Bookworm Room

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

Progressives See Themselves As Above The Law And The Rest Of Us As Below It

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American Progressives want to be above the law and the Constitution, while treating Trump and his supporters as below the law and the Constitution. This can’t end well.

1619 Project constitution

INTRODUCTION

We live in two Americas today, two parts that are in a cold civil war.  The divide is between progressives who believe their moral superiority makes them above the law and the rest of us, whom progressives strongly believe should be subordinate to the law and the Constitution. To this end, progressives believe the Constitution, both its mandates and its limitations, are an obstacle that they can dispense with when any provisions do not redound to their benefit.  If Trump does not return us to an America in which the law is applied equally to all people, ending the progressive’s raw will to power and reuniting the two Americas, the current situation will spell this nation’s end.

I.  Trump and Charges of a Cover-up of the Ukraine Affair v. Hillary Clinton and her Private Server

Once the auditors to the Trump phone call with Ukraine’s president finalized and consolidated their notes from the call, the Trump Administration stored that document on a government top secret server for a few weeks — just as Trump’s predecessor, President Obama, did so with many of the memorializations of his phone calls with foreign leaders.  However, when congressional Democrats said that they wanted to see the transcript from the call, the Trump Administration immediately produced it. Nevertheless, the Democrats in Congress and in the media are now claiming that merely placing the document on that server is one of the grounds for impeaching Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr for a “cover up.”  It is ludicrous.

Hillary Clinton ran a private server out of a bathroom to hide her communications as Secretary of State for years, placed thousands of secret and top secret emails on the server, and then used “bleach bit” to wipe her server months after receiving a subpoena.  The Obama DOJ and FBI then engaged in the single most obscene travesty of justice in this nation’s history to exonerate her and they did so with the whole-hearted support of every progressive in and out of Congress.  The progressive left, repeatedly claiming her innocence, is only angry that she didn’t win the presidential election to which they — and she — felt she was entitled.

[Read more…]

Andrew McCarthy’s Off To A Fast Start

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An excerpt from Andrew McCarthy’s new book, Ball of Collusion, lays out the reality of the attempted coup against Trump.

There really was a collusion plot. It really did target our election system. It absolutely sought to usurp our capacity for self-determination. It was just not the collusion you’ve been told about for nearly three years. It was not “Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia.”

Here is the real collusion scheme: In 2016, the incumbent Democratic administration of President Barack Obama put the awesome powers of the United States government’s law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus in the service of the Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, the Democratic party, and the progressive Beltway establishment. This scheme had two parts: Plan A, the objective; and Plan B, a fail-safe strategy in case Plan A imploded — which all the smartest people were supremely confident would never, ever happen . . . which is why you could bet the ranch that it would.

Plan A was to get Mrs. Clinton elected president of the United States. This required exonerating her, at least ostensibly, from well-founded allegations of her felonious and politically disqualifying actions.

Plan B was the insurance policy: an investigation that Donald Trump, in the highly unlikely event he was elected, would be powerless to shut down. An investigation that would simultaneously monitor and taint him. An investigation that internalized Clinton-campaign-generated opposition research, limning Trump and his campaign as complicit in Russian espionage. An investigation that would hunt for a crime under the guise of counterintelligence, build an impeachment case under the guise of hunting for a crime, and seek to make Trump un-reelectable under the guise of building an impeachment case. . . .

Do read the whole excerpt at NRO.  That is a perfect summary of what has happened to our nation over the past three years.

Time For A Reckoning Against The Anti-Trump Coup Leaders

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If we are to remain a nation of laws, then the people who manifestly engineered a coup against duly elected President Trump need to be called to account.

Coup Trump Racism Overton WindowCan you believe that it is 2019 and Trump has, to this moment at least, survived a coup attempt?  I did not expect him to survive the onslaught.  He has to be the cleanest President we’ve ever had in office.  He just survived a three year investigatory equivalent of a general warrant to search anywhere for any crime — something the Bill of Rights made unlawful on December 15, 1791.

Unlike a criminal investigation, which benefits from Constitutional limits and protections, things were different for Trump. Beginning on July 31, 2016, when the FBI launched an investigation explicitly aimed at Trump — and right through and including the Mueller investigation, likewise explicitly aimed at Trump, — every aspect of Trump’s life, his businesses, and finances his finances was pried open under the rubric of a “counter-intelligence investigation.”  That he is clean as a whistle is obvious, for we know that, had the FBI or the Mueller team found anything that could be cast as a crime, whether related to Russia or not, they would have used it to destroy Trump. After all, Mueller’s team, while pursuing their Russia counter-intelligence investigation, used evidence about fraud regarding taxi medallions, something far removed from Mueller’s mandate, to prosecute Michael Cohen.

Anti-Trump actors in the government leaked top-secret information from NSA wiretaps to the press.  Mueller’s team metaphorically raped people around Trump  — including Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen — to get them to give some evidence that Trump committed crimes.  The Mueller investigative team actively solicited testimony adverse to Trump, unethically and seemingly without regard to whether true or false.  Trump’s personal attorney was subject to a SWAT-style raid, as was Roger Stone when his arrest played out for all on CNN.  At least one person, Carter Page, was subject to four separate FISA warrants — and under the two hop rule, we can safely assume that means Trump and his inner circle were spied upon as part and parcel of that warrant as well.  They were spied upon under four FISA Warrants for an entire year, beginning in October 2016 and concluding in September 2017.   Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that they were the real target, with Carter Page merely a convenient patsy. Strikingly, despite this total warfare, when it came to Trump, Mueller and Co. produced . . . nothing.

There is no predicate in American law or history for any of this, whether the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation aimed at Trump, the FISA warrants, or the way in which the DOJ unlawfully authorized Mueller to conduct a criminal investigation under the guise and rules of a counter-intelligence investigation. That is, this did not start with a crime that called for an investigation. This started with an elected president whom Washington insiders both feared and disdained and they used the investigation in the hopes that they could find a crime. The only predicate to this approach can be found in the Soviet Union’s Levrentiy Beria, who famously said, “Show me the man, I’ll find the crime.” It was an abuse aimed at finding anything in Trump’s activities that could force him from office or, during the duration of the investigation, get him to make a mistake, then force him from office on a process crime.

It’s this unconstitutional, Soviet-style, bass-ackwards bullshit that allows Mueller to claim before Congress that there’s meaning to the fact that he has not not proven Trump innocent of obstruction. As others have pointed out, Mueller also failed to exonerate Trump of assassinating Lincoln).  And thus do we now have half of the progressive Congresscritters calling for Trump’s impeachment on the grounds that Trump obstructed an investigation . . . that Mueller says was never “curtailed, stopped or hindered” . . . for a crime or crimes . . . that neither Trump nor anyone in his administration committed.

Folks, this is a top-down, engineered coup to overturn the 2016 election.  It is not enough that the coup be defeated.  We need the disinfectant of sunshine — to make public every single aspect of this attempted coup.  And then we need heads on pikes, metaphorically, and people in prison, for real.  Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum. Let justice be done though the heavens fall.

To that end, these are the questions I believe need to be answered: [Read more…]

Elizabeth Warren as imagined by Monty Python

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Watching Elizabeth Warren boast about her “plan” for Mitch McConnell shows she has a doppelgänger in the Monty Python universe — John Cleese’s Anne Elk.

Elizabeth Warren Anne Elk Monty Python John CleeseDo you remember how, during last week’s debate, Elizabeth Warren stated that she had a plan for dealing with Mitch McConnell and then promptly followed that statement with meaningless blather? Even TIME Magazine figured out that, her statement about a plan notwithstanding, Warren had nothing of value to say:

The same was true when it came to Warren’s plans about gun violence. Instead of having a plan, she wants to conduct a study. She can conduct studies until the cows come home, but that’s not a plan; that’s a process. [Read more…]

Benjamin Wittes and witless logic about Trump

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The Benjamin Wittes “I believe” tweetstorm about Trump, intended to expose conservative “Doublethink,” instead exposed Leftist irrationality and ignorance.

Wittes Impeachment Trump Derangement SyndromeThe anti-Trump blogosphere, both Leftists and #NeverTrumpers, is excited about an endless series of tweets from Benjamin Wittes all intended, in a sarcastic way, to challenge Trump and his supporters. Before I go further, some background on Wittes: He is a Brookings Institution Senior Fellow who graduated from Oberlin and is currently co-director of Harvard Law School’s Brookings Project on Law and Security. In other words, he’s been marinated in Leftism since he hit college (and, given that he went to a non-Orthodox Jewish school in New York City, probably for his entire life).

Okay. Now back to those tweets. It’s apparent from reviewing the tweets that what Wittes is trying to do is show that conservatives have entered the Orwellian world of “doublethink”:

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

In fact, what Wittes has managed to do is show that Leftists are incapable of even “singlethink” — that is, the ability to look at two related pieces of information and recognize that they can easily and logically exist simultaneously in the same universe. For example, I can simultaneously believe that cows produce milk to feed their young and that humans consume and benefit from milk. As you can see, these two apparently disparate thoughts — cows milk is cow food but it’s also human food — manage to exist in the same universe without creating a logical black hole that destroys all rational thought.

With that in mind, how about we take a look at the Wittes tweet thread (which I’ve rendered in plain text):

I believe the president. I have always believed him.
‘I believe the president’: GOP stands by Trump on sexual assault allegation
Republicans are dismissing E. Jean Carroll’s accusation and still sticking with Trump.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/25/trump-accuse-gop-1382385

Yeah, I stand by President Trump too on this one. I’m not going to analyze it here, though, because Wittes raises the subject again, below, and that’s where I address more fully the sordid sexual allegations Lefties like to raise against Trump.

I believed him when he said he wanted to ban Muslims from entering the United States. And I believe him now when he says his travel ban has nothing to do with religious discrimination.

In other words, Wittes is saying it’s impossible simultaneously to believe that Trump wants to keep Muslims out of America while not discriminating against Muslims; i.e., it’s doublethink! Except that to anyone who pays attention to facts, there’s nothing “doublethinky” at all about the fact that there is a segment of Islam that is cheerfully dedicated to Western destruction.

As it is, Wittes seems to have sat out the last few decades, when extremist members of the Islamic faith: [Read more…]

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…]

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…]

[VIDEO] Magnificent Trump victory dance — and no mercy

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Some say Trump should be grateful he was “exonerated” and let bygones by bygones. I say, “NEVER!” The wrongdoers MUST be punished and Trump MUST dance.

On a more serious note, I can see where “reconciliation” might be appropriate response when an entire sector of society has engaged in immoral behavior over the course of decades or its entire history. Punishing each individual is time-consuming and there’s a serious question as to whether there’s any judicial process that can properly identify all individuals who deserve punishment or that can prevent the process from being used to wage private vendettas. [Read more…]

Mueller Day: What Should Happen Next (Updated)

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Mueller shows that Russia Collusion belonged to Clinton/Democrat, not Trump. We must now reinstate the Rule of Law by prosecuting those behind this crime.

Mueller collusion arrestsMueller Day has arrived — and what we find is that everything provided to the FBI to start this investigation — all of the factual allegations — were b.s.  What should happen next is a special prosecutor to look at the greatest — and most illegal — dirty trick in political history.

Highlights from the findings of the Mueller Report, as summarized today in a letter to Congress:

“The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public.” . . .

“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. ” . . .

“The report’s second part addresses a number of actions by the President – most of which have been the subject of public reporting – that the Special Counsel investigated as potentially raising obstruction-of-justice concerns. . . . The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction.

. . . After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” . . .

What Should Happen Now? We must reinstate RULE OF LAW in this nation. [Read more…]

Fisking the Left’s escalating demands for Trump’s impeachment

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Even though Mueller has totally vindicated Trump, you can expect cries for impeachment to intensify. Learn here how stupid those impeachment demands will be.

Impeachment Trump Derangement SyndromeOne of the Progressives on my real-me Facebook feed contends that she never wanted Trump to be impeached because, as Nancy Pelosi said, “he’s just not worth it.” However, now that the Mueller Report has finally dropped, she’s suddenly changed her mind and says that impeachment is the only way to rein in Trump’s power. In other words, now that the Progressive’s primary nefarious scheme to reverse the 2016 election has failed, it’s time to move on to the next nefarious scheme.

To support her new tack, the Progressive cites to The Atlantic’s March 2019 issue entitled Impeach Donald Trump : Starting the process will rein in a president who is undermining American ideals—and bring the debate about his fitness for office into Congress, where it belongs.  The article is certainly timely insofar as its publication conveniently coincides with the Mueller Report. The Progressive says the article is totally believable because the author, Yoni Appelbaum, is a “moderate,” albeit one with a “little bias.”

Having looked at Appelbaum’s article, I have to say I disagree with the article’s title, with every argument contained within it, and with my friend’s assessment that Appelbaum is a “moderate.” It therefore struck me as an article ripe for the fisking. Before I do so, though, I want to do three things. First, even before addressing Appelbaum’s argument, which on its face gives the lie to any claimed “moderation,” I’d like to address Appelbaum’s record, which also gives the lie to any claimed “moderation.”

Appelbaum is an editor at The Atlantic, so he doesn’t write a lot. When he does . . . well, here are most of Appelbaum’s videos or articles over the past couple of years:

I don’t know about you, but I’m not seeing political moderation in Appelbaum. Instead, I’m seeing monomaniacal hate against Trump from a hard-Left perspective.

Second, before diving into Appelbaum’s article, it’s worth remembering what the Constitution has to say about impeachment (Art. II, Section 4; emphasis mine):

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

After Friday’s news drop, I think we can confidently say that, with Mueller refusing any indictments, treason is off the table. (Also, considering Trump’s morning joie de vivre, I doubt that the report says, “Trump should be indicted, but the DOJ has to wait until he leaves the White House before beginning the process.”) The question, then, is whether Appelbaum can make an argument for “Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Third, as we dive into Appelbaum’s reasoning, I’d like to remind you that surrounding a bad argument with endless historical facts and analysis will not remedy the false data and poor analysis lying at the article’s heart. Appelbaum, a history major, likes to tout his erudition. That erudition, however, does not offset the flat-out lies he advances, nor does it offset his illogical and often hysterical take on Trump’s presidency.

Now, let the fisking begin:

Appelbaum’s first two paragraphs say that President Trump swore to uphold the Constitution and, instead, has blatantly violated it, running roughshod over the separation of powers, the rule of law, and civil liberties (implying that Trump is a racist, misogynistic  Muslim hater). Well, at least we know what Appelbaum believes he will prove. Whether he meets his self-imposed burden of proof remains to be seen.

Things start falling apart immediately because, in his third paragraph, Appelbaum goes directly to a tried and true fallacy, namely the appeal to authority. In this case, his authority is two well-known #NeverTrumpers; namely, failed presidential candidates McCain and Romney: [Read more…]

Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala: some random comments about two dangerous women

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris: I want to share with you a few thoughts I’ve had about two women who are unaccomplished but still dangerous.
Ocasio-Cortez Kamala Harris

Re Ocasio-Cortez:

1. The woman is a dim bulb, defined by ignorance and inanity.

2. Her low wattage does not make her any less dangerous.

3. She is dangerous because she is a master of the modern medium.

4. She is the living embodiment of Marshall McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message.” That she lacks substance, knowledge, wit, logical ability, or any other qualities that matter for governance, is irrelevant; she can communicate in 21st century fashion and that is sufficient to elevate her.

5. If we only ridicule her, we actually enhance her “medium as message” status.

6. We should treat her utterances seriously and, even as we expose each fallacy, nevertheless maintain a respectful tone. (You’ll notice that I’ve long since stopped doing “dumb Ocasio-Cortez” posters in my illustrated editions.) Remember, that she is a dim bulb is irrelevant. She’s a shiny, pretty, bubbly socialist who knows that communication, rather than substance, is currently the only thing that matters.

7. Do not call her “AOC.” It’s easy to type, but it elevates her to “Barbra,” “Bono,” “Cher” or “Hillary” status.” Given her mastery of the medium, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t need our help. [Read more…]

“Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!” — one story reveals the American divide

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When I read that a man screamed “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump,” I knew he was a Proggie, but a Proggie I know still insists the man was a Trump supporter.

Heil TrumpYesterday, the media was filled with stories about an outburst at a Baltimore theater. The Baltimore Sun first reported on the event — and please note that it immediately identifies the man as a Trump hater (emphasis mine):

A man shouting “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump” during a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Baltimore smelled of alcohol and told police he was motivated by his hatred of President Donald Trump.

Anthony M. Derlunas, 58, told an officer he “had been drinking heavily throughout the night” before the outburst at the Hippodrome Theatre on Wednesday night, according to a police report.

But before details of the police report became public in the early evening, the incident rattled many already anxious about a recent spike in anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Maryland and nationwide.

Audience member Rich Scherr said the outburst, which happened during intermission, sparked fears of a shooting like the one in a Pittsburgh synagogue last month that killed 11 people.

The man, later identified as Derlunas, had been seated in the balcony and began shouting “Heil Hitler, Heil Trump.”

What’s so fascinating about the story is that I knew instantly, without having to read the bolded language, that the man hated Trump. There were several clues. First, Neo-Nazis tend not to buy tickets costing upwards of $70 for an event at an upscale downtown historic venue. If you pay attention to the facts outside of the media narrative, you know that Neo-Nazis tend to be very angry bottom-feeding people who hang with other angry bottom-feeding people endlessly revisiting their real and imagined injuries (these two videos — one and two — are my favorite looks at the white supremacy issue). That any genuine Neo-Nazi would bother to spend the money to see Broadway’s version of a shetl just to raise a ruckus is a near zero likelihood.

The other thing that tipped me off is that the only people in America who liken Trump to Hitler are . . . Progressives. While it may be true that America’s microscopically small, sector of pathetic, low-life white supremacists throw their lot in with Trump, they do so, not because they worship him as another Hitler, but because their former home in the Democrat Party has gone away.

The Democrat Party that once was home to America’s white supremacists is still pathologically race-obsessed, but it’s switched from the old model (whites on top, everyone else on the bottom) top a new model (whites on the bottom, everyone else on the top). You could say it’s gone from being a “white lives matter” party to being a “black lives matter” party.

Evicted from their former ideological home, those foul excrescences who label themselves “white supremacists” figured out that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and latched on to the GOP. Again, they don’t worship Trump; they just have nowhere else to go.

All of this was instantly obvious to me without the necessity of the man’s confession that he hates Donald Trump. [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 10/22/18 — the Honduran invasion edition and open thread

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This Bookworm Beat is about more than the slo-mo Honduran invasion, but that figures largely here, hence the post’s title.

Bookworm Beat Honduran InvasionA round-up of ideas and information about the Honduran invasion. When thousands of military age men threaten to storm your border, there’s only one proper description: “an invasion.” All that other stuff — economic migrants, refugees, huddled masses — is euphemism intended to obscure the reality that inherently dangerous people [i.e., military age men and men from terrorist-supporting and non-Latin American countries] are announcing loudly and clearly that will ignore American sovereignty and invade our country.

I don’t doubt that women and children are sprinkled throughout this horde to make good television when Trump (God willing) stops them at the American border but, again, that’s not the bulk of the group. Instead, those women and children will find that, just as the Palestinians like to place children front and center for maximum propaganda impact when Israel finally fights back against deadly provocation, so too are these women and children unwitting tools in the Leftist war to destroy American sovereignty.

As it happens, we don’t need to guess what this invasion will look like. First, we saw a trial run with the children’s invasion on Obama’s watch, an invasion that came complete with diseases, MS-13 and other criminals, and a new cohort of anchors for chain migration. We’ve also seen the adult version play out in Europe over the past three years and it has, at best, strained Europe’s economy and, at worst, led to sexual assaults on women and children, increased property crimes, murders, racially-based violence, and terrorism.

Immigration should be based upon the capacity and desire of the receiving country, rather than the demands of those unfortunate enough to be residents of countries distinguished by corruption, theocratic dictatorships (that the immigrants want to bring with them), and economic failing. If these military-aged young men want to improve life, let them turn back home to Honduras and take a stand against crime and corruption there, rather than bringing those society-destroying vices here.

One of the things that may have struck you is that those young man are moving at a bizarrely rapid clip. Could it be that they’re not marching at all but are getting a little help? Why, yes it could:

However many trucks are working the convoy now, they’re going to need more — while Mexico made some ineffectual efforts to stop the original invasion at its own borders, that failure has emboldened others to join:

New estimates cited by El Universal, a Mexican newspaper, say the caravan now has 14,000 people, many of them already in Mexico while others still wait. {Emphasis mine.)

Another thing that someone found noteworthy is the clothes these “spontaneous” refugees are wearing:

And then there’s the flag under which they’ve chosen to march, as well as the flag they’ve chosen to burn:

(As always, the Daily Mail has a great gallery of photos, showing the marching mob’s testosterone, child pawns, and violent impulses.)

Again, this is not a “migrant movement.” It is a full-fledged, planned invasion of a sovereign nation.

Moreover, as Don Surber notes, an invasion of this size, complete with transportation and publicists, is bigger than George Soros funding it by his lonesome (although I’d be very surprised if he were not involved):

Caravan adults will work for under-the-table wages that are off the books. This allows them to collect welfare. Their employers don’t have to pay the 7.65% employer match to payroll taxes or provide health insurance.

Illegal aliens can live in America working for less than minimum wage if it is off the books. That is because they still collect welfare and get Medicaid in addition to their untaxed pay.

They do better than legal citizens who make minimum wage.

The Chamber of Commerce does not want to stop this because it provides cheap labor.

Mexico does not want to stop this because so many illegals send lots of money home.

This is why other nations, nominally allies, allow the caravan to head north.

[snip]

This is a well-financed caravan aimed at using women and children to hide the real intent of this movement. Corporate interests are with cheap labor. Conservatives only fool themselves if they think George Soros is alone in this venture.

Wolf Howling contends (and I agree) that those Americans funding this enterprise need to be found, arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for extended periods of time.

By the way, if any Leftist says to you “but Posse Comitatus,” ignore him or her because that person is ignorant. The Posse Comitatus Act exists to prevent a president from using the military against Americans. It cannot possibly be extended to prevent using the American military to protect Americans from an external invading force.

I’ll wrap up with Trump’s tweets on the invasion:

I hope Trump means it about cutting off funds to the countries allowing this to happen (something Roger L. Simon thinks, as I do, will benefit these same countries by forcing them to address their internal failings) — and I hope he has the balls and the spine to do what it takes to block this invasion at the border. [Read more…]

The Bookworm Beat 10/9/2018 — the American life edition and open thread

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Here it is — a round-up about American life in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearings, with everything from politics to plumbing thrown in.

American Life Bookworm BeatThis will be my last big post before my week-long hiatus (during which, as I said, I’m sure something big will happen). Fear not, though, because my friend, the brilliant and inimitable Wolf Howling will be holding the fort in my absence. Meanwhile, here’s some stuff about American life that you can chew on while I’m gone.

But before I get to that, I wanted to update you on the dog situation. Mr. Bookworm finally conceded that our aged, demented, blind, deaf, arthritic dog with an anxiety disorder was (a) miserable and (b) unreasonably burdensome. When she began needing walks every 90 minutes to stay ahead of the incontinence, and even that wasn’t always successful, he made the appointment at the vet. And when she started keeping us up all night long, panting, restless, unhappy, and incontinent, he said he wouldn’t dream of canceling the appointment.

So it was that yesterday our little dog made the journey over the rainbow bridge to doggy heaven. The vet did everything she could to make it a comfortable experience, including having a special cushion for the dog, rather than a scary metal table. She also provided premium doggy treats and our little gal happily munched through those treats to her very last breath.

It was what I call a “Bing Crosby death.” As some of you may recall, Bing Crosby was an avid golfer. It was his favorite pastime. He died of a massive heart attack while golfing on a lovely course in Spain, overlooking the Mediterranean. I always like imagining Bing in the midst of a good round, winding up for a massive swing, and being felled in an instant, with his last conscious thought before Death claimed him being “I am happy.”

Many thanks to all of you who chimed in with your stories and opinions about when to put a beloved pet down. I don’t think I clearly conveyed in the comments how grateful I was for all the wisdom you so generously shared with me.

And now back to our regularly scheduled Bookworm Beat round-up:

Kavanaugh inflamed the moderates. My friend Neo is one of the smartest people blogging today. It’s no surprise, therefore, that she had an incredibly brilliant insight about the reason Kavanaugh’s confirmation process was an earthquake, rather than a temporary tremor. She makes nine specific points, all of which are worth reading, but I want to focus on her last three points:

(7) At that point, it was the moderate wing of the GOP that was galvanized. They suddenly discovered that the rules they thought they’d been playing by all this time, the ones they thought at least some of their Democratic colleagues shared, meant nothing to the opposition.

[snip]

(8) And that’s why it was the moderate side of the right that stepped up to the plate and delivered the goods in the Kavanaugh fight. Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, all of them harshly vilified in the past by the more conservative wing of the party, found themselves uttering words that those who had previously reviled them were now cheering.

(9) Those words from the RINOs had more power to rally the base than if the same messages had been delivered by senators further to the right. The factor of surprise made for a much more attention-getting story. Lindsay Graham’s tirade was much more newsworthy because it came from Graham rather than, for example, Ted Cruz.

I clipped a lot from the above quotation, because I want to encourage you to read the whole thing. Neo will help you understand the catharsis in the Republican party over the last two weeks. [Read more…]