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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Delingpole: A Few Things We Could Happily Live Without in 2020…




Who better than James Delingpole at Breitbart to ring in the New Year with a different twist and a healthy dose of political incorrectness:

Happy New Year! Here’s a few things the public sphere could probably survive without by this time in 2020…

Greta Thunberg.  Every time you thought that the cult of St Greta could not get any more insane, reality said: “Hold my beer.” After being feted across the world by everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Pope, hailed by Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood as the new Joan of Arc, St Greta achieved full apotheosis at year-end when a Swedish pastor described her as the successor of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.

How sad it will be in 2020 when the world wakes up to the fact that this teenage school drop-out is nothing but a puppet for green crony capitalists in her native Sweden, who have choreographed every stage of her progression from ‘lonely schoolgirl protesting against climate inaction’ to Nobel-Prize-nominated superstar. No one likes being taken for a fool – and Greta the Puppet has fooled almost everyone.

Mr. Delingpole’s other please-go-away nominees:
  • Princess Meghan  (I’m sorry America, but you’re going to have to take Meghan Markle back.) . . . 
  • Never Trumpers
  • . . .
  • Bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes
  • . . .
  • Excuses for Muslim terrorism
  • Sir Elton John
  • George Soros
  • Care Bear Commies  (Expensively educated kids from the most prosperous generation in history confidently assuring us that ‘the only problem with communism is that it has never been tried properly yet.’) . . .

. . . and more. . .

Read his New Year’s article here.

And Happy New Year!
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Sunday, December 29, 2019

The menorah and “lights” in 2019



image credit: www:turbosquid.com

Tea Party readers who are not Jewish may not know the symbolism of the menorah. Rabbi Michael Barclay published a thoughtful article about “The Most Powerful Moments of Light in 2019” – one of many retrospectives on the year 2019, and he starts off:

On Hannukah, we are commanded to light a Hannukah menorah (a 9-branched candelabra [sometimes with 7-branches) and place it in our windows as a symbol of our willingness to combat evil…with each candle enlightening the dark in the world. In 2019, there has been a lot of darkness, but there have also been “candles” in the dark that have brought more light into all of our worlds. In honor of Hannukah (and the light of Christmas as well) it is good to remember some of these candles that have brought more light into this past year.

The menorah has eight specific candles and a “shamash," an all-important “helper" candle that lights each of the other lights. Below, in no particular order, are some of the powerful moments of light of 2019

  •      There can be no doubt that the shamash of 2019 has been President Trump. Without the shamash helper, none of the candles could be lit. It is the spark from which each candle comes. His actions have sparked lights around the world to combat the evil and darkness of “the swamp" that has been enveloping the nation over the last number of years. Despite the many efforts to snuff out this candle, his persistence and willingness to fight the darkness has demonstrated what dedication really means.

Eight other candles of light in the darkness of 2019, in no particular order, include [and please click here to read his explanations as to why these “lights” have been chosen]
  • Prager University's fight for freedom of speech. 
  • The executive order regarding Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
  • The election of Boris Johnson.
  • Congressmen Nunes, Collins, Jordan, Stefanik, and the rest of the Republican members of the House Committees on Intelligence and Justice.
  • Joe Biden.
  • Kanye West.
  • Father Robert Morey. 
  • The American people.

. . .

May each of us celebrate Hannukah, Christmas, and all holidays of light in a way that allows the glow of our souls to enlighten the world…creating true peace and joy.

Read the full article here
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Friday, December 27, 2019

President Trump signed bad spending bills

image credit: business insider.com


Just before Christmas, The Swamp Creatures passed more gazillion dollar spending bills and then left town. And unfortunately, President Trump signed them. Roll Call has the details here.

Here are related tweets via Tucker Carlson and his guest Ned Ryun:

Tucker Carlson & @NedRyun Slamming America Last Spending Bill Passed by the Swamp Before Christmas

Ned Ryun: "We elected @realdonaldtrump to veto these things, not to sign them. It's immoral to continue using the American taxpayer as an ATM for the ruling class."

Agree.  It is the first major black mark, IMHO, on President Trump’s report card.  In addition, some amnesty provisions were included in some of these spending bills. See here and here
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Thursday, December 26, 2019

Beware: Bogus fund-raising for Trump campaign

Mary Margaret Olohan at The Daily Caller reports:


Groups with no affiliation to President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign are siphoning off funds from Trump supporters under the impression that the groups are using donations to support the president.

An examination by Politico found that dark money groups, pro-Trump PACs, and Facebook advertisers copy Trump’s brand to dupe Trump supporters into donating to them. But the groups spend very little of these funds to actually support Trump, Politico reports.

The groups use Trump’s voice in robocalls asking for “an emergency contribution to the campaign” and use POTUS’ Twitter avatar on Facebook pages. 

About 20 groups with names like “Latinos for the President” and “MAGA Coalition,” groups that are structured as PACs or political nonprofits, brought in $46.7 million between January 2017 and June 2019, Politico reports. The publication adds that most of the money comes from donors who give $200 or less.

Trump officials worry that the hundreds of unofficial pro-Trump boosters are sucking up funds that would otherwise contribute to Trump’s 2020 campaign. They also confuse the Trump campaign’s messaging to the public and make it harder to accumulate donors, Trump allies told Politico.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop them,” said America First spokeswoman Kelly Sadler to Politico. America First is the only super PAC authorized by Trump, Politico reports. “This is a problem for the campaign, as well as us, as well as for the RNC.”

Read the rest here.  If you are inclined to contribute to any campaign, best to be pro-active and access the legitimate online campaign sites yourself.

And Happy Boxing Day!
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Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Monday, December 23, 2019

Trump rally announced ~ Toledo Jan.9





The president is set to hold a rally on Thursday, Jan. 9 at Toledo’s Huntington Center, according to a Trump campaign release. Doors open at 3 p.m.; the rally itself is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Tickets are free, but attendees must register online to reserve them. There’s a limit of two tickets per cell-phone number.


The president is set to hold a rally on Thursday, Jan. 9 at Toledo’s Huntington Center, according to a Trump campaign release. Doors open at 3 p.m.; the rally itself is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
Tickets are free, but attendees must register online to reserve them. There’s a limit of two tickets per cell-phone number.

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Sunday, December 22, 2019

Ned Ryun on “Conservatism Inc.”




Ned Ryun is a columnist and guest on TV news – and I’ve become a fan. I am posting an extract of his recent column at American Greatness, as it’s another skeptical look at “conservative” organizations that probably come looking for contributions from you by mail or email:

It’s about time we had a conversation about the racket in D.C., though it’s probably not the one that springs first to mind. I’m talking about Conservatism Inc.—that ecosystem of mostly worthless and ineffective think tanks and conservative organizations that are part and parcel of the swamp. They came riding into town, some decades ago, all gung-ho about breaking up the administrative state and restoring constitutional government and now, lo and behold, discovered that the swamp could start to feel like a warm, soothing hot tub.

By any metric with which you could measure effectiveness (simply existing doesn’t count) can anyone really tell you why Conservatism, Inc. even exists? A back of the napkin estimate shows that every year, hundreds and hundreds of millions fund these entities, but to what end?

Certainly not to be effective. Over the last 30-40 years, in the supposed heyday of the conservative movement, the size of government has exploded; our national debt has risen from roughly $1 trillion to nearly $23 trillion.

These conservative organizations likewise have grown from relatively grassroots-type groups with budgets of a few million dollars to massive entities, like the Heritage Foundation, with annual budgets approaching $100 million a year. They build swanky office buildings with marble lined bathrooms, employ French chefs, give themselves expense budgets, including even personal drivers, and generally live very comfortable lives, and then sell BS lines to their donors about how they’re changing the world, saving America, and blah blah blah.

. . .
Why do we allow people like the Kochs and the Singers of the world to be identified with conservatism or the GOP? Their bastardized version of capitalism and the free market could very well be the undoing of the party and the movement.

How have we come to this point? Greed is one explanation, with people willing to pimp themselves out and give a veneer of “conservative respectability” to causes and ideas that have almost nothing to do with conservatism.

There are many reasons for how we got here, but the great irony of it all is this: the best hope we’ve had in a generation to give ourselves a chance, Donald J. Trump, didn’t come out of the ecosystem of Conservatism, Inc. So beyond the worthless, corrupt behavior of it, will someone please explain to me why it still exists? Because if it merely exists to pimp out the ideas of Big Tech and pharma and vulture capitalists, the entire thing should be burned to the ground.

The column is here. (Our household contributes to Judicial Watch.)
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Saturday, December 21, 2019

Liberty Arms photo gallery



The proprietress of Bookworm Room posted a gallery of messages on the outdoor sign for “Liberty Arms Guns Ammo Tactical” store. She introduces the photographs: 

A gun store somewhere in America is regularly posting clever, pointed, thought-provoking signs on its store billboard.


Most of the messages are also funny. See the rest here.
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Thursday, December 19, 2019

Stop the Amnesty bill. Again.




NumbersUSA sent out an alert (and I’ve cut out the sections asking for contributions); should you want to explore their website, click here.  Here's an edited message:

House Passes Amnesty for More than One Million Illegal Aliens

The House of Representatives last week passed a massive, new amnesty for well over a million illegal aliens. That's bad news, no matter how you spin it. But there is some good news: Our members and allies made enough of an uproar about it that we minimized Republican support for the bill. We may have changed Republican leaders' minds about passing it.

We're not surprised we couldn't outright defeat the bill in the Democrat-controlled House. And It had been shocking to see dozens of Republicans falling over themselves to support this bill. Some people thought up to HALF of House Republicans -- maybe even Donald Trump -- would support the bill. The following quote was typical of a certain kind of Republican Representative:
"This [Ag Jobs bill] is exactly the kind of 'merit-based' immigration reform President Trump has been calling for.
"I spoke directly with President Trump about the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and the need for a solution for our farmers. He agreed: We must provide relief now."
-- U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, Yakima Herald, Dec 8, 2019
. . .
[NumbersUSA supporters] clobbered the Washington phone lines, and just about everyone who hadn't already voiced support for the bill backed away, Republican leaders "whipped" their members for "no" votes, and even a few co-sponsors changed their minds.

I want to be clear what just happened here: We've sapped much of the energy out of Republican supporters of this amnesty. But while NumbersUSA and its members threw a punch, it was NOT a knock-out blow for this bill. It may take another huge round of activism to finally put this bill to rest.

We made headlines that this is an amnesty... and THAT was crucial.
. . .
We have strong hopes that this bill will not be brought up for a vote if we push hard enough against it. But your Senators need to hear from you. . .

* * *

Here are details for Ohio's Senators:

Sen. Rob Portman:  Ohio toll free 1-800-205-6446 or by email here

Sen. Sherrod Brown: (202) 224-2315 (DC) or (216) 522 7272 (Cleveland)

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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Impeachment vote vs Battle Creek rally: competing photographs



Favorite take-away of the day was by William Jacobson at his blog Legal Insurrection:

Note the disconnect between Democrat triumphalism in D.C., and a packed 10,000-seat arena in a key battleground state.


Despite the Democrat-Media-NeverTrump vapors of how historic tonight’s vote to impeach Trump is, it’s being met mostly with a shrug of the shoulders by a nation that has heard Democrats demand impeachment since before Trump took office, and every day since then.

Tonight is the real start of the 2020 campaign.
. . .

Jacobson posted another photograph of rally-goers lined up hours earlier in the freezing cold:



Read the report here. Brad Parscale posted his head-count on Twitter:

Incredible Rally tonight in Battle Creek Michigan!

20,202 voters identified (92.2% from MI)
15% haven’t voted in last four elections, WOW!
15% have voted in only one of the last four elections
17% Democrats

Dems play theater while @realDonaldTrump is winning!


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Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Our President's letter to Speaker Pelosi


image credit: Babylon Bee

Link of the day to: the report on Breitbart by Charlie Spiering, "Read Donald Trump’s Historic Impeachment Takedown Letter to Nancy Pelosi". Click here and scroll down to the bottom for the scribd download of the 6-pg letter.  
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chuckle of the day


Today's meme from the Patriot Post :

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Monday, December 16, 2019

OAN Investigative report: all 3 parts now online


One America News Network


I blogged last weekend to alert readers to One America News Network’s 3-part investigation with Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainian officials into the corruption infecting US and Ukrainian politics.  It’s first-hand testimony that is gradually creeping into other news sources – not quickly enough for me. From the OAN wbsite:

OAN Investigates

EXCLUSIVE: Watch the unraveling of the biggest political scandal in US history.  Travel with OAN’s Chanel Rion and Rudy Giuliani to Budapest and Kiev to capture explosive first-hand interviews with key Ukrainian officials highlighting DNC collaborated foreign interference into the 2016 presidential election.  Hear the shocking first hand testimony of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin on why he was fired and what corruption he uncovered.

At any rate, click on the link here to access all three programs now up on YouTube.
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Sunday, December 15, 2019

OANN re-broadcasts Ukraine documentary today




One America News Network’s 3-part investigative report


will be re-broadcast this evening Dec. 15 starting at 9am and again at 8pm.    Part 3 premiered this weekend. Our household watched the Part 3 premiere last night. Hoping it goes viral.
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Saturday, December 14, 2019

OANN investigative report on Ukraine with Giuliani




Reminder: One America News Network’s 3-part investigative report


will be broadcast this evening Dec. 14.    Part 1 starts at 8pm.  Part 3 premieres at 10pm
# # #

Buckle Up


 image credit: dartmouth-hitchcock


Eric Georgatos at American Thinker thinks the battle is just beginning. His essay opens:

In four consecutive days, what a lineup of events to illustrate the upheaval America is going through.  We had the I.G. report delivered on December 9; we watched Attorney General Barr step up on December 10 with two explosive interviews with the basic message that the I.G. report is the bare minimum in terms of describing the official wrongdoing that's already fully understood by Barr and is going to be exposed by John Durham; and we watched on December 11 I.G. Michael Horowitz's extraordinarily damaging-to-the-FBI-and-DOJ testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

And on the fourth day, the kicker "tell" for the turmoil that lies ahead: the Wall Street Journal — one of the last bastions of at least a whiff of objective journalism among the mainstream media — comes out with a print edition on December 12 where the front page has not one story on Horowitz's Senate testimony the previous day.

The WSJ has plenty of sophisticated writers who can patch together some erudite-sounding explanation for their front-page story selections.  But the elephant in the room stands: the events of this week demonstrate that every single element of the American ruling class — eight-plus years' worth of Deep State Obama leftists; the Uniparty Senators — like Richard Burr; Mark Warner; and yes, Lindsey Graham; the MSM; rigged-trade, anti-Trump globalists — every one of them is at risk of collapse in power and prestige, not to mention financial setbacks.  The fact that the WSJ appears to have adopted a move-along, nothing-to-see-here posture at a time when the demand for accountability should headline the news — well, it signals that the ruling class still believe they can lead on the ignorant masses with their lies, censorship, and suppression of information, and keep on keepin' on. 

So it is going to fall on the people of this country to hold the wrongdoers accountable, to refuse to "move along," to insist that this level of malfeasance must be punished.  The comeuppance must be sustained public outrage, institutional house-cleaning, and ultimately an electoral smack-down like America has never seen before.

Read the rest here.
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Thursday, December 12, 2019

Victor Davis Hanson on impeachment and TDS


Gary Varvel cartoon via indystar.com

Historian Victor Davis Hanson’s article “Is Trump the Only Adult in the Room?” has been linked on multiple web and blogsites. Here’s an extract via Fox News:

Democrats addicted to attacking Trump –
even if impeachment drive hurts them

. . . [N]o president in modern memory has been on the receiving end of such overwhelmingly negative media coverage and a three-year effort to abort his presidency, beginning the day after his election.
. . .
The common denominator of all this petulance is exasperation over the inability to derail Trump.

Trump’s many enemies fear he will be reelected in 2020, given a booming economy and peace abroad. They know that they cannot remove him from office. And yet they fear that the more they try to stain him with impeachment, the more frustrated and unpopular they will become.

Yet, like end-stage addicts, they simply cannot stop the behavior that is consuming them.

Full article is here.
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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

No Safe Spaces documentary now in Ohio theaters




Last October, this blog reported on Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla’s documentary No Safe Spaces. BookwormRoom blogged her review a couple of days ago:

. . .every American ought to see this movie. The reality is that only conservatives who are already worried about the death of free speech in America will attend it. On the Left, they’re smugly happy with their increasing ability, both on campuses and in corporate America, to shout down and censor anything they don’t like. And in the vast middle, the Americans who need to start to care, people probably aren’t even aware that the movie is playing.
. . .
Carolla and Prager are the two pillars anchoring the No Safe Spaces. Carolla presents himself as a working class yob and comic (and also America’s most popular podcaster) who has a visceral belief that we are destroying our youth by mentally coddling them and that the answer is free speech for them and for everyone. Prager is the Jewish intellectual, the college educated man who spent time in the Soviet Union during the heyday of its totalitarianism. Prager too is a free speech fanatic. Both men are agreed (rightly) that free speech — true free speech, not the European or Canadian simulacrums — is a uniquely American attribute and that its destruction is the first step on the road to totalitarianism.

Bookworm's full review is here.

The website for the documentary now lists Ohio locations where this documentary is playing, including in Solon, Akron, and Elyria. Click on the website here and scroll down to the listings for Ohio.
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Monday, December 9, 2019

Ukraine and Washington corruption: re-broadcast schedule on OAN

image credit: the DefuniakHerald

Yesterday, I posted a report about One America News Network’s (OAN) special investigative reports. Reporter Chanel Rion interviewed Rudy Giuliani and several witnesses from Ukraine, all of whose testimony undermines the framework for the “impeachment” process. The report did not break through today to the MSM, but OAN will be re-broadcasting parts 1 & 2 as well as premiering part 3 this weekend.   Mark your calendars or set your recording devices.  The programming is not showing up yet on the TV schedule for this weekend on ATT-TV, but the OAN website has this:


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Sunday, December 8, 2019

Ukraine and Washington corruption exposed

image credit: the DefuniakHerald


Most of the blogging here concentrates on local and state level developments as well as national news that affects core Tea Party values.  But this is so newsworthy that I decided to post anyway.  It was Sundance at Conservative Treehouse that tipped us off to the program.  Our household watched OAN’s 2-part investigative report this evening, with reporter Chanel Rion interviewing Rudy Giuliani and several witnesses from Ukraine. It was an eye-popper, and I hope it is picked up by headlines all over the place tomorrow.  Mark Tapscott at Instapundit was on it this evening:

ONE AMERICA NEWS (OAN) GOES WHERE MSM WON’T: Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko tells OAN all about former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovich’s “untouchables” list. If OAN can go to Ukraine and interview principals in the impeachment scandal, why can’t ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, etc. etc.?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Answer: Because they’re not interested in knowing what actually happened.

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m bumping this up because it’s very important, undercutting the thesis of the whole impeachment endeavor. And this is the evidence that the House prosecutors will be confronted with if there’s a trial in the Senate.

I did not see that OAN was re-running the two-hour broadcast this coming week, so I have emailed them to see if it will re-run the two programs or make them accessible at their website. If you’ve been frustrated by the “impeachment” testimony and all the scandals that never lead to indictments, you’ll be glued to this. Meantime, I will be on the lookout for excerpts and footage. And you can read Sundance's report here.
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Saturday, December 7, 2019

Remembrance Day






President Trump's Proclamation commemorating the 78th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor is here.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Corruption in the GOPe

Michael Ramirez cartoon via International Liberty



Some readers will have watched Tucker Carlson’s segment last night on Paul Singer, someone I had never heard of before. The segment interviewed residents of Sidney, Nebraska about the destruction of their town as a result of Singer’s predatory actions.

Today, the blog Ace of Spades has much more, pulling back more of the masks of the Uniparty:

Tucker Carlson Obliterates Free Beacon Funder & 
Possible FusionGPS Paymaster Paul Singer, 
as Well As His Owned-and-Operated Pet Senator Ben Sasse

This is an important story. Both video and a transcript at the link.

Definitely watch until the very end, where Tucker Carlson lays into Ben Sasse, one of Paul Singer's wholly-owned subsidiaries, for refusing to make any comment whatsoever -- or even respond to inquiries from Carlson -- about his views about Paul Singer's destruction of a town in the state Sasse allegedly represents.


People like Paul Singer control the GOP and are effectively in a conspiracy against actual GOP voters. When Singer's kid announced he was gay, Paul Singer basically mandated that the GOP become pro-gay marriage, and the GOP complied.

Another billionaire funder, Stanley Hubbard, told, in 2016, his own pet candidate Scott Walker that he must not question the Corporate Class Consensus on birthright citizenship and high levels of tolerated, supposedly illegal immigration.
Hubbard issued his rebuke, and Walker changed his tune to sing the Corporate Class anthem within a day.
. . .
Paul Singer calls the shots in the GOP. If you ever wonder why the GOP supports so many unpopular positions with incredible zeal and passion (such as vulture capitalism), and why the GOP runs away from some popular issues like border enforcement, and why the GOP takes the Democrat side on issues which are 50/50 (gay stuff, abortion), it's because very rich liberals like Paul Singer, who have no interest in the GOP or conservatism except to pervert it into a tool to help put more money into their pockets, have willed it so . . .

The full report by Ace of Spades is here.  There will always be vultures like Singer, whether in a free market or in a government-controlled economy, but it is particularly scary to see yet more corruption in the political class, including most of the GOP.   
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Monday, December 2, 2019

Dilbert and Trump



You and Scott Adams probably have had similar experiences. The Wired blog has an article/interview with him on to promote his latest book, and it starts off:

After expressing support for Donald Trump in 2016, Dilbert creator Scott Adams estimates that he lost about 30 percent of his income and 75 percent of his friends. He says that that level of political polarization has created a climate of genuine fear.

“People will come up, and they’ll usually whisper—or they’ll lower their voice, because they don’t want to be heard—and they’ll say, ‘I really like what you’re doing on your Periscope, and the stuff you’re saying about Trump,'” Adams says in Episode 389 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “They’re actually afraid to say it out loud. They literally whisper it to me in public places.”

Adams blames the current climate on social media and a clickbait business model that rewards sensationalism over fact-based reporting. Since the technology is here to stay, he says we’re going to need new societal norms to help foster a calmer, more constructive political discourse.

Yes, but this gets us into another major issue contributing to the political polarization, i.e., emotions on one side vs critical thinking on the other.  Adams expands on that point in an earlier book, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, pictured above.  More of the Wired Scott Adams interview is here.
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Sunday, December 1, 2019

The Plot Against the President





Some readers will not have the time to read book-length investigations into Deep State and media-fueled hoaxes. So here’s an excerpt from Scott Johnson’s review of Lee Smith’s book, The Plot Against the President, posted at Power Line:

All The President’s Men, Take 2

Lee Smith is the author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in US History. The book is an invaluable companion to Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency; it adds to and amplifies the case McCarthy makes. I wrote about McCarthy’s book in “All the president’s men, Obama style.” Smith’s book elaborates on the theme to which I alluded in the heading of that post. I urge all readers with an interest in this incredible scandal to read both books.

Lee Smith is a great journalist. This bears on one of the book’s principal themes: the complicity of the press in peddling the hoax alleging the collusion of the Trump campaign with organs of the Russian government. In peddling the hoax, the most prominent organs of the mainstream media were the accomplices of the perpetrators. The book cites the relevant stories and relentlessly names names demonstrating the “collusion” of the press with the Clinton campaign and the government — the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice — in peddling the Russian hoax as news.

Within the profession there has been no reckoning for the misconduct that the book makes out. On the contrary, at the profession’s upper reaches, we have seen only the renewed commitment to carry on the campaign to remove Trump from office. 

This book may be the closest we ever get to the day of reckoning that is due the press.

Read the full column here.
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Wednesday, November 27, 2019

The first Thanksgiving



Image credit: en.wikipedia.org

Re-posted from earlier Cleveland Tea Party Thanksgiving blogs:

What Thanksgiving really means To Americans

A couple of years ago, Jerry Bowyer, writing in Forbes Magazine, recounted the real significance of Thanksgiving, a significance that is too often lost among the turkey dinners, football games, and stories about Indians who befriended the early settlers. 

In 1620, the Plymouth pilgrims based their original community on Plato’s Republic, a collective model that appealed to their religious convictions and morality. But the communal model didn’t work for them. After two years of failing harvests and resulting malnutrition, disease, starvation, and deaths, the pilgrims replaced the communal model with a model based on private property. The ensuing harvest was abundant, with surpluses available for trade.

Their Thanksgiving celebrated the triumph of the individual, private property, and incentive, over collectivism. At first, the pilgrims felt guilty because they were putting self-interest over the seeming altruism of socialism. Yet the devout survivors had learned two lessons: 1) that a theoretical and Utopian collective society fails, and (2) in real life, private property and capitalism produce prosperity. For them, God, not Plato, knew best. Accepting the principles of private property and self-interest was God’s way of harnessing self-interest to the greater good. We know all of this because an elder and Governor of the Plymouth plantation, William Bradford, kept a journal and it survives today. Mr. Bowyer’s earlier article, with additional historical background, is here.) 


It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom. One of the earliest and arguably most historically significant North American colonies was Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620 in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. As I’ve outlined in greater detail here before (Lessons From a Capitalist Thanksgiving), the original colony had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor. 

As William Bradford recorded in his Of Plymouth Plantation, a people who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Resources were squandered, vegetables were allowed to rot on the ground and mass starvation was the result. And where there is starvation, there is plague. 

After 2 1/2 years, the leaders of the colony decided to abandon their socialist mandate and create a system which honored private property. The colony survived and thrived and the abundance which resulted was what was celebrated at that iconic Thanksgiving feast.

As my friend Reuven Brenner has taught me, history is a series of experiments: The Human Gamble. Some gambles work and are adopted by history and some do not and should be abandoned by it. The problem is that the human gamble only works if there is a record of experimental outcomes and if decision makers consult that record. For many years, the story of the first failed commune of Plymouth Bay was part of the collective memory of American students. But Progressive Education found that story unhelpful and it has fallen into obscurity, which explains why (as I alluded to before) a well-educated establishment figure like Jared Bernstein would be unaware of it.

I’m often asked why our current leadership class forgets the lessons of the past so often. They are, after all, very smart men and women. Don’t they know that collectivism will fail?

No, they don’t. Not anymore. For much of our history, our leaders were educated in the principles which were to help them avoid errors once they have joined the ruling class. They studied to learn how to not misuse power. Now our leaders learn nothing of the dangers of abusing power: their education is entirely geared to its acquisition.  All of their neurons are trained on that one objective – to get to the top. What they do when they get there is a matter for later. And what happens to the country when they’re done with their experiments is beside the point: after all, their experiments will not really affect them personally. History is the story of the limitations of human power. But the limits of power is a topic for people who doubt themselves and their right to rule, not the self-anointed.

That’s how it is now, and that’s how it was in 1620. The charter of the Plymouth Colony reflected the most up-to-date economic, philosophical and religious thinking of the early 17th century. Plato was in vogue then, and Plato believed in central planning by intellectuals in the context of communal property, centralized state education, state centralized cultural offerings and communal family structure. For Plato, it literally did take a village to raise a child. This collectivist impulse reflected itself in various heretical offshoots of Protestant Christianity with names like The True Levelers, and the Diggers, mass movements of people who believed that property and income distinctions should be eliminated, that the wealthy should have their property expropriated and given to what we now call the 99%. This kind of thinking was rife in the 1600s and is perhaps why the Pilgrim settlers settled for a charter which did not create a private property system.

But the Pilgrims learned and prospered. And what they learned, we have forgotten and we fade.  Now, new waves of ignorant masses flood into parks and public squares. New Platonists demand control of other people’s property. New True Levelers legally occupy the prestige pulpits of our nation, secular and sacred. And now, as then, the productive class of our now gigantic, colony-turned-superpower, learn and teach again, the painful lessons of history. Collectivism violates the iron laws of human nature. It has always failed. It is always failing, and it will always fail. I thank God that it is failing now. Providence is teaching us once again.

Happy Thanksgiving!


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