How the Left is saving me money

image credit: businessingamble.com

James Mullin at American Thinker closed his column “How The Left Is Saving Me Money”:

So, I thought, what else has the Left ruined for me, and in the process saved me money?  Well, I no longer contribute a dime to my college alma mater. . . I attend the movies hardly at all anymore, thanks to Hollywood's antics.  I can't see the character for the repugnant actor or actress.  I also scaled back my cable subscription due to the disgust I have for Comcast and Disney.  I read more and learn more, instead.  Just last week, I chose a much more reasonable store brand sneaker over the odious Nike brand, after it made Kaepernick its spokesperson.  Likewise, I gave up Ben and Jerry's ice cream for store brand and chose AMAC over the costlier AARP as a retirement organization.  I wouldn't give a dime to Progressive Insurance, but in fact, I made a good deal on a less expensive policy from a competitor, with much better service.

Oh, and my savings?  It let me increase my contribution to Judicial Watch. 

To which I would add our own household decisions to change brands (no more Gillette razors or visits to Starbucks, etc.) And I like Mr. Mullin’s plug for Judicial Watch. Full column is here.

# # #

John Boehner gets something right

From The Hill:

Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he "wouldn't bother" launching a primary challenge against President Trump if he were former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R). 

"No, I wouldn't — I wouldn't bother if I were him," Boehner said during an interview on NBC host Chuck Todd's podcast, "Chuck Toddcast," according to Politico Playbook.

. . .

# # #

How the media manipulates the report

investigaction.net

Mark Steyn walks us through exactly HOW the media transmutes a news report into outright propaganda – step by step -- in his "Taqiyya for Easter." He starts off:

Let's say a fire breaks out at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris at the start of Holy Week, and just after two of the city's other most prominent houses of worship - St Sulpice and the Basilica of St Denis - have been attacked and vandalized.

Well, I think we can all confidently say as the first flames are beginning to lick the ceiling that it's undoubtedly an accident. Cigarette butt. Or maybe computer glitch. Probably just an overheated smart phone. We don't need to get in there and sift through the debris. We can just announce it.

On the other hand, when there are coordinated attacks on Easter services at several churches in Sri Lanka, it becomes a little more challenging to pass off multiple suicide-bombings killing nearly three hundred people as an electrical malfunction.

So, in contrast to the confident declarations of a week ago, on Sunday morning the media opted for a subtler narrative. Lead sentence from The Economist:

IT HAS BEEN nearly ten years since the guns fell silent in Sri Lanka's civil war. But bloodshed returned with a vengeance...

So it's something to do with the Tamil Tigers? Their guns fell silent, but now they've returned with a vengeance, eh?

Well, er, no, er, not, ah, precisely... But it's useful for "context", lots and lots of context. And, if you pile up enough context, you can bury the actual story. 

Do read the rest of the how-to analysis here.

# # #

Happy Easter

image credit: redbubble.com

from Cleveland Tea Party

# # #

Another cycle of Media Madness

art credit: cresincorporated.com

Newt Gingrich on “Mueller Media Madness”:

Watching the first wave of reaction to Attorney General Barr’s Press Conference and the release of the Mueller Report led me to conclude America is trapped in a cycle of media madness.

This media madness is crippling the country, maximizing partisan divisions, and absorbing so much time and energy that it cripples America in trying to come to grips with dangers that could destroy us.

Mueller reported after a nearly two-year effort which involved 19 lawyers, 40 staff, more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants, and around 500 witnesses. The investigation spent more than $25 million.

If the Mueller team could have found President Trump guilty, they would have. After all, Mueller recruited as his legal team – 14 Democrats, 12 of whom have contributed to Democrats. Of these lawyers seven were Clinton donors, one attended Clinton’s election night party, and one represented the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton herself.

. . .

When almost two years of digging by this anti-Trump wolfpack could produce no signs of guilt, it is reasonable to conclude that was because there were no signs of guilt.

However, the anti-Trump news media has too much invested in hating Trump to give up just because two years of work by 14 highly motivated, aggressive Democrat lawyers found no laws broken.

. . .

Meanwhile, the reality of the Trump presidency – and the renewed strength of President Trump as a vindicated innocent man – will continue to change America in a direction the country likes and the Left hates.

Read the rest here.

# # #

Outlasting the daily assaults and memes

Pensive thoughts for Easter weekend from Richard Fernandez a/k/a Wretchard at PJ Media:

If a viral cocktail of political correctness, socialist dysfunction, and moral relativism is now besetting the West, then reason is as useless against it as Veritatis splendor [The Splendor of the Truth, an encyclical by Pope John Paul II expressing the Catholic Church’s role in moral teaching] was against the devil. The meme can continue to spread regardless of damage until it pulls the host down to its energy level. Is there a way out? The Roman Empire never solved the problem of how to dominate a malignant meme, but humanity found a way of outlasting it. "Western Christianity survived by clinging to places like Skellig Michael, a pinnacle of rock [seven] miles from the Irish coast, rising seven hundred feet out of the sea." The mission of the monks was to remember God -- to remember the truth -- until the mysterious workings of the system brought them forth again…

The rest of his column is here.

# # #

What The Mueller Report will NOT report

It’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. Via Hannity:

Attorney General William Barr will hold a 9:30am press conference Thursday morning regarding Robert Mueller’s final report; setting the stage for a high-stakes showdown just moments before the DOJ is poised to release the special counsel’s conclusions to Congress.

Attorney Sidney Powell has been one of the most effective and informed critics of the abuse of power at DOJ, FBI, CIA, the DNC, etc. Yesterday, she went on record predicting what will be in the Mueller Report, what will be obscured or omitted, how it will be slanted, etc. I expect that she will be 99% correct:

The Mueller Report will try very hard to shroud the real issues–which are:  WHY, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, and BY WHOM did the spying on Mr. Trump and his associates begin?  From all information available so far, per Comey’s own admissions, there was never a legal or factual basis to begin any investigation of anyone associated with Mr. Trump, and they never verified a word of the “Steele dossier.”   The evidence so far exposes a significant group in the CIA, FBI, DOJ, DOD, and State Department, who manufactured the entire counter-intelligence operation from thin air.   It’s smoke tied with baling wire. That is a bombshell from which Mr. Mueller and Mr. Weissmann must distract.

The long-awaited Report will doubtlessly contain a lot of assertions about Russian troll farms–like the unprecedented charges in the Concord indictment that came mostly from an article in a Russian magazine–combined with claims and much jibberish that it was Russians who hacked the DNC.  It will ignore all the work of relentless reporter Luke Rosiak who has fully documented the nefarious work of the Pakistani Awan brothers -– abject criminals to whom Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and at least three dozen Congressional Democrats gave the keys to the kingdom of the DNC and our national intelligence on the Hill.  It will ignore the work of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and the Inspector General of Congress–both of whom documented exposure of our national secrets by the Awan brothers and Mrs. Clinton, respectively.  It will also ignore the irrefutable fact that if the FBI and DNC really wanted to determine who hacked the DNC, the DNC would have turned over the servers to the FBI–or the FBI would have seized them as it does when it purports to conduct a real investigation as opposed to a sham or a cover-up.

The Truth will be found in documents the Mueller Report avoids -- the documents all the real criminals created when they thought they would never be caught and they would “stop” Trump.  We must have the original documents declassified and disclosed to the public to the maximum extent possible.  This includes, for starters, the 99-page decision of the FISA court in which Chief Judge Rosemary Collyer excoriated the FBI and the NSA for their abuses of the entire surveillance system and tools.

That’s just a start. She specifies the documentation that she recommends – and hopes – will be released with minimal redactions. Read all of her pre-analysis and predictions here.

# # #