Filed under: Bureaucracy, Coronavirus, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2020, History, Media Bias, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Science/Technology, Statism, Technology, The United States | Tags: The Corona Virus Lockdown, The Press & Journalism, Trump Derangement Syndrome
I am so sick and tired of the press. President Trump announced a halt to immigration in order to protect the jobs of so many who have lost their jobs in the current Corona virus lockdown. Many small businesses have laid off workers in reaction to the sudden drop in business because people have been ordered to stay home. The businesses hurting the most have often been small restaurants or small shops that do not have the finances to keep running anyway nor to refocus to take out, or delivery. Not highly skilled jobs. And just the kind of jobs that many new immigrants would look for, and undercut the salaries that their predecessors were receiving. President Trump clearly cares about the American people.
For the press, it was clear that President Trump just doesn’t like immigrants and has an unreasoned prejudice against them. Look how he’s always talking about his wall. I believe that the benefits of citizenship should be bestowed on those who are citizens, and those who have applied legally to become citizens. There is a legal way to do this, and we welcome legal immigrants. Democrats want more immigrants, and try to get them to the states that will increase the Democrat numbers for the census, so they can control more seats in the House of Representatives. Any pretense that they care more about immigrants is just that, a pretense.
COVID-19 has done quite a job of exposing the governors and other office holders who are having to deal with a crisis, an ongoing crisis that is doing a job on killing people. We have body counts every day, and reports on how many people have been tested and how many have caught the virus, how many have died and how many have survived. It adds a special clarity to officials words and actions, in some cases not very favorably.
Grim new rules for New York City Paramedics — do not resuscitate cardiac arrests nor bring them to Emergency Rooms. Apparently an effort to keep from overcrowding hospitals. Same day, Gov Cuomo tells the President that they don’t need the USS Comfort (the Military Hospital Ship) any more, and he can have it back. They have filled up the Javits Center with hospital beds, which is apparently still empty. (I’m on the West Coast, so if I get this wrong, let me know) I only know what I read in the press. But in next-door New Jersey, the military is putting up field hospitals.
Michigan Governor Whitmer has already had mass protests descending on the State Capitol, and Michigan residents are not happy. Going to be an interesting election this Fall.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Election 2020, Intelligence, Law, Politics, Progressives, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Badly Behaving Democrats, The Constitution Rules, Trump Derangement Syndrome
The arguments continue in Congress. Witnesses or no witnesses, and who. Democrats want what they think might be in John Bolton’s new book, which is currently being officially checked out for classified material. If witnesses are allowed, Republicans are going to want to hear from Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, reportedly paid Hunter Biden 38 monthly payments of $83,333.00 each, while his father led Obama’s policy for Ukraine, which seemed interesting because Hunter did not speak the language, had no expertise in energy, and no applicable experience whatsoever.
Democrats don’t seem to want to hear from the Bidens. Possibly because any such investigation might cause voters to wonder about their own senators and representatives, and their outside activities and income, and the extent to which they are enriching family and friends. We really do want and expect our elected representatives to be honest and responsible, because we, the taxpayers, are paying their hefty salaries.
Scott Johnson, an attorney, pointed out that the House Impeachment report which was brought by Jerrold Nadler as the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is widely described as a 658 page document, but the report linked by NBC News runs to 298 pages which Michael Tracy of Real Clear Politics has actually read.
In his RealClearPolitics column “Democrats’ Dubious Impeachment Subtext of Treason,” Tracey extracts the leading motif of the Democrats’ case against Trump.
Based on his reading of the report, Tracey observes that “these impeachment articles were never strictly about punishing Trump for mentioning Joe Biden on a phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. That’s the popular bite-sized depiction of Trump’s purported wrongdoing, but by the House Judiciary Committee’s own telling, the scope of their impeachment went far beyond just that one narrow allegation — and is fraught with highly ideological assumptions that have so far gone largely ignored.”
What’s it all about? We have here the continuation of the theme of the old Russia hoax wine in a new bottle: Trump has “betray[ed] the nation.”
What does this mean, exactly? The Judiciary Committee report helpfully provides a definition of the relevant terms. In a section describing what they believe constitutes “impeachable treason,” the Democratic majority writes, “At the very heart of ‘Treason’ is deliberate betrayal of the nation and its security.”
Oh Please! Tracey notes that Trump has effectively been impeached for treason, but those who drafted the report noticed that inserting the word “treason” into the text might be a little bit controversial. Instead they just insinuate it, and somewhere deep in the 658 pages, do confirm that they are charging the president with treason in supporting materials that few will ever read.
They have gone so far around the bend that they ought to be committed. Schiff kept talking about “Russia” but nobody understood why. President Trump was trying to make sure the Ukrainians were free of any Russian invasion. How they get “treason” out of that, is something only Democrats deeply infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome could come up with.
So that’s the state of affairs until tomorrow.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2020, Energy, Environment, Freedom, Media Bias, Middle East, National Security, Unemployment | Tags: Impeachment, Trump Derangement Syndrome
From Hot Air, by Kevin Williamson:
Trump’s wrongdoing is real and significant, but Pelosi et al. never had the moral credibility to make a persuasive impeachment case against him or the political juice to get it done. Democrats were talking about impeachment before the man was ever sworn in as president, and they remain emotionally dependent upon their preposterous tale about Russians on Facebook throwing the election to Trump. (The Russians, for their part, wanted paralyzing chaos and to destabilize the United States politically — Mission Accomplished, Ivan.) The Democrats would have been far better off simply telling the truth about Trump’s failings and challenging him at the polls rather than presenting this as an apocalyptic drama that cannot wait for an election and resolution on ordinary democratic terms. Apocalyptic dramas are pretty hard to sell when unemployment is low, and it is possible to exaggerate the sins of even Donald Trump.
From Hot Air by David Harsanyi:
While civility is an imperative in a decent society, we can’t ignore that Trump’s coarseness has also helped reveal the liberal establishment’s incivility and disdain for anyone who refuses to adopt its cultural mores. I’m sorry, I have a hard time taking etiquette lessons from people who can’t raise any ire over the Virginia governor’s casual description of euthanizing infants but act as if every Trump tweet should trigger his removal from office through the 25th Amendment.
So while I don’t like Trump any better today than I did when writing those critical pieces, I do live in the world that exists, not the one I wish existed. And that world has changed. What I didn’t foresee when writing about Trump’s candidacy was the American Left’s extraordinary four-year descent into insanity.
Yet: “Trump’s Average Unemployment Rate is the Lowest in Recorded History.” There are more women working than at any time in history, and more women currently working than men. The Washington Examiner follows up with “It’s still possible the economy will decline in time for it to hurt Trump in the election. And the Trump presidency has been polarizing for many other reasons. ”
For much of the last seventy years, economic growth has lifted the quality of life in Europe, North America, and East Asia, providing social stability after the violent disruptions of World War II. Today, however, many of the world’s most influential leaders, even in the United States, reject the very notion that societies should improve material wealth and boost incomes given what they believe are more important environmental or social equity concerns. . .
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2020, Humor, Law, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: Dan Bongino, The Mueller Report, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Mueller is due to testify to Congress, and now there is a comic book version of the Mueller Report. Really! At some point, it all sort of dissolves into farce. Democrats deeply descended into Trump Derangement Syndrome are just sure that they can find something, anything, too prove that they were right all along and Trump is a very bad, horrid, disreputable, extra bad person and should not have won the election, and they know that he is an evil person, and if they just dig deep enough, or demand enough evidence from somebody, anybody, that will prove that he is just as awful for the nation, the economy, the world, as they were absolutely convinced that he would be, then perhaps at least one of that bunch of pathetic candidates that appeared on the debate stage will win the 2020 election and save the Democrat Party from the death spiral it seems to be engaged in.
A comic book version of the Mueller Report. That’s a new one for this Congress. And they want to be taken seriously.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Free Speech, Law, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressives, Taxes, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Exceeding Their Authority, Their Attacks, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Republicans are not usually inclined to take part in demonstrations or marches, to carry political signs, that sort of thing. Instead they are apt to search for more information, maybe write their congressperson, and if they really get irritated, they might go to one of the congressperson’s public meetings. If it turns out that they are represented by a Democrat, they are apt to make sure all of their family votes the next time, and they might even put a sign in their yard. We did have the Tea-Party movement, but the percentage of Republicans inclined to protest is small. Democrats depend on that. Because they are a party dependent on feelings rather than information, marching or waving signs contributes to their sense of well-being, they are being “good people.”
Hollywood celebrities, who are famous for being known, depend on continuing to be known by getting their names in the media as often as possible, hopefully for something important rather than the usual Hollywood scandal. Someone named Judd Apatow, who apparently has directed a movie, has called for advertisers to stop advertising on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show by threatening, intimidating or bullying them. The idea is to silence conservative voices online or on the radio or television. The Left, usually ill-informed, is deeply afraid of people who actually know what they are talking about. They are very sensitive to being laughed at.
The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits Congress from making a law abridging the freedom of speech, a direction to Congress, not to Hollywood celebrities who are free to voice any inane ideas they may have. On slow days, celebrities are apt to get more attention if they say something vaguely interesting. Way too much of any day’s news is the words of celebrities, the more provacative the better. In reaction to that, millions of ordinary people have lost interest in patronizing movies, the NFL has had a season of empty stadium seats, and viewers of some television shows have turned to something else instead.
Advertising is expensive, placement on a popular show means more people see your ad. Advertisers are always deeply worried about the effectiveness of their ads. Will lots of people see them, will the ad increase sales. paying for itself, or will the executive get in trouble for an ad that does not work? So advertisers are sensitive to any kind of boycott. Doesn’t always work as expected. Dick’s Sporting Goods attempted to be sensitive to the gun-banning people, and their sales have tanked. The people didn’t go for football players “taking a knee” instead of respecting the national anthem, and the NFL has had masses of empty seats all year. Hollywood movies are losing money. Big companies used to understand that although nobody cared how they personally voted, their public face was firmly non-political. Newer, younger companies have not learned that lesson, and the Silicon Valley folk do not grasp their own predicament. They have even used the Southern Poverty Law Center (the biggest hate group in the country) as their fact-checker, and are attempting to be helpful to Chinese efforts to control their own citizens ever more completely.
If you watch the way the Communist Chinese government is attempting to control their own citizens with constant computer monitoring, consider that your conversations on social media are being monitored and recorded, that your conversations at home can be monitored with all the new Alexa-type devices, does it make you a little nervous? They reportedly want your DNA. Have you noticed that the Democrat media is trying to talk us into a recession? Just asking.
Did you know that the Mueller probe, the ‘special counsel investigation’ has so far cost the taxpayers $25.2 million? That’s $4.5 million for salaries and rent, $3.9 million from the Department of Justice, $2,686,270 for personnel compensation and benefits and another $1 million for special counsel office employees. $580,098 on travel and transportation, and $779 on the “transportation of things”. There’s more, $25,215,852 worth, but you get the idea. Has it accomplished anything at all, except to demonstrate the irresponsibility and malfeasance of our representatives in Washington D.C.?
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Environment, Free Speech, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, National Security, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Progressives, The Constitution, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Democrat Hysteria, Struggling to Understand, Trump Derangement Syndrome
The general era of hysteria, one crisis after another that Democrats erupt over, we have usually attributed to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But I ran across this video from November of last year of Victor Davis Hanson chatting with Ginny Thomas, and Dr. Hanson explains it all perfectly. So if you are wondering about all the weeping and gnarling of knuckles over “poor innocent children ‘ripped’ from the arms of their mothers” here’s why: Look closely at the county map of the election, and listen to the whole explanation.
Filed under: Blogging, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Election 2016, England, Entertainment, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Humor, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Not Funny!, The Resistance, Trump Derangement Syndrome
We have certainly had a plethora of people persecuted for something they said in this profoundly politically correct period. (after ‘plethora’ I couldn’t resist all the other p-words) People keep losing their jobs or their careers after saying the wrong thing. This is also a very political period. Democrats have chosen to refuse to accept the results of the last election because they don’t like President Trump. They call themselves “the Resistance” and we call them victims of “the Trump Derangement Syndrome.” So it is somewhat understandable that those who identify as “comedians” fail to understand what comedy is all about.
If you have whole groups of people seething with rage, an especially strong insult can provoke cheers and applause, but it may not go down so well with those who are not seething. There are a lot of what you might call under-stories here as well. When you are consumed with hate, however illogical, the normal societal barriers are shoved aside and a presumed “comedienne”can assume that a mock, bloody, severed head of the President of the United States will be funny. Another presumed “comedienne” can think that calling the president’s daughter a vulgar word for spurious reasons will be funny. Kathy Griffin was just wrong. In an era when terrorists are decapitating victims on camera, one should assume that it would not go over well. Her career may be over. Samantha Bee went off on misunderstood fake news —The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today all had to issue formal corrections to their reporting on immigration. They falsely claimed that President Trump had enacted a policy to separate illegal border-crossing parents from their children at the U.S. Mexico border. The New York Times wrote:
Correction: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.
USA Today’s correction read:
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this column mischaracterized the legal status of 1,475 undocumented migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents. Those children were placed in the custody of sponsors screened by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They are no longer in federal custody.
The media also got all confused when someone found a picture of illegal immigrant children in locked cages with their bedding, and that went viral, as they thought they really had something real on Trump — and then the picture turned out to be from the Obama administration, and not Trump’s responsibility at all. So if a comedienne gets all confused and calls the president’s daughter a vulgar word because the comedienne didn’t bother to check her information and just wanted to say something nasty about Ivanka Trump, it’s just an accident, isn’t it?
We seem to have entered a period when the people who are trying to make a go of a career in “comedy” have no real understanding of what comedy is, and what makes something funny.
I am not funny. I have never been funny. I laugh at someone else’s joke and then can’t remember what the punch line was when I try to tell it. Mildly amusing I can sometimes handle, but seldom.
But I do understand some things about comedy. Only the rare comedian can be funny with insults. Don Rickles was so good at it, that people misconstrued his humor. His insults were never designed to hurt, and his audience knew that. You can make a joke about someone’s fondness for Big Macs, done the right way, but you can’t successfully make a joke by calling them a fat pig. Self-deprecating humor can be really funny, Attacks not.
It is hard to be funny. You walk a very narrow line between joke and insult. Don Rickles’ insults were carefully planned to be funny and not insulting. Jack Benny invented a whole character so he could make fun of himself as stingy and mean. We have all sorts of late night comics who try to be amusing about the news of the day, but they seldom manage it. Roseanne Barr made a racist tweet and had her show cancelled. The insults were unacceptable, and Ms. Barr has a history of mouthing off. But the executives at ABC and Disney decided early in the day to pull the plug on Roseanne. It seemed to be supporting Donald Trump, and that would not do.
Race is one of the under stories. Democrats are extremely dependent on the votes of Blacks and Hispanics, and have been ramping up racial prejudice at every opportunity. How many times have you heard Republicans accused of racial prejudice? And the President and his administration. When they are not being called Nazis, which as the president has moved the US. embassy to Jerusalem and has a Jewish son in law and daughter and their children, gets a little absurd.
Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and other prominent Blacks are regularly called Uncle Toms simply because they are Republicans. Democrats want to make it clear that they are the party of color and ethnicity because they can’t afford to lose those votes. They get the votes by giving presents — welfare, housing, food stamps, free phones, all the presents that make people dependent on government. It’s always possible to buy votes. And somehow the help to escape dependency never arrives. That, by the way, is why Democrats want sanctuary cities and open borders. New immigrants mostly vote Democrat, or can be bribed to do so. The Border Patrol has kept track of all the illegal immigrants who confess to having voted several times. There are a lot of them.
The comedy focus, of course, is on the rude words. The ones uttered by good Democrats are excusable, and vanish down the memory hole. Joy Reid has a long history of “hateful” blog posts attacking John McCain, praise for Iran’s former president, anti-Semitic comments which were quickly absolved by MSNBC. And so it goes. Would-be comedians need to study up on comedy. They’re missing the point.
Then there’s the matter of “free speech” which is also deeply misunderstood. Free speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want with no consequences. The First Amendment says quite specifically that “Congress shall make no law,” It is entirely about protecting the individual from acts of Congress. Which is especially interesting in the light of the case in Britain of Tommy Robinson.
Tommy Robinson was a reporter and activist concerned especially with Islamic “grooming gangs” who were raping young girls. He was reporting outside a London courtroom where a trial was going on of just such a gang. He was arrested, promptly convicted and sent to prison for 15 years because he dared to say out loud things that society did not want mentioned. It was, in the judge’s mind, “racism.” Is that something catching from America’s news which appears prominently in English papers? The judge put a block on anyone mentioning the trial, Islam, Tommy Robinson, or what it was all about. The British are protesting, and they learn about the case from the discussion in our news media and that of other countries in the Anglosphere. Americans are shocked and disbelieving.
Our ideas about free speech, about what’s funny, about what can be public knowledge are all under attack, and attempted to be changed irrevocably, so that the goals of another political party can triumph as they assume is their due.
Addendum: Kathy Griffin popped up today to defend Samantha Bee, which only proves that the poor thing does not understand what she did. Everyone she knows thinks Trump is a terrible president and a terrible person, Nazi, dictator, etc. There’s nothing wrong with Samantha Bee calling Ivanka Trump the C word because nobody she knows likes Ivanka Trump either.
Let me spell it out. When someone threatens the life of the President of the United States, the Secret Service descends and they are taken into custody. Your cute little beheading “joke” was a threat and an incitement to have someone do harm to the President. You could be in prison for a significant term. Tommy Robinson has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in Britain, for far less.
Fortunately the authorities recognized that you were too dumb to recognize what you had done. Samantha Bee decided that because Ivanka Trump is the daughter of the President, it’s fine to attack her with vulgarity although Ivanka has done nothing whatsoever to deserve such an attack. You both demonstrated a profound lack of understanding what comedy is. That career is probably over, but thanks to President Trump, unemployment is back to the level it was in 2000 and equals the lowest rate ever, set in 1969. You’ll probably be able to find something.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Employer Bonuses, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Media Bias, News, Politics, Taxes, Unemployment | Tags: Journalism Today, Obvious Facts, Trump Derangement Syndrome
The left-wing media is frantically busy fact-checking every word of the State of the Union Speech, defiantly positive that it was all a pack of lies. Yet the American people not only approved of the speech, they really liked it. Trump’s approval rating is up significantly, and that will not do.
Interest in the Super Bowl was way down, many people simply turned it off, extending their rejection of professional football throughout the season. At the Emmys, host Stephen Colbert promised an all-out assault on Trump, and the ratings came in at an all time low. The Grammys took an all-time 24% nosedive to 10 million fewer viewers. CNN, the noted fake news network, has had a ratings disaster, not one program ranked in the top 23. Movie attendance for Hollywood movies has reached a 24 year low.
Is it possible that there is a message here in all these collapsing ratings? What could it be? How come everything seems to be going down just as things are looking so decisively up? Taxes are way down, and the incomes of ordinary people are way up. Businesses are hiring, employment is up, unemployment is way down. Business is busy passing out bonuses, which on top of a tax cut is very good news for a lot of families.
The left-wing media is apparently so busy fact-checking the State of the Union speech and the Nunes memo, and their general fury at all things Trump, that they simply haven’t noticed these statistical details in the news.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Economics, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Health Care, Military, National Security, Politics, Regulation, Taxes | Tags: Trump Accomplishments, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Why Do they Do That?
Someone named Kathy Griffin, reportedly a comedienne, posted a video of herself holding what purported to be a severed, bloody head of Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, there was a backlash, at which she promptly apologized abjectly admitting that she was wrong and went too far, and made a huge mistake. Well, yes she did. What interests me is the mindset that would have allowed her to engage in something like this in the first place. In a general atmosphere where the way to get attention seems to be coming up with a more outrageous way to insult the President of the United States. And that in itself is quite remarkable.
It’s clear that the left loathes Donald Trump. Just why seems to be that he has removed the Democratic Party from its position of power all over the country, and the Left just cannot stand that. It is not just that they lost the election, they have lost lots of elections, as have the Republicans, but this time they have lost all the way down to the lowest proverbial dogcatcher. Their anger is completely emotional, and utterly furious. Why?
It wasn’t always so, but I believe that today’s Democratic party is based entirely on emotion. They hate Donald Trump, Republicans, global warming deniers, Citizens United, guns (especially dangerous assault weapons), the military and its wars, and conversely love— refugees, the poor, illegal immigrants, empathy, and being in power. You can tell that this is the case by their language: They call Trump “Hitler,” a “Nazi”,’Tyrant,” they are sure he is so authoritarian that he soon will be rounding them up and putting the in camps. Little of their emotive excess even approaches reality, but they are positive that he is a danger to their world, and they want him stopped, before it is too late. That’s why they care so deeply about social justice and so little for the actual kind in courts of law. And why they care far more about their empathy for refugees than they care about vetting the potential terrorists among them. They don’t care about the actual poor or the actual refugees. They care about feeling good about themselves.
For the Never Trumpers, it’s a class issue. You can take the man out of Queens, but you can’t take Queens out of the man. They are offended by his way of talking. They are offended by his orange hair and orange tan. They are offended by his great big wall— opposing illegal immigration is fine, but building a huge wall is going too far. They are offended by the way he talks, his tweets and by his calling people names. They are much more comfortable with polite arguments about the founders and how conservative conservatives should be, but doing battle to get a better budget or dispose of repugnant regulations is generally beyond their powers. Their battles are about ideas.
Kathy Griffin’s use of a severed head, a favorite terrorist act of ISIS, aside from being a particularly vulgar act, shows not just her own act of violence against Trump, but an astounding lack of understanding of one of the many major and very real threats to Americans and anyone who is not a Muslim. How is it possible to fail to understand, in today’s world, that severed heads and burning people alive, drowning them in cages are acts of terror designed to frighten the world into submission. Did she not grasp the meaning of Manchester or the attack today killing around 80 people in Kabul in Afghanistan?
It is a very dangerous world, and the despised Donald Trump is taking it on as if it is a serious matter. James Mattis at the Pentagon, John Kelly at NHS, and H.L. McMaster are serious and knowledgeable people, some of the best America has to offer. Nikki Haley is sensational at the UN. Silly EPA regulations are being undone, illegal immigration is down sharply just because there is someone seriously paying attention. The despicable Bashar Assad had the airport from which the planes that sprayed chemical weapons on helpless civilians promptly destroyed, sending a pointed message. This impolite man carefully labeled the Iranian regime “evil” in front of 50 Muslim heads of state. He’s working to restore the military budget to assure that the military can do what is necessary when it is necessary. He ‘s submitted a budget that lowers taxes and makes some dramatic cuts. He made a pretty good trip to the Middle East and Europe. Not bad.
Presidents, all of them, are only ordinary human beings, fallible, egotistic, impatient, facing dreadful challenges. We elect them for four years to try to manage this messy world. They are not and should never be love objects. They wanted the job, and upon being given the opportunity, their task is to live up to it. Do a good job, and we will honor your and your name will go down in history.
We gave Obama 8 years, and he not only made a mess of it, but apparently enjoyed it so much that he cannot bring himself to retire. He’s reportedly going to run a shadow government in exile from his new Washington D.C. walled mansion, working to sabotage his successor, I guess in the illusion that will improve his legacy.
ADDENDUM: Ms. Griffin has now been fired from CNN, and reportedly from any other engagements she may have had. It’s nice to know that there are some limits to Democrat derangement excess. Melania Trump had to try to explain to her son who panicked, what that was about.
ADDENDUM II: Friday. Kathy Griffin held a press conference to tell the world that the widespread backlash she has faced over the photo is part of a sexist campaign to destroy her career. “It’s a bunch of white guys trying to silence me,” she said. “This wouldn’t be happening to a guy. This is a woman thing.” She also said “What’s happening to me has never happened in the history of this great country. Which is that a sitting president of the United States and his grown children and the First Lady are personally, I feel, personally trying to ruin my life forever.”
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Election 2016, Europe, Foreign Policy, Freedom, Immigration, Politics, Progressives, Terrorism | Tags: Europe And Terror, Government Dependence, Trump Derangement Syndrome
—”Europe Fights Back With Candles and Teddy Bears” by Guilio Meotti
•Europe still has not realized that the terror which struck its metropolis was a war, and not the mistake of a few disturbed people who misunderstood the Islamic religion.
•It appears that for Europe, Islamic terrorism is not real, but only a momentary disruption of its routine. We fight against global warming, malaria and hunger in Africa. But are we not ready to fight for our civilization? Have we already given up?
—“Thousands Drop Off Food Stamp Rolls in Georgia After State Implements Work Requirements“by Katherine Rodriguez
•More than half of the 11,779 people enrolled for food stamps in 21 counties, an estimated 7,251 people, have dropped out of the food stamp program—a drop of 62 percent, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
•Georgia first rolled out its work requirements for the food stamp program in three counties in January 2016. Since then, the state has expanded work requirements in an additional 21 counties, giving people in those 21 counties until April 1, 2017 to find a job or lose food stamp benefits.
•Those who receive benefits must work at least 20 hours a week, be enrolled in state-approved job training, or volunteer for a state-approved non-profit or charity.
—“Regime Change By Any Other Name?” by Victor Davis Hanson
•Election machines in three states were not hacked to give Donald Trump the election. There was never a serious post-election movement of electors to defy their constitutional duties and vote for Hillary Clinton. Nor, once Trump was elected, did transgendered people begin killing themselves in alarming numbers. Nor were there mass resignations at the State Department upon his inauguration.
•Nor did Donald Trump seek an order to “ban all Muslims” from entering the U.S. Instead, he temporarily sought a suspension in visas for everyone, regardless of religion, from seven Middle Eastern states that the Obama administration had earlier identified as incapable of properly vetting travelers to the U.S.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Humor, Media Bias, News of the Weird, Progressivism | Tags: Cultural Appropriation, Social Contagion, Trump Derangement Syndrome
Sometimes news about America appears first in the British papers, in this case, the Daily Mail. Not big or even important news, but slightly embarrassing. Two young women, friends from Portland, opened Kooks Burritos in Portland, Oregon. A taco truck. After a visit to Puerto Nuevo, Mexico last December, they learned the basics of tortilla making by talking to cooks and peeking into the windows of kitchens.
For the first few months, the weekend pop-up shop housed in an taco truck was a smash hit. It gained so much popularity, a local weekly newspaper decided to profile the entrepreneurial duo.
But that’s when the trouble started for Wilgus and Connelly, after quotes they gave to the Willamette Week led to them being accused of “stealing their success.”
Cultural Appropriation!!!
Of course. This would more properly be referred to as “social contagion.” Idiots hear someone else claim “cultural appropriation” and want to be noticed for the first accusation directed at someone new. You apparently can’t be”woke” if you’re not indignant.
Interviewed by Willamette Week, they mentioned “peeking in windows” to learn how burritos were made, so they were also accused of stealing, and preying on Mexican women. Do read the article to see just how far this goofiness has gone. The shop closed. But the stupidity of the commenters and the emptiness of liberal language is thoroughly demonstrated.
The world is about “cultural appropriation.” We learn from each other. When the Pilgrims arrived in America, they survived that first 1620 winter with corn ‘appropriated’ from the Wampanog—a food unknown to Europeans. You might find it of interest to look up “the Columbian Exchange” which lists all the foods appropriated by Europeans from America and European foods brought to the new world. It’s an extensive list. We’ve appropriated language, food, customs, fashion, weapons, wildlife, as has every other culture around the world, with the possible exception of some only lately discovered tribes on the upper Amazon, and they’re just getting started.
What is more troubling is the extent of social contagion. Ignorant people attacking strangers about whom they know nothing with accusations based only on having heard them used elsewhere, and they want to be indignant because being indignant is all the fashion. So it’s a state of perceived intellectual superiority to get all indignant about a couple of American girls making burritos. Social contagion also explains much of what passes for news these days, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome as well. Attempting to destroy history by removing monuments, renaming buildings, ‘purifying the world.’ Or you could call it all a result of ‘community organizing.’
American Elephants 