Social Norms, Virtue, Enforcement

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/david-brooks-gay-marriage-changing-norms/

In the middle of a column about how norms change, David Brooks remarks, “There used to be a social penalty for supporting gay marriage. Now there’s a social penalty for not supporting it.” I am not at all sure that there was a significant social penalty, in almost any stratum of our society, for supporting same-sex marriage.

Indeed.

In the past, HAVING OPINIONS rarely involved sanction. The leading exception in relatively recent memory being the dreaded HUAC (House Un American Activities Committee) focused on comunists in the country potentially spying for the Soviets. "Are you now, or have you evern been a communist or communist sympathiser".

Today, "Do you now, or have you ever been a supporter or voter for Donald Trump" seems FAR more "reasonable" to the left. Along with support gay "marriage", or lose your job, position, etc. The list keeps lengthening -- transgender, privilege, cultural appropriation, etc.

American "Morality" once was the agreed to Judaeo-Christian, 10 Commandments, New Testament, God, Country, Mom, Hard Work, Salute the Flag, Apple Pie ...

Today, "morality" is the observance of the will of THE PARTY (D) ... Salute the Deep / Administrative State, gays, trans, Muslims, destruction of the Consituition, etc. If / when you fail to 100% comply, you are very likely to be sanctioned. "Virtue" today is compliance with THE PARTY.

That is the water in which we now swim.

It seems to me that there is an asymmetry between how social pressure worked back when same-sex marriage was a minority position and how it works now that it is a majority position. That asymmetry tends to reinforce some of Brooks’s larger points about how norms change. The traditionalist view was widely but, it turned out, often lightly held, and barely conscious of itself as a view. Marriage as the union of a man and a woman was just “the water in which we swam,” as Brooks describes the general functioning of norms. The progressive view is by contrast extremely conscious of its status as a view that can and should be socially enforced.

The Paternalistic World View and 401Ks

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/27/18174385/retirement-savings-401-k

A VOX article that lets us look iniside the mind of the left as to their understanding of the "common man", and what ought be done relative to "average people". They believe that humans CAN'T learn to save for the future, so the important job falls on business and the government -- "the elite",

There’s a reason, it turns out, why employers didn’t hand retirement planning off to workers: 401(k)s are terrible at ensuring that those who need to save for retirement do. Indeed, over the same period in which 401(k)s expanded, the share of working-age households at risk of being financially unprepared at age 65 jumped from 31 percent (in 1983) to more than 53 percent (in 2010). Indeed, the terribleness of 401(k)s helped spark a new field of behavioral economics, which showed that voluntary plans in which people manage their own investments defy everything we know about how the brain works.

Reading the short book "The Millionaire Next Door" explains that most of the wealthy in America are people that follow a simple rule ... spend less than you make, put the savings in something that goes up in value. Naturally, there are LOTS of forces trying to tell you that is "foolishness". "What will a million dollars be worth in 50 years anyway?" Is one of the things I've heard ... the answer ; "A million dollars more than zero". As a corollary, MUCH more than a million dollars MINUS a bunch of debt and interest paid out of your pocket!

There are a whole host of reasons that people are more unprepared for retirement today than in '83 ... massive regulation, the economy being basically stagnant for a decade from '08-'16, crushing taxes including ever more crushing FICA tax (in 1975 it was 5.85 on the first 14k, today it is 6.2 on the first 127K! $819 vs $7,874), lots of inflation (much of it undeclared once the government got into the "inflation adjusted" business), no interest on savings, crushing medical costs made 3-5x MORE crushing on those who DID save by BOcare ... the list is just endless and much of the "help" keeping people down is courtesy of the the elite through the Davos crowd, government, and Deep / Administrative State.

However, the BIG reason remains that FICA gives people a very false sense of "security". If it had been created as what it actually is -- "old age POVERTY welfare" (and a giant new federal tax), which would only go to people without savings, assets, pensions and other income streams, then a much higher percentage of people would save more. It **IS** welfare for elderly, and increasingly if you are not impoverished in old age your small benefit is taxed away from you anyway.

In other words, like typical government, those that pay the most get the least -- or nothing.

**IF** the government actually wanted to "help the irresponsible common man", they would do what W proposed ... put something like the FICA percentage in private non-profit fiduciary managed fund of broad indices of stocks, bonds, property, commodities, metals, etc. NOTHING is "certain", and CERTAINLY NOT THE GOVERNMENT! (see numerous failed governments over history ... Venezuela currently, 100's of them around the globe over the past century or so, with runaway inflation in Germany in the early 1920's being a well known case with an "advanced" nation.

Of course, telling the truth would have never given the giant boost to government spending that FICA did. It was set up so that everyone could imagine getting it, but the original dates you could get it insured that very few would actually collect, and most of those would not collect for long. It was a HUGE "win win" for the government ASSUMING "an ever growing employed population, an ever expanding economy, and not very many people reaching retirement age" -- all assumptions that have proven spectacularly wrong like most "government projections".

It really was successful for what it was supposed to be -- a massive vote buying Democrat party operation.

The reality of it all is that "there is no free lunch" ... the vast majority of people (and businesses) MUST spend less than earned and put the remainder in something that goes up in value. When they don't, the person, business or country will go bankrupt and have NOTHING!

"Liberalism" may look and sound "paternalistic", but no good father would really follow policies that are guaranteed to lead to bankruptcy! The idea that the population is less responsible than the government is obvious idiocy in even a democratic republic! Who votes in the supposed "wise men" that are going to care for us all? The same idiots that can't spend less than they make and put the difference in something that rises in value!

Those elected "wise men" have run up over $200 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities ON TOP of the over $20 TRILLION in US debt. On top of that, state and local debt exceeds $3 TRILLION!

Remember, the people running that up are the "elite"  VOX assures you ought to have MORE power because they are "smart and responsible" and you can count on them taking "good care of you"!

Naturally, those folks will tell you that anyone that advises "God, Guns and Gold" is a COMPLETE idiot ... you would not want to be called names by the elite would you?

How Republicans Became Red

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were-blue-and-democrats-were-red-104176297/

Good little bit of recent history. How did color of socialism, rebellion, anger, blood and Satan become the designated color for Republicans in the US?

The Smithsonian assures us it was a complete ACCIDENT!

Early in the article they state the obvious ...

“For years, both parties would do red and blue maps, but they always made the other guys red,” said Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News. “During the Cold War, who wanted to be red?”
Indeed, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union little more than two decades ago, “red was a term of derision,” noted Mitchell Stephens, a New York University professor of journalism and author of A History of News.

Yes, and blue is the color of water, cool, calm, the Union Army, the sky, etc.-- and it is the most popular color, with 40% of men prefering it and 30% of women -- oh, and only about 10% of each prefer red. I'm CERTAIN that the choice of red for Republicans was PURELY because their name starts with an "R" -- I mean if that was the reason why would you not make the Democrats "Dirt Brown"? 

BTW, if you go look at the color selections, blue and GREEN would be the obvious choices!

Why the Smithsonian -- the museum of the Deep / Administrative State even finds us an EXPERT to verify that it really makes no difference! 

Sara Quinn, a visual journalist now at the Poynter Institute in Florida, said she sees no particular advantage to either color.
“Red is usually very warm and it comes forward to the eye. Blue tends to be a recessive color, but a calming color,” she said.

You know, such things have a tendency to raise a red flag for me! 

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!

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)

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!

Imagining A Two Party State, Russia Investigation Version

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/429292-the-case-for-russia-collusion-against-the-democrats

"The Hill" is left-center bias -- about as good as one gets in major outlets in BOistan these days ... NPR is about the same.

The article provides a good scorecard of the DOCUMENTED Clinton / DNC involvement with Russia both before and during the 2016 campaign, including millions of $$ going to the "Clinton Fund" (funds ... for Clintons!). This is their summary:

There is clear evidence now that shows Hillary Clinton’s family and charity profited from Moscow and simultaneously facilitated official government actions benefiting Russia that have raised security concerns. 

And there’s irrefutable evidence that her opposition research effort on Trump — one that inspired an FBI probe — was carried out by people who got information from Russia and were consorting with Russians. 

It would seem those questions deserve at least some of the scrutiny afforded the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry that is now two-plus years old.

"It would seem" ... well, yes, in a nation not ruled by a single party by virtue of the entire Administrative / Deep State being in the hands of "The Party" (TP-D).

Unfortunately, we don't live in that state, but rather in BOistan, where anyone not a D that is elected is saddled with being "under investigation" the entire time they were in office -- a policy of TP that started with Watergate, moved to Iran Contra under Reagan AND HW Bush, and continued with "Valerie Plame", 911, and other investigations of W Bush.

Once we went from being "One Nation, Under God" to being "A Tribal Mess, Under TP", articles like this OCCASIONALLY  get written from the State controlled media, but they are virtually unknown.

They are part of the fig leaf that lets the sheeple claim we have a "democracy".

Clinton Fund Whistleblower Raided By FBI

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/is-it-something-he-said-6.php

There may be some questions remaining in even fairly non-partisan people's minds about potential Trump "collusion" with Russia in the 2016 campaign, but we KNOW that:

1). The Clinton campaign worked with the Russians to create the Steele Dossier to bring down Trump.
2). The Clinton Fund (Funds for Clintons) pulled in 100's of millions of dollars for the Clintons, and now it's donations have all but dried up, ( down 90%) showing that if the Clinton's can't provide "play" (payback), donors do not want to pay! The Clinton Fund was obvious Pay to Play, now it is PROVEN Pay to Play!

The linked article covers the case of a whistleblower who apparently has the legal goods on the Clinton Fund Urainium One deal and shows that Robert Mueller (the current "Special Council") failed to investigage covered in an excellent article here.

The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Powerline has been doing a great job of covering the FBI raid on the whistleblowers home and other intimidation tactics.

Any rumor or innuendo against a person with an "R" next to their name, even if the allegations are decades old is worthy of heavy duty investigation with the accuser treated as a saint (see Kavenaugh), while documents related to malfeasance in the case of a known questionable matter (Urainium One), are treated as an attack on the state, with state apparatus being used to attack the person presenting actual documentation of the crime.

This is what happens in a totalitarian one-party state people! Trump is fighting the entire US Deep State apparatus, and now he must fight the House of Representatives as well because too many supposed small government supporting people (Rs) deciced they would rather single their "virtue" in being anti-Trump than support the only person with any power in this country standing up to the single party rule of the Deep / Administrative State!

Why BO Administration Was "Scandal Free"

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/federal-judge-rips-doj-and-state-orders-discovery-on-clinton-emails.php

A federal judge may actually bring some folks from the Deep/Administrative State to account -- note, a weak "may". As noted in the article ...

If you thought the Republicans are now running the Department of Justice–merely because Donald Trump was elected president!–you don’t understand how the federal bureaucracy, the unelected, non-constitutional fourth branch of government, operates.

"The Party" (TP-D) **IS** the government! It is the home team providing all the refs and having the home team coaches do all the "reviews" of the "close plays".

One might note that it has been festering for a very long time. The relevant events are now six years in the past. The Obama administration was astonishingly successful at stonewalling investigations, and its stonewalling continues under a Department of Justice nominally led by a Republican, but staffed overwhelmingly by Democratic Party loyalists.

 BO / Hillary had a KNOWN disaster in Libya (actually two -- they destabilized the country without Congressional approval, THEN they lost an embassy AND and the ambassador)  THEN, they claimed it was due to an internet video rather than being a terrorist attack!

TP and the Deep / Administrative State (but I repeat myself) paid to create the Steele Dossier that is the basis for the Mueller "investigation", and they have going for over two years filling the news with "allegations", but there is still no evidence of Trump collusion with Russia, and really only ridiculously tiny examples of their supposed "interference" -- Fake FB accounts and Ads! Wow, so what????

Do you REALLY think that Russia, a huge energy producing country wanted to have Trump as president fracking everything that can be fracked, building pipelines and taking gas under $2 ???

Unless they are so stupid it really doesn't matter what they do, they wanted Hillary who would have continued the BO putting the brakes on fracking, pipelines, or anything that had a chance to lower oil prices which would result in "more carbon".

NYT: The Deep State Is In The Room With Space Aliens

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html

Whether the 1980's has gotten it's foreign policy back is still an open question, but clearly the mood of the press and the Deep State has returned to the age of Reagan ... you remember, the bumbling, senile, loose grasp on reality idiot that constantly needed to be "saved from himself" as he "sleep walked" through a presidency with no success and soon to be ended by impeachment (1986 and on) -- at least that was the "reality" that the "voices of reason" from the administration,  anonymously speaking through a media that believed even worse assured us of!

The primary answer to this article is again, "Space Aliens" ... your source is an obviously disloyal person that ought to RESIGN and then tell any tales they want! Having said that, it is rather amazing that they are as positive as they are, AND have enough self awareness (or cluelessness?) to admit this ...

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

Thanks be to Satan, the Administrative State is in the room! And, like "father" in the 1950's, "they know best"! I suppose if you thought the old USSR had the right idea, and government bureaucrats from the Administrative / Deep State  are the "kind of people you trust" (even though they are obviously proven weasels as the existence of this column shows), then you are "comforted" that there is swamp weasel in the Trump administration willing to try to stab the president in the back anonymously rather than resign and tell us "the facts" as seen through their beady little weasel eyes.

We know nothing of the private internals of the Trump administration -- other than the Deep State has at least one mole , and likely more than one along with continued monitoring of ALL communications by the NSA / CIA etc constantly looking for ANYTHING that could be exploited to remove Trump from office! Hey, he froze their salaries while BO era inflation continues unabated -- you KNOW they want him out and DEAD, along with his family, friends, and his voters!

What else would one do with an "irredeemable deploreable"?

Sasse On Civics, Administrative State, SCOTUS

Well worth the time to watch ... perhaps a future president?

It is a good video -- it would have been great if he was a little stronger on the purpose of the SCOTUS  being ORIGNIAL INTENT of the Constitution, otherewise we need neither a written Constitution nor a SCOTUS.

Oh, and it would be fine if the legislature did their jobs and reined in the Deep / Administrative State as well!

Crying For SCOTUS Standards

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/03/opinion/supreme-court-kavanaugh-partisan.html

Ah, the NY Tines laments the politicization of the court! They ought to read Scalia ... he predicted the obvious long ago. When the Warren court denied the people, the states, and the nation the proper discussion required to make murdering the unborn a "right", they sowed the seeds of exactly what this article laments. The court decided to take political action in legislating from the bench, so the people decided that the justices needed to be poltically vetted and screened so that they would take their political actions in the direction of the people who voted for presidents in order to get "their" judges on the SCOTUS. 

The article interjects Bush V Gore as a smoke screen -- we might still be litigating the 2K election if the SCOTUS had not put an end to it! Naturally, it was the NY Times "loss", so they need SOMETHING to seem like a "conservative win" in the political court. 

The reality is that there are essentially NO "conservative poltical wins" by the SCOTUS because the judges that conservatives want are strict constructionist / original intent judges that DON'T legislate from the bench. Thus the difficulty in overturning even egregious rulings like Roe or Kehlo that ARE "legislating from the bench". Once the court has ruled, "Stare Decisis" taken seriously by converservative judges tends to make the ratchet of judicial activism always tilts left. 

Even worse, the conservatives on the court tend to defer to the other two branches -- so cases like BOcare forcing people to buy insurance still get decided in favor of the left. 

Naturally, the NY Times likes to have "The Party" (TP-D) always control ALL branches of government, including especially the 4th extra-Constitutional Deep / Administrative State. The idea of the SCOTUS not being in firmly left wing hands is enough to make the Times pine away for a totally non-political court. Their assumption is that there are no principles higher than politics, so conservatives are just as likely to make law from the bench as "progressives". 

Most likely not -- and if they get control of the court again, they will be more than happy to see laws that put Christians in jail for failing to celebrate a gay "marriage", genders yet unimagined, sexual practices to make a Roman blush, and government invasions of all manner of property, thought, and faith! 

Naturally, to the NY Times, that is just "progress"!  No need to have a SCOTUS unless it is fully under control of TP! 

The McCain Matrix, TP Good Old Days

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-mccain-funeral-dc-20180901-story.html#

"Eras" in the BOistan technoworld seem to last minutes ... remembering "all the way back to 2008" is like eternity, but supposedly that is the time for which "The Party" (TP-D), and it's adjunct the MSM want to paint a misty portrait of with the now "great man", John McCain looming in the background. My, my, how times change ... here is a quote from WaPo in April of 2008.

It was early 1992, and the occasion was an informal gathering of a select committee investigating lingering issues about Vietnam War prisoners and those missing in action, most notably whether any American servicemen were still being held by the Vietnamese. It is unclear precisely what issue set off McCain that day. But at some point, he mocked Grassley to his face and used a profanity to describe him. Grassley stood and, according to two participants at the meeting, told McCain, "I don't have to take this. I think you should apologize." 

McCain refused and stood to face Grassley. "There was some shouting and shoving between them, but no punches," recalls a spectator, who said that Nebraska Democrat Bob Kerrey helped break up the altercation.

McCain is Trump with a worse temper and a lot less money. His ONE advantage over Trump is his service -- something TP gives ZERO respect to when he failed to do their bidding.

He has ALWAYS been an angry prima donna, demanding to be at center stage and unwilling or unable to deal with those who fail to bow and worship at the altar of McCain ... or "McNasty", his old nickname.  I love this one from the article -- talk about "karma" relative to the Trump digs at McCain ...

Smith, whose service in the Navy included a tour on the waters in and around Vietnam, said he stood stunned one day when McCain declared around several of their colleagues that Smith wasn't a real Vietnam War veteran. "I was in the combat zone, off the Mekong River, for 10 months," Smith said. "He went on to insult me several times. I wasn't on the land; I guess that was his reasoning. . . . He suggested I was masquerading about my Vietnam service. It was very hurtful. He's gotten to a lot of people [that way]."

Trump and McNasty ... peas in a pod. Vain, narcissistic, hot tempered, profane, womanziers, etc ... no wonder they didn't get along. McCain ESPECIALLY liked to **WIN**, and no doubt that is the BIGGEST single thing he and TP hate about Trump. "Winning" is of course the ONLY thing that matters to the underdog in BOistan ... and it also matters that you support someone who can win even a tiny bit against the TP behemoth.

 I liked this meme for those whose memory has been dulled enough to think the MSM always thought McCain was "great'.

Think it's just a foolish meme? Here is a link to at least one such article ... isn't interesting how Republican candidates always suffer from Alzheimers or some other mental illness? From TP's POV, opposing TP is either a sign of low intelligence or insanity, so it is a small wonder they see the world this way.

I don’t take the subject of Alzheimer’s lightly. My grandfather died of complications from the disease, and I watched his mind waste away over a period of several painful years. But it’s a question that must be asked in view of John McCain’s age. If elected, he would be the nation’s oldest president in history.

If you read this blog you are aware that you live in a TP/MSM (but I repeat myself) created imaginary narrative that bears very very little resemblance to "reality" -- to the extent that exists in this TP, Davos, Deep / Administrative State, made to mislead the sheeple so they believe it is in their advantage to cede more and more of their power and critical thinking to the elites. So was "America" ever great? According to McCain's daughter, yes ...

When she fiercely declared that "the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great," the generals, senators, former presidents and other world leaders who filled the pews burst into applause.

Really? BO now thinks that "America" was "always great"? Here he is in New Hampshire in 2008

We are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction. 

That's what's happening in America right now; change is what's happening in America.

You, all of you who are here tonight, all who put so much heart and soul and work into this campaign, you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness.

"Fundamental new direction"  ... "out of a long political darkness" ... doesn't really sound like something a "great nation" would require. Michelle Obama was never proud of America until BO was elected -- but there she was, getting candies from W at a TP staged funeral where the elected president of the people who oppose TP was not invited!

The real honest TP answer to "Make America Great Again" is that "America was never great!" ... slavery, discrimination, not enough equality in income, not kind enough to the environment, too warlike, took the country from natives, etc  ... "The Party" (TP-D) since at least FDR has ALWAYS been about LOTS of "change" ... always in the direction of more government, more regulation, higher taxes, being more like Europe, restricting speech, less individual rights, less Christianity, etc.

Cuomo is taking some heat for stating the obvious TP position for some reason this week. Must be "America was always great" week for TP. 

Thinking people certainly understand the reality here. At the time of Nixon, the Deep / Administrative State plus the combined power of TP and the MSM became powerful enough to take down opposition that did not behave in a manner they found acceptable. **ALL** elected officials served at the pleasure of TP! Nixon was proof, that is why his impeachmet is maybe the greatest TP rememberance next to Roe! 

Reagan was an anomoly -- such a great man and such a great communicator, he was well into his 2nd term before TP was able to suitibly damage him. Even then, he destroyed one of TP's most powerful allies, the USSR, a crime for which they will always hate him. 

HW was a complete TP cutout -- heart of a RINO, former CIA director -- 4th branch Deep / Adminstrative State swamp creature from way back.  

Under Slick Willie, Newt Gingerich gained power by appealing to the Reagan / eventual Trump "real American" constituency -- people that thought that the 4th branch could be controlled and reduced, and people that believed that presidents of BOTH parties were under the law. TP proved again that it could protect it's own as it had with Teddy Kennedy  ... as it would do again and continues to do with Hillary Clinton. If you are a TP person with power, you are above the law, and if you are in opposition to TP, there are no lengths they will fail to go to in order to destroy you, your family and your friends! 

We now officially know that W, like his daddy and the whole Bush family was nothing but TP lite. 

BO was to be "The One", the culmination. He DID succeed in making it very clear that TP was in control. The Constitution was abandoned, the separation of powers was ignored, and the new rule of became "a pen and a phone". 

From the POV of TP and no doubt Meghan McCain, 1986-2016 were when "America" was "great", because it was really BOistan ... at least "in waiting". As Trump has made clear, from the start of 1986 when Iran Contra put Reagan in a box, up to 2017, TP has called the tune. RINOs faked being a "nice opposition" so that TP would not destroy them, and people that cared about tired old things like God, morality, Constitutions, limited government, laws that applied to all, etc were faked into thinking they still had some voice. 

McCain was the perfect RINO -- he loved to venemously attack semi-real Republicans in order to be honored by TP and it's spokesman the MSM. The years of "greatness" were the effective BOistan years from '86 - '16. Reagan had been kind enough to fix the economy so there was a lot of money for most of it, and then BO stole enough from the few remaining workers in BOistan and the future to at least make it seem "stable". Hey, "2%" of cooked numbers "growth" became what BOistanis accepted as "sustainable, realistic, environment friendly, psuedo growth". 

According to Politico in 2016, growth like 4% isn't even POSSIBLE any more, and back then, economic performance was apparently a lot of what they saw "greatness" to be. 

Yet that hasn’t stopped a bidding war of unrealistic promises, beginning with Jeb Bush’s claim that his economic proposals could raise U.S. annual GDP growth from 2.5 percent in 2015 and 2.4 percent in 2014 to 4 percent—a rate much higher than the rate under Obama (2.1 percent), George W. Bush (1.6 percent), Bill Clinton (3.7 percent), George H. W. Bush (2.0 percent), and Ronald Reagan (3.4 percent).

See, "2 something" (after juicing the number by 2-3% in 2015) is all the real experts say is possible. Get used to it you stupid sheeple! Pay no attention to that 4.2% 2Q 2018 ... hell, we may have even just had an ACTUAL 1-2% GDP growth since TP last took over the full reins in '06! 

TP's idea of "greatness" is no, or fake opposition. McCain and his band of fake RINOs were PERFECT! When BO was in power, TP was well down the road to jailing Christians for their religious beliefs and stamping out the speech of everyone who failed to bow to whatever TP declared to be "moral" -- all while McCain and his merry RINOs cheered them on! 1986 to 2016 were their "good old days", and they get especially misty eyed for '06-'16! 

If only Hildebeast was in the WH, Slick would be doing more than just enjoying a "look" at one of Ariana Grande's many good sides ... 

Note, while the media finds it very sad that Slick is appreciating her, I would not want to be subjected to such constant filming -- as I often say, I may be old, but I'm not dead ... there is actually nothing much more natural than a male noticing a pretty woman, especially when she has not wasted a lot of material in providing length to her skirt. I know, I know ... "women can wear WHATEVER they want, or very close to nothing, and in the modern world it is SICK for men to notice. OTOH, any male that doesn't CELEBRATE a gay kiss is ALSO "sick" ... it is just the world that we are told we live in.

It takes a good deal of effort to retain your memory and observe how we are all being fed a narrative with an agenda that is TOTALLY not your agenda if you are remotely Christian or conservative. This past week was a major climax in the TP story line  -- a new dead hero was created out of smoke and mirrors with  basically no connection to the actual man, nor the real times that he and we lived through. That is BOistan -- it is one big made for propaganda funhouse.

Will the "Reality TV" background of Trump allow him to survive and even thrive in this left leaning matrix? 

Perhaps, if more people take the Red Pill!

BOistan, Opposition Presumed Guilty

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/trump-russia-probe-robert-mueller-time-for-truth/

The linked article is an excellent SHORT summary by the almost always excellent (but not always short) Victor Davis Hanson. If you read this blog, you know that the entire Mueller probe is a travisty, but one of the underlying issues is the unraveling of a basic human value -- the presumption of innocence. 

Instead of presuming Trump innocent unless he finds evidence of Russian collusion, Mueller started with the assumption that the reckless raconteur Trump surely must be guilty of some lawbreaking. Thus, it is Mueller’s job to hunt for past crimes to prove it.

Getting Americans to buy fully into the idea that members of TP ("The Party"-D) are inherently innocent, or if not innocent, "absolved" (see Slick Willie, Hildebeast, BO, the Kennedys, etc). To be in "opposition" to TP is itself a crime in BOistan, so the task is reduced to "finding the specifics". They already know you are guilty of not being a member of TP, the unforgiveable sin, the only question now is; "What ELSE are you guilty of?".

BOistan is charting new waters here -- it is proving it is a "crime" simply to win an election and not be TP (or a suitably TP-like RINO). 

No president has ever faced impeachment for supposed wrongdoing alleged to have taken place before he took office — not Andrew Johnson, not Richard Nixon, and not even Bill Clinton, who lied about his liaisons with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. With the effort to go back years, if not decades, into Trump’s business and personal life, we are now in unchartered territory.

There are LOTS of new waters in BOistan ... if you want to run in California and have a 501C, all it takes is someone to ACCUSE you of "coordination", and the burden of proof is on YOU to "prove yourself innocent" rather than on the state to prove you guilty! Welcome to the gulag combrade!

Victor would like to see some of the FBI agents and even Hillary investigated for a few of the crimes already uncovered and KNOWN relatrive to coordination on the Steele Dossier, wiretapping and spying on the Trump campaign. That would be an excellent idea -- if we ever again live in a state not ruled by TP!

#FakePartisan, Enemy Of The Deep State

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-non-grata-trump-often-unwelcome-and-unwilling-to-perform-basic-rituals-of-the-office/2018/08/28/302b60ee-aa16-11e8-a8d7-0f63ab8b1370_story.html?utm_term=.d8d61dac61b6&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Understanding "politics" in BOistan 2018 is very simple:

1. There is ONE party, "The Party" (TP-D) that you must be a member of if you want to be "elite". It owns the Deep / Administrative State, the MSM, all of the legal system except for the SCOTUS, education, and corporate BOistan except for a few energy companies.
2. There is a #FakeParty that uses an elephant as a symbol -- see below to understand this party IS NOT "the opposition" to TP ... it is the adjunct cutout.
3. TP and it's stooges in the #FakeParty are completely beholden to the Deep / Administrative State as well as the international Davos crowd. Follow the money ... in BOistan it is in DC and government workers. 

What is the proof of this for this week? Read on ...

In addition to being pointedly not invited to McCain’s funeral and memorial service later this week — while former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will both eulogize the Arizona Republican — Trump was quietly asked to stay away from former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral earlier this year.

If our "politicians" where truly "partisan", rules like Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment  ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican") would be in effect. While supposedly "in power", W was never accepted as a legitimate president by TP. He was "appointed by the SCOTUS", he was too stupid to read, he was castigated because it was claimed he wasn't a very good fighter pilot in the TX National Guard (nevermind that Slick Willie and BO never put on any sort of uniform for even a day).

Now however? The Bushes are fully alingned with TP to discredit and remove Trump! "Partisanship" stops at TRUMP ... because Trump threatens the Deep / Adminstrative / Davos TP State! It's been 30 years since Reagan left the White House, and since that time we have had nothing but TP controlled "presidents" up to Trump!

HW was a former director of the CIA -- you don't get much more Deep State than that. Slick Willie was a nothing from Arkansas, but he had spent time at Oxford including taking part in anti-Vietnam war protests off shore, and a week long foray into the USSR. Slick was somewhat a "citizen of the world" as well (hick of the world?).

W was and is clearly part of the TP controlled state apparatus. Sure, he "played a role" as being something different during the early '00's, but unsurprisingly, he and BO were on the same page relative to the massive government bailouts of Wall Street and the banks in '08. I'm sure they will enjoy getting together and comparing notes on the joys of being an ex-president member of TP in good standing!

Isn't it convienient that John McCain was the cutout for the coronation of BO? Then Mittens Romney with his "binders of women" and his arcane thinking that Russia, RUSSIA! Was an enemy! This was 2012 folks ... BO proudly put poor Mitt in his place with "The 1980's called, they wanted their foreign policy back!". Hey, "the Cold War is OVER" ... those Russians are GOOD GUYS, they even take our astronauts to space!

The TP controlled media has told you the Russians are our friends, up to enforcing BO's "Red Line" (pink line?) in Syria in 2013 AND our sworn enemies over a period of less than 6 years. Are you a marionette or a thinking person?

As we watch the TP controlled State cannonize one of the true RINO weasels of all time this week, watch and LEARN. **ONLY** when we ALL bow and scrape to TP can we be "one nation of BOistan, under Satan". There is zero room for diversity of thought in BOistan. Learn to be comfortable in the "way of the weasel" if you want to be a "Republican" ... run on one thing, then do the opposite! THEN, be cannonized by TP as a "great man".

If you want to stand up and be what used to be called "American", Trump is the only current leader around with those credentials. Imperfect as hell, YEsssss! One can dream of a time with better leaders that stand for something other than fealty to TP, but that time is not yet! If we don't support this one, be ready to stand in socialist lines and do without!

BOistan, Mass Financial Rape

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/07/13/top-10-richest-counties-in-america-2017/#2aa7518e2ef3

I've referenced this column enough that I decided I needed a post on it. Five of the richest counties in BOistan are less than an hour away from Washington DC.

Whatever you want to call it ... "The State", "The Administrative/Deep State", etc, it is winning. This article lets us know that Federal Employees (OUR EMPLOYEES!) are doing better than employees in the private sector! Especially for those that have lower levels of education -- AND, the benefits are SUPER!

The report also found the government’s benefits superior, by 47 percent on average, with a similar range by educational level. For those with a high school education or less, the government’s benefits package was found to be 93 percent higher; for those with doctorates or professional degrees, benefits were found to be about the same.

Isn't that nice of us to give our government employees 47% better benefits on average, and 93% higher for those who have a High School education or less? Oh, wait, you didn't know? Well OF COURSE you didn't! What have I been trying to tell you for years about "The Party" (TP-D) and it's control of the entire administrative state, government unions being a major cornerstone of it's power, and it's wholly owned US media being it's propaganda arm has you snowed and captive!

It's like the system is RIGGED! Why if someone that might do something about this got elected, the whole Deep / Administrative State would likely go immediately to work to "overturn the will of the people"! (been awhile since the MSM has used THAT phrase!)  

Oh wait ... old news!

API, DNC, It's All "The Party"

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-associated-press-lies-about-the-fisa-application.php

If you listen to lefty media like NPR, stories like the API story are gospel. To anyone that wants an FBI, Justice Department and FISA courts that follow the rule of law as opposed to acting in blind hatred against a president they happen not to like, the Saturday night document dump on the FISA warrants

If you listen to lefty media like NPR, stories like the API story are gospel. To anyone that wants an FBI, Justice Department and FISA courts that follow the rule of law as opposed to acting in blind hatred against a president they happen not to like, the Saturday night document dump on the FISA warrants that started this "investigation" is a smoking gun for the partisan nature of the Administrative / Deep State, which sadly includes the judiciary. It all reports to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)

Trump is absolutely right, this is nothing but a purely political witchhunt, and it adds further concrete proof to the case that what is supposed to be a non-partisan Administrative State is nothing but an arm of "The Party" (TP-D).

If you need more detail, you will find it here ... https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/carter-page-fisa-applications-fbi-steele-dossier/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WIR%20-%20Sunday%202018-07-25&utm_term=VDHM

If you don't bow to all the doctrine and dogma of TP, you can't expect anything like "justice" from the rogue state that is BOistan.

A Tribal FBI

http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-russia-probe-should-alarm-every-american

"The Hill" is generally rated as a centrist news outlet, and I generally agree with that. I find this article well worth the read -- my standard for bias is always "what would be happening if it was the other side we were talking about?". I believe that is entirely impossible -- the Deep / Administrative State would NEVER be looking at "Russian Meddling" at all if Hillary had been elected. The certainly didn't investigate  BO promising the Russians "more flexibility after the election" accidentially on camera. Hard to beat that for "evidence of collusion" ... whereas with Trump we are coming up on TWO YEARS with NO EVIDENCE of any collusion. Funny, usually you have a PROSECUTOR, special or otherwise, when you have solid evidence of a crime. Oh wait, Trump was elected -- to the Deep State, that IS a crime!

So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to “nothing” and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment. 

Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional training told them it had “no big there there.” 

And that, by definition, is political bias in action. 

How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. 

Is that an FBI you can live with?

The reason the left is unconcerned is because they are certain that THEY don't have to live with that FBI ... only people that have moderate to conservative views that become too prominent in the judgement of somebody with power on the left have to deal with that sort of Deep / Administrative State attack.

It isn't only the idea of prosecuting someone for something that you know to be "nothing". It is breaking down any shred of privacy for those that stray from adherence to the rule of TP  ... this from NPR on the push to try to break the confidentiality of an interpreter between Trump and Putin:

CHANG: So with that in mind, could an interpreter be legally compelled to tell what was said during a conversation where he or she acted as the interpreter? 

OLSEN: You know, I am not a lawyer, but I will say that compelling an interpreter to do so in general is not a good idea. 

CHANG: Why don't you think it would be a good idea? 

OLSEN: Because it would undermine any confidence that people would have in interpreters. Whoever the statesmen or whoever the interlocutors may be, they have to have trust that that interpreter is not going to share the information that comes from a confidential encounter whether it is at the level of heads of state or it is in a medical clinic.

And of course, it isn't just "interpreters" -- for the left, the idea that anyone not a member of "The Party" (TP-D), or wholly in agreement with them, would have ANY sort of confidentiality ... for example, the breaking of  "attorney client privilege" ... here we  have the LA Times waxing hopeful that they have FINALLY "gotten the goods" on Trump through breaking into his attorneys office and taking what they wanted.

Tired old things like "rights" demanded that the rights apply to ALL! "But Trump" actually means that NOBODY has rights ... at least not ones that they can actually count on. Sure, TODAY, the left is total control of the Administrative / Deep State, most of the media, education, lawers / judges, the wealthy ... in general "the elite" ... so people of the left feel that using ANY method to attack Trump is fully justified BECAUSE TRUMP!

However, if you follow some of the links, the practice of using any means to attack even the sort of evil people that contributed to Scott Walker in WI  is becoming more and more common as covered here.

We are now DAILY, (and sometimes multiple times a day) reminded that for the Deep / Administrative State there are NO RULES! Certainly NPR and the left in general believes that the BIG RULE is that they are in POWER, so the "no rules" will only affect TRUMP! or those who foolishly voted for him or defend him!

Without transcendent beliefs and agreed to rules (like a written Constitution), POWER becomes the only operative rule -- and that is a big truth in BOistan!

Partisan Comey On Federalist Papers

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-comey-endorsement.php

I wonder if it ever even occurs to a party swamp creature like Comey that coming out as a partisan hack (even though it is of course obvious anyway) is really not that becoming for a recent director of a supposedly apolitical organization?

So in Federalist 51, Madison DOES indicate that "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.", however the main mechanism for that is SEPARATION OF POWERS!

So who does the FBI report to? The executive, meaning Trump? The legislative,  meaning the Republican controlled House and Senate? The SCOTUS? Clearly, Comey thinks "NOTA" ... the FBI as all of the Administrative / Deep State is a 4th extra-Consitutional branch of government controlled by "The Party" (TP-D) and reporting to nobody but TP!

In Federalist 47, Madison has THIS to say; "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

It is doubtful that Comey is going to be quoting that -- since the core of the Deep / Administrative State is having the power of the executive (bureaucracy), the legislative ( regulations, taxes, fees) and the judicial (Adminstrative Law) all combined in one tyrannical branch run entirely by "The Party" (TP-D)!

At least the swamp creatures are OBVIOUS about the fact that it is a TP controlled swamp!

Swamp Creature Classification, Peter Strzok

https://spectator.org/peter-strzok-a-cocky-liar-to-the-end/

I actually watched a few minutes of the farce/hearing while I was working out yesterday. The article is a good summary, I recommend reading it when you have nothing handy to throw.  Those of us who want to believe that there is some outside chance that we will return to something like "America" from the current BOistan, or successfully break off a "New America" from the "10ish" states that are core BOistan needs to look at a tiny bit of the video of the hearing and read at least a little of it. TP has established a new "problem word" ... "it", to join in infamy with "is".

This is the opening paragraph:

The Peter Strzok hearing was a travesty, starting with the fact that he testified as a cocooned, lawyered-up government employee still working for the FBI. It is outrageous that he hasn’t been fired yet. He even still has a security clearance! That alone is proof of the deep state’s hold on certain executive branch agencies. If the FBI keeps its so-so employees close, it keeps its worst employees even closer. That Strzok could huddle with FBI lawyers while stonewalling a Republican-led committee speaks to the corruption of official Washington and the comparative impotence of Republican administrations. Does anybody think an FBI agent who had vowed to “stop” the candidacy of Barack Obama would have lasted a week at his job, let alone over a year, after the discovery of his bias?

I understand that the most partisan of the lefties will just say BUT TRUMP!

The name and the effect in card games is so ironic that it continually amazes me. Our founders created a nation where the president was certainly important, but the Constitution, the separation of powers, AND the generally religious and God fearing nature of the American populace was FAR more important!

What BO showed us is that a major portion of the country was entirely ready for one party Administrative/Deep State rule, and president as dictator in all but name. In fact, they were certain they had ACHIEVED it -- I agree with them. They DID, and HAVE ... as the article makes clear, people that believe otherwise would absolutely KNOW that "Americans" of ALL political leanings would rise up in disgust and extreme anger at such a travesty from their own employee (Strzok) and his obvious colluders from "The Party" (TP-D). The Administrative / Deep State and TP are clearly of one piece -- the biggest fear of the Federalists has come to pass ... exectutive, legislative and judicial powers all coalesced in the Administrative / Deep State and in control of the single party, TP!

That is "the ball game", and incredibly, ALL that stands against it is the very thin and very hard to understand reed of TRUMP! Most of his strong supporters don't understand the real depth and mechanism of our peril in any level beyond their gut feel that their country is broken. Even those that DO to some extent understand the extremity of our danger (like Jonah Goldberg), fail to consider that at the moment, Trump is the only real resistance to TP tyranny that isn't just pointy headed intellectualism and purist posturing that gives any hint of a move to restoration of a just government to this sad broken territory of BOistan.

The article is a classic case of "read it and weep".