Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
Don’t forget that the Watchers’ Council has transmuted into Wow! Magazine, an online magazine with articles you won’t want to miss. Here’s the latest.
Trump and how to beat him, according to the Guardian
Unprecedented Ice: I’m A Denier
Republicans Win Georgia 6 Election
How Cats Used Humans to Conquer the World
Sweden’s Clueless Government Puzzled Over ‘Rise In Islamic Extremism’ [Read more…]
Trump did not obstruct justice. It was Comey who sought to unseat an elected president using deceit, felonious Misprision, and probable illegal leaking.
The dictionary defines treason as “the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to . . . overthrow the government.” In the strictest sense of the word, James Comey, in carrying out his duty as FBI director during the Trump administration, did not commit treason. His acts, however, were intensely disloyal and marked by his overarching arrogance and his contempt for the President, all to America’s detriment. This is seen most clearly in the way Comey attempted to target President Trump for an obstruction of justice charge.
Comey served as the director of the FBI from September 2013 until President Trump fired him on May 9, 2017. Since his firing, Comey has passive-aggressively acted to prove that Trump attempted to obstruct justice by ordering Comey to stop investigating Gen. Michael Flynn. Comey took this claim public by leaking the contents of two private notes that he had never before shared with the Attorney General, that he now claims to have sat on for the past several months for “investigative” purposes (despite a legal duty to notify the AG immediately if he believed he witnessed a felony).
In sum, Comey took a very ambiguous event, unlawfully concealed it for months from the AG in order to prevent the President from clarifying what happened, and then stage-managed a leak to cause maximum damage to Donald Trump’s administration. True, Comey is not directing a crowd of people with torches and pitchforks, but he has misused and manipulated our legal system to the same end. Comey is not the hero of this story; he is the serpent.
A note about this article: At the end of this article, you will find a detailed timeline, including Comey’s own averments before Congress. In the narrative part of this essay, to support my factual statements, I will refer to this timeline with letters of the alphabet denoting specific events and Roman numerals denoting Comey’s testimony. [Read more…]
The Social Justice Warriors are reaching out and embracing big, powerful Comey as equivalent of a victim of Trump’s honed sexual predator techniques.
You just knew intersectionality had to reach out and embrace Comey’s testimony. I can already see the day when we hear how Comey, when he was forced to interact with Trump, was sharing the black experience at the hands of a slave owner. For now, though, it’s enough for us to learn that Comey — complete with his “instincts,” “concerns,” “uneasiness,” and other deeply felt emotions during his “awkward” moments in Trump’s company — is the precise equivalent of a woman suffering at the hands of a sexual predator.
Yup, you heard that right. This physically overwhelming (he is 6’8″), seasoned prosecutor, and political operative, who heads one of the most powerful agencies in the world, is a victim, folks. A victim!!
How do I know? Because a New York Times op-ed tells me so: [Read more…]
Despite his self-serving, Hamlet-like presentation (all that mental anguish — sheesh!), Comey is nothing more than a malevolent anti-Trumper.
As best as I can tell, the following is the gist of the Comey testimony: I don’t like Trump. I tried to destroy Trump’s presidency. When I failed, I leaked a government document in the hopes that a special prosecutor who’s a friend of mine could destroy Trump. End of story.
Everything else is just window dressing — and it’s particularly nasty window dressing given that Comey was relying, not on best practices, experience, or hard facts, but on feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Comey is a very little man tucked away in a tall canister. He’s caused immeasurable harm to the American political process, starting with his willingness to whitewash Hillary Clinton. He identified her crimes, all of which constitute manifest violations of explicit laws, and then appointed himself a beneficent judge, jury, and executioner. From that start, he’s traveled a steady path downhill.
I’d actually be more forgiving of Comey if he made no bones about being a stone-cold, self-serving political operative. What’s so sickening about him is his pretense that he proceeds from patriotism and moral rectitude. It’s entirely possible that he’s even convinced himself of this lie, but his actions prove otherwise.
UPDATE: From a friend’s feed:
On the subject of loyalty, Trump properly reminded Comey, because Trump was not being investigated, that the employee owed honest loyalty to his CEO.
I have a bias here: I think Comey is a self-serving weasel with a long history of fealty to the Clintons and the Democrat party. I also think that, if you want overall opinions about the pre-testimony statement from Comey, you should read Sean Davis or Ben Shapiro.
Here, I’m going to focus on one aspect of that testimony, which is the bit about Trump’s demand for loyalty. The following is the long version from Comey’s statement about the loyalty issue, along with my interlineations:
The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.
It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.
Comey makes it sound as there’s something nefarious about the setting. There’s not. Comey had already assured Trump on January 6 that Trump was not the subject of an FBI investigation:
In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.
There was no reason, therefore, for Trump not to have a private meeting with the FBI director, whether over a meal or in someone’s office. CEO’s — and Trump is America’s CEO — often have private meetings with department heads. In this context, Comey’s role is essential head of in-house security. Also, please note that Comey could, at any time, have walked out, either by excusing himself from the meal or excusing himself from the job entirely. He did not.
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
Only a government operative would find “strange” the fact that a businessman is feeling out a subordinate to ensure that he is the right person for the job. Me, personally? I happen to think it’s Comey who’s strange. You want proof? Look at this next paragraph: [Read more…]
The Paris Accord was an exceptionally vicious attack that Barack Obama launched against the American economy. Trump saved us from economic Armageddon.
Because of all the other stuff in my life, I’m now on my sixth attempt to get this post written. I did use the interstices of this randomly busy day, though, to read more about the Paris Accord, both about Trump’s decision and about the hysterics from the Left, especially the Hollywood crowd. Based on this reading, I’ve managed to draw the following conclusions:
The Agreement as to the US was and is not binding. That’s because, both because of Constitutional and international law, it was and is a Treaty — that means he needed the approval of 2/3 of Congress, which meant he needed the approval of vast swaths of the American people. Obama, knowing he could not rally either the country or Congress around him, proceeded unilaterally. Speaking facetiously, if it is binding, it’s binding only on Obama (so maybe he should stop with the huge carbon footprint houses, the private planes, and the friends’ yachts).
The Agreement imposed no meaningful constraints whatsoever on non-American parties to the treaty. A friend of mine who is a scientist went looking for raw data about the treaty. Looking at that data, he had this to say:
With all the “world-coming-to-an-end” talk following Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris Accord, I thought it would be good to look at the actual commitments by countries. It was not easy to find, but here it is. The commitments are voluntary, with each country setting its own goals.
A few nuggets are China’s commitment to PEAK its Carbon emissions by 2030, and USA’s commitment to REDUCE its own emissions by 26-28% by 2025(!). The US has peaked around 2000 according to its own submission to the UN, basically handicapping itself relative to China by 30(!) years.
The EU submission is filed under Latvia here. It is seemingly the most ambitious of the bunch (that I reviewed) setting a 40% reduction relative to 1990 levels. However, the EU’s own stats show that in 2014 the EU was already at 22% down from 1990. For the EU to go down to 26% from 2005 levels would mean 20% reduction, more than the US 25%.
In other words, Obama obligated American to make economically deleterious changes, while everyone else gets to go full speed ahead — with each country picking a baseline of its own choosing for the starting point. (Obama, incidentally, also picked a baseline, one that’s very damaging to the US economy. You can just feel the love….)
The Accord does nothing to place a meaningful limit on CO2 emissions. According to the Left, the treaty under optimal circumstances would have resulted in an 0.2% reduction in emissions. That’s a rounding error, not a reduction. Meanwhile, it would have imposed a 6% reduction in the American economy over 20 years. That’s not a rounding error, that’s a disaster.
In other words, what Obama did — unilaterally, without approval from Americans or Congress — was to sign us up for a plan that destroys our economy, while imposing no obligations whatsoever on everyone else. Trump was, as I already said, absolutely right to walk away from it.
Ignore all the screaming. It’s just noise, and stupid noise at that.
The one thing I do recommend is writing a letter to the White House letting the president know that you agree with him. Because of the media shrieks and howls, positive voices will get drowned out. Trump needs to know that those in the trenches, not in elite enclaves, are grateful for his principled stand.
President Trump lived up to his promise to walk from the Paris Climate Accord, and did so with a magnificent speech about economics and sovereignty.
The Paris Accord was a terrible agreement. It was designed to redistribute the wealth of the West — and particularly the U.S. — to the UN and to set the stage for an international legal framework enforcing the fraudulent green agenda. It was the nose under the tent that would, in the long run, consume our nation. Thank you, President Trump, for today taking us out of that obscene agreement.
If you did not see Trump’s speech this afternoon announcing his decision to withdraw our nation from the Paris Accord, this is one well worth watching:
The speech begins at the 1hr 4 min mark and lasts for approximately 45 mins.
Trump justified his decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord by pointing to the long-term “draconian . . . economic and financial burden” the agreement imposed on the U.S. The “onerous energy restrictions” alone would, Trump said, cost America 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025.
Several months ago, I wrote an essay on this blog pointing out that the science being used to justify the green agenda was somewhere between problematic at best, fraudulent at worst. And I pointed out that the Paris Accord was the nose under the tent for establishing international legal supremacy as regards all things climate change over our Constitution, for attacking capitalism, for attacking democracy, and to effect a massive transfer of wealth from this country to those UN, academic and governmental elites driving the climate agenda. As I wrote in that essay: [Read more…]
The Fourth Circuit held that a president’s reputation for honesty has to be read into his official acts. If only that rule were retroactive to Obamacare.
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that I haven’t comment on the latest atrocity from the Fourth Circuit, in the form of a decision striking down Trump’s executive order limiting new immigration from countries harboring terrorists — countries that, not coincidentally, are Muslim majority. That same order, it should be noted, targeted only six countries, leaving untouched most of the world’s Muslim majority countries.
Although the decision is long, it can be summed up in a single sentence that the Fourth Circuit included to describe its take on “an Executive Order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” In other words, the order itself meets Constitutional standards; the Court rejects it because it comes from Trump.
Since I blog for pleasure not money, I most certainly do not get paid enough to slog through a constitutionally infirm, badly reasoned political hit piece from an ostensibly “neutral” federal court. I therefore left the legal analyses to better thinkers than I ever will be; e.g., Hans von Spakovsky, >David Rivkin and Lee Casey, Paul Mirengoff, and John Hinderaker.
The only reason I mention that misbegotten excuse for legal reasoning is because of a Washington Post article about Trump’s defeat at the hands of the Fourth Circuit. You don’t even have to read the article to get the point. Here’s the Facebook link the WaPo put up to promote its article: [Read more…]
It’s another superb illustrated edition, with thought-provoking posters about politics, social issues, and foreign policy. You won’t want to miss it.
This is first and foremost an illustrated edition post except . . . before you even look at these posters, please read Victor Davis Hanson’s “Regime Change by Any Other Name?” It’s phenomenal. And now the pictures:
Digging into the known facts about Trump’s alleged leak of classified information, shows media bias and hints that the Deep State is spying on Trump.
I always wait 24 hours before commenting on the Left’s latest bout of hysteria because, since Trump became president, those hysterical outbursts are invariably wrong. In the case of Trump’s alleged spillage of classified information to the Russians, everything reported has been wrong or is highly suspect in that it shows a concerted inside effort to destroy the presidency. Here’s my take on what happened:
President Trump, General McMaster, and Secretary of State Tillerson met in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The Oval Office is supposed to be a secured room, but that’s becoming doubtful.
During the meeting, which covered the two country’s shared concerns about ISIS and other Islamic radicals, Trump told the Russians that there was information on the ground that was favorable to us. Both McMaster and Tillerson, who were present at the meeting, strenuously contend that Trump did not relay any highly classified information.
However, even if Trump had chosen to report classified information, that would have been within his purview as the Chief Executive Officer in charge of America’s intelligence apparatus. That is, the President, not the intelligence agencies (and not a certain former Secretary of State), gets to decide what’s classified information and what’s not.
Within a short time of the meeting’s conclusion, and right in time for the Washington Post’s 5:00 afternoon deadline, people who were not present at the meeting got in touch with the WaPo. These unnamed people are allegedly former intelligence officers, which means that they worked for Obama and probably do not hold current security clearance, and current intelligence officers, who almost certainly were hired during the Obama era and whose status regarding classified material is unknown. [Read more…]
Now that the media has discovered that people like to hear what President Trump has to say, it’s making sure to silence his voice.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, the media reported every single word that President Trump uttered. Every. Single. Word. It did so because its collective Leftist brain thought that, whenever he opened his mouth, he reminded his audience that he was so stupid and awful that he would be incapable of winning the general election.
So it was that during the primaries Trump got substantially more air time than his opponents. Part of this was because he said outrageous things of the type journalists can’t resist. More importantly, though, as shown in this clip from that obscene dim bulb, John Oliver, the media desperately wanted Trump to be the Republican candidate, on the theory that he could not possibly win:
Once Trump became the official Republican candidate, the media again breathlessly reported his every utterance. It was inconceivable to them that people — even those mouth-breathing conservative people the media so disdains — could listen to Trump’s sometimes elliptical, shorthand way of speaking and to his “bizarre” messages (patriotism, national security, pro-energy, pro-Israel, anti-political correctness), and actually want the man to be president. After all, how could anybody after listening to Trump not want this in the White House? [Read more…]
Given my increasingly lower tolerance for the Trump Derangement crowd that inhabits Facebook, I really need to get off of Facebook entirely or I’m going to be run out of the San Francisco Bay Area before I’ve had the chance to make the move on my own terms. It’s just that, as I’ve so often said, “The stupid . . . it burns!” And the Progressives on my Facebook feed are on fire!
Irritation the First: A friend put up a post bemoaning the horrors of the ICE raids against people who snuck into our country, completely bypassing our legislatively passed immigration laws. Never mind that, if you come here illegally, “you pays your money and you takes your chances.” If you don’t get caught, you’re lucky; if you do get caught, you need to be summarily evicted. That’s especially true when it turns out most of them have committed crimes in addition to their entering our country illegally.
So, in light of her mourning, I posed a straightforward question: “Do you distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants?”
She came back coyly: “Do you mean ‘undocumented’ immigrants?”
“No,” I answered, “I mean illegal immigrants, i.e., people who have completely bypassed American immigration laws to sneak into this country, so that they are are criminals from the moment they step foot on American soil. That kind of illegal.” And moreover, I raged (or peevishly whined), I am sick of euphemisms. If we’re going down that path, let’s start calling rapists “unauthorized sex partners.” Anodyne phrases shouldn’t be allowed to erase the fundamental illegality of what’s going on here.
I await being unfriended.