tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71115978126876553552024-03-13T19:44:58.735-07:00The Huffington RiposteOffering a conservative counterbalance to the extreme left-coast liberalism of The Huffington PostLeo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.comBlogger2098125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-71250085599971559332017-05-09T07:57:00.001-07:002017-05-09T07:57:20.731-07:00LOOK AT WHO IS MARRIED TO WHOM<div style="min-height: 100%; position: relative;">
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<b>Subject:</b> <b id="m_-6601517058346980321yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494335584115_12176">CHECK THIS OUT: WHO'S MARRIED </b></div>
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<span id="m_-6601517058346980321yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494335584115_12050" style="font-size: 14pt;">Did you know that in 2009 the daughter of Secretary of State John Kerry (Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry), married an Iranian physician named Dr. Brian Vale Nahed.</span></div>
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<span id="m_-6601517058346980321yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1494335584115_12095" style="font-size: 14pt;">No mainstream media reported this. Guess who was the best man at the wedding? Mohammad Javad Zarif. So who is Mr. Zarif? Zarif is the current minister of foreign affairs for Iran .</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">He was Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations that recently concluded. Meaning Kerry was dealing with his daughter's father-in-law? Cozy??</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Many Americans believe the nuclear "treaty" and the $150B payment to Iran were a tragic farce, choreographed and orchestrated by Iran . Unfortunately, we are now going to have to live with the consequences for many generations. When (not "if") the bomb blows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Can you say <span style="color: #cd232c;">"conflict of interest"</span> ..after of course,<br /><span style="color: #cd232c;">"breach of national security"</span> ... and <span style="color: #cd232c;">"aiding and abetting"</span> one of our principal national enemies?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">But then what's new. Even as Muslims make up just 1% of the country, Hillary's top aide is a Muslim, as is Obama's. Is it any wonder why Obama wants to bring in thousands of young Muslims as refugees even though his<br />security people say they cannot properly vet them. </span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-79892444726220228122017-05-04T19:40:00.001-07:002017-05-04T19:40:55.033-07:00SUICIDE<br />
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<tr id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13846" style="height: 542.25pt;"><td id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13845" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; height: 542.25pt; margin: 0px; padding: 1pt; width: 1011.53125px;" width="100%"><div id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13862" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This art piece sums it all up...</span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477">The Euros will regret letting in millions of Muslims to leach</span></span></b><u></u><u></u></div>
<div id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13861" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5282"><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5281"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5280" style="font-size: 16pt;">off their generous welfare systems, and then still foment</span></b></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13860" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5268"><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5267"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5266" style="font-size: 16pt;">terrorism against the very same people who are their Hosts.</span></b></span><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5265"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5264" style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5263">The caption at the bottom explains where this originated.</span></span></b><u></u><u></u></div>
<div id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13844" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5262"><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5261"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_5260" style="font-size: 16pt;">Look at it carefully and let it sink in.</span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7105"><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7104"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7103" style="color: #1f4e79; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b></span><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477" id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7102"><b id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7101"><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7100" style="font-size: 16pt;">It is quite profound</span></b></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div id="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493930185553_13859" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">when understood.</span></b></span><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></span><span id="m_7469343621249417940yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1493932041945_7106" style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /><br /><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b>Recently there was an amateur art contest in the Netherlands,</b></span></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and people were invited to create a work of art depicting the</span></b></span><u></u><u></u></div>
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<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">current era of multiculturalism in Europe</span></b></span><span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477apple-converted-space"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></b></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">a depiction of their experience in the modern melting pot.</span></b></span><u></u><u></u></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span class="m_7469343621249417940yiv5318111593m_-4857344366701036848yiv1034050701m817814294531016423m8554979125103502181yiv0912404477"><b><span style="font-size: 20pt;">This was the winner.</span></b></span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-43810258464299270012017-04-05T15:13:00.001-07:002017-04-05T15:15:06.221-07:00FRIED RICE IS WHAT THE MEDIA HAS SERVED THE NATION<br />
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<tr><td class="m_-8536193632748414445mcnImageContent" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;" valign="top"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://spectator.us13.list-manage1.com/track/click?u%3D97ef939e2b1fb272ea72286a1%26id%3D30b2800a9c%26e%3D0475b51a2f&source=gmail&ust=1491516737321000&usg=AFQjCNGX3IYM_vSqgd7hVNNLDrNxFxD7hA" href="http://spectator.us13.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=97ef939e2b1fb272ea72286a1&id=30b2800a9c&e=0475b51a2f" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" title=""><img align="center" alt="Resistance " class="m_-8536193632748414445mcnImage CToWUd" src="https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/E21K7t_AWTZ3ceILTkCG2Rr8QsfPdGJZpKCuUThPcIp5dh7Lta2XgyzDNuXAvfkvI96xAz8bjMIU0LEtEsVXnYF2SgMumNkG8FAC2-YrLeRPNcDErxGBHSICKeMBUosOs6c05nP2qhPCnuIO7GGbHt6gIZEP9m3tH4RXdaw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://gallery.mailchimp.com/97ef939e2b1fb272ea72286a1/images/a67b73f4-076f-4378-bcdc-fdba8cccb4eb.png" style="border: 0px; display: inline !important; height: auto; max-width: 600px; outline: none; padding-bottom: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: bottom;" width="600" /></a></td></tr>
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1. Obamagate’s Truth Is Stranger Than Orwell’s Fiction</h1>
<span style="color: #1f9940;">BY: GEORGE NEUMAYR</span><br />
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<em>The media’s ministry of “truth” strains to sanitize spying on Trump.</em></div>
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<i class="print-only" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #292929; font-family: Georgia, 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">April 5, 2017, 12:04 am</i><br />
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<h3 class="print-only" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #292929; font-family: 'Libre Baskerville', serif; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: -0.035em; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;">
<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">The media’s ministry of “truth” strains to sanitize spying on Trump.</i></h3>
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The English author George Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” But even Orwell couldn’t have imagined the propagandistic whoppers that American journalists would mouth in their frenzied attempt to sanitize Obama’s spying on Trump.</div>
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Again and again, Obama’s ministry of propaganda, with its branch offices from CNN to the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</em> to the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington Post</em>, solemnly instruct Americans that “unmasking is not spying.” That is about as convincing as the slogans carved on Orwell’s fictional ministry headquarters in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">1984</em>: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”</div>
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One needs surveillance skills to find any disapproving references in the mainstream media to the pervasive political espionage that the Obama administration conducted against Trump. Even the Trump haters on <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Morning Joe</em> had to acknowledge the shamelessness of the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times </em>in <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/not-on-the-front-page-joe-scarborough-derides-nyt-coverage-of-susan-rice/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #009639; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">burying</a> the Susan Rice story on A16 — a story that made only oblique and rationalizing reference to her political espionage.</div>
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Were Walter Duranty alive today, he could still find a job at the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</em>, except this time he would have to tell lies about Russians, not for them. In almost every story about Trump, some sinister reference is made to his “Russian” problem. What problem? That is never explained. We’re just supposed to shudder and assume the worst, even as James Clapper and Mike Morrell admit that the evidence for any Trump-Russian collusion is nil.</div>
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How dare Trump “divert” attention from a fiction by talking about a fact! Doesn’t he know that he is supposed to treat the collusion as real and Obama’s espionage as fake? What’s wrong with him? That’s the tenor of the coverage.</div>
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The stories get more and more ludicrous in their straining. On Monday, the media gravely informed the public that a campaign volunteer for Trump, Carter Page, once unwittingly met with Russian spies… two years before he volunteered. Oh my. What might we learn next? That some voters for Trump vacationed at Black Sea resorts in the years preceding their votes for Trump?</div>
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CNN’s Walter Duranty prize winner has to be Jim Sciutto, who put on his best anchor-man voice to tell us to avert our gaze from the spying on Trump. Omnisciently, he intoned that “it appears to be a story largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from the larger investigation.” An investigation into what? He didn’t say, but, trust him, it is pretty bad. After all, he has a “Republican” source — see how fair he is! — who says that Rice’s political espionage is not at all “unusual.” Who was this source? David Gergen in the green room? And let’s not forget that a representative for Rice had assured him that “the idea that Ambassador Rice improperly sought the identities of Americans is false.” Well, that settles it.</div>
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Alert CNN watchers, however, noted that Mr. Neutrality used to work for the Obama administration as a political appointee (as chief of staff to Ambassador to China Gary Locke). Like other former Democratic staffers — Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, George Stephanopoulos, among others — Sciutto cultivates the affectation of the “straight-news man” to conceal his partisan background. But all it takes for that front to dissolve is a discombobulating Democratic scandal in which ACLU liberals find themselves in the role of Richard Nixon.</div>
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Susan Rice’s shaky, dry-mouthed performance on MSNBC Tuesday looked like a scene out of Orwell’s fiction too. Ministry of Truth official Andrea Mitchell hesitantly asked her questions about the scandal, making sure not to tax her too much or ask her any awkward follow-up questions. The interview lasted over ten minutes, but Mitchell couldn’t find time to ask her about the bald lie she told on PBS in March (that she knew “nothing” of unmasking the Trump team). Nor was Big Brother to be brought up under any circumstances. So even as Rice droned on about the importance of unsparing national security briefings, Mitchell steered clear of any mention of the beneficiary of that briefing — President Obama. The question that Mitchell once bit into with zest in the days of Watergate — What did the president know, and when did he know it? — never passed her lips.</div>
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But even in that safe space, Rice couldn’t avoid certain slips. “There was no collection or surveillance on Trump Tower or Trump individuals,” she said, before adding the lawyerly qualifier, “and by that I mean directed by the White House or targeted at Trump individuals.”</div>
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Translation: the FBI probed the computer server connected to Trump Tower, while she, Brennan, and the other Obama aides rifled through unmasked intercepts and transcripts of foreigners with whom he and his team were talking.</div>
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In other words, Trump, incidentally, was right.</div>
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<b><span style="background-color: #cc0000; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">My Very Liberal Friend Says This Is Just Rumor, Wonder How It Got Started, Sailors I Guess, ha... Don D.</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-2485999087524432042017-03-09T16:10:00.000-08:002017-03-09T16:11:45.287-08:00DID SESSIONS DO ANYTHING WRONG,NO,BUT SCHUMER DID !!!<h1 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 2.25em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.06em; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; padding: 0px;">
Did Sessions Do Anything Wrong?</h1>
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In a period when any contact with Russia is considered toxic, the attorney general is being tried by innuendo.</h2>
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By <span class="author vcard" style="text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="url fn n" href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/philip-giraldi" style="color: #f25f3e; text-decoration: none;" title="View all posts by Philip Giraldi">PHILIP GIRALDI</a></span> • <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/did-sessions-do-anything-wrong/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #f25f3e; text-decoration: none;" title="12:00 am">March 3, 2017</a><br />
THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE</div>
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We are entering into a politically charged environment where ordinary interactions between senior government officials and their foreign counterparts can quickly become toxic. </div>
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Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn did nothing wrong when he spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. It is just as evident that Sen. Jeff Sessions did nothing wrong when he <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/graham-sessions-trump-russia-235597" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(161, 174, 215); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #27338d; text-decoration: none;">spoke twice</a> to the same gentleman in the context of his membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first Sessions meeting in June was part of a conference organized by the State Department and the Heritage Foundation that included 50 ambassadors. Sessions was the keynote speaker and was approached by some of the ambassadors afterwards, including the Russian envoy.</div>
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The second meeting in September took place in Sessions’s office. There were staffers present at the meeting, which was held in a Senate building because Sessions had turned down a request by the ambassador for a private lunch, which he considered inappropriate. No one is claiming that anything discussed at either meeting was in any way incriminating or damaging to national security. According to Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, FBI investigators have reportedly gone farther than that, having already indicated to the House and Senate intelligence committees that there is “no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.” That conclusion has, however, been challenged by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who countered that the investigation is still in its initial stages.</div>
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Flynn was forced to step down after a campaign of vilification orchestrated by some senior officials at CIA and NSA, possibly acting on behalf of the outgoing Obama administration, though the actual issue that led to his resignation was a reported failure to be completely honest with Vice President Mike Pence regarding his phone calls with Kislyak. Whether that was an oversight or deliberate remains to be determined, but the Trump administration clearly decided that it was not a fight worth engaging in given the superheated media coverage that it produced.</div>
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The Sessions story is somewhat different, though it too includes hysterical reactions from the media and also from some leading Democrats. The controversy surrounding Sessions is based on a single question asked by Sen. Al Franken, “If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”</div>
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Sessions responded that he was “not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”</div>
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Explanations of what Sessions did or not mean have generally taken two approaches. If you believe Sessions was discussing how Moscow might help defeat Hillary, was he was hiding something nefarious? Or, if you believe he was innocent, was he honestly responding to Franken’s apparent focus on contact with Russians as an element in the campaign? </div>
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As I believe the entire narrative seeking to portray the Trump victory as some kind of Manchurian-candidate scheme concocted by the Kremlin is complete nonsense, I tend to believe Sessions was answering honestly, after interpreting the question in a certain fashion. His spokesman has described the exchange as: “He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign—not about meetings he took as a senator and a member of the Armed Services Committee.”</div>
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It is important to note that Sessions was not part of the Trump campaign staff, which explains his answer to Senator Franken. It would have been nice if he had begun his response to by noting that he has had intermittent interaction with Russian officials as part of his responsibilities in the Senate and then gone on to state that there had been no such contact that he was aware of as part of the campaign. But he did not do that, which has opened the door to the current politically-motivated firestorm.</div>
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What is particularly disturbing about the attack on Sessions is the hypocrisy evidenced by congressmen like Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, who are demanding that the attorney general resign because they claim he committed perjury. Answering questions in such a way as to avoid saying too much is a fine art in Washington—a skill that both Schumer and Pelosi have themselves also developed—but it does not amount to perjury. Sessions’s answer to Franken is not completely clear, but it is not an out-and-out lie. In that respect the attack on Sessions is like the attack on Flynn, basically a way of getting at and weakening President Donald Trump by opportunistically discrediting his high-level appointments.</div>
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That Sessions has now recused himself from anything having to do with Russia may be politically advisable, at least in part, to quell the outrage in the media and among nearly all Democrats and the usual <i>caballero</i> Republicans. But the original demands were inappropriate, as no one has demonstrated that Sessions has in some way worked with a foreign power to damage the national security of the United States. He is being tried by innuendo and in the cooperative media.</div>
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And then there is the even more disturbing Russian aspect to all of this. Sessions’s staff noted that as a senior senator on the Armed Services Committee, he met with 25 ambassadors. Why aren’t Schumer and Pelosi asking for a list of all those contacts? Ambassadors are doing their jobs when they represent their nations’ interests, which include working against some U.S. policies and trying to get foreign officials to reveal sensitive information “off the record.” Russia does indeed do that, but so do many countries that are regarded as close friends. </div>
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Russia is yet again being singled out for political reasons, even though Moscow and Washington are not at war. The evidence that Vladimir Putin has been somehow interfering in U.S. politics is definitely on the thin side and apparently not about to get any better. And fooling with Russia can be dangerous as it is the only country on earth that can destroy the United States. Nevertheless, in spite of that, there are many in the Democratic Party and the media who would like to make Russia something like a permanent enemy, to sustain the warfare state while also having a punching bag that can be blamed for whatever else might be going wrong. </div>
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One might reasonably consider the attacks on Sessions to be less about him and more about both Trump himself and Russia. Indeed, Trump and Russia are conjoined as the impending investigation into Moscow’s possible role in the election is also by its very nature a way to begin a process that would reverse the Trump electoral victory. Implicating yet another senior government official as a possible Kremlin patsy—and pressing ahead with a broader, bipartisan inquiry into the alleged subversion of the Trump campaign by Moscow—will narrow the president’s options for any reset with Russia while weakening his administration. </div>
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I note that President Trump <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-critic-will-handle-russia-for-trumps-national-security-council-171247828.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(161, 174, 215); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #27338d; text-decoration: none;">has appointed</a> hardliner Fiona Hill as his point person for dealing with Russia on the National Security Council. It is a bad move and possibly a sign that the relentless pressure regarding Moscow is beginning to bear fruit, forcing Trump to backtrack on his campaign promises to seek a reset with Putin.</div>
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<i>Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.</i></div>
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</footer>Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-22338489076488948822017-02-25T06:41:00.001-08:002017-02-25T06:41:29.872-08:00DECONSTRUCTION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE SOCIALIST STATE<header class="articleheader" style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><h1 itemprop="headline" style="border: 0px; clear: both; font-family: BebasNeueRegular, sans-serif; font-size: 48px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0.9em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Steve Bannon Details Trump Agenda: Deconstruction of the Administrative State</h1>
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<img alt="NATIONAL HARBOR, MD - FEBRUARY 23: (R-L) White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp leave after a conversation during the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center February 23, 2017 in National Harbor, Maryland. Hosted by the American Conservative Union, CPAC is an annual gathering of right wing politicians, commentators and their supporters. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)" class="attachment-isc-bbn-full size-isc-bbn-full wp-post-image" height="479" itemprop="image" src="http://media.breitbart.com/media/2017/02/GettyImages-644351772-640x479.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 640px;" width="640" /><div class="attribution" style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039); border: 0px; bottom: 0px; color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; position: absolute; right: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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White House chief strategist Steve Bannon detailed President Donald Trump’s agenda during an appearance at CPAC, thrilling the audience of conservatives who wanted to hear more about what Trump would do as president.</h2>
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Bannon broke the agenda down into three categories. pointing to economic nationalism, national sovereignty, and the deconstruction of the administrative state.</div>
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Part of restoring American sovereignty, Bannon explained, was fixing and improving intelligence, the defense department, and homeland security.</div>
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Economic nationalism would focus on restoring American prominence in trade and commerce — “rethinking” how to reconstruct trade deals around the world to favor America first, he said.</div>
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Bannon explained that the Trump administration and Congress were already working together to focus on bilateral trade deals with other countries, especially after pulling out of the Trans Pacific Partnership. The goal, he said, was to make America a “fair trading nation” and bring more high paying jobs into America.</div>
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The CPAC audience applauded and cheered when Bannon spoke of the deconstruction of the administrative state, cutting cabinet agency regulations that were choking business growth.</div>
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“The way the progressive left runs is that if they can’t get it passed, they’re just going to put it in some sort of regulation in an agency,” he said. “That’s all going to be deconstructed.”</div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-60631580054124107572017-02-25T06:36:00.004-08:002017-02-25T06:36:47.099-08:00PROTESTS ARE WELL ORGANIZED AND FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS<section class="Hero Hero--with-image" style="background-color: white; color: #02141f; font-family: Georgia, Cambria, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; min-height: 462.5px; position: relative;"><figure class="Image" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; width: 740px;"><div class="Image__wrapper" style="position: relative;">
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MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK </h4>
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‘BRING YOUR PEOPLE’</h4>
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<h1 class="Title" style="font-family: ScoutCondensedBold, 'Arial Narrow', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 45px; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 45px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 60px 0px 95px;">
These Are the Groups Behind Those ‘Spontaneous’ Anti-Trump-Ban Protests</h1>
<div class="Dek" style="color: #8c959a; font-family: ScoutCondensedRegular, 'Arial Narrow', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 28px; margin: 10px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 60px 0px 95px;">
How little-known groups were behind the thousands taking to the streets after Donald Trump’s election win—and thousands more filling airports across the country over the weekend.</div>
<div class="authors" style="margin: 15px 0px 20px 95px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
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<a class="author-photo" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/asawin-suebsaeng.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; color: #02141f; float: left; margin-right: 15px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 150ms ease;"><img alt="Asawin Suebsaeng" src="http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/etc/authors/a/asawin-suebsaeng/image.crop.96.96.jpg/46897462.cached.jpg" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 100%; border-bottom-right-radius: 100%; border-top-left-radius: 100%; border-top-right-radius: 100%; border: 1px solid rgb(217, 217, 221); height: 50px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; width: 50px;" /></a><a class="author-name" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/asawin-suebsaeng.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; color: #02141f; float: left; margin-right: 5px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 150ms ease;"><h4 style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out; color: #8c959a; font-family: ScoutBold, 'Arial Narrow', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 18px; margin: 15px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; transition: color 0.2s ease-in-out;">
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG</h4>
</a></div>
<h4 class="date-time with-photo" style="color: #8c959a; display: inline; float: left; font-family: ScoutBold, 'Arial Narrow', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 18px; margin: 15px 0px 20px; text-transform: uppercase;">
02.01.17 11:09 PM ET</h4>
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On the dark and cloudy morning in Brooklyn after <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/topics/donald-trump.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">Donald Trump</a>’s Election Night <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/09/hillary-clinton-destroyed-her-own-campaign.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">upset</a>, 20 members of the nonprofit Make the Road New York gathered in the conference room of their office for an all-hands emergency meeting.</div>
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The Latino and working-class organizing group, which specializes in immigrant rights, had not fully prepared for its nightmare scenario of Trump <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/20/team-bernie-hillary-fucking-ignored-us-in-swing-states.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">winning</a> the presidency. Few people in the room believed the Republican candidate had more than a slim chance of victory.</div>
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The mood was extremely emotional. Some were visibly distraught, some were furious, some even cried.</div>
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But as the day went on, the small huddle of organizers got back to work to chart a course forward—to prepare for what Daniel Altschuler, their director of civic engagement and research, would later describe as a “defining fight of our lives.”</div>
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The team worked the phones and started coordinating with their membership and allies in the community for future action and public protest. Within 24 hours, they had a plan for organizing a march that would take place in Manhattan the Sunday after Trump’s election. Roughly <a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161113/midtown/anti-trump-marching-reaches-fifth-day-as-protests-grow-across-country" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">15,000 people</a> flooded the streets to tell their next president, “We will not let you tear our families apart.”</div>
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Make the Road New York, and local groups like it, were laying the groundwork for what the country would see on the news out of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/29/deleteuber-s-creator-resist-trump-or-pay-a-price.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">JFK International Airport</a> less than three months later in response to President Trump’s refugee and “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/30/white-house-lowballs-impact-of-trump-ban.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">Muslim ban</a>.”</div>
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“This is man who actually won on a campaign of hate and xenophobia and sexism… We knew we had to respond rapidly,” Altschuler told The Daily Beast this week. “Folks on our organizing team and communications team were poised to respond rapidly because of what we do… We went out to the airport immediately on Saturday. I was en route to the airport around 11:30 a.m.… We were on the phone with other groups, saying, ‘Bring your people to JFK, bring your friends to JFK.’”</div>
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Altschuler and his colleagues spent the following days in near-constant contact with <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/30/feds-defy-judge-and-congressmen-to-uphold-trump-s-orders-at-dulles.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">attorneys</a> on the ground and lawyers’ associations, lawmakers, reporters, the New York Immigration Coalition, and immigrant- and minority-rights organizations, including progressive Jewish and Muslim groups.</div>
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And Make the Road New York was just one of many groups, virtually unknown and unheard of nationally, leading the anti-Trump mass resistance and airport demonstrations that erupted all across the United States over the weekend.</div>
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News reports and TV broadcasts about the week’s protests described the events as “spontaneous protests” mounted in response to the Trump administration’s travel and immigration executive order.</div>
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But to Make the Road New York, and the groups like it across the country, there was nothing “spontaneous” about it. As some observers and activists were quick to <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahljaffe/status/825698432266412032" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">point out</a>, these grassroots and professional organizers had been waiting and planning for this type of mass, direct action—ready-made to go viral on social media—ever since, well, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/09/nevertrumpers-line-up-to-kiss-king-donald-s-ring.html" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">Nov. 9</a>. From the moment Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the general election, they’ve been anticipating and mapping out their battle plans for Trump’s orders on deportations, bans, and detention.</div>
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So when you heard about a large crowd at an airport in the past few days yelling catchy <a href="https://twitter.com/rembert/status/825535585460830208" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">slogans like</a> “FUCK TRUMP, FUCK PENCE, THIS COUNTRY’S BUILT ON IMMIGRANTS,” it was no “spontaneous” outpouring of support. It was the result of a lot of unseen work and man hours.</div>
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“It was a domino effect of rapid mobilization,” said Renata Pumarol, communications director at New York Communities for Change, which was also on the ground at JFK. “And going forward, we have our plans in place to resist Trump… and pressuring corporate Dems to resist every appointment, every aspect of Trump’s agenda.”</div>
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Over the past weekend, tens of thousands took to the streets in demonstrations in cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Newark, and Los Angeles. Activists in New York who spoke to The Daily Beast were also in close communication with organizers at the O’Hare International Airport “<a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170128/ohare/activists-alderman-plan-emergency-protest-of-muslim-ban-at-ohare" style="-webkit-transition: color 150ms ease; background-color: transparent; transition: color 150ms ease;">emergency protest</a>,” which took place simultaneously.</div>
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“We had been laying the groundwork for this for a long, long time,” Hatem Abudayyeh, the Chicago-born Palestinian-American and executive director of the Arab American Action Network, told The Daily Beast. “We partially have infrastructure in place already as an organizing institution that has a lot of relationships with the strongest organizing institutions in Chicago and around the country. We have been having conversations with our allies and friends and attorneys—we’d been having these conversation before the election. A week before the election, we all had panicked because we were thinking, ‘Oh, man, this guy could definitely win.’”</div>
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On Election Night, Abudayyeh and his co-workers knew they needed to prep for a “surge” in their workload and marching. Now he and his allies in Illinois “want to be in the streets as much as possible,” he said.</div>
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“We’re inspired by what’s happening all across the country,” he added. “The fascinating thing about Saturday is it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger after the initial call to get out there at 6 p.m. By 8 or 9 o’clock, folks saw this happening live on TV or live on Facebook or live wherever, and they came to it without knowing that it had been called for.”</div>
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He and fellow activists have been actively coordinating with other local advocacy groups—Organized Communities Against Deportations, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the local Black Lives Matter chapter, to name a few—as well as private law firms extending offers of pro-bono work for refugee and immigrant families. It’s been a round-the-clock blitz that those involved expect to continue indefinitely in the Trump era.</div>
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“We absolutely have our work cut out for us,” Abudayyeh said. “We talked about that the very first night [on Saturday], knowing we were going to be organizing ’til 2 in the morning and waking up at 6 to start all over again.”</div>
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Lara Kiswani, leader of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, was still losing her voice as of Wednesday, when we talked on the phone. She and the center had been busy during the weekend of protest at San Francisco International Airport.</div>
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“We’ve been preparing ourselves [since November] on getting people to understand the rights around protests, especially for undocumented people who are more vulnerable in these situations,” she told The Daily Beast. “We’ve been digging in for a while… given the Trump administration… we have to deepen our work as we’re preparing for these mass mobilizations.”</div>
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Along with working with local union leaders and protesters, AROC is a member of the “Bay Resistance” action network, which is bound together by a text-alert system that goes out to the members and leaders of specific social-justice groups.</div>
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“The system is for when people are under threat or attacked—and Saturday triggered the text-alert system, and we organized around it, and took some leadership,” Kiswani said. “We stuck around all day and night, and our demands weren’t met. So we decided to call for a shutdown [of the airport] on Sunday because those demands weren’t met. Our demands were simple: Let the lawyers in… [and] let the families out.”</div>
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“It’s a time for a culture of resistance,” she continued. “The work now is to get the community to step up and be prepared… and really build across movements while Trump is in office.”</div>
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From San Francisco to New York City, her fellow progressive activists are building toward the same long-term objectives of peaceful but noisy resistance.</div>
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“This is the moment,” Altschuler said. “We have to continue to elevate the very moral crisis that the Trump administration is creating—we have to every day.”</div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-92033792528268887752017-02-16T07:11:00.001-08:002017-02-16T07:11:33.655-08:00BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , sans-serif;"><strong>EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ELIZABETH WARREN:</strong><br /><br />Donald Trump had his first cabinet withdrawal yesterday, with Andrew Puzder pulling back from his nomination as secretary of Labor. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D7a9db0048c%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825693000&usg=AFQjCNFS058PKWTDZUG-BbUOr0yowMUUog" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=7a9db0048c&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q67</a> The restaurant executive had been opposed vociferously by unions, but the real reason for his withdrawal was that it had become readily apparent there were wavering Republicans thinking of opposing him, including Tim Scott and Johnny Isakson. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D2ae67d119b%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825693000&usg=AFQjCNHmeSiJid_k0JzsTuWGjtaK7BZTgg" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=2ae67d119b&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q5i</a><br /><br />Whatever for? Well, if you are reading most of the coverage of his withdrawal, it will cite the talking points advocated by his critics from the left: that his restaurants failed to pay living wages, that his ethics reports were lacking, that his ex-wife accused him of abuse in an appearance on Oprah – accusations she later retracted. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3Dc55c195177%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825693000&usg=AFQjCNF75qFgFBbFqJG8DvB3d-kdUXeFfg" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=c55c195177&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q67</a> But was that really what was going on here? Was Puzder really terrified of the grilling he was going to receive from Elizabeth Warren?<br /><br />Not really. Virtually all the union and union-friendly organizations that opposed Puzder’s nomination were also opposed to Betsy DeVos. The difference is that Puzder was also opposed by those on the right over his immigration stances. National Review’s editors opposed his confirmation for these reasons. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D35bd9c0865%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825694000&usg=AFQjCNGNiBkkuHXwkPH7g3F96oEngv2pig" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=35bd9c0865&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q6o</a> “Puzder himself has been a reliable font of clichés in favor of higher levels of legal immigration. He has suggested that “the fact is that there are jobs in this country that U.S. citizens, for whatever reason, are reluctant or unwilling to perform”—a cliché that ignores the possibility of raising wages to attract citizens—and as recently as 2015 encouraged reviving the Gang of Eight approach to immigration. His views on immigration aren’t merely academic for this post. The Department of Labor bears a significant amount of responsibility for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.”<br /><br />This is Trump’s first cabinet withdrawal. Obama technically had four, so the odds seem to favor at least one additional withdrawal. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D436833f3d8%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825694000&usg=AFQjCNHeBpGQeV3OVOsjAIPRcRXcKWW6fA" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=436833f3d8&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q7f</a> The next to drop could be Wilbur Ross, who is refusing to give up his stake in a Chinese-Government-Backed company whose fortunes he could impact significantly in his role at the Commerce Department. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3De51a14b63a%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825694000&usg=AFQjCNFo-7P3_g4sJiw5YzkJKpRx-V6EWQ" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=e51a14b63a&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q7g</a> This sets him up, again, as someone who could find critics in both parties – the necessary recipe for a nominee’s failure.<br /><br />That accurate depiction of Puzder being squeezed from both sides, is largely going to be absent in the reports on what went down with his nomination. Instead you’ll get more of: How Elizabeth Warren Found a Villain in Andy Puzder. The first four paragraphs are about the author’s mood while watching The Big Short, and Puzder is mentioned in only a passing way in the article, as a foil for the courageous Warren. Here is his musing on her depiction on the most prominent liberal show on television, <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_313049102" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Saturday</span></span> Night Live: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3De2cf5b825f%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1487343825694000&usg=AFQjCNHcH0rOfder1Y8v-R2qy0bKikvdhA" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=e2cf5b825f&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2q6r</a> “Playing Warren on “<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_313049103" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Saturday</span></span>Night Live” last week, Kate McKinnon treated the “Weekend Update” anchors’ desk like the Senate dais, reading from a list of questions in order to press the hosts to answer for the crime of allowing Trump to appear on the show. Colin Jost asked if she was always like this. “As a matter of fact, yes,” McKinnon’s Warren said. McKinnon’s voice was perfect, and she captured the disbelief in the “uh-huh,” but she missed what Warren’s tightened jaw reveals: not tension but an elemental fury. Warren is trying to persuade a country that accepts some, but not enough, of her premises, that we are not drifting but being held hostage—and that the villains are the ones she has spotted. There is not as much Tracy Flick in Warren as there is in her public image. There is more Chautauqua.”<br /><br />Ah, I see. Well, you find your heroes where you can.<br /><br />---</span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-23208322763662313292017-02-07T15:34:00.003-08:002017-02-07T15:34:18.055-08:00OUR NEW SECRET WEAPON<br clear="none" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br />
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-52035281704979122732017-02-01T10:27:00.002-08:002017-02-01T10:27:30.019-08:00WHY CALIFORNIA IS BROKE AND TEXAS IS NOT !!!<br />
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<b><span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24pt;">CALIFORNIA</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></div>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" id="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1485188004753_133241" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor's dog, then bites the Governor.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" id="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390m_-6223872805178886545m_5812646728651517857m_4682588945359641314m_9085088438162171762yiv4206380994yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484494605126_10137" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" id="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1485205023130_4015" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" id="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390m_-6223872805178886545m_5812646728651517857m_4682588945359641314m_9085088438162171762yiv4206380994yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1484494605126_7864" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness program" for residents of the area.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" id="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1485205023130_4018" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #20497d; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training for the nature of coyotes.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<b><span style="color: #c00201; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24pt;">TEXAS</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></div>
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<li class="m_4741949399536658860yiv8802670390MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #c00201; margin-left: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;">The Governor of Texas is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></li>
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<b><span style="color: #00b050; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22pt;">And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Texas is not</span></b><b><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22pt;">.</span></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica-Bold;"></span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-41669681749866739862017-01-31T11:25:00.001-08:002017-01-31T11:25:35.035-08:00DEMOCRAT DISGRACE: PREVENTING VOTING BY NOT SHOWING UP<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://contribute.tedcruz.org/donate/?recurring%3Dtrue%26utm_campaign%3D20170131_ted-cruz_email%26utm_content%3Dbody_img_committee%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dpa_hf&source=gmail&ust=1485976802775000&usg=AFQjCNHY3ZzdPAXD4LKW01HL2kjknNAZMA" href="http://contribute.tedcruz.org/donate/?recurring=true&utm_campaign=20170131_ted-cruz_email&utm_content=body_img_committee&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pa_hf" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><img align="" alt="" border="0" class="CToWUd" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/EmnpkLP8NkSVcvwMh8WNgXD2gkpMPUNwV5y77wVeY13T4TT0n7VsKi9JTlzxI2sWWVWjnzOJRrNv026ZlwIB-RbcGVnLr2DEKa-NfGN-SVOF7nfI1O1M1LicrHsGB-UbmTqIbB4F_rpMpRsEuxkB5c8Q4kavwFzjwMDeIfc=s0-d-e1-ft#http://paracom.paramountcommunication.com/cimages/928831ebcd6c74581fbcaae5af7e41d1/FinanceCommittee.jpg" style="margin: 0px;" /></span></a></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: 28pt;">A picture is worth a thousand words.</span></strong></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Which for the Democrats meant boycotting today's Finance Committee votes for President Trump's nominees to Treasury & HHS.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">The obstruction of Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats is now reaching unprecedented depths, one of my colleagues even stated this embarrassing display was "the most pathetic he's seen in his whole time in the United States Senate".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">After his first week in office eight years ago President Obama had eleven Cabinet Secretaries confirmed, while at the same period of time President Trump received approval for only two nominees.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Democrats don't have the votes to reject any nominee, but their delay games will severely impact the administration's ability to implement policy. <strong>It's a disgrace.</strong></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-size: 28px;"></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 28px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-size: 28px;"></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-size: 28px;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Anyone watching closely knows that Senate Democrats who boycotted today's planned vote are only following the orders of their leftist financial backers,</span></span>Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-39819051740855679742017-01-23T21:25:00.001-08:002017-01-23T21:25:18.454-08:00READ THIS, THE BEST ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEMBER 8, 2016 ELECTION EVER !!!<br />
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<b><span style="color: black;">the 2016 Election in the Colonies</span></b><span style="color: black;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">An excellent commentary on the election</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Subj: An Irish Reflection on the 2016 Election in the Colonies</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Ian O'Doherty is a columnist who works for the <em id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1481856141649_3791">Irish Independent</em>. His <em id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1481731402753_4020">"iSpy"</em> column is published <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1780461223" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Monday</span></span>-<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1780461224" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Thursday</span></span>. On Fridays O'Doherty publishes a rather more serious column containing his opinion on a chosen subject in <em id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1482286961338_3797">"The World According to Ian O'Doherty."</em> He was formerly with the <i id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1482286961338_3794">Evening Herald</i>.</span><span style="color: black;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Tuesday November 8, 2016 -- a day that will live in infamy, or the moment when America was made great again?<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18249" /><br />The truth, as ever, will lie somewhere in the middle. After all, contrary to what both his supporters and detractors believe -- and this is probably the only thing they agree on -- Trump won't be able to come into office and spend his first 100 days gleefully ripping up all the bits of the Constitution he doesn't like.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18251" /><br />But even if this week's seismic shockwave doesn't signal either the sky falling in or the start of a bright new American era, the result was, to use one of The Donald's favourite phrases, huge. It is, in fact, a total game changer.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18253" /><br />In decades to come, historians will still bicker about the most poisonous, toxic and stupid election in living memory.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18255" /><br />They will also be bickering over the same vexed question: how did a man who was already unpopular with the public and who boasted precisely zero political experience beat a seasoned Washington insider who was married to one extremely popular president and who had worked closely with another?<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18257" /><br />The answer, ultimately, is in the question.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18259" /><br />History will record this as a Trump victory, which of course it is. But it was also more than that, because this was the most stunning self-inflicted defeat in the history of Western democracy.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18262" /><br />Hillary Clinton has damned her party to irrelevance for at least the next four years. She has also ensured that Obama's legacy will now be a footnote rather than a chapter. Because the Affordable Care Act is now doomed under a Trump presidency and that was always meant to be his gift, of sorts, to America.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18264" /><br />How did a candidate who had virtually all of the media, all of Hollywood, every celebrity you could think of, a couple of former presidents and apparently, the hopes of an entire gender resting on her shoulders, blow up her own campaign?<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18266" /><br />I rather suspect that neither Donald nor Hillary know how they got to this point.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18268" /><br />Where she seemed to expect the position to become available to her by right -- the phrase "she deserves it" was used early in the campaign and then quickly dropped when her team remembered that Americans don't like inherited power -- his first steps into the campaign were those of someone chancing their arm. If he wasn't such a staunch teetotaller, many observers would have accused him of only doing it as a drunken bet.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18270" /><br />But the more the campaign wore on, something truly astonishing began to happen: the people began to speak. And they began to speak in a voice which, for the first time in years in the American heartland, would not be ignored.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18272" /><br />Few of the people who voted for Trump seriously believe that he is going to personally improve their fortunes. Contrary to the smug, middle-class media narrative, they aren't all barely educated idiots.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18274" /><br />They know what he is, of course they do. It's what he is not that appeals to them.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18276" /><br />Clinton, on the other hand, had come to represent the apex of smug privilege. Whether it was boasting about her desire to shut down the remaining coal industry in Virginia -- that worked out well for her, in the end -- or calling half the electorate a "basket of deplorables," she seemed to operate in the perfumed air of the elite, more obsessed with coddling idiots and pandering to identity and feelings than improving the hardscrabble life that is the lot of millions of Americans.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18278" /><br />Also, nobody who voted for Trump did so because they wanted him as a spiritual guru or life coach.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18280" /><br />But plenty of people invested an irrational amount of emotional energy into a woman who was patently undeserving of that level of adoration.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18282" /><br />That's why we've witnessed such fury from her supporters -- they had wrapped themselves so tightly in the Hillary flag that a rejection of her felt like a rejection of them. And when you consider that many American colleges gave their students <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1780461225" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Wednesday</span></span> off class because they were too “upset” to study, you can see that this wasn't a battle for the White House -- this became a genuine battle for America's future direction. <em>And, indeed, for the West.</em> (Emphasis mine)<br /><br />We have been going through a cultural paroxysm for the last 10 years -- the rise of identity politics has created a Balkanised society where the content of someone's mind is less important than their skin colour, gender, sexuality or whatever other attention-seeking label they wish to bestow upon themselves.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18286" /><br />In fact, where once it looked like racism and sexism might be becoming archaic remnants of a darker time, a whole new generation has popped up which wants to re-litigate all those arguments all over again.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18288" /><br />In fact, while many of us are too young to recall the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960s, plenty of observers who were say they haven't seen an America more at war with itself than it is today.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18290" /><br />One perfect example of this New America has been the renewed calls for segregation on campuses. Even a few years ago, such a move would have been greeted with understandable horror by civil rights activists -- but this time it's the black students demanding segregation and "safe spaces" from whites. If young people calling for racial segregation from each other isn't the sign of a very, very sick society, nothing is.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18292" /><br />The irony of Clinton calling Trump and his followers racist while she was courting Black Lives Matter was telling.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18294" /><br />After all, no rational white person would defend the KKK, yet here was a white women defending both BLM and the New Black Panthers -- explicitly racist organisations with the NBP, in particularly, openly espousing a race war if they don't get what they want.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18297" /><br />Fundamentally, Trump was attractive because he represents a repudiation of the nonsense that has been slowly strangling the West.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18299" /><br />He represents -- rightly or wrongly, and the dust has still to settle -- a scorn and contempt for these new rules. He won't be a president worried about microaggressions, or listening to the views of patently insane people just because they come from a fashionably protected group.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18301" /><br />He also represents a glorious two fingers to everyone who has become sick of being called a racist or a bigot or a homophobe -- particularly by Hillary supporters who are too dense to realise that she has always actually been more conservative on social issues than Trump.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18303" /><br />That it might take a madman to restore some sanity to America is, I suppose, a quirk that is typical to that great nation -- land of the free and home to more contradictions than anyone can imagine.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18305" /><br />Trump's victory also signals just how out of step the media has been with the people. Not just American media, either.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18307" /><br />In fact, the Irish media has continued its desperate drive to make a show of itself with a seemingly endless parade of emotionally incontinent gibberish that, ironically, has increased in ferocity and hysterical spite in the last few days.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18309" /><br />The fact that Hillary's main cheerleaders in the Irish and UK media still haven't realised where they went wrong is instructive and amusing in equal measure. They still don't seem to understand that by constantly insulting his supporters, they're just making asses of themselves.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18311" /><br />One female contributor to this newspaper said Trump's victory was a "sad day for women." Well, not for the women who voted for him, it wasn't.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18313" /><br />But that really is the nub of the matter -- the “wrong” kind of women obviously voted for Trump. The “right” kind went with Hillary. And lost.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18315" /><br />The Irish media is not alone in being filled largely with dinner-party liberals who have never had an original or socially awkward thought in their lives. They simply assume that everyone lives in the same bubble and thinks the same thoughts -- and if they don't, they should.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18317" /><br />Of the many things that have changed with Trump's victory, the bubble has burst. Never in American history have the polls, the media and the chin-stroking moral arbiters of the liberal agenda been so spectacularly, wonderfully wrong.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18319" /><br />It was exactly that condescending, obnoxious sneer towards the working class that brought them out in such numbers, and that is the great irony of Election 16 -- the Left spent years creating identity politics to the extent that the only group left without protection or a celebrity sponsor was the white American male.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18321" /><br />That it was the white American male who swung it for Trump is a timely reminder that while black lives matter, all votes count -- even the ones of people you despise.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18323" /><br />You don't have to be a supporter of Trump to take great delight in the sheer, apoplectic rage that has greeted his victory.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18325" /><br />If Clinton had won and Trump supporters had gone on a rampage through a dozen American cities the next night, there would have been outrage -- and rightly so.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18328" /><br />But in a morally and linguistically inverted society, the wrong-doers are portrayed as the victims. We saw that at numerous Trump rallies: protesters would disrupt the event, claiming their right to free speech (a heckler's veto is not free speech) and provoking people until they got a dig before running to the media and claiming victimhood.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18330" /><br />But, ultimately, this election was about people saying enough with the bullshit. This is a country in crisis, and most Americans don't care about transgender bathrooms, or safe spaces, or government speech laws. This was about people taking some control back for themselves.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18332" /><br />It was about them saying that they won't be hectored and bullied by the toddler tantrums thrown by pissy and spoiled millennials, and they certainly won't put up with being told they're stupid and wicked just because they have a difference of opinion.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18334" /><br />But, really, this election is about hope for a better America; an America which isn't obsessed with identity and perceived “privilege;” an America where being a victim isn't a virtue and where you don't have to apologise for not being up to date with the latest list of socially acceptable phrases.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18336" /><br />Trump's victory was a two fingers to the politically correct.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18338" /><br />It was a brutal rejection of the nonsense narrative which says Muslims who kill Americans are somehow victims. It took the ludicrous Green agenda and threw it out. It was a return, on some level, to a time when people weren't afraid to speak their own mind without some self-elected language cop shouting at you. Who knows, we may even see Trump kicking the UN out of New York.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18340" /><br />Frankly, if you're one of those who gets their politics from Jon Stewart and Twitter, look away for the next four years, because you're not going to like what you see. The rest of us, however, will be delighted.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18342" /><br />This might go terribly, terribly wrong. Nobody knows -- and if we have learned anything this week, it's that nobody knows nuthin'.<br id="m_-5950480117675235676yiv4025517372m_-5093600262321642047m_7430855072912567463yiv0622747610m_2123119929736863707m_5871009967639791419m_3453247815112345570yiv6401770816m_1883026677439149099yiv5846906830yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1480499113164_18344" /><br />But just as the people of the UK took control back with Brexit, the people of America did likewise with their choice for president.</span><span style="color: black;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-85839494159300246792017-01-18T10:41:00.002-08:002017-01-18T10:41:45.650-08:00OBAMA PROVES HIS RADICAL ROOTS BY FREEING OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA<br />
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Obama grants clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, Puerto Rican terrorist</h1>
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<a class="event-tracking auto-keyword" data-action="auto_keyword" data-label="president obama" href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/section/barack-obama" target="_blank">President Obama</a> on Tuesday granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera. He has been in federal prison since 1981 after being convicted of armed robbery, weapons charges, and seditious conspiracy to violently overthrow the U.S. government as a member of the Puerto Rican Marxist separatist group FALN.</div>
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The Chicago and New York cells of FALN planted approximately 120 bombs throughout the U.S. from 1974 to 1983, resulting in several dead, dozens injured and property damage. Rivera's apartment had served as the headquarters for his own team's bomb-making efforts.</div>
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In the years following his sentencing, some politicians and entertainers called him innocent or the next nearest thing, a political prisoner. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., has lobbied the Obama administration to grant commutation of his sentence. Obama on Tuesday ordered Lopez-Rivera be let go effective May 17.</div>
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In 1999, former President Bill Clinton granted clemency to most FALN members. Lopez-Rivera refused the offer for a number of reasons. The Clinton commutation offer did not include his particular codefendants and would still have required him to serve 10 years of a 15-year sentence for an attempted jailbreak.</div>
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Former President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and "Hamilton" star Lin-Manuel Miranda have asked Obama to take action. The actor took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he will return to his lead role if Lopez-Rivera should attend after being let out.</div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-1915421494368913172017-01-16T06:28:00.001-08:002017-01-16T06:28:19.158-08:00TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE INAUGURATION<div class="adn ads" style="border-left-color: transparent; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 4px;">
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Twas the Night Before Inauguration!<br /><br />Twas the night before Inauguration, and up in the tower,<br />The Donald reflected on his newfound power.<br />The conservative masses had come out in force,<br />And delivered a victory that would chart a new course.<br /><br />The snowflakes were shell-shocked with tears in their eyes,<br />The media lied to them . . . What a surprise.<br />They had been promised a Hillary win,<br />But the criminal Clinton took one on the chin.<br /><br />And though from all corners celebrities flew,<br />They made no impression, for they hadn’t a clue.<br />They talked about climate, racism, and such,<br />And they made up good stories . . . But didn’t know much.<br /><br />The fake news and ignorance came at a cost,<br />And they can’t understand all the reasons they lost.<br />They blame it on Comey and Bernie and Vlad,<br />But fail to acknowledge the one that was bad.<br /><br />Yes, Hillary Clinton, in many ways flawed,<br />Was her own biggest hurdle toward getting the nod.<br />The campaign exposed her corruptness and greed,<br />And her speeches were punch-less as ten dollar weed.<br /><br />So out in the streets there arose such a clatter,<br />It was Soros-paid protestors and Black Lives Matter.<br />With cities to pillage and windows to smash,<br />They knew not the issues, but needed the cash.<br /><br />Eight years of Obama had given them cause,<br />To expect a replacement of their Santa Claus.<br />But soon the protestors will feel the pain,<br />When the wheels fall off of the old gravy train.<br /><br />And now all the snowflakes are riddled with fear,<br />Upset and offended by things that they’ll hear.<br />The cocoa and crayons will help for a while,<br />But fact-based opinions will soon cramp their style.<br /><br />I originally supported, and voted, for Cruz,<br />In the end, I would vote for whoever they choose.<br />He wasn’t my first choice, but soon I would cede,<br />The one they call Trump is the one that we need.<br /><br />I saw him on TV in front of a crowd,<br />He spoke about veterans, it made me feel proud.<br />He spoke about energy, safety, and jobs,<br />Taking this country back from the Washington snobs.<br /><br />He was dressed in Armani, all tailored and neat,<br />And the Brunos he wore made the outfit complete.<br />For a man of his vintage, he seemed rather fit,<br />And he looked presidential, I have to admit.<br /><br />His eyes glowed like embers, his smile was the best,<br />And his hair was the color of my old hunting vest.<br />His love for this country was on full display,<br />And his actions spoke louder than his words could say.<br /><br />He thanked all his voters, and before he was gone,<br />Saved thousands of jobs while Obama looked on.<br />The fate of this country left nothing to chance,<br />So, he filled out his cabinet weeks in advance.<br /><br />The men he had chosen were of the same mind,<br />Let’s set the bar high, and not lead from behind.<br />He picked up his phone as he rose from his seat,<br />With a flick of his finger, he sent out this tweet;<br /><br />“Now Mattis!, now Kelly!’ now Sessions! And Pruitt!<br />On Perry! On Flynn, You’re the ones who can do it.<br />Start lifting restrictions and building the wall,<br />Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”;<br /><br />The roar of his audience rose from the stands,<br />He kissed all their babies and shook all their hands.<br />He answered their questions and calmed all their fears,<br />They knew it would be a fantastic four years.<br />Then he jumped in his limo, and off to his jet,<br />A fellow that Liberals won’t soon forget.<br />He sent one more tweet as the evening expired;<br />“Happy Inauguration to all,<br />AND OBAMA – YOU’RE FIRED!”<br /><br />Sutter Buttes Tea Party Patriots<br /><br />Sent from my iPhone<div class="yj6qo">
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-41769827666519599622017-01-11T10:01:00.001-08:002017-01-11T10:01:45.914-08:00CHARLIE EXPOSES FAKE NEWS ON STILTS<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_2304803298269797453header-small-text" style="padding-bottom: 10px; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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New post on <strong>The Next Right Step</strong></h2>
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<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/fake-news-on-stilts/&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNE-DQD30iUk3F76UJjk_Y8Qyjay6g" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/2017/01/11/fake-news-on-stilts/" style="color: #2585b2; text-decoration: none !important;" target="_blank">Fake News on Stilts</a></h2>
<span style="color: #888888;">by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/author/charliej373/&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEU8VIPLNmRd6QgwphxmyGSVtLueA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/author/charliej373/" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136) !important;" target="_blank">charliej373</a></span></td></tr>
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<strong>By Charlie Johnston</strong></div>
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The media and political world today are all atwitter over a report from CNN and Buzzfeed that Donald Trump is a Russian agent - and includes salacious details of perverted sex parties Trump supposedly participated in. The establishment media has practically wet itself with enthusiasm over this lurid tale. The only problem is that the story started falling apart almost immediately.</div>
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Supposedly, the "information" came from a foreign intelligence agent. As <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://nypost.com/2017/01/10/buzzfeeds-trump-report-takes-fake-news-to-a-new-level/&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNGtOpEqzggU_BvPfycih6wO8k3Vvg" href="http://nypost.com/2017/01/10/buzzfeeds-trump-report-takes-fake-news-to-a-new-level/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">John Podhoretz skeptically noted </a>in the New York Post today, this bore less resemblance to an actual intelligence agent's report than <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://archive.mrc.org/campaign/04/rather.asp&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNGi9V2AoxbBO3IU2aTGFcWQfA9aDg" href="http://archive.mrc.org/campaign/04/rather.asp" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Dan Rather's forged memo </a>slurring George Bush. The report also listed specific places that Trump and associates had been - information that can be verified. Some of the most salacious stuff does not pass the first hurdle of verification. The memo states that in late August Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly met with Kremlin officials in the Czech Republic. As<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/443756/why-you-should-doubt-salacious-trump-espionage-memo&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNG_P_1dBM-mP2erFc31ENRJ9Y2chg" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/443756/why-you-should-doubt-salacious-trump-espionage-memo" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank"> National Review's Jim Geraghty </a>notes, there is proof that not only was Cohen not there for that date, his passport never shows a trip to the Czech Republic anytime. And at the time he was supposedly cavorting with Kremlin agents, officials at the University of Southern California confirm he and his son were on a visit to the campus.</div>
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The smoking gun, though, is that the memo is identical to a fictional account several members of 4chan, a social media platform, wrote for their own amusement in late October. 4chan allows users to post pictures and any story they want - actual, fictional or fake satire. The authors sent the report to anti-Trump GOP consultant Rick Wilson hoping they could troll him. Wilson, in turn, gave it to the CIA which pounced like a hungry trout on a juicy fly and included it in their official CIA classified report. Zero Hedge's <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/4chan-claims-have-fabricated-anti-trump-report-hoax&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEgnYpyzCMKIM6VgysvpceA9GdaYg" href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/4chan-claims-have-fabricated-anti-trump-report-hoax" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Tyler Durden lays out the full narrative.</a> It is not possible that a couple of guys could have concocted a fictional story several months ago that is identical to the document included in the formal report just issued - unless the fictional account is the basis of that report. (And please spare me any speculation about a million monkeys with a million typewriters).</div>
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I used to warn my political clients that our opponents could only wound us, but friends could kill us. I would explain that we reflexively fully vet opponents' statements - but our friends tell us what we want to hear. If we don't fully vet them, too, it can lead to a fatal blunder spouting false information. I was as rigorous in vetting "facts" given by friends as those put out by foes (a characteristic readers of this site undoubtedly recognize). It kept us from running with some juicy stuff - but also protected us from fatal errors. The political and media establishment have shown us very clearly what they want to believe.</div>
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When I was a newspaper editor, there was a big story I wanted to break as we screamed into deadline. I had reserved the front page for it. Problem was, my rule on stories on which I did not have ironclad documentary evidence, such as a police report, would not run unless I had three independent and credible sources. Unfortunately, I only had two when we hit deadline. An entirely different backup story I had prepared ran on the front page. It is absurd that my standards on a county newspaper group were more demanding than those of today's national establishment media. It is downright scary that my standards were more demanding than those of the modern CIA.</div>
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Both the media and the CIA have utterly beclowned themselves - but we don't have to. There will undoubtedly be more of this sort of thing. The typical reaction of the beclowned media when they epically fail is to double down in hot rage on the very things that caused the failure in the first place. These things must come. The satan is more brilliant than anyone on earth, but he has a major weakness: his restless and eager malice. The satan strikes at any hint of vulnerability without any effort at discernment whether it is real or only perceived vulnerability. He thought he had won with the crucifixion, only to discover a few days later he had only helped facilitate Christ's triumph. He does that sort of thing a lot, if not so dramatically, and never learns from it. Do not let malice and accusation get hold of your heart: it will surely lead you to grief. Vet everything whether it is congenial to you or not - and you will secure your reputation for credibility and probity.</div>
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The establishment media used to put ugly slants on stories to deceive the gullible. Now they are the gullible. Let us not count ourselves among their ranks. You may, however, take a little enjoyment as pieces of this story fall away like rotted flesh from a shuffling zombie. I know I will.</div>
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<strong><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/author/charliej373/&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEU8VIPLNmRd6QgwphxmyGSVtLueA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/author/charliej373/" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">charliej373</a></strong> | <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1244185703" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">January 11, 2017 at 12:50 pm</span></span> | Tags: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3D4chan&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNFGUu_IMs9ffSu40yvX6P-WKmpBFg" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=4chan" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">4chan</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dbuzzfeed&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNH-sF5W6moK5lskgPeCN0EISoAe-w" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=buzzfeed" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Buzzfeed</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dcia&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNGzMmvOUbzA_m62eLtLkZRUVdq7BA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=cia" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">CIA</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dcnn&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEdnn2oAY0ZLkifMtJckqDkhTH2PA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=cnn" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">CNN</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dczech-republic&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEje_RQUinyRuZx14sDaVMGUs7jUA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=czech-republic" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Czech Republic</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Ddan-rather&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNEaaCtHr7o-hOEZXx9AhM9n10qxIg" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=dan-rather" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Dan Rather</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Ddonald-trump&source=gmail&ust=1484243757340000&usg=AFQjCNHRx979ROevQicQo5bygZ4S6MxIcg" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=donald-trump" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dfake-news&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNGhVfXEBH8kDKb8puWbLtu-dwgNGA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=fake-news" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">fake news</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dgeorge-w-bush&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNEM4WJMdKr6aGIOXZpy2iGq4Q5Lmg" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=george-w-bush" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">George W. Bush</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Djohn-podhoretz&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNHZuQCPJk1FMKEr76GIYCpq0kVJTw" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=john-podhoretz" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">John Podhoretz</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dmedia-bias&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNGEX8JIqFBu5Af5EL72nhqHZa9cnw" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=media-bias" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Media Bias</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dmichael-cohen&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNE4BfB7gLD9H77E-FU57Zw-Ijs35Q" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=michael-cohen" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Michael Cohen</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dnew-york-post&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNHHvBg7Mdk3PmcV6MyUYYjnKHDILQ" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=new-york-post" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">New York Post</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Drick-wilson&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNHa98FEwNFBMzQx_VB1aEdda_ewpQ" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=rick-wilson" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Rick Wilson</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Drussian-influence-on-the-election&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNGhXCIpdDo5CYwafaIE9UoRfOWuyQ" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=russian-influence-on-the-election" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Russian influence on the election</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dtyler-durden&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNHax3aPFLJ7yemj_b66wHeWGGZTnA" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=tyler-durden" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Tyler Durden</a>, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag%3Dzero-hedge&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNGIE01D0ifC0sVjJJhOCGgdQLIM2Q" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?tag=zero-hedge" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Zero Hedge</a> | Categories: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?cat%3D10659529&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNFRx6KlQE_yG-GiWc9M368li7rnBg" href="https://charliej373.wordpress.com/?cat=10659529" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">Culture</a> | URL: <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://wp.me/p4dCVy-1BY&source=gmail&ust=1484243757341000&usg=AFQjCNGAzBvJwPy2D0LQ6u1BPZej_OgS9A" href="http://wp.me/p4dCVy-1BY" style="color: #2585b2;" target="_blank">http://wp.me/p4dCVy-1BY</a></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-11059056217838723392017-01-10T08:36:00.001-08:002017-01-10T08:36:17.089-08:00BUBBLES, BUBBLES, PRETTY BUBBLES<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="m_3779724876196808780templateContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; width: 600px;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><strong>RESOLVED: RID OURSELVES OF BUBBLES:</strong><br /><br />10 JAN 17</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;">In President Barack Obama’s exit interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, he admitted that he did not believe Donald Trump could win the presidency because he was living in “the bubble” of the White House. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3Da56b3177e4%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1484151973561000&usg=AFQjCNGZyFgv5irgv0SptRAUhaXHp00nuA" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=a56b3177e4&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2oc4</a> Obama’s admission is an honest and a welcome one. But he has the excuse of occupying the most unique job in the country. For members of the media, political, and public policy spheres who are tasked with knowing and recognizing trends in the country, there is less of an excuse for the utter failure to recognize what was truly going on in 2016.<br /><br />The acknowledgement of these bubbles, and the importance of breaking out of them, ought to be part of everyone’s resolution on how to approach the Trump era in 2017 and beyond.<br /><br />In his 2012 book Coming Apart, Charles Murray offered a “bubble quiz”, a test intended to indicate how close or far one is from the typical experience of life for mainstream white Americans. The test is available online, and with the addition of a query about takers’ zip codes, Murray has now amassed an enormous amount of self-reported data which marks the distance between the experiences of those who thought a Trump election was inconceivable and the white middle and working class voters who elected him. According to Murray, of the 100 zip codes with the “thickest bubbles”, New York City represents 34, with Manhattan accounting for 18; San Francisco is second with 29, followed by Boston with 15. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3Da4dda3ffcf%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1484151973561000&usg=AFQjCNFfAG0pFHLgdmmJPjOsr1LQxC0EKw" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=a4dda3ffcf&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2odu</a> And for those seeking to escape the bubble but can’t afford to fully break from the tenor of those cities, there’s always college towns. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3Dd35080fc29%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1484151973561000&usg=AFQjCNEdQC_wKNx2Mz72IgE-kBk3g8X93g" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=d35080fc29&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2odi</a><br /><br />The Trump election is not just explained by Murray’s warnings from the right, but of earlier works such as Chris Hayes’ Twilight of the Elites from the left. The nation’s coastal elite, which produces so much of our political and media class, has surrounded itself with a cultural, economic, and educational bubble which skews perspectives. The bubble allowed some to believe they controlled the arc of history, not that they would be subordinated to it. The shock of Trump’s election offers us an exhibit of an entire current of American life caught in its own eddy – unfamiliar with religious life, gun ownership, or the most ubiquitous vehicle in the nation, the Ford F-150.<br /><br />Sean Davis. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D251aaa2b54%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1484151973562000&usg=AFQjCNFDgfN8Xtawsbg7EI40b7Yyr76oeA" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=251aaa2b54&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2odt</a> “For those who might not be aware, trucks are really popular in America and have been for decades. The Ford F-series, for example, has been the most popular line of vehicles in America for 34 years in a row. Ford F-150’s are basically the jeans of vehicles: it’s nearly impossible to find a person in America who either doesn’t own one or doesn’t know someone who owns one. The top three best-selling vehicles in America are not cars, but trucks: the Ford F-series, Chevy Silverado, and Dodge Ram. The top-selling sedan is but a distant fourth. According to a 2014 survey conducted by IHS automotive, trucks were the most popular vehicles in a whopping 34 states. A separate 2015 study found that the F-150 was the most popular used vehicle in 36 states.<br /><br />“Why is this important? Because research has shown that vehicle preferences and political preferences are linked. According to a 2016 survey of 170,000 vehicle buyers conducted by market research firm Strategic Vision, what you drive can reveal a great deal about which political candidates you prefer.<br /><br />“The five most popular vehicle models among Republicans, for example, are all trucks, with the ubiquitous Ford F-150 leading the way. Among Democrats, the Subaru Outback is the most popular choice. If you drive a truck, you’re probably a Republican. If you drive a Subaru, you’re probably a Democrat. Donald Trump won every single state in which the Ford F-150 is the most popular vehicle (even Pennsylvania). He won all but four of the states in which the Chevy Silverado is the most popular vehicle, including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton handily won the states where people prefer Subarus.”<br /><br />The collective freakout by many journalists when asked by John Ekdahl in the above piece whether they know anyone who drives a truck is an amazing illustration of how thick bubbles can be – just as this report does from yesterday where a Washington Post journalist maintains .22 long rifle ammo is “high powered”. <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://thetransom.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u%3Dc7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1%26id%3D89605efa03%26e%3Db800dba17d&source=gmail&ust=1484151973562000&usg=AFQjCNGlWBHO8aUmzeIAbImzMqqYirrfDw" href="http://thetransom.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=c7c578f94365a99fb2dd164c1&id=89605efa03&e=b800dba17d" style="color: #6dc6dd; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://vlt.tc/2odd</a> Yet conservatives should remember that the threat of bubbles is not just confined to the nation’s elite, nor is it a problem only for American liberalism.<br /><br />Trump represents a marked break from the historical past of Republican presidencies, and he arrives in Washington in a context that is very different from the last Republican president’s arrival in 2001. So as conservatives and the media consider how they ought to respond to Trump and his administration in 2017, they ought to work to avoid the glaring mistakes made in allowing their bubbles to thicken in the past 16 years.<br /><br />When George W. Bush arrived in Washington, he did so as someone explicitly branded as a conservative. This led many in the conservative movement, including far too many think tanks and activist groups, to essentially become house organs of the Bush White House. Ultimately many of those entities came to regret this close relationship, leading as it did to an inability to criticize policy decisions they weren’t sure about.<br /><br />Today, much of Bush’s domestic policy agenda is viewed by conservatives as a failure. No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and a host of economic policy decisions in Bush’s second term were anathema to limited government conservatives. His decisions regarding foreign policy are openly denigrated by members of his own party, none moreso than the president-elect. This dissatisfaction planted seeds that ultimately flowered in the 2006 election and aided the rise of the Tea Party and Trump himself.<br /><br />When Barack Obama arrived in Washington, many in the media welcomed him with optimism as a historic figure focused on progressive change. But their overwhelmingly favorable treatment of him ultimately turned Americans who disagreed with Obama’s policies away from traditional media sources they came to distrust. They came to view much of the media as fundamentally unfair and out of touch with their concerns.<br /><br />This thickened bubbles on both sides. Trump’s rise was contingent on wide swaths of the country completely tuning out so-called mainstream media sources, while all too many outlets did a poor job covering 2016. Much of the media failed to anticipate the potential Trump represented as a disruptive populist force, understand why his supporters trusted him, or offer honest reporting on the underlying trends that made his rise possible.<br /><br />Engaging in a sycophantic way with any politician in the short term is tempting. It offers the lure of access and the promise of influence. But ultimately it can lead to misreading the environment, giving too much of an ear to the politician’s circle, and confining your audience to partisans.<br /><br />This problem was significant under Obama, and could potentially be worse under Trump, who arrives in a very different media environment than his predecessors. There are now entire media entities with tens of millions of monthly readers that did not exist, indeed could not exist, even a decade ago. The temptation among some insurgent right-of-center media properties will be to embrace Trump fully, providing readers with a churn of daily content dedicated to supporting him and his agenda. Already we are seeing the impact in some corners – it is highly unlikely that Sean Hannity would be welcoming the likes of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange on his program absent Trump’s rise.<br /><br />This is understandable. There is a natural inclination for ideological media figures to get overly excited about candidates. It is easy to be influenced by the adoration of a politician’s fans or be swept along by the panic of his detractors. But being guided by core beliefs becomes all the more important in such a moment, lest a bubble mentality set in where a politician can do no right or no wrong.<br /><br />Perhaps the biggest question moving forward for the nation is whether our bubbles can be made thinner – which is really a sloppier way of saying whether we can learn to treat each other with respect, breaking down the cultural barriers that prevent us from seeing the world through eyes not just our own. Particularly in a time of political realignment, bubbles allow us to become more tribal, more distant from commonly shared experience, and view the opposite side of politics not as opponents, but as enemies. We cannot address problems we refuse to acknowledge even exist.<br /><br />As the Trump era begins, media entities and conservatives alike should resolve to avoid bubbles – the former in order to cover this White House fairly, and the latter to respond to its policies in ways consistent with American conservatism’s philosophy of laissez faire economics and individual rights. This starts with taking a hard view of our prior assumptions about our neighbors. G.K. Chesterton wrote that “What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” In 2017, let us resolve to look to the beam in our own eyes before citing the mote in the eyes of our fellow Americans.<br /><br />---</span></div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-8233779366034757702017-01-08T10:38:00.000-08:002017-01-08T10:38:00.690-08:00BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, OUR MUSLIM PRESIDENT, ONE OF THE WORST PRESIDENTS IN OUR HISTORY<div class="qQVYZb">
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<h1 style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Barack Obama's legacy of failure</h1>
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<b>by Jeff Jacoby<br /><i><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/01/08/home-and-abroad-obama-trail-disasters/YOaU1KuAT3hSHaGHkmGCeN/story.html&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNG-20T1YOZKxQNfFcfNN08iKLEdog" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2017/01/08/home-and-abroad-obama-trail-disasters/YOaU1KuAT3hSHaGHkmGCeN/story.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">The Boston Globe</a></i><br /><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1205803067" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">January 8, 2017</span></span><br /></b></div>
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AS HE PREPARES to move out of the White House, Barack Obama is understandably focused on his legacy and reputation. The president will deliver a farewell address in Chicago <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1205803068" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Tuesday</span></span>; he told his supporters in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/01/02/my-farewell-address&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNEG4crdxeS12BVK908edZ6R3Y0Emw" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/01/02/my-farewell-address" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">an e-mail</a>that the speech would "celebrate the ways you've changed this country for the better these past eight years," and previewed his closing argument in <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-legacy-twitter/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNEdpMFVD9L2nqFdKA69enfh_R-DLg" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-legacy-twitter/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">a series of tweets</a> hailing "the remarkable progress" for which he hopes to be remembered.</div>
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Certainly Obama has his admirers. For years he has enjoyed doting coverage in the mainstream media. Those press ovations will continue, if a spate of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://amzn.to/2j6JsIC&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNG1CpwE-ov1qbXWM37M6CFSpGl1Wg" href="http://amzn.to/2j6JsIC" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">new</a> or <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://amzn.to/2hQ5xcL&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNEUXyAS-YcfV42cVIlt0fosIHT8HQ" href="http://amzn.to/2hQ5xcL" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">forthcoming</a> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://amzn.to/2i8fgss&source=gmail&ust=1483986907471000&usg=AFQjCNE-DyqfIH8mQqlbd6q1_IKRo6_7zg" href="http://amzn.to/2i8fgss" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">books</a>by journalists is any indication. Moreover, Obama is going out with better-than-average <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNFA4_RM1Mb-T6Oy7PP7Him7wndCsQ" href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">approval ratings</a>for a departing president. So his push to depict his presidency as years of "remarkable progress" is likely to resonate with his true believers.</div>
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But there are considerably <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/shepard-fairey-hope-poster-obama-disappointed-118377&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNE9FBPbH7Ww-CuezeKd0vboiL6hMQ" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/shepard-fairey-hope-poster-obama-disappointed-118377" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">fewer of those true believers</a> than there used to be. Most Americans long ago got over their <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DwKsoXHYICqU&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGK6lgP1gcOWTRTTI2lAku9nRWOHg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">crush on Obama</a>, as they repeatedly demonstrated at the polls.</div>
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In 2010, two years after electing him president, voters trounced Obama's party, handing Democrats the biggest midterm losses in 72 years. Obama was reelected in 2012, but by nearly 4 million fewer votes than in his first election, making him the only president ever to win a second term with shrunken margins in both the popular and electoral vote. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1205803069" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Two years later</span></span>, with Obama <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.weeklystandard.com/obama-my-policies-are-on-the-ballot.-every-single-one-of-them./article/808469&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNF2aB7eQEk8WIwNJ14VBTrA4X0u8A" href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/obama-my-policies-are-on-the-ballot.-every-single-one-of-them./article/808469" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">imploring voters</a>, "[My] policies are on the ballot — every single one of them," Democrats were clobbered again. And in 2016, as he campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton, Obama was increasingly adamant that his legacy was at stake. "I'm not on this ballot," <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/president-obama-carries-urgent-message-to-floridas-black-voters-vote-for/2301338&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNG6-LNpYZ4-oRQ9nf9b-1mWw7_NaQ" href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/president-obama-carries-urgent-message-to-floridas-black-voters-vote-for/2301338" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">he told campaign rallies</a> in a frequent refrain, "but everything we've done these last eight years <i>is</i> on the ballot." The voters heard him out, and once more turned him down.</div>
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As a political leader, Obama has been a disaster for his party. Since his inauguration in 2009, roughly 1,100 elected Democrats nationwide have been ousted by Republicans. Democrats lost their majorities in the US House and Senate. They now hold just 18 of the 50 governorships, and only 31 of the nation's 99 state legislative chambers. After eight years under Obama, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/17/republican_party_the_strongest_its_been_in_80_years.html&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNFJmEKfeVz8mLcsEPAwD5KeRgBaJQ" href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/17/republican_party_the_strongest_its_been_in_80_years.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">the GOP is stronger</a> than at any time since the 1920s, and the outgoing president's party is in tatters.</div>
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When Obama touts the way he "changed this country for the better these past eight years," the wreckage of the Democratic Party — to say nothing of the election of Donald Trump — presumably isn't what he has in mind. Yet the Democrats' repudiation can't be divorced from the president and policies he embraced. Obama urged Americans to cast their vote as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on his legacy. That's what they did.</div>
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In almost every respect, Obama leaves behind a trail of failure and disappointment. Consider just some of his works:</div>
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<b><i>The economy</i></b>. Obama took office during a painful recession and (with Congress's help) made it even worse. Historically, the deeper a recession, the more robust the recovery that follows, but the economy's rebound under Obama was the worst in seven decades. Annual GDP growth since the recession ended has averaged a feeble 2.1 percent, by far the puniest economic performance of any president since World War II. Obama <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNF5ptTkK8PeKScshNigxNlpQhw9Cw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">spent more public funds on "stimulus"</a> than all previous stimulus programs combined, with wretched, counterproductive results. On his watch, millions of additional Americans fell below the poverty line. The number of food stamp recipients soared. The national debt doubled to an incredible $20 trillion. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of young adults (18- to 34-year-olds) living in their parents' homes is the highest it has been since the Great Depression — <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/4-the-job-market-and-young-adult-living-arrangements/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNFKPHTQcITNX6gZ4XUfDc7G_IPgxw" href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/4-the-job-market-and-young-adult-living-arrangements/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">particularly young men</a>, whose employment and earning levels are far lower than they were a generation ago.</div>
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In 2008, when Obama was first elected president, 63 percent of Americans considered themselves middle class. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1205803070" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Seven years later</span></span>, only 51 percent still felt the same way. Obama argues energetically that his economic policies have delivered prosperity and employment. Countless Americans disagree — including many who aren't Republican. "Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted," <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bubba-bashes-obamas-pretty-picture-economy-says-millions-left-behind/article/2585134&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGPYVmQFEPe8pkKtxz3qsqaExGXfg" href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bubba-bashes-obamas-pretty-picture-economy-says-millions-left-behind/article/2585134" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">said Bill Clinton</a> after Obama extolled the recovery in his last State of the Union speech, "and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives."</div>
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The president's endlessly-repeated vow that Obamacare would not force anyone to give up a health plan they liked was PolitiFact's 2013 "Lie of the Year."</div>
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<b><i>Health care</i></b><i>.</i> The Affordable Care Act should never have been enacted. Survey after survey confirmed that it lacked majority support, and only through hard-knuckled, party-line maneuvering was the wrenching health-care overhaul rammed through Congress. But Obama was certain the measure would win public support, because of three promises he made over and over: that the law would extend health insurance to the 47 million uninsured, that it would significantly reduce health-insurance costs, and that Americans who had health plans or doctors they liked could keep them.</div>
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But Obamacare has been a fiasco. At least 27 million Americans are <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-obamacare/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNFF-NODrUBfoO4JK-AMCaF3nsPgDw" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-obamacare/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">still without health insurance</a>, and many of those who are newly insured have simply been added to the Medicaid rolls. Far from reducing costs, Obamacare sent <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/insurers-seek-big-premium-boosts-1464220397&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGwvCCAzYEGShJ4mTpTOQZJBbCtFQ" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/insurers-seek-big-premium-boosts-1464220397" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">premiums</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/obamacare-deductibles-are-on-the-rise-for-2017-along-with-monthly-premiums.html&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNFLKdbgfF8Gcvw6zw3hoKCMP0T2uw" href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/obamacare-deductibles-are-on-the-rise-for-2017-along-with-monthly-premiums.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">deductibles</a>skyrocketing. Insurance companies, having suffered billions of dollars in losses on the Obamacare exchanges, have pulled out from many of them, leaving consumers in much of the country with few or no options. And the administration, it transpired, knew all along that millions of Americans would <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance-f8C11484394&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNEzRTkjHiTRr3sgYYm_7Uy5vy2JAw" href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance-f8C11484394" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">lose their medical plans</a> once the law took effect. The deception was so egregious that in December 2013, PolitiFact dubbed "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" as its "<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGX904XmjjAA1BIwn93fKbyFXoeWQ" href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Lie of the Year</a>."</div>
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<b><i>Foreign policy.</i></b> The 44th president came to office vowing not to repeat the foreign-policy mistakes of his predecessor. His own were exponentially worse.</div>
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In his rush to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, he created a power vacuum into which terror networks expanded and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://time.com/4395255/president-barack-obama-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGSYoS5-C_8U-kJ8WX3qN-59pDzvA" href="http://time.com/4395255/president-barack-obama-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">the Taliban revived</a>. Islamic State's jihadist savagery not only plunged a stabilized Iraq back into shuddering violence, but also inspired <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/21050&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGkroRNX5IJayoYfAzfLlrwpALwVQ" href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/21050" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">scores of lethal terrorist attacks in the West</a>. For months, Obama and his lieutenants insisted that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad could be induced to "reform," and pointedly refused to intervene as an uprising against him metastasized into genocidal slaughter. At last Obama vowed to take action if Assad crossed a "red line" by deploying chemical weapons — but when those weapons were used, Obama blinked. The death toll in Syria climbed into the hundreds of thousands, triggering a flood of refugees greater than any the world had seen since the 1940s.</div>
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Determined to conciliate America's adversaries, the president indulged dictatorial regimes in Iran, Russia, and Cuba. They in turn exploited his passivity with multiple treacheries — seizing Crimea and destroying Aleppo (Russia), abducting American hostages for ransom and illicitly testing long-range missiles (Iran), and cracking down mercilessly on democratic dissidents (Cuba). Meanwhile, American friends and allies — Israel, Ukraine, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204518504574418563346840666&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNEF8wf9Bpl0GxxEYVjAILSkLAXWVA" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204518504574418563346840666" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Poland and the Czech Republic</a> — Obama undermined or betrayed.</div>
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Syria's dictator slaughtered innocent civilians with chemical weapons, crossing a "red line" that President Obama warned he would not tolerate. But he did tolerate it, with devastating results.</div>
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For eight years the nation has been led by a president intent on lowering America's global profile, not projecting military power, and "leading from behind." The consequences have been stark: a Middle East awash in blood and bombs, US troops re-embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, aggressive dictators ascendant, human rights and democracy in retreat, rivers of refugees destabilizing nations across three continents, the rise of neo-fascism in Europe, and the erosion of US credibility to its lowest level since the Carter years.</div>
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<b><i>National unity</i></b>. As a candidate for president, Obama promised to soothe America's bitter and divisive politics, and to replace Red State/Blue State animosity with cooperation and bipartisanship. But the healer-in-chief millions of Americans voted for never showed up.</div>
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According to Gallup, Obama became the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/06/politics/obama-gallup-approval-rating-polarized/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNH_z76SbO5pU8yHjoSQ8uVxd4s2HA" href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/06/politics/obama-gallup-approval-rating-polarized/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">most polarizing president</a> in modern history. Like all presidents, he faced partisan opposition, but Obama worsened things by regularly taking the low road and disparaging his critics' motives. In his own words, his political strategy was one of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.snopes.com/bringing-a-gun-to-a-knife-fight/&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNEYB9EE6AriGp3W5ukcH89pd6MMdg" href="http://www.snopes.com/bringing-a-gun-to-a-knife-fight/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">ruthless escalation</a>: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." During his 2012 reelection campaign, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/verdict-obama-levels-more-attacks-080810&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNEM5g_4rZx19I5CGUvXvXGHgke9Mw" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/verdict-obama-levels-more-attacks-080810" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Politico reported</a> that "Obama and his top campaign aides have engaged far more frequently in character attacks and personal insults than the Romney campaign." And when a Republican-led Congress wouldn't enact legislation he sought, Obama turned to his "pen and phone" strategy of governing by diktat that polarized politics even more.</div>
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To his credit, Obama acknowledges that he didn't live up to his promise to reduce the angry rancor of Washington politics. Had he made an effort to do so, perhaps the campaign to succeed him would not have been so mean. And perhaps 60 percent of voters would not feel that their country, after two terms of Obama's administration, is "<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pblqzohenw/trackingreport.pdf%23page%3D12&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNGo5sJYwniYLTWFGuV6IcCSAEVBKA" href="http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pblqzohenw/trackingreport.pdf#page=12" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">on the wrong track</a>."</div>
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Obama's accession in 2008 as the nation's first elected black president was an achievement that <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.jeffjacoby.com/561/silver-linings-even-on-the-right&source=gmail&ust=1483986907472000&usg=AFQjCNH8yYiAgo2oF6XnZmxMJ1upnnCiEg" href="http://www.jeffjacoby.com/561/silver-linings-even-on-the-right" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">even Republicans and conservatives could cheer</a>. It marked a moment of hope and transformation; it genuinely did change America for the better.</div>
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It was also the high point of Obama's presidency. What followed, alas, was eight long years of disenchantment and incompetence. Our world today is more dangerous, our country more divided, our national mood more toxic. In a few days, Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. Behold the legacy of the 44th.</div>
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(<i>Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe</i>).</div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-34012747364261115582016-12-30T05:29:00.000-08:002016-12-30T05:29:05.916-08:00IDEOLOGY MORE THAN PRAGMATISM DRIVES DEMOCRATS<br />
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The “Good News” of an Ideological Party</h1>
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<a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/author/david-carlin/" rel="author" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #920000; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by David Carlin">David Carlin</a></div>
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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2016 </div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Note:</strong> We’re in the last few days of the year and there’s still time to donate to the work of The Catholic Thing. All you need to do is to <a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/donate/" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #920000; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><strong style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">click on the Donate button</strong></a> and choose one of the many easy ways to make your entirely tax-deductible contribution. Do it today. <strong style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">– Robert Royal</strong></div>
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A distinction can be made between two kinds of political parties: pragmatic parties and ideological parties.</div>
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For most of its history the Democratic Party was a pragmatic party, not an ideological party. It was not interested in making a certain philosophy of life prevail in society. That’s what ideological parties do – for instance, the Communist Party in the old Soviet Union or the Nazi Party in Germany. They wish to transform society and culture so that a certain worldview prevails, a certain quasi-religion.</div>
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Pragmatic parties, by contrast, wish to distribute patronage to their friends, the patronage of jobs, contracts, tax breaks, and welfare benefits. They care little or nothing about ideology. To be sure, you will find ideologues and ideological elements in even the most pragmatic of pragmatic parties, just as you will find pragmatic elements in even the most ideological of ideological parties. But these ideological elements are minor elements in a pragmatic party, not major elements.</div>
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As noted, the Democratic Party throughout most of its history has been a pragmatic party; as have been its great rivals, the Republican Party and the earlier Whig Party.</div>
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But that is no longer true, and it grows less true with every passing year. The Democratic Party, I contend, is increasingly an ideological party, perhaps even predominantly an ideological party; and if it not yet predominantly ideological, it soon will be unless its current “progressive” trends are interrupted. In this regard, it resembles the Communist Party and Nazi Party.</div>
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Now I would not like to be misunderstood here. I am not suggesting that Democrats are like Nazis and Communists. Generally speaking, Democrats, even very ideological Democrats, are nice people. They are polite; they are often kind, sometimes very kind; they wouldn’t hurt a flea (notwithstanding the fact that they would cheerfully have unborn babies killed). But they are ideologues; or at least they are led by ideologues, and the rank and file follow these ideological leaders.</div>
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The great majority of Democrats, I concede, are not ideologues; it is not their intention to transform America’s traditional culture and replace it with a “new and improved” culture. But the Democratic Party is being led today by leftist ideologues who wish to do precisely that. These ideologues are the “brains” of the party, while everybody else provides the party’s “muscle.”</div>
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What do these intellectual leaders of the party believe? What is the new and improved culture they wish to persuade the American people to adopt? What is the “good news” they preach?</div>
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(1) They preach a metaphysics: There is no God, at least no God like the God of the Bible; no Supreme Being who created the universe and governs it. And if they sometimes say that they are agnostics, not atheists, their agnosticism is virtually identical with atheism; the two differ in name only.</div>
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(2) They preach a theory of knowledge: There is no knowledge other than sense-based knowledge, the kind of empirical knowledge upon which natural science is based. (They pride themselves on their respect for science even though very few of them are actual scientists or philosophers or historians of science.) Thus there is no such thing as Divine Revelation. And there is no such thing as trans-empirical intuitive knowledge – for example, intuitive knowledge of the existence of God, of the immortality of the soul, of the fundamental laws of morality.</div>
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(3) They preach a theory of morality, a morality of maximum personal liberty. We should be free to do as we like, and we should tolerate a like freedom in others. Of course certain practical limits must be placed on this freedom if we are to avoid a war of all against all: we should not be free to inflict direct and tangible harm on non-consenting others.</div>
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(4) Sexual freedom: While there are many other kinds of freedom, sexual freedom is, so to speak, the keystone of the arch. If sexual intolerance is permitted, many other kinds of intolerance will follow.</div>
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(5) Anti-Christianity: The most influential opponent of the above beliefs and values is Christianity, more especially old-fashioned Catholic and Protestant Christianity. Therefore old-fashioned Christianity must be marginalized, must be driven into a social corner where it can do little or no harm.</div>
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(6) Omnicompetent government. There is no problem, not even the problem of controlling the terrestrial climate for the next 10,000 years, that cannot be solved, at least in the long run, by the action of the U.S. federal government. Do we have problems of poverty or crime or education or health or drug addiction or global warming? There must be solution that Washington can find for it – a law, an agency, a spending program, a global treaty, etc.</div>
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With regard to ideology, Democrats can be divided into three concentric circles. The innermost circle is made up of the leftist ideologues I’ve been talking about; they are the ones who manufacture “progressive” ideas and distribute them at the wholesale level.</div>
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The next circle, a larger circle, is made up of semi-ideologues; they are consumers and retail distributors of these ideas.</div>
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The outermost circle, the largest circle of all, is made up of non-ideologues. If they accept, or at least don’t oppose, “progressive” ideas, this is not from love of these ideas but from party loyalty. In this outermost circle can be found many blacks, Latinos, labor union members, and family heritage Democrats.</div>
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The Democratic Party isn’t the only crucial place where anti-Christian ideologues and semi-ideologues have won control. They have also won control in the entertainment industry, in the news media, and in our leading colleges and universities (including law schools).</div>
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A relatively small number of smart and well-organized fanatics can re-shape a culture. It’s happened many times in the past, and it’s now happening right under our noses.</div>
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<img alt="David Carlin" class="avatar avatar-100 wp-user-avatar wp-user-avatar-100 alignleft photo" height="100" src="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/wp-content/uploads/carlin-foto-150x150.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; float: left; font-size: 16px; height: auto; margin: 0px 20px 10px 0px !important; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="100" /></div>
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David Carlin</h4>
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David Carlin is professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.</div>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-73473235109485681372016-12-25T19:17:00.001-08:002016-12-25T19:17:08.142-08:00USEFUL IDIOTS ARE BREEDING LIKE RABBITS<h1 style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
As socialism shattered Venezuela, the useful idiots applauded</h1>
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<b>by Jeff Jacoby<br /><i><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/25/socialism-shattered-venezuela-useful-idiots-applauded/ZoQnAX5WksuCTauiAjCx4M/story.html&source=gmail&ust=1482808022734000&usg=AFQjCNGYXU9k7SZLIisumgVwMQM8d4oFrg" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/25/socialism-shattered-venezuela-useful-idiots-applauded/ZoQnAX5WksuCTauiAjCx4M/story.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">The Boston Globe</a></i><br /><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_749869657" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">December 25, 2016</span></span><br /></b></div>
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WHEN THE COLD WAR ended 25 years ago, the Soviet Union vanished into the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DDB4ffRjxvJo%26feature%3Dyoutu.be%26t%3D227&source=gmail&ust=1482808022734000&usg=AFQjCNHZgW2N1en6lDKmttFm1HWy06soZA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB4ffRjxvJo&feature=youtu.be&t=227" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">ash heap of history</a>. That left the West's "useful idiots" — Lenin's term for the ideologues and toadies who could always be relied on to justify or praise whatever Moscow did — in search of other socialist thugs to fawn over. Many found a new heartthrob in Hugo Chavez, the anti-<i>Yanqui</i> rabble-rouser who was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, and in short order had transformed the country from a successful social democracy into a grim and corrupt autocracy.<br />
An avowed Marxist and protégé of Fidel Castro, Chavez gradually seized control of every lever of state power in Venezuela. The constitution was rewritten to strip the legislature and judiciary of their independence, authorize censorship of the press, and allow Chavez to legislate by decree. Before long the government acquired a stranglehold over the economy, including the huge and profitable energy sector. (Venezuela has the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-largest-oil-reserves-by-country.html&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNFRUPdOYY2nQSdyP96G8r0A0wYoag" href="http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-largest-oil-reserves-by-country.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">largest oil reserves</a> in the world.)<br />
With petrodollars pouring in, Chavez had free rein to put his statist prescriptions into effect. The so-called "Bolivarian revolution" over which he — and later his handpicked successor, Nicolas Maduro — presided, was an unfettered, real-world example of anticapitalist socialism in action. Venezuela since at least the 1970s had been Latin America's most affluent nation. Now it was a showpiece for command-and-control economics: price and currency controls, wealth redistribution, ramped-up government spending, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/05/03/hugo-chavez-control-property-rights-in-venezuela.html&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNHsyEAKgHj1mJaPN0TXqL96BBd_7Q" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/05/03/hugo-chavez-control-property-rights-in-venezuela.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">expropriation</a> of farmland, and the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations-idUSBRE89701X20121008&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNF1o3i7sWQhX-68NucroL7DpRmq2w" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations-idUSBRE89701X20121008" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">nationalization</a> of private banks, mines, and oil companies.<br />
And the useful idiots ate it up.<br />
In a Salon piece titled "<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNGigfClTbNaWN4V7qD4kfZf50zUkw" href="http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Hugo Chavez's economic miracle</a>," David Sirota declared that the Venezuelan ruler, with his "full-throated advocacy of socialism," had "racked up an economic record that . . . American president[s] could only dream of achieving." The Guardian offered "<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/02/venezuela-hugo-chavez-anniversary-election&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNH_veuAo3332DFW_GyvEr01xarG2g" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/02/venezuela-hugo-chavez-anniversary-election" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Three cheers for Chavez</a>." Moviemaker Oliver Stone <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/with-amigos-like-these-oliver-stones-embrace-of-authoritarianism/&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNEtlGF2pgD0J-pH4HIPEz1VSq6llw" href="http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/with-amigos-like-these-oliver-stones-embrace-of-authoritarianism/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">filmed a documentary</a> gushing over "the positive changes that have happened economically in all of South America" because of Venezuela's socialist government. And when Chavez died in 2013, Jimmy Carter <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/03/05/carter-praises-chavez-improving-lives-millions&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNGKHsQwX1-2N_6sGS9MnKoL5HO9hA" href="http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/03/05/carter-praises-chavez-improving-lives-millions" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">extolled</a> the strongman for "improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen."<br />
In the real world, however, socialism has transformed Venezuela into a Third World dystopia.<br />
Venezuela this Christmas is sunk in misery, as it was last Christmas, and the Christmas before that. Venezuelans, their economy wrecked by statism, face <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/31/news/economy/venezuela-shortage/&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNGEJqGjuVWzzSgVkb0a0spFp97pOg" href="http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/31/news/economy/venezuela-shortage/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">crippling shortages</a> of everything from food and medicine to toilet paper and electricity. Violent crime is out of control. Shoppers are forced to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.enca.com/money/life-on-the-line-in-venezuela-as-economic-crisis-worsens&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNHjgm1Yvwx_71q87WRhw_rGhET9GQ" href="https://www.enca.com/money/life-on-the-line-in-venezuela-as-economic-crisis-worsens" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">stand in lines</a> for hours outside drugstores and supermarkets — lines that routinely lead to empty shelves, or break down in fistfights, muggings, and mob looting. Last week the government deployed 3,000 troops to restore order after frantic rioters <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuela-deploys-troops-after-weekend-riots-1482179909&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNEuh02koTutESKYzDBeihugX9o7vg" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuela-deploys-troops-after-weekend-riots-1482179909" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">rampaged</a> through shops and homes in the southeastern state of Bolivar.<br />
In the beautiful country that used to boast the highest standard of living in Latin America, patients now die in hospitals for lack of basic health-care staples: soap, gloves, oxygen, drugs. In some medical wards, there isn't even water to wash the blood from operating tables.<br />
Between 2012 and 2015, "the rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry", <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html?_r%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNFOisOeG6dOgb-JvvMO5qFyy8GbNw" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html?_r=0" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">the New York Times reported</a> in May. "The rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period."<br />
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Citizens of Venezuela, once the most affluent country in Latin America, now routinely wait in extremely long lines to buy food. Government price controls, rationing, and seizure of private property have destroyed the nation's economy.</div>
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Socialism invariably kills and impoverishes. Gushing oil revenues amid a global energy boom could temporarily disguise the corrosion caused by a government takeover of market functions. But only temporarily. The Chavez/Maduro "Bolivarian revolution" has been economic poison, just like every other Marxist "revolution" from Lenin's Russia to Kim Il Sung's North Korea to the Castros' Cuba. By shredding property rights, dictating prices, and trying to control supply and demand, socialist regimes eventually make everything worse and virtually everyone poorer. Conversely, when governments protect free markets and allow buyers and sellers to interact freely, prosperity expands.<br />
For three years in a row, Venezuela has ranked No. 1 on the Cato Institute's "<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://panampost.com/rebeca-morla/2016/01/12/venezuela-is-still-the-most-miserable-country-on-the-planet/&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNGUPIdVVj1j0ehVOWwWIo1GjgtavQ" href="https://panampost.com/rebeca-morla/2016/01/12/venezuela-is-still-the-most-miserable-country-on-the-planet/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">misery index</a>" which ranks each of the world's countries according to a formula that adds its unemployment, interest, and inflation rates, then subtracts its annual change in GDP per capita. With Venezuelan currency virtually worthless — hyperinflation this year is estimated at higher than 700 percent — residents have to resort to humiliating and pathetic workarounds. Reuters reported this month that Venezuelan women have been flocking across the border into Colombia and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy-hair-idUSKBN13U2I7?il%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNF1ilafibG6L3yRgDslk2219rNxWQ" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy-hair-idUSKBN13U2I7?il=0" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">selling their hair</a> in their desperation to earn some money with which to buy food, medicine, or diapers.<br />
The government in Caracas, meanwhile, clings tightly to its socialist dogma, blaming the country's woes on Colombia's "mafia" or greedy businessmen. Ten days ago, government agents raided a toy distributor, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/americas/venezuelan-government-toy-seizure-grinch/&source=gmail&ust=1482808022735000&usg=AFQjCNHs-kTl9IwuBGWmiGGcY3J1nQCjbA" href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/americas/venezuelan-government-toy-seizure-grinch/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">confiscating nearly 4 million toys</a> on the grounds that the company was planning to sell them at inflated prices. The regime says it will make the toys available at below-market prices to the poor — thereby ensuring that in Venezuela next Christmas, toys won't be available at <i>any</i> price. If nothing else, Venezuelan socialism has accomplished this much: It has transformed the Grinch from fiction into reality.<br />
(<i>Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe</i>).<br />
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-51763068499895955202016-12-21T14:32:00.000-08:002016-12-21T14:32:07.575-08:00DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTS ENRICH THEMSELVES IN OFFICE WHILE THE PEOPLE GET MORE POOR<section id="article-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: SourceSansProRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><h1 class="headline" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: 'Heuristica Bold'; font-size: 60px; line-height: 1; margin: 21px 0px 10.5px;">
Obama’s Real Estate: The Injustice of Social Justice</h1>
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Posted: Dec 20, 2016 12:21 PM</div>
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<a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2016/12/21/inclusiveness-and-diversity-n2261387" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;" title="Inclusiveness and Diversity - 73"><img class="pull-right hpc__colimg" src="http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/ColPics/Williams.jpg" style="background-color: #dddddd; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; float: right !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 10px; max-width: 100%; padding: 1px; vertical-align: middle; width: 60px;" /></a></div>
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If you think the left is upset about president-elect Trump’s billionaire cabinet picks just wait until they hear about President Obama’s real-estate purchases! As President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama prepare to take their last Hawaiian vacation on the government dime, many are left wondering what’s next for the charismatic couple that fundamentally transformed American culture and politics. Perhaps, the question to ask is “where next?”</div>
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Talk about out of touch! At some point the left has to decide whether “evil One Percenters” like the outgoing president are friends or foe, if the accumulation of personal wealth is good or bad, and if legitimate success, unlike wealth redistribution (a.k.a. theft) through social justice, is worthy of admiration or scorn. Not to mention, if the Apostle Paul was right when he said in 2 Thessalonians 3;10: “if a man will not work he shall not eat.” Until that occurs, how about we just ridicule these left-wing hypocrites!</div>
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Had conservatives known social justice would become such a lucrative industry for democratic elitists, perhaps some of us might have been tempted to screw the little guy, secure our own financial future, and fill our campaign coffers like the disgraced Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, and President Obama himself. But, noooo! Instead, we selfishly chose to champion capitalism! You know, the free market system that has helped more people escape poverty worldwide than any other; that relies on God-given talent, ambition, drive, hard work, competition, equal opportunity for all ethnicities, creativity and a bit of luck, otherwise known as preparation. How selfish could we be?</div>
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I wasn’t a huge fan of Donald Trump during the primary season because I believed then as I do now that he’s a Big Government Republican. Having said that, except for a few questionable cabinet picks that I’m cautiously optimistic about, namely Nikki Haley, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil for Secretary of State, Trump’s cabinet picks have been impressive. The left disagrees. A couple of weeks ago, the NY Times wrote a hit piece on some of Trump’s cabinet appointees because they’re billionaires. It was entitled “Trump’s Economic Cabinet Picks Signal Embrace of Wall St. Elite.” </div>
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To the contrary, I believe Trump’s cabinet picks signal an embrace of success! Whether you’re speaking of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary, Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education, Wilbur L. Ross Jr. as Secretary of Commerce, Todd Ricketts as Deputy Commerce Secretary, or Vincent Viola as Secretary of the Army, these are hardworking and accomplished Americans who can teach us all a lesson on how to achieve our own dreams. These “billionaires,” that are virtually volunteering their time to serve our country will undoubtedly make an incredible contribution to our nation by rolling back burdensome regulations that have hurt America’s labor force. As job creators, they should be revered not maligned. These titans of industry employ the “forgotten man,” while leftists steal from them under the guise of “social justice.” </div>
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President Obama’s real estate purchases are a perfect example of the unjustifiable profitability of social justice warriors. While democratic elites claim to fight for “income inequality” and the “little guy,” they often enrich themselves off the backs of their constituents. Apparently living off the largesse of the government is moral but becoming rich in the private citizen sector is not. After President Obama leaves the opulence of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., he’ll have no less than four homes waiting for him. You heard me right! Wishing your college major was social justice? Here’s a look at the President’s estates: </div>
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1) According to the Daily Wire, the Obamas will move into a nine-bedroom mansion in the affluent Kalorama section of Washington after leaving the White House, complete with a gourmet kitchen and butler’s pantry while Sasha Obama finishes high school. </div>
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2) Next on the list, is a vacation home in Hawaii that is likely the famous Robin Masters Estate from the 80s hit show Magnum P.I. that starred Tom Selleck. The home was purchased for $8.7 million via a corporate concern controlled by Marty Nesbitt – a financier and golfing buddy to the president.</div>
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3) Who can forget the Obama’s 8,232- square-foot home in the gated community of Rancho Mirage, California purchased in 2014 according to the Los Angeles Times and USA Today? It’s the former home of novelist Joseph Wambaugh. The neighborhood is also where icons Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and Bing Crosby once lived. It’s a four bedroom, 4.5 bath home that rest atop 3.29 acres and has a main house, built in 1993, complete with a gym, a pool with a 20-foot waterfall, a rock lagoon, two spas, a misting system, a putting green with a sand trap. Also on the property there’s a guest house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Not too shabby for a community organizer turned president with a $400,000 annual salary!</div>
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4) Lastly, who can forget the sweetheart real-estate deal the Obama’s received from the infamous Tony Rezko for their Georgian brick mansion in Chicago, Illinois?</div>
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Imagine the number of the Obama’s former constituents they’ll have to share their homes with on a routine basis if they truly believe in “spreading the wealth around.” They’d better stock up on Febreze and toilet paper before they leave the White House to toil amongst us po’ folk because things could get messy! Of course, we all know that won’t happen.</div>
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Listen, to believe social justice is a virtue is to believe that thievery is moral, individual talent is immoral and unfair, and the ability to become wealthy through hard work is a sin. By extension, buying stuff that your neighbor can’t afford is unrighteous. That’s crazy!</div>
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The truth is social justice </div>
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doesn’t reconcile with Biblical truth. God neither favors the poor or the rich, but admonishes us all. True justice requires equality before the law, not equality of income or abilities. Deep down, I think the Obamas know that and now, so do you.</div>
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<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: SourceSansProRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px;">Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George Bush did not acquire any more real estate after they left the Presidency than they had before they </span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: SourceSansProRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px;">The Clintons and the Obamas on the other hand enriched themselves at the taxpayers expense.</span></span></b></span></div>
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</section>Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-35913118170853022082016-12-18T18:30:00.002-08:002016-12-18T18:31:18.183-08:00QUIT YOUR CRYING, GROW UP, FACE THE FACTS !!!<br />
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It's Official: Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California </h1>
<span class="featured-post-image-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block !important; font-size: 13px; position: relative;"><img alt="Outside California, Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote by 1.4 million to Donald Trump. (ZUMAPRESS.com/Newscom)" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" src="http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Commentary_vote_121616_newscom.jpg" height="565" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" srcset="http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Commentary_vote_121616_newscom.jpg 1000x, http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Commentary_vote_121616_newscom-300x170.jpg 300x, http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Commentary_vote_121616_newscom-768x434.jpg 768x, http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Commentary_vote_121616_newscom-200x112.jpg 200x" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 800px;" width="1000" /><div class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.563em; padding: 10px 0px 0px; text-align: justify; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; width: 800px;">
Outside California, Hillary Clinton lost the popular vote by 1.4 million to Donald Trump. (ZUMAPRESS.com/Newscom) </div>
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Democrats who are having trouble getting out of the first stage of grief — denial — aren't being helped by the fact that, now that all the votes are counted, Hillary Clinton's lead in the popular vote has topped 2.8 million, giving her a 48% share of the vote compared with Trumps 46%.</div>
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To those unschooled in how the United States selects presidents, this seems totally unfair. But look more closely at the numbers and you see that Clinton's advantage all but disappears.</div>
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As <a href="http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/outside-california-clinton-is-a-big-time-popular-vote-loser/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14059e; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;">we noted in this space earlier</a>, while Clinton's overall margin looks large and impressive, it is due to Clinton's huge margin of victory in one state — California — where she got a whopping 4.3 million more votes than Trump.</div>
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California is the only state, in fact, where Clinton's margin of victory was bigger than President Obama's in 2012 — 61.5% vs. Obama's 60%.</div>
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But California is the exception that proves the true genius of the Electoral College — which was designed to prevent regional candidates from dominating national elections.</div>
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In recent years, California has been turning into what amounts to a one-party state. Between 2008 and 2016, the number of Californian's who registered as Democrats climbed by 1.1 million, while the number of registered Republicans dropped by almost 400,000.</div>
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What's more, many Republicans in the state had <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">nobody to vote for</em> in November.</div>
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There were two Democrats — <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">and zero Republicans</em> — running to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer. There were no Republicans on the ballot for House seats in nine of California's congressional districts.</div>
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At the state level, six districts had no Republicans running for the state senate, and 16 districts had no Republicans running for state assembly seats.</div>
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Plus, since Republicans knew Clinton was going to win the state — and its entire 55 electoral votes — casting a ballot for Trump was virtually meaningless, since no matter what her margin of victory, Clinton was getting all 55 votes.</div>
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Is it any wonder then, that Trump got 11% fewer California votes than John McCain did in 2008? (Clinton got 6% more votes than Obama did eight years ago, but the number of registered Democrats in the state climbed by 13% over those years.)</div>
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If you take California out of the popular vote equation, then Trump wins the rest of the country by <em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">1.4 million votes</em>. And if California voted like every other Democratic state — where Clinton averaged 53.5% wins — Clinton and Trump end up in a virtual popular vote tie. (This was not the case in 2012. Obama beat Romney by 2 million votes that year, not counting California.)</div>
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Meanwhile, if you look at every other measure, Trump was the clear and decisive winner in this election.</div>
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***</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Number of states won:</span><br />
Trump: 30<br />
Clinton: 20<br />
_________________<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Trump: +10</em></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Number of electoral votes won:</span><br />
Trump: 306<br />
Clinton: 232<br />
_________________<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Trump: + 68</em></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Ave. margin of victory in winning states:</span><br />
Trump: 56%<br />
Clinton: 53.5%<br />
_________________<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Trump: + 2.5 points</em></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Popular vote total:</span><br />
Trump: 62,958,211<br />
Clinton: 65,818,318<br />
_________________<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Clinton: + 2.8 million</em></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">Popular vote total outside California:</span><br />
Trump: 58,474,401<br />
Clinton: 57,064,530<br />
_________________<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">Trump: + 1.4 million</em></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit;">RELATED:</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/sorry-democrats-but-putin-didnt-steal-the-u-s-election-for-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14059e; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Sorry, Democrats, But Putin Didn't Steal The U.S. Election For Trump</a></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.563em; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
<a href="http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-is-right-millions-of-illegals-probably-did-vote-in-2016/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14059e; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Trump Is Right — Millions Of Illegals Probably Did Vote In 2016</a></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, serif; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.563em; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
<a href="http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/why-hillary-clinton-lost-an-election-post-mortem/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #14059e; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Why Hillary Clinton Lost: An Election Post-Mortem</a></div>
</div>
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</footer>Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-8693125048390322892016-12-17T09:49:00.001-08:002016-12-17T09:49:49.757-08:00THE REMARKABLE LEGACY OF PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA<br />
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WHAT IS SO REMARKABLE ABOUT THESE TEN STATES ???<br />
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<span id="m_8047469498250974295yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1481993629811_8141" style="color: black;">Amazing stats: Make sure you read to the bottom... An eye opener! (Or should be!)<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22656" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22657" />1.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22658" />California<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22659" />New Mexico<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22660" />Mississippi<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22661" />Alabama<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22662" />Illinois<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22663" />Kentucky<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22664" />Ohio<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22665" />New York<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22666" />Maine<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22667" />South Carolina<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22668" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22669" />These 10 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed!<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22670" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22671" />2.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22672" />Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22673" />2012, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22674" />other benefits, the average U.S. Household below the poverty line received<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22675" />$168.00 a day in government support.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22676" />What's the problem with that much support?<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22677" />Well, the median household income in America is just over $50,000, which<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22680" />averages out to $137.13 a day.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22681" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22682" />To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22683" />$30.00 an hour for 40 hour week, while the average job pays $24.00 an hour.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22684" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22685" />3. Check the last set of statistics!!<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22686" />The percentage of each past president's cabinet... who had worked in<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22687" />the private business sector... prior to their appointment to the cabinet.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22688" />You know what the private business sector is: A real-life business...<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22689" />not a government job.<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22690" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22691" />Here are the percentages:<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22692" />38% T. Roosevelt<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22693" />40% Taft<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22694" />52% Wilson<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22696" />49% Harding<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22697" />48% Coolidge<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22698" />42% Hoover<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22700" />50% F. D. Roosevelt<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22701" />50% Truman<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22702" />57% Eisenhower<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22703" />30% Kennedy<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22704" />47% Johnson<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22705" />53% Nixon<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22706" />42% Ford<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22707" />32% Carter<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22708" />56% Reagan<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22709" />51% GH Bush<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22710" />39% Clinton<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22712" />55% GW Bush<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22713" /> 8% Obama<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22718" /><br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22719" />This helps explain the bias, if not the incompetence, of this current<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22720" />administration:<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22721" />ONLY 8% of them... have ever worked in private business! That's right!<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22722" />Only eight percent - the least, by far, of the last 19 presidents!<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22723" />And these people are trying to tell our corporations how to run their<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22724" />business?<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22725" />How can the president of a major nation and society, the one with the<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22726" />most successful economic system in world history, stand and talk about<br id="m_8047469498250974295yiv5174116935ox-d89c95d3c9-yiv3489570662m_3191696369277026755m_-54601323434738343yiv4617377962m_345818012666844248yiv9138121779yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478117222995_22727" />business when he's never worked for one? </span></div>
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And now you know why we have illegals pouring into our country </div>
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and why so many don't want to work.<br /><blockquote id="m_8047469498250974295yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1481993629811_9900" type="cite">
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-54415437731676169532016-12-03T18:37:00.000-08:002016-12-03T18:37:38.484-08:00THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ARE CRAZY<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dWRPuXOfv6g/SJ-6EHND-ZI/AAAAAAAABZ4/4IrisTuCLAIOvvj94-iszOfoXLh15GXiACPcB/s1600/ROARING%2BLION.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dWRPuXOfv6g/SJ-6EHND-ZI/AAAAAAAABZ4/4IrisTuCLAIOvvj94-iszOfoXLh15GXiACPcB/s1600/ROARING%2BLION.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">
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<div style="color: black; display: inline; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="background: white; font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">USA
Founding fathers in their infinite wisdom created the Electoral College to
ensure the STATES were fairly represented. Why should one or two densely
populated areas speak for the whole of the nation?</span></div>
<blockquote type="cite">
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<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">The
following list of statistics has been making the rounds on the Internet and
it should finally put an end to the argument as to why the Electoral College
makes sense.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Share
this with as many whiners as you can.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;"></span> </div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;"></span> </div>
</div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">There
are 3,141 counties in the United States.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Trump
won 3,084 of them.<br />Clinton won 57.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">There
are 62 counties in New York State.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Trump
won 46 of them.<br />Clinton won 16.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Clinton
won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">In
the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond
& Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump.
(Clinton only won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond)</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Therefore
these 5 counties alone, more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular
vote of the entire country.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">These
5 counties comprise 319 square miles.<br />The United States is comprised of
3, 797,000 square miles.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">When
you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of
territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who
inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national
election.</span></div>
<div class="m_-6689319590855726370yiv0370417844MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(214,214,214); line-height: 19.5pt; margin-top: 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">Large,
densely populated Democrat cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, etc) don’t and
shouldn’t speak for the rest of our country.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 15pt; letter-spacing: 0.45pt;"><br /></span>
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Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-24528705722753003582016-11-29T08:16:00.001-08:002016-11-29T08:16:20.439-08:00THE COASTAL ELITES DO NOT KNOW THAT WE EXIST IN THE REST OF AMERICA<div style="text-align: center;">
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THE MEDIA NEEDS TO DO MORE THAN VISIT FLYOVER COUNTRY<br />
<br />
The Transom<br />
29 November 16 <br />
<br />
Les Sillars. <a href="http://vlt.tc/2n7c">http://vlt.tc/2n7c</a> “Every so often the mainstream media establishment is shocked to find itself guilty of completely misunderstanding the American public, caught napping in an intellectual bubble of its own making. Usually these embarrassments prompt a short-lived round of hand-wringing and little else.<br />
<br />
After George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, some editors assigned reporters to the “conservative beat.” When they misunderstood the rise of the Tea Party in 2010, they promised to get out more often into the hinterlands.
“Now some admit they failed to grasp the level of populist rage at elites and especially the news media that led to Donald Trump’s election. One New York Times columnist observed that “it was clear that something was fundamentally broken in journalism.”<br />
<br />
Figuring out flyover country will take more than assigning a few reporters because “flyover country isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind.”
“Aside from the fact that the phrase “flyover country” reflects the sort of deep condescension that angers so many conservatives in the first place, he is, as tiger/philosopher Hobbes might put it, stumbling toward the perimeter of wisdom.
“It’s not just that so many mainstream journalists are out of touch, it’s that so many share foundational beliefs about the nature of God, humanity, and reality—in short, they share a worldview. That’s why sending their current staff into Arkansas once again to interview a couple of yokels and thereby plumb the depths of the red-state American soul just isn’t going to work.
“If mainstream editors had some foresight, they would start finding and cultivating journalistic talent who can think outside their bubble. The point would not be to seek out conservatives merely to balance out liberal bias (even if they were prepared to admit bias, and most aren’t). They need journalists with the intellectual firepower—and the will—to recognize and respect the range of reasonable worldviews among their potential readers and viewers. They need reporters who can see society clearly and report on it in a fashion that doesn’t anger half their potential audience.
" <br />
<br />
Ridiculous? Naïve? Maybe, but I wish mainstream editors would at least try this approach. It made The New York Times the most respected newspaper in the world for decades. When Tennessee publisher Adolph Ochs, desperate for cash at the time, bought a struggling little paper in 1896, in his first issue he wrote: “It will be my earnest aim that THE NEW-YORK TIMES give the news … impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved; to make the columns of THE NEW-YORK TIMES a forum for the consideration of all questions of public importance, and to that end to invite intelligent discussion from all shades of opinion.”
<br />
<br />
That Times never quite lived up to Ochs’ ideals, but he did provide a sensible alternative to the obnoxiously sensational “yellow press” or “new journalism” of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. It took years before the Times became wildly successful (nothing the paper did was all that wild) but he found the journalists who could pull it off.
<br />
<br />
“The Times set the standard for the modern American journalistic ideal of “objectivity” and outlasted papers that chased readers with what we’d today call click-bait. Twenty-five years later, an admiring editor at another paper wrote that eventually Ochs taught his yellow competitors that “decency meant dollars.”
<br />
<br />
“Many of my conservative friends will regard me as nuts for suggesting a mainstream news revival might be a good idea. Many conservatives long ago dismissed the networks (outside Fox) and major papers as beyond redemption. Clearly, they seem unlikely to change. They have little incentive to accommodate people who seem to despise them, while years of harsh critiques have hardened them more than prompted serious self-reflection. The nation’s largest newsrooms have not merely blown off conservative criticism, many have doubled down on their liberal bias.
“It was a mistake, because their business models depend on speaking to entire communities and even the nation. Once upon a time, so did their rhetoric.”
---<br />Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7111597812687655355.post-78402180213266072016-11-06T13:54:00.000-08:002016-11-06T13:54:03.971-08:00DONALD TRUMP AND HILLARY CLINTON WALK INTO A BAR.......<span class="hb"><span class="g2" dir="ltr" name="savesoul"></span> </span><br />
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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton walk in to a bar.<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2918" />Donald leans over, and with a smile on his face, says,</div>
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“The media is really tearing you apart for that Scandal.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2920" />Hillary: “You mean my lying about Benghazi?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2921" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2922" />Hillary: “You mean the massive voter fraud?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2923" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2924" />Hillary: “You mean the military not getting their votes counted?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2925" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2926" />Hillary: “Using my secret private server with classified material to Hide my Activities?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2927" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2928" />Hillary: “The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything Else?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2929" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2930" />Hillary: “Using the Clinton Foundation as a cover for tax evasion, Hiring Cronies, And taking bribes from foreign countries?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2931" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2932" />Hillary: “You mean the drones being operated in our own country without The Benefit of the law?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2933" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2934" />Hillary: “Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million, and right afterward it Declared Bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2935" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2936" />Hillary: “You mean arming the Muslim Brotherhood and hiring them in the White House?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2937" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2938" />Hillary: “Whitewater, Watergate committee, Vince Foster, commodity Deals?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2939" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2940" />Hillary: “Turning Libya into chaos?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2941" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2942" />Hillary:
“Being the mastermind of the so-called “Arab Spring” that only brought
chaos, death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2943" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2944" />Hillary: “Leaving four Americans to die in Benghazi?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2945" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2946" />Hillary: “Trashing Mubarak, one of our few Muslim friends?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2947" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2948" />Hillary:
“The funding and arming of terrorists in Syria, the destruction and
destabilization of that nation, giving the order to our lapdogs in
Turkey and Saudi Arabia to give sarin gas to the “moderate” terrorists
in Syria that they eventually used on civilians, and framed Assad, and
had it not been for the Russians and Putin, we would have used that as a
pretext to invade Syria, put a puppet in power, steal their natural
resources, and leave that country in total chaos, just like we did with
Libya?<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2949" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2950" />Hillary: “The creation of the biggest refugees crisis since WWII?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2951" />Trump: “No the other one:”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2952" />Hillary: “Leaving Iraq in chaos? ”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2953" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2954" />Hillary: “The DOJ spying on the press?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2955" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2956" />Hillary: “You mean HHS Secretary Sibelius shaking down health insurance Executives?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2957" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2958" />Hillary: “Giving our cronies in SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1902292903" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ">3 Months Later</span></span> they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2959" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2960" />Hillary: “The NSA monitoring citizens’ ?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2961" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2962" />Hillary: “The State Department interfering with an Inspector General Investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2963" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2964" />Hillary: “Me, The IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2965" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2966" />Hillary: “Threats to all of Bill’s former mistresses to keep them quiet?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2967" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2968" />Hillary:
“You mean the INSIDER TRADING of the Tyson chicken deal I did where I
invested $1,000 and the next year I got $100,000?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2969" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2970" />Hillary: “You mean when Bill met with Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, just before my hearing with the FBI to cut a deal?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2971" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2972" />Hillary: ” You mean the one where my IT guy at Platte River Networks asked Reddit for help to alter emails?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2973" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2974" />Hillary: “You mean where the former Haitian Senate President accused me and my foundation of asking him for bribes?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2975" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2976" />Hillary:
“You mean that old video of me laughing as I explain how I got the
charges against that child rapist dropped by blaming the young girl for
liking older men and fantasizing about them. Even though I knew the guy
was guilty?<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2977" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2978" />Hillary: “You mean that video of me coughing up a giant green lunger into my drinking glass then drinking it back down?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2979" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2980" />Hillary: “You mean that video of me passing out on the curb and losing my shoe?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2981" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2982" />Hillary:
“You mean when I robbed Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party
Nomination by having the DNC rig the nomination process so that I would
win?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2983" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2984" />Hillary: “You mean how so many people that oppose me have died in mysterious was?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2985" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2986" />Hillary:
“Travel Gate? When seven employees of the White House Travel Office
were fired so that friends of Bill and mine could take over the travel
business? And when I lied under oath during the investigation by the
FBI, the Department of Justice, the White House itself, the General
Accounting Office, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee,
and the Whitewater Independent Counsel?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2987" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2988" />Hillary:
“The scandal where, (while I was Secretary if State), the State
Department signed off on a deal to sell 20% of the USA’s uranium to a
Canadian corporation that the Russians bought, netting a $145 million
donation from Russia to the Clinton Foundation and a $500,000 speaking
gig for Bill from the Russian Investment Bank that set up the corporate
buyout?. That scandal?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2989" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2990" />Hillary: “That time I lied when I said I was under sniper fire when I got off the plane in Bosnia?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2991" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2992" />Hillary:
“That time when after I became the First Lady, I improperly requested a
bunch of FBI files so I could look for blackmail material on government
insiders?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2993" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2994" />Hillary:
“That time when Bill nominated Zoe Baird as Attorney General, even
though we knew she hired illegal immigrants and didn’t pay payroll taxes
on them?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2995" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2996" />Hillary:
“When I got Nigeria exempted from foreign aid transparency guidelines
despite evidence of corruption because they gave Bill a $700,000 in
speaking fees?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2997" />Trump” “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2998" />Hillary:
“That time in 2009 when Honduran military forces allied with rightist
lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, and I
as then-Secretary of State sided with the armed forces and fought global
pressure to reinstate him?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_2999" />Trump: “No, the other one.”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_3000" />Hillary: “I give up! … Oh wait, I think I’ve got it! When I stole the White House furniture, silverware, when Bill left Office?”<br id="m_-4315616874474790975yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1478459787509_3001" />Trump: “THAT’S IT! I almost forgot about that one”.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Leo Rugienshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07362185173458398748noreply@blogger.com0