Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

President Trump, NeverTrumpers, and keeping kosher

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Regarding NeverTrumpers, are there two different kinds — the sleazy grifters and the genuinely principled people who cannot swallow the idea of Trump?

Kosher symbols Trump NeverTrumpersThe Torah (that is, the five books of Moses) imposes multiple life rules on Jews and how many of these rules a given Jew follows depends on that person’s degree of religious orthodoxy. For non-Jews, the kosher dietary laws are probably the best known commandments that religious Jews must obey.

For those Jews who keep kosher, there are myriad rules about the type of food that may be eaten, the way animals must be slaughtered, the way the food must be prepared, and the dishes on which it can be served. Keeping kosher is complicated and takes observant Jews outside of the mainstream of American eating.

For those with a deep commitment to God, however, the kosher dietary laws are simply a fact of life. Moreover, they find non-kosher food so viscerally repugnant that they wouldn’t dream of knowingly eating it.

God’s laws, though, are still subsets of an even more important principle: The Torah’s highest and most important directive is to choose life. In keeping with this directive, over the centuries the rabbis developed the doctrine of Pikuach nefesh. Per Wikipedia, which seems to be quite accurate on this point:

Pikuach nefesh (Hebrew: פיקוח נפש, IPA: [piˈkuaχ ˈnefeʃ], “saving a life”) describes the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious consideration. When the life of a specific person is in danger, almost any mitzvah lo ta’aseh (command to not do an action) of the Torah becomes inapplicable. [Hyperlinks and footnotes omitted.]

Specifically with regard to the intersection between Pikuach nefesh and kosher dietary rules, Wikipedia explains as follows:

Non-kosher food may be eaten under the following circumstances:

  • If no kosher food is available to the person, and failure to eat the non-kosher food may result in starvation.
  • If a non-kosher food product specifically is needed to cure an illness.

If necessary for recovery, a patient may eat non-kosher foods. In the Babylonian Talmud, Chapter 82a of Tractate Yoma mentions pregnancy cravings for non-kosher food (the passage discusses a pregnant woman who craves pork on Yom Kippur) as the paradigmatic example of a presumed life-threatening situation where a person is allowed to eat non-kosher food (and is permitted to eat it on Yom Kippur). [Hyperlinks omitted]

The fact that something is permitted, though, doesn’t necessarily mean someone is able to do it. I have heard stories of extremely orthodox Jews who, when rescued from Nazi concentration camps, were unable to make themselves eat if the only food available was not kosher. (This obviously doesn’t apply to quarrels about which plate to use; it applies to being offered pork or some other forbidden food to eat.) These Jews would tell their children to eat the food, but they viewed it with such revulsion — akin to your being asked to eat a piece of ancient, rotten, worm-ridden meat — that they simply couldn’t force it down. I don’t know if these stories are true, but they work nicely for my Trump analogy — or rather, for my NeverTrumpers analogy. [Read more…]

Avenatti, Hillary, and Trump: thoughts about character and sociopaths

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Avenatti and Clinton are self-serving criminals, while Trump is just a boaster and brawler — and he uses those traits constitutionally to serve America.

AvenattiI don’t know about you, but I’m finding completely fascinating the lengthening laundry list of malfeasance associated with Michael Avenatti. It turns out he’s not just a garden-variety crooked attorney with a gift for self-promotion who padded his bills or missed filing deadlines, only to lie about these things later. Instead, assuming the allegations against him to be true, Avenatti is a criminal of epic proportions. He embezzled millions of dollars from clients, one of whom was brain-damaged, in order to fund his other businesses enterprises as well as his high-end, race car-driving lifestyle.

Speaking only for myself, If I ever started engaging in crime, even minor crime, my instinct would be to keep a low profile. My crime motto, if I had one, would be “If you’re going to speed, do it in a boring car, not in a bright red sports car.” Thankfully, I am not criminally inclined, so this is not an issue.

Avenatti, however, who is apparently a true criminal, went in an entirely different direction. He did everything he could to make himself visible. Even more importantly for purposes of this post, he made himself visible at the national level by sitting in judgment — moral judgment — on the President of the United States. He spent months on Leftist TV speaking endlessly about what a corrupt person President Trump is. Then, when that fame started diminishing, Avenatti ratcheted up the fame factor again by thrusting himself into the heart of the baseless attack on Justice Kavanaugh.

To go back to my car metaphor, Avenatti wasn’t just speeding in a red sports car. He was speeding and running red lights, all while driving a red car with the top down, playing rap music at full blast on the top-end sound system, boasting a flag on the antenna reading “Hey, look at me” and, below that, another flag saying, “No, really, look at me!”

If I had to guess, I would say Avenatti is a sociopath. Or perhaps I should say he has an “antisocial personality disorder” (ASP), which is the modern DSM-5 classification for those people whom we once called sociopaths and/or psychopaths. I’m a little soured on the DSM, which seems more concerned with politics than clinical accuracy, but this laundry list of signs that someone has an ASP is remarkably accurate in describing not only Avenatti’s crimes, but his lust for fame, a lust entirely at odds with someone who actually wants to get away with criminal activity:

  • Violation of the physical or emotional rights of others
  • Lack of stability in job and home life
  • Irritability and aggression
  • Lack of remorse
  • Consistent irresponsibility
  • Recklessness, impulsivity
  • Deceitfulness
  • A childhood diagnosis (or symptoms consistent with) conduct disorder

Except for the last item in the list, about which we have no information, Avenatti ticks off all the other items. Nor is this a case of trying to massage a vaguely dishonest or insensitive person into the laundry list, even if that person really doesn’t belong there. Avenatti fits like a well-oiled key in a custom-made lock: His blatant attacks on others; his divorces and refusal to pay child care; his aggression; his manifest lack of remorse for his crimes (were he remorseful, he might be more low key); his carelessness with his clients and, indeed, with his own welfare as a criminal; the recklessness that drove him to the spotlight; and his blatant dishonesty — it’s all there. [Read more…]

President Trump is the “dayenu” president

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No matter how imperfect Trump is, looking at his record of accomplishments, as to each one I say the Passover word “dayenu” — it would have been enough.

Impeachment Trump Derangement SyndromeDuring the Passover dinner, one of the songs Jewish families sing is Dayenu. It is in the nature of a “count your blessings song,” with the song reciting each of God’s miracles during the Exodus and, after every verse reciting “dayenu,” which means “it would have been enough” or “it would have sufficed.” Growing up,  I considered this song one of the best parts of the proceedings. I was in good company, for Jews have been singing Dayenu for around one thousand years.

The song consists of three groups of praise for God’s miracles. The first group recites the miracles that challenged Pharaoh, the second recites the miracles that were the Exodus itself, and the third recites the miracles of being with God and getting the Ten Commandants during the forty years in the wilderness. Chabad provides a nice version of the lyrics in  both English and Hebrew:

If He had brought us out from Egypt, and had not carried out judgments against them Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ הוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרַיִם וְלֹא עָשָׂה בָהֶם שְׁפָטִים דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had carried out judgments against them, and not against their idols Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בָהֶם שְׁפָטִים וְלֹא עָשָׂה בֵאלֹהֵיהֶם דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had destroyed their idols, and had not smitten their first-born Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ עָשָׂה בֵאלֹהֵיהֶם וְלֹא הָרַג אֶת בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had smitten their first-born, and had not given us their wealth Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ הָרַג אֶת בְּכוֹרֵיהֶם וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת מָמוֹנָם דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us their wealth, and had not split the sea for us Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת מָמוֹנָם וְלֹא קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת הַיָּם דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had split the sea for us, and had not taken us through it on dry land Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ קָרַע לָנוּ אֶת הַיָּם וְלֹא הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had taken us through the sea on dry land, and had not drowned our oppressors in it Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ הֶעֱבִירָנוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ בֶּחָרָבָה וְלֹא שִׁקַּע צָרֵינוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had drowned our oppressors in it, and had not supplied our needs in the desert for forty years Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ שִׁקַּע צָרֵינוּ בְּתוֹכוֹ וְלֹא סִפֵּק צָרְכֵנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had supplied our needs in the desert for forty years, and had not fed us the manna Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ סִפֵּק צָרְכֵנוּ בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה וְלֹא הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת הַמָּן דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had fed us the manna, and had not given us the ShabbatDayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ הֶאֱכִילָנוּ אֶת הַמָּן וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us the Shabbat, and had not brought us before Mount Sinai Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַשַּׁבָּת וְלֹא קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had brought us before Mount Sinai, and had not given us the Torah Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ קֵרְבָנוּ לִפְנֵי הַר סִינַי וְלֹא נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had given us the Torah, and had not brought us into the land of Israel Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ נָתַן לָנוּ אֶת הַתּוֹרָה וְלֹא הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל דַּיֵּנוּ
If He had brought us into the land of Israel, and had not built for us the Beit Habechirah (Chosen House; the Beit Hamikdash) Dayenu, it would have sufficed us! אִלּוּ הִכְנִיסָנוּ לְאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא בָנָה לָנוּ אֶת בֵּית הַבְּחִירָה דַּיֵּנוּ

So you can get a sense of the melody, here is the Maccabeats’ charming version of the song (although when we were kids we perked up rather than collapsing during the song):

The point of the song, obviously, is not to get greedy, but to be grateful for whatever gifts or miracles come your way. God doesn’t need cumulative miracles to prove His greatness and the debt Jews owe Him. Each little thing He did, standing alone, would have been enough.

So what’s this got to do with Trump? Well, let me first assure you that I am not likening Trump to God. He is no God. He is, instead, a very imperfect man, but one who nevertheless has taken a series of steps that, even if each stands alone, is a reminder why a Trump presidency is so much better than the Hillary alternative. [Read more…]

Passover: the nature of tyranny never changes but freedom is worth the fight

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Passover tells us that tyrants fall only when revolution affects them directly and that revolutions are successful only when focused on individual liberty.

PassoverPassover, which begins tonight, is about so many things: the Jewish people’s renewed covenant with God; their escape from slavery; the journey that ended with the Ten Commandments and a return to Eretz Israel, the Holy Land of Israel; and — which is the subject of my annual post — the nature of tyranny.

Think about this for a minute: The Passover story, depending upon which Biblical archaeology you’re referencing, places the Passover story sometime between the 16th and 13th centuries B.C. In other words, this is a story that Jews have told and retold for as many as 3,500 years — and it’s a story that is always relevant. Slaves in the South took it as their story in 19th century America. And a couple of decades ago, when I was the only straight person at a gay Passover, the attendees there took it as their story too. The yearning for liberty is a timeless aspect of the human psyche.

It’s worth contemplating for a moment what “liberty” means. In European history, “liberty” invariably means trading one form of tyranny for another form of tyranny — only one in which the revolutionaries will have control. To Europeans, therefore, “liberty” is a gigantic state that will give them, rather than the others, all the goodies government can grab. And if, in exchange, government gets to control what they do, say, and think, well, they’re still “free” if the goodies keep flowing.

Once upon a time, the Americans went in a completely different direction that was more consistent with the original Exodus story. To go back to Exodus for a moment, Exodus might have told how the Jews rose up against Pharaoh, defeated him, took over Egypt, and enslaved their former enemies, at which point everyone who sided with the Jews lived happily ever after . . . right up until the Jews were deemed the tyrants and in turn overthrown.

But Exodus tells a different story: It tells about Jews leaving the old system behind entirely in order to live as a free people, even if that freedom meant the lack of a government safety net. After all, Pharaoh may have been cruel, but he kept them fed and housed. In the desert and in the land of Israel, the Jews were responsible for themselves, for better or worse.

In the same way, the American Revolutionaries, having concluded that England had become a tyrant by taking their money and dictating their actions without giving them a say in government, opted to create a different system entirely: one in which government played as small a role as possible and in which citizens had the greatest control over their lives . . . a notion both exciting and frightening. Ultimately, with fits and starts, failures and victories, tweaks and intransigence, this liberty-oriented system gave birth, not only to the most powerful nation in the world, but also to a nation that lifted more people out of poverty than any other nation ever had. Poverty is its own form of subjugation, so America spread freedom from want around large parts of the world. Indeed, today, those parts of the world most mired in poverty are nations that have systems antithetical to the American principles of individual liberty, small government, and a free market.

Put more simply, America went the Exodus route and traded enslavement for liberty. America did so because Americans, like the ancient Israelites, believed freedom was worth the scary downsides. And just as the ancient Israelites gave birth to a set of rules that changed the world (by which I mean the Ten Commandments), so too did Americans give birth to a political system that changed the world (by which I mean a system predicated upon limited constitutional government allied with a free market).

Both the Exodus story and the American experiment show that freedom is worth the price.

The eternal timeliness of the Exodus story also matters because it reminds us that tyranny never changes: Different tyrants may use different forms of tyranny, ranging from actual enslavement, as Pharaoh did, to oppressive political systems in which people ostensibly have citizens’ “rights” but lack all actual power over their lives. These modern tyrannies can be religious (think Iran), military (think of every Latin American junta), or ideological. In the latter category are fully socialist nations, such as North Korea pr Venezuela; socialist nations that nevertheless have commerce, such as China; and micromanaged liberal fascist states, of the type embodied in the European Union. In all of them, true freedom is illusory but the state, whether as a loving parent or a cruel, minatory parent, hides this lack of freedom by boasting about how it takes care of its citizens’ needs.

Another thing that never changes about tyranny is that, no matter how tyrants talk about what they do for the people, they hate the people. The only thing that matters to the one(s) atop the tyranny pyramid is that the tyranny remains stable and protected. Which gets me to my annual Passover post which, as always, I’ve edited it to reflect current concerns. [Read more…]

Muellerus Maleficarum — The Russia Collusion Witch Hunt Ends

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The Russia collusion witch hunt the progressive left aimed at Trump has failed to consign Trump to the auto-de-fe.  What is left are questions.

Russia Collusion The Mueller Report is now public — and the charges of Trump collusion / conspiracy with Russia are dead:

. . . While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks’s releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.

Indeed, to quote the Munchkin coroner examining the Wicked Witch of the East, the charges are “really most sincerely dead.”  Sorry, proggies.

[Read more…]

The “no news is good news” open thread

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Thanks to President Trump, it’s mostly good news out there, which is great for America (yay!), but limiting for a blogger. What do you think?

Good newsScott Adams made an excellent point the other day, which is that, now that the media can no longer waffle on about Russian collusion (at least those in the media who retain some vestiges of sanity), there isn’t much news going on. After all, news tends to follow the “if it bleeds it leads” principle or, alternatively, “if it creates panic it leads” principle.

Thanks to Trump, Adams notes, all the panic points within America are gone. Trump is building the wall and threatening to give sanctuary cities what they asked for; North Korea seems to be pacified; the Mullahs are feeling pressure from reinstated sanctions; the economy is roaring, people haven’t died in droves since the Trump administration and the courts clipped Obamacare’s wings; Israel has a real ally in the White House; ISIS is militarily gone; Saudi Arabia is moderating, etc.

Moreover, Adams believes that even anthropogenic climate change (whether one believes in it or not) is going to become a non-issue, not because of Occasional-Cortex’s Green Nude Eel, but because of something called Generation Four Nuclear Fusion. If you haven’t heard about Generation Four Nuclear Fusion, Adams touts it as a system that’s not only safe, but that also burns up all that dangerous used nuclear material from old-style reactors.

All I know about Generation Four Nuclear is what I hear from Scott Adams, so I can’t tell you any more about it. Perhaps you can tell me more. Adams claims, though, that it will cleanly and safely produce electricity all over the world, rendering climate change hysteria moot.

Of course there’s still stuff in the news. The fire at Notre Dame was a true headline maker. The post-fire stories are interesting too. As best as I can tell, because Notre Dame belongs to the state, not the church, all the usual suspects on the Left are pleading for it to be re-built in modern ecumenical fashion, without all that nasty religious messaging that hangs about the old church. Imagine a multi-cultural Notre Dame, complete with a Muslim prayer complex, a Wiccan room, an LGBTQ workshop, and all the other accouterments of modern faith movements.

What surprised me most was the speed with which the government pronounced that the fire was just a workplace accident. Considering that a 900 year old church went up in flames, you’d think they’d want a little longer to investigate before coming up with a conclusion.

Meanwhile, Pamela Geller offers some different information from those familiar with the restoration work going on at Notre Dame, namely that: [Read more…]

Notre Dame open thread

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A post in which I share my thoughts about the Notre Dame fire and an open thread at which you should feel free to post your thoughts too.

Notre Dame

Some random thoughts:

Just yesterday, the Gatestone Institute ran this Raymond Ibrahim article:

European Churches: Vandalized, Defecated On, and Torched “Every Day”

Countless churches throughout Western Europe are being vandalized, defecated on, and torched.

In France, two churches are desecrated every day on average. According to PI-News, a German news site, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France in 2018. This represents a 17% increase compared to the previous year (2017), when 878 attacks were registered— meaning that such attacks are only going from bad to worse.

Among some of the recent desecrations in France, the following took place in just February and March:

  • Vandals plundered Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nîmes and used human excrement to draw a cross there; consecrated bread was found thrown outside among garbage.
  • The Saint-Nicolas Church in Houilles was vandalized on three separate occasions in February; a 19th century statue of the Virgin Mary, regarded as “irreparable,” was “completely pulverized,” said a clergyman; and a hanging cross was thrown to the floor.
  • Vandals desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, and mangled the arms of a statue of a crucified Christ in a mocking manner. In addition, an altar cloth was burned.
  • Arsonists torched the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass on Sunday, March 17.

Similar reports are coming out of Germany. Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. “In this country,” PI-News explained, “there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses, on sacred statues by the wayside, on churches… and recently also on cemeteries.”

Who is primarily behind these ongoing and increasing attacks on churches in Europe? The same German report offers a hint: “Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.'”

[Read more…]

Reclaiming our language from transgender activists

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The speech demands that transgender activists and other Leftists make on us exceed the bounds of good manners and enter the realm of pure totalitarianism.

Transgender“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” — United States Constitution, First Amendment (which, through the 14th Amendment, applies to all governments in America, not just Congress).

“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.” — George Orwell, 1984.

“Monsieur l’abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” — Voltaire, letter to M. le Riche, February 6, 1770 (summarized in 1906 by S.G. Tallentyre as “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”). [UPDATE: But see the Babylon Bee’s take on the modern version of Voltaire. It’s satire . . . or is it?]

At this blog, I have written at some length about the lack of science behind the whole transgender movement. My two main posts on the subject are here and here. You can find most of my other posts about the transgender movement here. My point, over and over, is that the claim that someone is “transgender” has no basis in science, but that we are nevertheless being forced to change our language and even our thinking to accommodate a minute percentage of Americans who have severe body dysmorphia.

Speaking in a PragerU video, Abigail Shrier spells out in clear terms the way in which Leftists, through transgender activism, are upending the First Amendment and trying to implement IngSoc in America (AmSoc?).

I would sum up the video by saying that, without losing compassion for transgender people, who I believe suffer either from mental illness or imbalanced hormones (which should by treated by balancing those hormones), we must resist this totalitarian movement. Sympathy should not equal surrender. [Read more…]

Democrats: Enabling dangerous pathologies in black America

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If Dems were parents and black Americans were their children, we would clearly see that Dems are enablers cultivating their children’s worst behaviors.

Democrats Black America CrimeAlthough I no longer post on my real-me Facebook account, I still lurk periodically. One of the most interesting things about doing so is seeing what my Proggie friends are posting. For two years, they posted non-stop about “Russia! Russia! Russia!” and were open with their belief that Trump was either an idiot or an evil mastermind. Ever since the Mueller report emerged, though, they’ve pivoted away from Russia entirely, and are focused solely on getting an open border for America.

Interestingly, though, my pet Lefties have been completely silent about Trump’s awesome suggestion that all the people flooding the border be placed in sanctuary cities and communities that support illegal immigration. Oh, and if you haven’t seen Tucker Carlson on that issue, you must:

But I digress….

One of my old Proggie friends posted the following on her Facebook page:

My first thought when I saw that poster is that I don’t trust European data. I’m sorry, but I don’t.

I became suspicious years ago when I learned how different countries treat their infant mortality information. America is one of the few countries (or maybe the only country) to count every infant born alive as “alive,” even if it dies within minutes of birth. You’d think that every country would count “live” births that way, but you’d be wrong. Most other countries count as live births only those babies that are certain to live. It makes their numbers look better. [Read more…]

Spying On Trump & A Progressive Game of Semantics

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Proggie congresscritters claim to be shocked at charges about Obama administration “spying” on team Trump.  Given the public record, that is itself shocking.

Spying on TrumpThis from the Blaze (internal links omitted):

At a hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) asked Barr about a team he had indicated the day before that he was putting together to investigate the FBI’s handling of its Russia probe during the 2016 campaign, prior to the appointment of a special counsel. After President Donald Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in 2017, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to head an independent investigation that would be separate “from the normal chain of command.”

Barr responded that he planned on “reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed against — at the Trump campaign during 2016.” He said he wanted to “pull together all the information from the various investigations that have gone on, including on the Hill, and in the department, and see if there are any remaining questions to be addressed.”

Shaheen asked Barr why he thought this was necessary.

Roll the tape:

It is shocking indeed that the left would try to defend the FBI, CIA and DOJ on the factually ludicrous claim that none of the agencies were involved in “spying” on Trump, whether before or after the November 2016 election.   The public record is replete with the facts that show they targeted Trump, his campaign and then his administration. [Read more…]

Random thoughts on the unfolding Russia Collusion hoax

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With Barr promising to investigate the Russia Collusion Hoax, it’s a good time to think about the motivations driving those who masterminded the hoax.

Russia Collusion Hoax StrzokYesterday was another day spent pulling out ivy, a process I found so exhausting, I couldn’t write last night. Not writing, though, doesn’t mean not thinking. I’ve been thinking a lot about the Russia collusion hoax, especially about what drove the major actors to do what they did. After all, even if they thought the risk was minimal because they were banking on a Hillary victory and doing their best to ensure that victory, the power players knew that what they were doing was both illegal and immoral. That’s a pretty big hurdle for otherwise law-abiding people to make.

To get to my answer, I’ll start by looking at what they did (and mine is a slightly different focus than most others), and then I’ll try to answer the question about what powered these people’s engines. Here goes….

I suspect that several of you, like me, remember the Watergate scandal. For any of you young’uns reading this, way back in 1972, while acting on behalf of Nixon and his innermost circle, a bunch of former government operatives broke into Democrat National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex to steal information related to the election.

To give what they did some context, the equivalent act would be for some former 49er football players, acting at the behest of the current coach to break into Seattle Seahawk headquarters to steal the coaching book for the upcoming football season. It’s an aggressive form of cheating in the midst of a fiercely fought rivalry.

With that in mind, we can see that there are some parallels to Watergate in the Russia collusion hoax and some things that differ wildly. It’s easiest to start with the obvious difference, which is that the Russia Collusion scandal did not involve outsiders acting only once to steal a playbook. Instead, it involved permanent government employees embedded deeply in our entire security apparatus — the FBI, CIA, and DOJ — working in concert for months. Watergate was kindergarten and this was post-graduate work.

Moreover, unlike Watergate, after Trump was elected, this collusion scandal morphed into a full-blown government coup intended to take down a duly elected American president. That the Left — from the DNC, to the media, to the people down the block from me — looks upon this complacently instead of with horror tells you that the Left no longer has any allegiance to America, American values, or the Constitution. Every Leftist, no matter where situated, is enthusiastically embracing tin-pot banana republic tyranny. There are no words for how sad and how dangerous this is.

Interestingly, though, I haven’t heard anyone articulate what information these bad actors were seeking in the run-up to the election. I know this sounds like a stupid observation, and it may well be. The obvious answer is that these bad actors were seeking evidence of Russian collusion in order to create an October surprise that would bring down Trump’s candidacy.

The thing is, though, that you and I know that, while a few true believers may actually have thought that Trump and/or people within his inner circle were working in concert with Putin, the reality is that the big bad actors — Comey, Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Priestap, etc. — knew perfectly well that there was no collusion. They knew this because (so far as we know) the only proof they could bring to the FISA court to justify spying on Trump was the Steele dossier. [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 4/10/19 — the flyover country edition

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This discursive Bookworm Beat wanders from American black culture, to evil Leftists, to the wonders of Wal-Mart versus the horrors of socialized medicine.

Bookworm Beat Obama Brennan double standards insane leftistsEverything Leftists hate about America. I’ve been spending some time of late in small town America — in Eastern Tennessee to be specific. Frankly, I can see why coastal blue staters hate this part of America. There are so many things here that give offense: good suburban infrastructure, happy people, friendly interactions between the races, staggeringly beautiful nature with lots of open space, Wal-Marts, lawns that homeowners tend every weekend, and lots of pro-Trump and pro-Second Amendment bumper stickers on cars. This kind of well-managed, all-American environment is enough to give any Leftist chronic heartburn and a desire to destroy.

Speaking of those lawns, even though today is not a weekend day, I worked with a friend to get rid of ivy that had overtaken a corner of his property.

Ivy looks so pretty, doesn’t it? It’s not. There’s nothing pretty about it. It’s like Kudzu’s younger brother.

I filled seven big black garbage bags with the stuff and only cleared out 2/3 of it. I am exhausted. I also feel pretty darn self-righteous, though, which helps offset some of the fatigue.

But enough about living the good life in flyover country America. Let me get down to the brass tacks of today’s stories.

For American blacks, the problem isn’t race, it’s culture; more specifically, welfare culture. I’m going to assume that all of you saw Candace Owen’s testimony before a Democrat-run House Committee anxious to find a white nationalism problem where none exists. Owens was obviously nervous, but she was also rocking and rolling, talking about pathologies within the African American community that have nothing to do with white nationalism.

No wonder that the utterly vile Ted Lieu tried to smear Owens as a Hitler lover while the brain dead (Go)Nadler wrongly chastised her for calling Lieu stupid. The Democrats should be deeply embarrassed that these two moronic, immoral people represent them. [Read more…]

It’s time for America to stop living by the Wilson Doctrine

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As part of his admirable repudiation of the Wilson Doctrine, Trump absolutely should bring some U.S. troops home and station them on our besieged border.

Woodrow Wilson DoctrineI caught Tucker Carlson’s show tonight and really liked his opening monologue. It ostensibly went after #NeverTrumper Max Boot, but it really was about something larger, which is the foreign policy establishment’s abiding commitment to using American troops everywhere in the world except where they might actually protect America and Americans — namely, our southern border. Here’s the monologue, if you’re interested:

After the monologue, Trump Tucker spoke with a retired colonel about the D.C. establishment’s absolute unwillingness to use the American military directly for America’s benefit. The colonel believes that special interests are driving this foreign policy. I think it goes deeper than that. The elite (whether in the military or out of it) all went to the same colleges and they were all weened on the same doctrine — that doctrine being the Wilson doctrine. I wrote about the Wilson Doctrine exactly two years ago. I still like the points I made, so I’m reiterating them here, although I’m refining them and adding new material (I say this lest you think it would be too mind-numbering to re-read an entirely recycled post): [Read more…]

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