The CNN Two-Step

Image is from the PJ Media comments section

From "Doin' the CNN Two-Step" by Andrew Klavan at PJ Media: 

“The CNN Two-Step is a simple dance. Step One: Put your foot in your mouth. Step Two: Shoot yourself in the foot.” 

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Happy Independence Day

Fourth of July Cleveland fireworks

photo credits: Pat J Dooley Photography

Independence Day thoughts

image credit: The History Place

Scott Powell at the American Thinker blog reminds us:

July 4th, also known as Independence Day, is a much more lighthearted and festive American holiday -- with cookouts, parades, beach and boating parties and fireworks -- than other patriotic holidays such Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Most people forget that when the 56 members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, they were in fact signing their death warrants. At the time, Great Britain was the most powerful nation on earth, while the thirteen American colonies were poor and disunited. The British Crown deemed the issuance of a declaration of independence an act of treason, which meant that all signatories would be punishable by death.

. . .

As it turns out, the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate on July 4th, is not just what gave political birth to the United States, with its unique emphasis on limited government and the freedom for its citizens. It was these simple ideas put into practice that also enabled the nation’s ascendance from colonial poverty to global superpower in a little more than 200 years.

However, during the last 50 years, America has increasingly been on a course of surrender and retreat from the principles that made her the envy of the world for generations. May this July 4th be a special time, perhaps a turning point, in renewing those ideas and convictions that brought the Founders together, which embodied a certainty that the rights of the people come from God, and not the state. It’s not about being reactionary or turning the clock back, but rather it’s about aligning our thinking and action with the inclusive ideas, principles, courage, and faith that enabled prior generations of Americans to overcome, advance and prosper more than any other people in human history.

Read the rest here.

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Captain Luis Avila salutes his Commander-in-Chief

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OVjYRha8a0 

Many Tea Party people watched President Trump’s tribute to our veterans on the weekend run-up to Independence Day. There was one moment during his speech that I had to re-watch, and it was the part when President Trump paid tribute to US Army Captain Luis Avila and his wife Claudia.

Captain Avila served several tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq and lost his leg in an IED attack. This man was not expected to survive. He remains largely paralyzed, he is in a wheelchair, but just watch this short video. He can barely move his body, and yet he struggles mightily to salute, to literally salute, his Commander-in-Chief, President Trump (at about 1:40) and to bow in acknowledgement. It brought tears to my eyes. He is one of many Americans who knows that we have a CiC who loves our country and honors our veterans who defend our way of life.

God Bless US Army Captain Luis Avila, his wife Claudia, and President Donald J. Trump.

And Happy Independence Day.

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Fake News Works

art credit: zero hedge

Dave Merrick published a piece yesterday in the Canada Free Press on why “Fake News Works,” and it hits the nail on the head. The entire essay is here. Below are some extracts:

I have watched many lawyers imitate the following scenario when addressing a witness on the stand ... “Isn’t it true that you saw Mr. So-and-so get into his car and drive away after he committed the murder?” To which the opposing attorney will, if he is earning his wage, instantly respond, “OBJECTION! Counsel is leading the witness, your Honor! We don’t know that Mr. So-and-so committed any murder!” To which the examining attorney will just as instantly return with: “I withdraw the question, your Honor.” But the seed was planted, nonetheless. And that was all the attorney wanted to do. Jurors are impressionable - because they are people. He planted his seed to shape an opinion.

. . .

Professional politicians and their allies the liberal media . . . fully anticipate the naïveté, short attention spans and impressionability of their audiences, who no longer put forth any effort to make sure of anything (beyond perhaps doing an occasional appeal to an obviously left-leaning Snopes). (I encourage my readers to verify the accuracy of Snopes, especially “fact checker” Kim Lacapria).

YouTube is overflowing with video examples documenting liberal liars, starting with our former chief executive and including ‘news’ journalists, lying their heads off. Most people will never take the time to go looking for these mini-documentaries that only take a few minutes to review. [click here and scroll down for those videos] 

. . .

And lies distract us from the really important things that can destroy us as a nation.

The time that is wasted in a nation fumbling around with ‘scandals’ that don’t even exist is more time for the cancer of simple division and its festering rancor to continue in disintegrating what’s left of our unity and strength. As I have said many times, Donald Trump has got to be the single most slandered and berated president in all of American history. Everybody, from an outraged liberal media/ entertainment industry trying to regain its control - to nearly every second rate, has-been actor or musician pursuing a mother lode of free press - has of late climbed aboard the “I Hate Trump” train like sucker fishes hanging on a great white shark.

. . .

Now, finally, the authors of fake news are beginning to be exposed for what they are: sheep in wolves’ clothing who lie for a luxurious living.

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Question of the Day

Via Bookworm Room:

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Minimum wage updates: paging Mayor Jackson!

 art credit: The Tunnel Wall

The Washington Post reports that the state of Maine’s House voted on a bill to reduce the minimum wage for tipped restaurant workers. An earlier Cleveland Tea Party blog reported on Mayor Frank Jackson’s hopes of increasing the minimum wage for City of Cleveland employees.

Today, Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has more on the minimum wage debate:

Minimum wage laws are a perfect example of feel-good statism, in which the professed goal is noble, but the execution inevitably fails and makes things worse.  The state can no more repeal the law of supply and demand than it can the law of gravity.

But don't tell that to the Seattle City Council, which just commissioned a new study intended to get the answer it wants, from a scholar who has contended, in effect, that supply and demand don't really work at the bottom of the wage scale.  The wonderful thing about working with numbers is that by choosing baselines, time periods, and sample bias, you can find almost whatever you want.  As a graduate student who got a Ph.D. in sociology, I saw this clearly and was sickened by people openly proud of the ways in which they got to the conclusions they wanted for ideological reasons.  Nobel laureate Ronald Coase famously summed it up: "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess."

Will somebody tell Mayor Frank Jackson?

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