Was It A "Slam Dunk" ?

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-putin-press-conference-doesnt-criticize-putin/

Even the right seems have to developed a sudden respect for the veracity of the Deep State intelligence. My, how far we have come since George Tenet issued his "slam dunk" summary of Saddam's WMD!

My biggest problems with "Russian Meddling" are these:

1. Why? Russia's main export (outside of Vodka) is Energy. They have spend tens of millions to defeat fracking and pipelines in the US because they don't like competition (most businesses really don't!). They paid Hillary something around $50 million to gain access to 20% of US uranium reserves, so they certainly were not "anti-Clinton". Why would they work to get the most likely candidate to help the US produce more energy in office?
   
2. How? No, I'm not Liz Warren saying hello. How did they 'influence the election"? By buying some bogus FB ads? By doing "fake news"? By helping release emails the D's had protected with a password of "password"?
   
   The US MSM was a full time shill for Hillary and every week was a new thing that HAD to do Trump in. If you listened to NPR, his campaign was "hopeless", "over" and in "disarray" every week. Why Republicans were likely going to lose the house and the senate because of what a disastrous candidate Trump was. They were ALWAYS going to "replace him".
   
   HOW did the Russians counteract BILLIONS of US media directed against Trump on a daily basis? I actually think I DO have the answer to this one! Hillary is certainly too smart to call half the electorate "irredeemable deplorables" on her own ... clear Russian trickery with her 

If Trump is like me, he no longer believes ANYONE! Not our Deep State, not the Russians, and CERTAINLY not the media! ... not any side of it to do anything put put out stories to improve their ratings!

When you are leader of a failed state run by an Administrative / Deep State that is unaccountable to anyone and where the Sheeple have such short memories that I doubt they recall a decade ago when the CIA was considered completely unreliable.

In fact, on the left, way back to the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iran, etc, the CIA or any "American Intelligence" was as much an oxymoron as "military intelligence"! 

The left spent decades telling us this nation was "not a Christian nation"! and we finally believed them. They have spent at least since the '60s telling us how corrupt and untrustworthy government institutions like the military, the CIA, the FBI and the NSA are -- now they suddenly find them to be above reproach! Gee, that is really hard to understand! 

Could it be that when all that matters is political victory, that you will take any position in order to make political points? Is Trump any different? 

Who knows? We trust the Russians more than our own NASA to put men in space, perhaps they are better at intelligence as well? Or maybe just less political agenda driven than our own Deep State. 

Hillbilly Eligy, JD Vance

https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547

The subject book has amazingly been a rather celebrated book from some quarters on the left as to how people on the left might understand the shock of Trump's election. The subtitle of the book is "A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis".

In many ways, it is often a small world -- a professor that significantly helped Vance at Yale was Amy Chua, who wrote the recent "Political Tribes, Group Instinct and The Fall of Nations". which I find to be a more important book for understanding our peril than this one, however both are useful.

Vance tells his own story of a childhood full of chaos and a "crazy hillbilly Mammaw (grandma)" that kept him from becoming the standard "statistic" and rather becoming an "outlier" who graduates from Yale Law, has a great wife, job, etc. Along the way he tells about other "hillbillys" that moved north from Tennesee, Kentucky, "Appalchia" for "better lives" in Ohio and other Rust Belt states, only to discover that when removed from the tight extended families and communities in which they were born, they turned to rank consumerism, generally poor life choices in food, finance, health, and love (out of wedlock births, serial relationships, abuse), and often addiction and early death.

The "Hillbillys" are dying ... thus the "eligy", kind of like "eulogy", a lament of the dead or dying.

He talks about the perils of life on the dole -- and how the working class poor can't figure out how the government funded poor have smart phones, steak for dinner, better housing, etc, and actually "look down" on those working serial and sometimes parallel low wage long hour jobs. As he says on page 140:

"Political scientists have spent millions of lines of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democrat to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democrat party's embrace of the civil rights movement. Others cite religious faith and the hold of evangelical churches in that region. A big part of the explanation lies in the fact that a big percentage of the white middle class saw just what I did working at Dillman's (grocery store). As far back as the 70's, the white working class began to turn Republican because of the perception that as one man put it; government was payin people on welfare for doin nothin! They're laughing at our society! And we hard working people are getting laughed at for working every day!"

At times I wonder if people on the left actually read the supposedly "in" books of the left. The idea that the shift of the South and Appalachia from D to R was CAUSED by Nixon's "Southern Strategy" of "dog whistle racism" is dogma on NPR and in general on the left of this country. It is sort of like "the Virgin Birth" to Christians ... if you are left, you HAVE to believe that most of what has caused the rise of Republicans is racism ... coupled of course with stupidity, R's are ALWAYS really really stupid! To be part of a tribe is to believe it's dogma (and of course believe that it is a "fact", not dogma)

Another point he makes that would seem obvious to anyone having remotely looked at the history of Western civilization and the decline thereof since say "1900", is the following on page 92:

"Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those  who don't attend church at all. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber even found that the relationship was causal: It's not just that people who happen to live successful lives go to church, it's that church seems to promote good habits."

I'm always suspicious of "statistical proofs", ESPECIALLY when they agree with my biases! My PERSONAL belief is that especially in today's world, people that practice their religion MUST be people of sturdy individual character (or what I REALLY believe, "have a strong relationship with Christ"), because the general culture is so much against them. The other obvious observation is that people under common duress (like soliders being attacked) tend to bond pretty well. Since the practice of religion is being generally attacked in the west, the faithful tend to bond better than ever, thus making vital human connections that serve to improve their lives.

In any case, even though it can be damned depressing at times, it is a good little story that has a happy ending, and often one can't really ask for much else in a book. In my opininion, you would be far better served by just reading "Suicide of the West" and just skipping JD and Amy -- however, my opinion is also that reading is always rewarding. Deeper knowledge and multiple perspectives are a gift if you have the time and inclination!

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".

Suicide Of The West, Jonah Goldberg

https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-West-Tribalism-Nationalism-Destroying/dp/1101904933

The subject book is subtitled "How the rebirth of tribalism, populism, nationalism, and identiypolitics is destroying American democracy". My title for the book would be "Letting the miracle of liberal democracy and capitalism fall apart for lack of care".

The short short summary of the book is that in 17-1800 the combination of certain thinkers (Locke, Adam Smith, etc)  created what Goldberg calls "the miracle" of liberal democracy and capitalism which resulted in the greatest improvement of the human condition in all of human history.

"...liberalism -- by which I mean not partisan Democrats or progressives, but the original Enlightenment-based understanding of natural rights and limited governmen -- and capitalism".  

"Liberalism, by enforcing the rule of law and recognizing the rights of everybody, especially property rights, makes trade easier, and trade makes liberalism more desireable.

The Miracle comes out of this worldview. It is the product of a bourgeois revolution, an eighteenth-century midle-class ideology of merit, industriousness, innovation, contracts, and rights. Capitalism is the most cooperative system ever created for the peaceful improvement of peoples lives. It has only a single fatal flaw: It doesn't FEEL like it".  

The book contends that liberal democracy and capitalism are not "natural" -- if they were, they would have shown up earlier and more widely. When they DID show up was in England (by accident) and in America (by choice). Like your home or your car, they are not of nature, so without constant vigilance, they are "corrupted" ... meaning the natural process of decay and putrification. It is the thesis of the book that sometime around "1900", we started to assume that the mechanisms that provided the seemingly never ending cornucopia of wealth were "natural", or in themselves "rights" as in thinking we have the RIGHT to have lots of economic goods and freedom without having to work at the underlying system that creates those things.

Chapter 5 gives the key insight in my mind ...

"The history of political philosophy is really the history of the of the stories we tell ouselves about ourselves. The two most important creation myths of the modern West were told by Locke and Rosseau. They are in constant battle with each other to this very day, and as of this writing, Rouseau is winning". 

"...Locke believed in the sovereignty of the individutal and that we are "captains of ourselves". Rosseau aruged that the group was more important than the individual and the "general will" was superior to the solitary conscience. Man is sinful according to Lock, a noble savage according to Rosseau. Our rights come from God, not government declares Locke. No, we surender our individual rights to the judgement of the sovereign, replies Rosseau. Lock says that the rights of property and to the fruits of our labors is the keystone of a free and just order. Rosseau says that property is the original sin of civilization and, in a just society, property must be mentioned by the sovereign for the good of the whole community ..."

And so it goes. Chapter 5 is an important chapter for understanding where "The Miracle" came from, and why it is in mortal danger.  The Miracle is largely the temporary triumph of reason over emotion in the specific form of liberal democracy and capitalism, but since it is emotion, not reason, that is natural and dominant in humans, when we forget the "why" of the system that got us here, the system is certain to fail. (I wrote on this a lot in the old blog, a good example is here).

Jonah is a "#NeverTrump" person, so I was glad I hadn't taken a drink when I read on page 316:

"The imperial arrogance of progressive social engineers and social justice warriors had earned an apocaylyptic backlash so powerful that even clear-eyed conservatives that recognized Trump's dishonesty and demagoguery couldn't resist it. Indeed, as much as I hold Trump in contempt, I am still compelled to admit that, if my vote would have decided the election, I probably would have voted for him."

Jonah is an intellectual ... I'm not sure he has ever claimed to have a practical bone in his body.  So, even though HE also realized that Trump was better than the alternative, he talked and spilled lots of ink against Trump, likely swaying at least 100's of K of people on the right to not vote, vote libertarian, etc. Nobody has to be "taken in" by any "dishonesty, demagoguery, poor personal morals, etc" to realize that any sort of restoration, while still EXCEEDINGLY unlikely, was just totally beyond the pale if Hillary won and turned the SCOTUS to a full legislate from the bench on anything and everything 100% of the time. Christians would not only be baking cakes for gays, we would be well on the road to being lion treats in the DC colluseum!

The book is WELL worth the reading time -- I've covered a lot of the ground he covers before, but he is a smarter and better writer. The conversion of the US "government" into an all inclusive and intrusive unconstitutional "state" that has become an unelected 4th branch, the Adminstrative Sate, that combines the legislative power of the purse/making laws, executive, and judicial all in one branch that only reports to The Democrat Party ("The Party" TP-D) is well covered.

The loss of meaning in life because of the loss of "the little platoon" ... the buffer organizations of church, local civic organizations, BOY Scouts, extended, and even nuclear family, leaves atomic individuals with nothing for meaning but consumption and distraction.

On page 302 is a great aside about Phil Graham talking to a crowd and saying "my policies are based on the assumption that nobody loves our children as much as my wife and I do".

A woman in the crowd yelled out "I love your kids as much as you do!".

Graham responded; "Oh really. What are their names?"

The point is that the State can promise you a lot, but it actually can't even care about you, let alone "love you" ... at best, you are a NUMBER to the faceless Administrative State, and what they primarily care about is increasing their own power.

It pprovides an excellent summary on what I have blogged on for years. A highly recommended read!

Republicans, Conservatives, People

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-left-the-republican-party-now-i-want-democrats-to-take-over/2018/07/03/54a4007a-7e38-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.31489306ad9b

I've often said that the Republican Party is validly called "the stupid party". The biggest reason for this is that many that call themselves "Republicans" have some version of a largely dead traditionalist world running around in their heads that is complete fantasy ... "return to the gold standard", "pay off the national debt", "no military intervention anywhere ... and maybe no armed forces", "demand leadership with absolutely unimpeachable character!", "get us out of the UN!".  "voting only on a mountain top with finger print ID!" ... and on and on.

Often they hearken back to some halcyon politician of the past ... "Reagan!", "Goldwater!", "Ike!", "Coolidge!" ...  even Lincoln ... how dead the heroic politician is makes no difference, and in many cases, the caricature of the imagined "great one" is way beyond what the actual person was. Never mind! These purist Republicans have "STANDARDS!", and to some degree, why have standards if they can't be unrealistic??

Which brings us to George Will, Max Boot and even John McCain to a certain extent -- they REALLY hate Trump, and they increasingly REALLY hate anyone that can look at him pragmatically and say "damned site better than the alternatives".

I read articles like the linked and am simply amazed that anyone really thinks people care about the virtue signalling of the column authors relative to Trump. So what? HW Bush had a stellar character and demeanor -- he was destroyed by the media. W was much similar -- kind, decent, Christian, honorable, etc -- he was road kill for the Democrat media popular culture machine. AND they were PROUD of doing it!

BO ignored the Constitution constantly, wanted to "bring a gun to a knife fight", and just generally stunk up the economy, foreign policy, the SCOTUS, race relations, and everything else he walked by ... always with his nose in the air, "above the fray".  If some of these virtuous purist Republicans could have shown a  TENTH the interest in combating BO as they do in combating Trump, we would have gotten Mittens in 2012, a few tatters of America would have been saved, and there never would have been a Trump presidency. Their "virtue" is very selective -- and not productive in the least!

Politics, ESPECIALLY conservative politics is never supposed to make people, or even politics itself an idol. The principles are smaller government, reining in the administrative state, strong defended borders, keeping religion in the public square and culture, low crime, encouragement of a work ethic ... those sorts of things. All people and certainly all politicians are imperfect in the extreme -- "the lesser of two evils" is vcry commonly the choice.

Sure, you can give yourself some faux "virtue" by being anti-Trump, but even REAL human virtue is seen as "filthy rags" to real conservatives that see man as the measure of VERY little, and certainly not "virtue".

Voting in Democrats because you want to virtue signal how much you dislike Tump is pretty much sanding your whole body and jumping into a vat of acid to show how "serious you are" -- seriously lost in space, certainly ... but why are we supposed to care?

Trump has governed far better than I think even the most optimistic of rational conservatives would have expected ... and now, another SCOTUS pick looms. It doesn't take much of a genius to see that Ruth Vader Ginsburg may exit at any time. Potentially, the stain of Roe V Wade can finally be overturned and the days of legislating from the bench might be significantly slowed for a generation!

Trump is a president and a person ... not a moral leader. 2016 was the election that Christians finally accepted the fact that we no longer lived in a "Christian nation"  ... we could no longer hope for a president that shared our faith and values, but we could attempt to get one that would at least recognize us as a political bloc with a right to exist!

Conservatives, and especially Christians are in an existential fight in America, and we have been losing badly for a VERY long time. Trump is nothing more than a "reprieve", but we need to get together and take full advantage of that reprieve, not play into the hands of those that would make BOistan a nation where conservatives and Christians are hounded in the streets!

Here was my personal shot at what a new conservative party might be like.

NEA Post Janus Meeting (Power Line)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/how-we-welcomed-the-national-education-association-to-minneapolis.php

Power Line covers it pretty well. I'm sensitive to the "evil" charge these days since after reading Suicide of the West, I can see where it really fails to move us forward -- "very misinformed", "alternative tribal world view that is at odds with liberty and keeping food on your table" (see Venezuala).

In any case, thank God for Trump and the Roberts Court! One thing about America vs BOistan ... when you have good ideas, they DON'T need to be mandatory as in they collect union dues from you no matter what!

Documentation of Deep State and Democrat Media Collusion

http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/14/inspector-general-put-together-insane-fbi-leak-chart-upon-finding-rules-widely-ignored/

The linked article documents the conclusions of the Inspector General report on happenings in the FBI corner of the Deep State during the cover up of the Hillary illegal e-mail server and the creation of the false "Russian Collusion" story used as the "insurance policy" to damage Trump in what they considered to be the nearly impossible case of him winning the election. A key finding ...

“FBI employees received tickets to sporting events from journalists, went on golfing outings with media representatives, were treated to drinks and meals after work by reporters, and were the guests of journalists at nonpublic social events,” the report states.

Anyone paying attention knows the Deep State and the MSM operate as one organization to assure that "The Party" (TP-D) maintain actual control of the BOistan State no matter what sham elections "by the people" are supposedly held. If the results of those elections ... as in 2016 result in the supposed transfer of power to a party "not TP" happens, then the result is what we have seen -- the Deep State, the media, and the entire elite apparatus of the actual power in BOistan ... the Administrative State and the elite including most of the judiciary, immediately seek to invalidate the results of the election. 

The conclusion of their own report ...

The IG’s stated takeaway from the discovered leaks is a needed change in the FBI’s apparent cultural attitude. They recommended that the FBI “evaluate whether (a) it is sufficiently educating its employees about both its media contact policy and the Department’s ethics rules, and (b) its disciplinary penalties are sufficient to deter such improper conduct.”

The obvious answers to "a and b" are clearly "no, and hell no" ... however any actual move to make any even cursory attempt to fix that is nowhere to be seen. 

Since the majority of the Republican party is also signed up to continue the sham "4th unaccountable branch of the state" (The Administrative State) the chances of reform are minimal.

What we have at this point is clear documentation of what I've been writing about for more than a decade -- we no longer live in "America", but in a failed state controlled by unelected beauracrats who are unionized Democrats who contribute mightily to TP.

Will the recent SCOTUS rulings that government unions no longer be able to demand that all employees provide mandatory financial support to this unholy arrangement have any teeth?

We are far from seeing any real progress -- but at this point, all who care certainly can see the truth of what has happened.