real Conservative would take. Now why is that?

The media tells you who they fear. It doesn't appear to be DeSantis, at least not at this point.

We've been through this before Sherrie, and you always fall back on this "can't win the undecideds" and business about needing fresh blood. I would agree if we had a viable alternative. DeSantis is as yet a wild card. I would add he has taken money from the Swamp in the past. He just received big bucks from billionaire donors. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/politics/ron-desantis-donors The RINO Koch brothers (well, the surviving brother) and other Establishment types have donated big bucks to him. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2022/05/25/florida-desantis-notable-billionaire-supporters-koch-publix/9745715002/

I find that disturbing. He will have to pay that back in some fashion.

If nothing else DeSantis is Trump lite. He saw what Trump was doing and emulated it. Before Trump he was not known as especially right wing. That too gives me pause.

If DeSantis is going to win the primary he has my wholehearted support. Not so much Nikki Haley or some other Democrat-fellow traveller. But I still think Trump is our best bet, and I think the whole Dump Trump movement was created by those who want their power back. Both Democrats and Republicans. And I think if we let them make this decision for us we are assured of losing - and losing becomes a habit. The GOP has been in that habit for a long, long time.

Oh, and Sherrie you miss the point about Democrat Lite. The point is we cannot win being a weaker version of them. That is off-putting to the voters. They know we are full of balogna if we pretend to be the Democrats with better sense. It's promulgating a lie and they know it.

I still haven't heard you explain how we will elect anyone of value with your model. We can elect people who will let things keep sliding, but what's the point? You seem to believe this is just politics and we have plenty of time to deal with the problems down the road. We don't. Time is of the essence at this point. We can no longer afford the luxury of a lousy Republican who will act just as a place saver. You have also not explained how winning this magical middle will accomplish these wonders as the Left still has all the money. That isn't going to change. We may as well lose with an honest candidate than win with a loser. That's what we've been doing since Reagan and a fat lot of good it has done us. Frankly Sherrie your whole premise is that we cannot win as Conservatives. I know you get angry at my saying this is letting the media choose our candidates (which it is as even though you may not be influenced by them you are being influenced by their influence of others.) but the fact remains this is the basic fundamental assumption even if you are unaware you are making it. We have to somehow tailor our message to win over weak minded people. I would argue you won't do that by putting weak-minded candidates up. You have to lead. As Sun Tzu said, penetration into an enemy territory a short way will lead to dispersion, and that is what our side always does - dips a toe in then retreats. Trump, for all his faults, penetrated deeply, which is why the Left goes so insane over him. He is doing what they themselves do.

Sherrie you said yourself DeSantis hasn't even entered the race yet. You are right and so why is it you are stumping so much AGAINST Donald Trump inyour posts? Why not wait until it comes down to the wire before going there? It seems to me you do in fact want to dump Trump. I do not question your motives but you seem ever eager to point out Trump's shortcomings (many as they are). I would happily await the results of the primaries. I really don't know if Trump can win or not. I do know he won more votes than any other candidate in history (and Biden stole more) and that number is not likely to go down very much. So the Democrats have to win by an historic level again. It will be much easier to do without Trump running as they can use the same dirty tricks on him. I just don't understand why this has become the primary focus of most of your posts. You seem absolutely convinced Trump cannot win, and that is the same message told us by the media and the enemies of the former President. Maybe you did arrive at that on your own, but I disagree. In point of fact I suspect the continued assaults on Trump are evidence they are still very frightened of him. I know your theory of reverse psychology, but I don't buy it. There are too many of them and they go after him too viciously. That is not staged. They are clearly horrified by the prospect of another Trump Presidency. I think the reverse psychology argument is too clever; they aren't that smart.

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Proficuous Poetry

Timothy Birdnow

I was challenged by Carlos Velazquez to use the word proficuous  in a poem. Here it is:

I knew a proficuous person
who spoke with mellifluous cursin'
His iniquitous mouth went ubiquitously south
I never knew one with a worse one.

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Transitionings

Michael Smith

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Drugmaker Eli Lilly caps the cost of insulin at $35 a month, bringing relief for millions

Eli Lilly will cap the out-of-pocket cost of its insulin at $35 a month, the drugmaker said Wednesday. The move, experts say, could prompt other insulin makers in the U.S. to follow suit.

The change, which Eli Lilly said takes effect immediately, puts the drugmaker in line with a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, which in January imposed a $35 monthly cap on the out-of-pocket cost of insulin for seniors enrolled in Medicare.

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Facilitating Fraud

Selwyn Duke

This is just one small example of the vote fraud committed in 2020. The tough part is "proving" it and providing evidence compelling enough to impel the head-in-the-sand, middle-of-the-road types to want to take action. Right now, there's too much wiggle room for rationalization.

And this is what happens when your system is designed to facilitate fraud

Was Massive Vote Fraud Confirmed with a Fishtail?
americanthinker.com

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The Right to Life Tied to Property

Chester McAteer forwards this:

Tim adds:

Absolutely correct. The first property right is the right to own YOURSELF, meaning your life is yours and you own it. Hence you have a right to life. And if you own your own life you have a right to own other stuff, particularly that which you have made or trade what you have made to acquire Property rights and human rights are unseverable. I made this connection at American Thinker years ago. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/05/the_individual_as_property.html I also pointed out that property rights are the first right and from them spring all others. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2005/06/the_first_right.html There is no such thing as a free society without property rights. .

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Omigosh! Vatican Says Ramadan Is Important for Christians, Too

Christians of all traditions were likely surprised on Friday when the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue issued a message to Muslims for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting by day and gorging by night. The fact that such a message was sent was not a surprise, as interreligious dialogue has for many years been far more important to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other Churches than actually spreading the Gospel message. The surprising aspect was that in the message, which was entitled "Christians and Muslims: Promoters of Love and Friendship,” the Vatican asserted that Ramadan is important not just for Muslims, but for Christians as well. Christians, were you aware of this?

The message, which was signed by Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, a Spanish prelate who is the prefect of the Interreligious Dialogue Dicastery, and Msgr. Indunil Kodithuwakku Janakaratne Kankanamalage, a Sri Lankan who is its secretary, is addressed to "Dear Muslim brothers and sisters.” It immediately states, "The month of Ramadan is important for you, but also for your friends, neighbours and fellow believers of other religions, in particular Christians.” Can Cardinal Guixot or Msgr. Kankanamalage give us any examples of Christians who observe Ramadan, or who think it important?

Certainly there are many Christians who believe for various reasons that it is very important to build good relationships with Muslims, but one would be hard-pressed to find any who actually join in the fasting-and-gorging month, just as it would be difficult to find any Muslims who observe the Christian fasting season of Lent. Although there is always some overlap, particularly among people in mixed marriages, it is rare for people of one religious tradition to follow the practices of another. The Vatican is so anxious to reach out in friendship to Muslims that it is massively overstating its case. That’s not to say that most Christians have a negative view of Ramadan. They just aren’t thinking about it at all.

The Vatican message, however, goes on to assert that during Ramadan, "existing friendships are reinforced and others are built, paving the way for more peaceful, harmonious and joyful coexistence. This corresponds to the divine will for our communities, and indeed for all the members and communities of the one human family.” Gee, that’s swell, but even Guixot and Kankanamalage seem to realize that it’s a bit pollyannish, as they go on to assure us that "we are aware, dear friends, that peaceful and friendly coexistence faces many challenges and threats: extremism, radicalism, polemics, disputes, and religiously motivated violence.”

You can say that again. In fact, much of that religiously motivated violence comes from people who are observing the month of Ramadan that the Vatican is busy celebrating. In April 2022, the Palestinian Authority’s Supreme Sharia Judge,Mahmoud Al-Habbash, declared that "Ramadan is not a month of laziness but rather a month of activity, of effort, and of hard work, and as it also was in the life of the Prophet, a month of jihad, conquest, and victory.” The jihad he had in mind was violence against unbelievers, not getting the kids to school on time, as a Muslim cleric in India, Maulana Bashir Ahmad Khaki, made clear in 2018: "Ramadan is the pious month of ‘Jihad-o-Qital’ (Jihad and killing). Those who attain martyrdom while waging Jihad, doors of heaven remain open.” In 2012, a jihad group in Bulgaria explained, "Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators.” Or as the Vatican put it, "The threats are fueled by a culture of hate.”

The Vatican did not, however, explain exactly where that "culture of hate” was coming from.

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Guns are for Live People

Timothy Birdnow

A devastating and simple reply to an idiot:


Paul Clement delivers devastating response to Illinois AGs defense of gun and magazine ban
bearingarms.com

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Have You Noticed The Increased Portrayal of Tobacco, Alcohol And Illicit Drug Use On Our Screens In Recent Years?

James Doogue

Movies and TV producers in the West, understand their power of social engineering. For instance, in recent years, the ideologically Left-leaning 'progressives',who predominate in the industry, have used their influence to 'normalise' women and minorities in positions of power. It's common to see a black and/or female US President for instance. We barely get 10 minutes into a new movie or TV series before the first LGBTQI character has been introduced. If a powerful character is a straight white male, then they are almost always corrupt Republican voting capitalists. more...

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A Return to Normalcy - Except to the Ruling Class

Timothy Birdnow

I predicted this. Warming and cooling trends tend to be in 40 year patterns, and they switched gears at the end of the last one, moving from Global Cooling to Global Warming without missing a beat.

But now they've had forty some-odd years to cement this into the public consciousness, so we may return to old weather patters  but the media and government and the fellow travelers will go boldly forward with their 'decarbonization' and their schemes to eliminate fossil fuels and suppress the public with draconian regulations.

Cars Entombed In Ice; Spring Blizzards Sweep Southern California; Crop-Wrecking Mid-March Snow Hits J&K, India; + Prof. David Dilley: "Winters Beginning to Revert Back to Pre-1982 Weather Patterns Around The World" - Electroverse
electroverse.info

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Biden Knew of China Money

Timothy Birdnow

The National Archives has proven that Joe Biden did in fact know he and his family were making millions off the Red Chinese.

From Fox:

The National Archives has released emails that show that then-Vice President Biden approved an official statement in December 2015 about Hunter Biden’s position on a Ukrainian energy company’s board.

Biden has denied any knowledge or involvement in these business dealings at least seven times as a presidential candidate and as president.

For years, the media has continued to report President Biden’s repeated claim that "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings."

At the outset, the media only had to suspend any disbelief that the president could fly to China as vice president with his son on Air Force Two without discussing his planned business dealings on the trip.

Of course, the emails on the laptop quickly refuted this claim. However, the media buried the laptop story before the election or pushed the false claim that it was fake Russian disinformation.

[...]

The audio tape showed President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings:

"Hey pal, it’s Dad. It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you."

fin

Joe Biden is the Alfred E. Newman of politics "what, me worry?"  He gets away with it because the media protects him. But sooner or later they will eat him too; it's what they do.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

 

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The Fire of Hell

This from Dallas Stephens:

What began as a few dollars per year in taxes for roads & schools soon grew to include streetlights, sidewalks, alleys, utility services, police, jails, courts, parks, libraries, hospitals & business parks. And of course, each of these 'services' involved hiring people to run & maintain all of them -- and new offices, administrators, attorneys, inspectors, bosses and their bosses.

Now, here we are, paying taxes out the wazoo for the unlimited stuff that we can't afford anymore. That means some of the stuff gets trimmed from the budget by our elected leaders (either overtly or covertly).

And, of course, that causes lots of division between the masses, because everyone's got their own favorite 'service / benefit' that don't want to see get cut. Tis always better to cut someone else's stuff than our own.

That's why cities always try to attract new people and new employers, as if sharing the costs between more people isn't offset by the fact that the new people also need services & stuff from government too. Tis what it tis.
Humans always think that collectives like government can solve all of our common problems, without realizing that collectives always end up causing more problems than they solve. Sort of like using Roundup to kill our weeds, then discovering that it also kills the people who use it.

Lastly, there's the inevitable inflation that's caused by central banks that print too much money that's used to pay for everyone's stuff. Sad though that each newly printed dollars always lowers everyone's purchasing power over time. So, taxes have to keep going up, because it takes more dollars to pay for the new stuff you want, plus the debt on the stuff you got last year.

Yeah, tain't no different where one lives. Everyone eventually gets stuck with the bill for all of the new stuff we want + all of old stuff we gave to ourselves in the last 100+ years.

Tim adds:

Government is a false god. I once pointed that out to a frothing at the mouth liberal who replied "yeah but it works!" Like it really works! But he saw it as the mechanism to make all dreams come true. How do you maintain a society where people think that government is the key to happiness?

Government creates nothing. It is a parasite, a user that sucks the life out of the public. Yes, some people benefit, as the bacteria benefit when a body dies, but in the end even that bacteria dies. There is a sweet spot that lasts for a short time where everything seems to be going good, with a balance between government and the private sector. But that is short-lived.

Government keeps growing and the private sector shrinking and you lose the balance. Eventually you will probably collapse as the top-heavy system is unwieldy and corrupt.

There is a reason why the word Byzantine means overly complex and non-responsive and is a pejorative; the Byzantines followed this trajectory and wound up unable to resist the Turks and others who were not so wrapped up in the tentacles of "public services". Sadly America now makes Byzantium look like Laissez Faire capitalism. We will meet similar ends.

You can only draw so much oil from the well. We are trying to run all of California off one well, and when that dries up adding water to it. We are in the water stage now and wondering why our engine of state's performance isn't what it used to be. Well duh!

We have all now been baptized in the waters of governmental authority. And we are now out of gas.

And the more money and power the government acquires the more people worship it as a god. The Romans did that. So did many other ancient peoples.

And so did the Fascists. Mussolini is quite instructive to read. His "The Doctrine of Fascims" makes it clear he wanted to substitute the People for God and the State for the Church. He understood that people need religion and so he gave them a secular one. And, as my liberal friend says, "it worked" but only for a short time.

Government cannot ultimately answer the big questions, or be fair to everyone. It is a collective of individual wills that balance each-other out, and the will of those best connected, best organized, best financed will then be the ruling will. Corruption is inevitable when all this money and power are involved.

Which is precisely why the Founding Fathers sought to decentralize and counterbalance everything. They realized government was needed but not desirable. They hoped the People would be the rulers of themselves.

But immediately people like Alexander Hamilton sought to empower government over the individual and that movement has been ongoing ever since. The Civil War was fought in no small measure against this rising statism. And now we are reaching the point of being a police state, and we will soon be a totalitarianism. That is the progression of government.

George Washington said government is like fire; a dangerous servant and a fearful master. We should have listened to him. Shoot; he should have listened to him and rejected the efforts of Alexander Hamilton at the time.

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Kicking the Can

Nikki Grace

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What's a Peetroleum?

John Lees

This is pretty crazy. Today I have learned that the word gasoline emerged due to a trademark dispute between a man named Cassel who marketed a light kerosene called Cazeline, and his competitor, a guy called Boyd who copied the name of Cazeline but was then forced to switch the "c" to a "g", creating gasoline.
And all this happened, not in the U.S. as I would have expected, but in Ireland!!! With thanks to Neil Stevenson for putting me on to this.
Neil knows all about these things because he has studied Petrology at University level. Petrology, as anyone could guess, is where you spend all day learning obscure facts about Petrol!! (Only joking. But he did study Petrology!)

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Signs

Timothy Birdnow

So, last week we were hit by a large coronal mass ejection (CME) as the Sun flared and spat at us. We were lucky; it could have been far worse.

Such a flare/CME occurred in 1859 and took out the world's electronics. Fortunately those electronics amounted to telegraphs only, so damage was minimal; burned telegraph offices and blown out cables and whatnot. If the Carrington Event https://www.space.com/the-carrington-event (named for Richard Carrington, an astronomer who observed the Sun going bananas before disgorging it's stomach contents all over us) happened today our entire civilization would collapse. It would generate a powerful Compton Effect in the Earth's atmosphere, an electromagnetic pulse would result that would knock all of our electronics out. Civilization would fall - and most of us would die.

That is what we dodged. The CME that occurred was on the other side of the Sun and so did nowhere near the damage it would have had it been facing us.

But we aren't out of the woods yet. A Near Earth Asteroid is going to pass the Earth inside the Moon's orbit.

Asteroid 2023 DZ2 will come withing 100,000 miles of the Earth. The 160 ft. long rock would not pose an existential threat to our civilization but it could take out a city were it to hit - or perhaps worse airburst.

This rock is moving at 17,403 MPH and is between 130 and 230 feet wide (40 to 70 meters). It will only be in the atmosphere for under five seconds. It might break apart in an air burst but that has it's own problems.The Tunguska meteorite air burst too and took out a thousand miles of trees. It was 150 to 200 feet, so comparable in size.


A hundred thousand miles is a long way, but if it should hit some previously unknown space debris before it gets here it could wind up ruining a few picnics. (If it is going to hit I hope it falls on D.C., not that I'm wishing that on anybody mind you.)

At any rate this rock reminds us that there is all manner of junk out there and we have no way at all to protect ourselves. At this point literally none.

And while this asteroid would not be a planet killer some HAVE been and we will be hit eventually by one. It is likely that the dinosaurs died out from a big one that hit the Gulf of Mexico off Yucatan.

The Heavens seem to be warning Mankind. Sadly we do not seem to be listening.

"And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves"

Hat tip: Mike.

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Before and After

Russell P. Green

Seven years ago, Democrats across the country expressed outrage when supporters of then candidate, Donald Trump, chanted "Lock Her Up" whenever Hillary Clinton's name came up at a campaign rally. I am waiting for those same "fair minded" Americans to express similar outrage at anyone demanding and championing the potential indictment of President Trump.

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Protecting Their Own Power

James Doogue

Consistent with everything else.

The Twitter Files reveal an elite at war with the truth
spiked-online.com

"The Twitter Files reporting rumbles on. Last week, journalist Matt Taibbi published a lengthy Twitter thread about the ties between Stanford University’s Virality Project and Twitter executives. The Virality Project was established to detect and counter ‘false and misleading narratives’ in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. The 45-tweet thread shines a light on how this extensive collaboration attempted to censor legitimate information in the Covid debate."

"These latest revelations are particularly important because they prove beyond any doubt what many independent observers already suspected throughout the lockdowns – that the political elite and Big Tech were trying to block true information. In an ideal world, this would dismantle, once and for all, any notion that our supposed betters were merely acting to protect a world under threat. They were not. They were acting to protect their own power."

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The Winds of War

Timothy Birdnow

After a second drone strike on American troops in Syria Joe Biden issues an order to launch an airstrike against Iranian forces.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11898631/Missiles-slam-base-Syria-Iran-backed-militants-retaliate-airstrikes.html

We keep inching closer and closer to world war.

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Cruz on the Bragg Inquest

Timothy Birdnow

Ted Cruz on the Trump persecution:


Ted Cruz on Instagram: "Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is a left-wing partisan prosecutor. This is a frivolous and baseless political persecution."
instagram.com

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The Revolt of the Ruling Class

Maurizio Morabito

Things are getting clearer…you’re either a "populist” or you’ve been transformed into a NPC…

Michael Shellenberger on Twitter:

>>>

We've seen a turning inward of the propaganda efforts the United States carried out worldwide for nearly 100 years. As the war on terrorism was won, its proponents looked for new avenues for propaganda, disinformation, and censorship campaigns.

Then, the seismic upheavals of 2016 — the Brexit election in Britain and the election of Donald Trump — resulted in a consensus among American and Western elites that social media, particularly internet platforms more broadly, needed to be restrained.

I don't think senior intelligence officials actually believed the Russians had much influence over the 2016 elections. Rather, they used it as a pretext for engaging in censorship and propaganda.

This was all perfectly explained by former CIA media analyst Martin Gurri in his landmark book Revolt of the Public, where he argues that the demand for censorship, repression, and propaganda is a revolt of the elites against the populist uprising enabled by Internet technologies, in general, and by social media in particular.

The elites are undermining freedom and democracy to, in their mind, save them.

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