CNN Does Parody Of Itself On Clinton Impeachment

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/opinions/clinton-impeachment-gop-hypocrisy-avlon/index.html

As with most things, Jesus said it best Matt 7:5 "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

The rub is of course that we are ALL hypocrites all the time. We see our own behavior and that of our tribe or "team" to be excuseable at worst if it is indeed "wrong" at all. In 1999, the watchword for CNN, NPR, NY Times, etc was "Move On!", "It's a private matter, only about consentual sex!" 

The article closes with: 

Looking at the GOP's approach to Clinton's impeachment trial 20 years ago, it's clear there is now a double standard when it comes to Trump. Hypocrisy used to be the unforgivable sin in American politics. But that seems to be one more casualty of Trump's presidency.

Duh!  It was actually completely clear then as it was when Jesus said Matt 7:5. Clinton lied under oath, had sexual relations with an employee (illegal under US statutes, consensual or not -- oral sex provided by an employee to a McDonald's manager will get them fired too!)  More importantly, Clinton was PRESIDENT when he did those things -- Trump was a private citizen. What CNN primarily gives us is the billionth proof of Jesus's teaching -- the log in their own eye has completely blinded them!

I loved this paragraph:

Trump's former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, took a strong stand against lying from the oval office. After Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on two articles of impeachment in February 1999, Sessions spoke out about the impact it could have on the culture of the country. "It is crucial to our system of justice that we demand the truth. I fear that an acquittal of this President will weaken the legal system by providing an option for those who consider being less than truthful in court," he said.

Unless CNN is happy about Trump being president, they actually agree with Sessions! Convict Slick in the Senate (as he should have been under the Nixon standard), and there would be no Trump as president! Just as Sessions said, Clinton getting away with it lowered the bar and one result of that is TRUMP!

I'd argue that the "Nixon standard" is actually the root of the problem. Republicans hopefully (but foolishly it turns out), DID cross the aisle to side with the Deep State, Media and Democrats who hated Nixon with the same kind of hatred that they now hate Trump. Republicans thought that evidence of a president "obstructing justice" was a worthy standard. Democrats however didn't expect it to be a standard for DEMOCRAT presidents, only for Republican ones! Which became totally clear in the Clinton impeachment.

It is pretty much a self defeating standard. If makes it reasonable for the opposition party, which is going to include the Deep State and the Media in the D case, to attempt to "investigate" a president of the other party. When they do, the president is almost certain to attempt to prevent the "investigation" (often just a "fishing expedition" or "witch hunt"), from destroying himself, his friends, and possibly his administration. When you are president, self defence quickly becomes "obstruction of justice".

In the Clinton case, there was a "there there" ... Paula Jones was a real person, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Wily and Juanita Broderick were all real as well, and in the age of "#METOO", more people acknowledge that. In the case of the Mueller investigatition we now know there was nothing to investigate in the first place. The entire operation was purely a political op.

I'd be remiss if I did not point out a classic CNN dodge here. Clinton WAS impeached in the House, so where the vote counted was in the SENATE.  Thus, in a classic case of "When accused of killing three men and a dog, he promptly produced the dog alive", CNN gives us this:

When it was all over, a handful of House Democrats voted against Clinton, and several Republicans crossed partisan lines to acquit the president on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. So while partisan lines did largely hold, there were still some politicians who put their principles ahead of party loyalty.

However, the internet makes it easy to look up. NO DEMOCRAT crossed party lines in the Senate to cast a guilty vote, and since it wasn't going to pass without those votes 5-10 Republicans crossed lines for likely political rather than moral purposes. A bit different than what CNN would like to you think! 

A two-thirds vote (67 senators) was required to remove Clinton from office. Fifty senators voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge and 45 voted to remove him on the perjury charge; no member of his own Democratic Party votedguilty on either charge.

Jesus remains 100% correct -- and CNN remains 50% correct (at best). They can see faults in the opposition (Republicans) very well, and they are completely blind to the faults on their own side! 

Mueller Steele History's Dustbin

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/435872-mueller-confirms-the-steele-dossier-belongs-in-the-dustbin-of-history

A good review of the obvious of the past 2-3 years. Russia is an energy producing country which in no way ever wanted pro-fracking Trump to win. However in ll cases they like to make themselves look good and the US look bad.

They exposed Hillary's rigging the primaries over Bernie, cheered Trump as the "people's choice" whom they like everyone else figured to lose badly, and then immediately went anti-Trump when he was elected.

The US left is completely single minded -- POWER, no matter what the cost. They care not at all about the US position in the world, and even less about their effect on "deploreables" that happen to live withing the borders of a nation that they know to be completely corrupt because they are the corruption running BOistan via the levers of the Administrative / Deep State!

Witch Hunt Fails to Produce Witches

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/the-american-media-destroyed-themselves-over-mueller/

Anybody that thought about this for more than a couple seconds knew there was no way in hell Russia would try to elect Trump -- they produce energy, he is totally pro-fracking and Hillary was totally anti-fracking. The Russkies spent millions to stop fracking and they seem generally less stupid than the US.

The linked summary is worth going off and reading -- a nice litany of the "indictments" for things totally unrelated to the supposed purpose of the special counsel.

However, again, if you have a brain you know the actual purpose -- same as the Kavenaugh calumny: To send a message to anyone with any thoughts of working with, being associated with, or possibly even supporting Trump or any ideas that do not 100% align with progressive dogma! Like the 80+ "Trump associates", or "people that might have some connection with Trump or support of Trump" who find themselves under subpeona "just in case" ... meaning "just in case" the Democrats or Deep State (but I repeat myself) can find anything to charge them with. OR, just in case they can haul them up in front of a judge, get them to state a date wrong (like Scooter Libby), and then charge them with "perjury".

What does it take to get a clear majority of BOistanis enraged enough to vote for some real change? We had been "changing" to a totalitarian state operated by the Federal Bureaucracy since at least the "New Deal", with warp drive kicking around LBJ and then Watergate. When BO was elected, the "hope" seemed to be that the dopes in fly over country would just shut up, take drugs and die!

When they elected Trump, the left decided to "resist" the results of a valid election and here we are. Are they going to apologize, admit that the whole thing was a scam, and that not only did they manage to make America "not great", they managed to turn it into a lawless banana republic where things like the Mueller witch hunt happen and nobody that cooked the whole thing up goes to jail, or ever even says "sorry, never mind".

Perhaps they really meant to investigate Trump for "Rushing to a Conclusion" as opposed to "Russian Collusion"?

Proof The Legal System Is Political

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/why-is-trump-losing-so-often-in-court.php

The idea of "law" is that the honorable judge rules ONLY on the LAW, not on their bias. As Joshua 1:7 says “Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest have good success whithersoever thou goest”

Almost half of the 63 rulings in question (29 of them) came from jurisdictions within the left-wing Ninth Circuit. This percentage is wildly out-of-line with a random distribution. In other words, the numbers the Post touts are the result of extreme bias.

The linked article points out the obvious,  that in BOistan, "law" is just another political process. Any "Judge" that makes their decisions on the basis of politics ... Democrat OR Republican is no Judge at all -- they are a political bureaucrat, just like the millions we have in Federal, State and Local governments.

BOistan is a left wing state run by a massive bureaucracy -- elected, appointed, hired, the power is in "The Party" (TP-D)

Deciding Decency

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/432137-biden-responds-to-criticism-over-calling-pence-decent-guy

There was a time in America when people actually cared about "decency", whatever that concept might entail in BOistan. It certainly can't be a fixed concept, since that would mean that neither Hillary or BO were "decent" when they ran for president in 2008, since both were opposed to gay "marriage".

I nearly spit my coffee out through my nose this AM listening to NPR's "Political Junkie" program as both host Kerri Miller and host Ken Gruden agreed that it was CERTAINLY appropriate for Biden to walk back his comment about Pence being "decent", because you just could not be "decent" in BOistan and not be wholly in support of gay "marriage".

Ergo, practicing Christians are no longer "decent" in BOistan. No real surprise, because they had all but been officially called "deploreables" in 2016 ... in fact IRREDEEMABLE Deploreables! Not much to do with "irredeemables" than to put them to death! Remember, the left was once the bastion of "rehabilitation" ... for rapists, murderers, you name it. Maybe all but white Christians now?

Imagine if the media would ask Ilhan Omar if she supported gay "mariage". I would assume that as a Muslim, she does not, but how would we know? No need for our "adversarial" media to ask her -- she is after all on their side! Which of course "by definition" means she is a "decent person".

"Progress" in BOistan is breakneck ... the "progressive" party candidates in 2008 were not even "decent people" by the agreed standards of the BOistani elite in 2019.

I've completely given up trying to figure out what you will have to celebrate in 2029 to be considered "decent" by "The Party" (TP-D)  ... well, what will you have to celebrate beyond infanticide, socialism, gay "marriage", an unpredictable number of genders ... and ????

Ah, "progress"!

Socialism Lives In Darkness

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/world/americas/venzuela-blackout-maduro.html

Democracy may or may not die in darkness as the WaPo thinks, but socialism clearly lives in darkness. And without food, sanitary water, and a whole host of other things including hope. BO, Occasional Cortex, Bernie, Beto, Spartacus, etc may claim to provide "Hope", but it is "Hope a Dope" ... fake hope for people that read neither history, economics, nor even current events.

Our Contemptuous Nation

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/opinion/sunday/political-polarization.html

An article that observes part of our problem in BOistan, but fails to really understand it. It is worth reading it. A quote ...

People often say that our problem in America today is incivility or intolerance. This is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse: contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust. And not just contempt for other people’s ideas, but also for other people. In the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, contempt is “the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.”

 I argue that we did not experience this situation even close to fully until the Obama years. In the Obama years the "dominant party", the modern leftist Democrats, who I refer to as "The Party" (TP) experienced total control for the first time since at least the 1960's, if not "ever". Why?

Because prior to the 60's, the "Solid South" was all "Democrat", but those were conservative Democrats. Being anti-Christian, or as we see recently, anti-Semitic, let alone Socialist was beyond the pale. Sure, they often had big majorities in both houses and won the presidency by large margins, but those margins included many Democrats that were much more conservative than today's "moderate Republicans" ... they were Christian, pro-family, pro-life, pro-military, pro-business, pro-gun, strongly patriotic, hard working, etc

After the initial foray of using the Deep State to attack political enemies -- Watergate, the Democrats again had all the apparent cards, but Carter himself was at that time a fairly conservative Democrat, and many of the Democrat elected officials from the south were still conservative.

Post Reagan, they had two years that were a prelude to the BO years -- they had the presidency and both houses of congress, plus a left leaning judiciary, however, the Senate still honored the 60 vote filibuster, and even Bill Clinton at that point was aware that moving too far left would likely hobble his presidency. He attempted Hillarycare, and was rewarded for that attempt at government overreach with the loss of the House for the first time since 1954!

The election of BO in 2008 was a total loss of control of all levers of power by Republicans in a way that was unprecedented in American history. Because the left leaning SCOTUS was willing to legislate from the bench,  the power of Administrative / Deep State, plus the D party being universally far to the left of what even FDR or LBJ were, conservatives found themselves no longer living in "America", a country where even a strong political majority was limited by the Constitution, and the supposed jealousy of the houses of congress to prevent a president from usurping his authority.

BO was even allowed to use a "phone and a pen" to act as a monarch, and in fact, even usurped the long jealously guarded power of the House of Representatives to be the chamber with the "Power of the Purse".

While the election of Trump and both houses of congress in Republican hands in 2016 might seem similar, it quickly became obvious that it was not at all so, because the Deep / Administrative State, the Judiciary, the media, and the elites of BOistan immediately declared war on Trump and Republicans, seeking to overturn the election. The author of the article would like us to "disagree better" ... because the competition in the market of ideas is beneficial.

So what can each of us do to make things better? You might be tempted to say we need to find ways to disagree less, but that is incorrect. Disagreement is good because competition is good. Competition lies behind democracy in politics and markets in the economy, which — bounded by the rule of law and morality — bring about excellence. Just as in politics and economics, we need a robust “competition of ideas” — a.k.a. disagreement. Disagreement helps us innovate, improve and find the truth.

The author is completely correct in a rational, historical, enlightenment sense. I maintain however that he just doesn't understand that we now live in ... BOistan.

Take a look at today's campuses. Read a couple books like "The Coddling of the American Mind", "Political Tribes", or "The Suicide Of The West".  The idea that the free exchange of ideas in a "market of ideas" is a primary GOOD is an AMERICAN ideal based on Western civilization. BOistan does NOT share that vision! BO and the nation he created sees Western civilization as BAD ... in "Dreams from My Fathers" he explicitly sets out to "destroy the colonial powers", which WERE "Western civilization", and replace it with a 100% leftist tribalist, socialist, centrally controlled world state. THAT is the "the world" he declared himself to be a citizen of -- NOT "America"!

Why is MAGA so triggering to the left? Because as they say regularly, AMERICAN WAS NEVER GREAT! America was founded by white people who took it from native people and held slaves. It did not truly provide equal opportunity to all, and it certainly did not provide the goal of the left, equality of result! "America" as understood for over 200 years of it's history does NOT fit with the goals of the left, and one of the specific areas it does not fit is relative to competition of any sort as being "good". The left sees "rule by experts" as the proper solution, NOT some free market of anything ... certainly not ideas or products!

It would be wonderful for this territory to return to Western civilization and values, but while the author of the column, and even the authors of may of the books above may believe that "reasonable people" will look at their arguments and agree, I maintain that if you look at Ilhan Omar or Ocasio Cortez and their level of popularity, you see that the mood of the left is NOT toward any return to what Western civilization was based on, but rather to continue the path started by BO -- to see it's continued destruction.

The intent of today's left, which clearly includes the entire Deep / Administrative State at the Federal, State and Local levels (all unionized employees), the universities, the major corporations (Google, Amazon, Apple, etc), the vast bulk of the legal system and the media is a centrally controlled totalitarian state that explicitly prevents any form of disagreement, and immediately labels such disagreement "hate speech". MAGA itself is considered "hate speech" in many quarters.

It would be wonderful if we could talk our way out of this by "disagreeing better", however a short look at the current trends of the Democrat congress ... all out war on the president, including attacking and jailing anyone associated with him including family, failure to censure anti-semitism, and promises to pack the SCOTUS to destroy the main thing gained democratically in the last election -- I think you will agree that the way this is headed is not a "talking" or "voting" war.

TP has made VERY clear that they only honor elections that are in their favor, and they seek to overturn those that are not. They don't want to talk, they don't want to vote! They want to WIN and RULE! ... and it their eyes, it is simply for our own good ... we irredeemable deporeables!

Outrage Industrial Complex

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/hybridcivil/

What is one source of anti-tribes in America? "The Outrage Industrial Complex";

The sources of motive attribution asymmetry are easy to identify: divisive politicians, screaming heads on television, hateful columnists, angry campus activists and seemingly everything on the contempt machines of social media. This “outrage industrial complex” works by catering to just one ideological side, creating a species of addiction by feeding our desire to believe that we are completely right and that the other side is made up of knaves and fools. It strokes our own biases while affirming our worst assumptions about those who disagree with us.

Contempt and hatred as a a source of profit. Be warned!

The Case For Trump

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/vdh-the-case-for-trump.php

Good summary of a book just out that will likely be reviewed here in the near future.