Go sign this petition

George Soros is anti-American and/or a lunatic.  There's a petition to have him declared a terrorist.  Now he's not a terrorist directly by any stretch, but he has funded so many anti-American activities that he deserves the classification.

It's not likely to go anywhere but to get Soros flagged in the media as being possibly tagged a terrorist and getting egg on the faces of all of his liberal allies, is worth the effort anyway.

And the petition is on fire to boot.  So go add your name.

Addendum: I've signed it so should Hillary Clinton somehow manage to become president I expect I'll be extradited to the United States for prosecution.

DACA done like dinner.

Well, this is Huuuuuugggggeeeeeee.

President Trump, as early as Friday, is expected to announce plans to end the Obama administration program that gave a deportation reprieve to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, a senior administration official told Fox News.

Trump promised to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, during the presidential campaign -- but since taking office had left the door open to preserving parts of it.

That's another campaign promise delivered.  But it begs the question - is this because congress has been dragging their heels on tax cuts/reform and totally blew it on Obamacare?  If so the president will have to deliver on the wall and anything else outside of the two biggest ticket items that he possibly can to be able to distance himself from the failed Republican congress on non-delivery.

Still, it's a positive step.

Twitter sorry it caused president Trump

This is why Twitter has a "Trust and Safety Council" (no kidding) designed to remove anything that isn't left-liberal friendly. Take a look at the Council members. The membership speaks to the true agenda.

pic.twitter.com/ENPo80vBNe

— Gab (@getongab) August 30, 2017

Make no mistake Twitter has an agenda and it is to silence users that are not in line with their leftist agenda. Just ask Milo. 

Also, isn't it just a little self-involved to claim responsibility? Trump won because Trump won. Not because of the Russians. Not because of Twitter.  Just get over yourself.

Addendum: Get on Gab as an alternative to Twitter bias.

Mitt Romney, behind the curve

Yesterday's man.

Hey, Mitt Romney the 2010's called, they want their political correctness back. Mitt Romney, clearly part of the #NeverTrump crowd was quick to jump on the Charlottesville protesters, lumping in peaceful demonstrators with neo-Nazis and the KKK (who were a small part of the original demonstration and not part of the new right.

He tweeted:

No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 16, 2017

But now even Nancy Pelosi is condemning Antifa violence. But there's been nothing new from behind-the-curve Mitt Romney.

Trump's 2nd QTR GDP 3.0%!

Second quarter GDP hit 3.0% (revised) versus the expectation of 2.8%:

That's the highest it's been since Q1 of 2015 - president Trump is on track so far to obliterate the overall anemic economic growth record of his predecessor.  But in order for the president to maintain the momentum he's got to get tax cuts done, and more importantly tax reform.

Quote of the Day goes to Pat Buchanan

In an essay on the GOP's "shotgun marriage" to president Trump, Pat Buchanan summarizes the president's not insignificant achievements to date, very succinctly and the list is larger than you'd think;

He put Gorsuch on the court. He pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord. He persuaded NATO allies to put up more for defense. He approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Border security is markedly better. The economic news has been excellent: Record run-ups in the stock market, near full employment, growth approaching the 3 percent he promised. The coal industry has been liberated, and the Trump folks are renegotiating NAFTA.

That's not enough (yet), but it's far from insignificant. Buchanan's summary is worth reflection and the president's accomplishments are praiseworthy, albeit incomplete so far.

Liberal realization

Ad hominem ,ad absurdum.

Bloomberg journalist with a clearly liberal track record, Clive Crook ruminates in a reasonable way on why president Trump's supporters are still backing him, and it's not about him, it's about them:

...Trump's supporters are loyal. What is one to make of this?

There are two main theories of Trump's support. One is that a large minority of Americans -- 40 percent, give or take -- are racist idiots. This theory is at least tacitly endorsed by the Democratic Party and the mainstream liberal media. The other is that a large majority of this large minority are good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, who so resent being regarded as racist idiots that they'll back Trump almost regardless. They may not admire the man, but he's on their side, he vents their frustration, he afflicts the people who think so little of them -- and that's good enough.

It's disappointing that Charlottesville hasn't changed their minds -- but then it hasn't changed my mind either. I still think the first theory is absurd and the second theory basically correct.

Crook isn't done there, and his conclusion is remarkable:

Trump is routinely accused of being authoritarian and anti-democratic, despite the fact that he won the election and, so far, has been checked at every point and has achieved almost nothing in policy terms. (He might wish he were an authoritarian, but he sure hasn't been allowed to function as one.) Many of his critics, on the other hand, are anti-democratic in a deeper sense: They appear to believe that a little less than half the country doesn't deserve the vote.

The second theory -- the correct theory -- is a terrible indictment of the Democratic Party and much of the media. Why aren't the intelligible and legitimate opinions of that large minority given a hearing? Why must their views be bundled reflexively into packages labelled "bigotry" and "stupidity"? Why can't this large minority of the American people be accorded something other than pity or scorn?

This is what conservatives who support president Trump were hoping the Left would not realize - their reflexive reactions to anything they disagree with has continued to cause Trump supporters to dig in their heels if nothing else out of spite for the left's condescension. Obviously there's more to it for Trump supporters but that aside, this is exactly the understanding we don't want the rest of the left to grasp. Their intolerance will continue to hurt them more than us.

Still one has to congratulate Crook on his clear-headed understanding. Proof of his understanding of the bigger picture comes in his closing argument:

Deeming somebody's opinions illegitimate should be a last resort, not a first resort. Refusing to engage, except to mock and condescend, is both anti-democratic and tactically counterproductive. Proof of that last point is the dispiriting tenacity of Trump's support.

Agreed completely, well, minus the word 'dispiriting'.

Relevant reading today

I won't have a chance to post anything substantial today but here are some relevant reading links worth checking out.

Sebastian Gorka's resignation letter in full.

Trump v. The Fed.

Are Cohn and Tillerson next?

Hey 'the Left', this is your Antifa.

The face of Antifa/BLM/99% etc.

Assange drops the mic on Haberman.

Hillary can't quit Huma:

And finally, one way president Trump can finally derail Obamacare.

Sheriff Joe vs Jeff Flake?

Possibly coming soon, recently presidentially pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio might challenge faux conservative Jeff Flake in the primary for the Arizona Republican senator's seat.

My only concern with Sheriff Joe would be his age. He'd make a good senator for the state and is head and shoulders above Jeff Flake, but a 6 year term for an 85 year old man seems risky. That said, a win would be a vote in favor of Obamacare repeal and a border wall. And should Sheriff Joe become unable to continue prior to completion of his term, at least a CINO would have been displaced and that would be a win for conservatives.

Reassessing the Trump presidency

It's been just over 7 months since president Trump was sworn into office.  Back then, there was a palpable energy and excitement within his base of supporters. And so with an initial flurry of executive orders and a Supreme Court Justice aligned with his campaign promise things looked very promising - he'd repeal Obamacare, reform taxes and drain the swamp.  That was in hindsight a really aggressive agenda, as much as it was a necessary one.

A mere 7 months later the views of president Trump steamrolling his detractors and delivering everything he promised seem, to be blunt, highly naive.  That is especially true in light of the fact that the president seems to be more and more surrounded by establishment types with Democrat-type mindsets, and beset on the titular right by CINOs - conservatives in name only. That is not to say the things the president had promised as a candidate are impossible nor any less necessary than they were on January 20th. Still, it's time for conservatives, nationalists, libertarians and Republicans to undertake a reality check.

One man (regardless of whether he is the president) running up against an establishment with an entirely different geopolitical world view and agenda, was never going to drain the swamp in a day, a month or even a year.  Consider that the bureaucracy is as much invested in self-preservation as any individual.  That means that government departments are not going to pave the way for their own trimming let alone their own eradication as a result of being redundant or superfluous or extremely inefficient.  In addition the heads of those departments consist of political appointees or careerists who would be extra-invested in their own fiefdoms' continued existence.

But the establishment extends beyond just that.  Democrat and Republican representatives in Congress and the Senate are both invested in the status quo.  They are on both sides invested their own power and wealth.  Power corrupts - they have most certainly bought into self preservation, regardless of the impact it has had on middle America with respect to wealth, jobs, or values.  All that matters to them is their own situation.  That is why their response to president Trump on any issue, regardless of party affiliation, has actually become highly predictable; resist.

The media is driven by two things as well - sensationalism (which amounts to profit and self preservation as the root objective) and progressive liberalism.  With president Trump those two things dovetail very well for them.  Russia, mental instability, or whatever the narrative du jour might be, it all serves the attempt to derail the president; it makes for a sensational attention-grabbing news cycle as they strive to keep themselves relevant. It also serves to try to discredit the president's views and argue for a return to progressive liberal policies come the next election cycle. Make no mistake, it's what they want.

With all of that arrayed against president Trump, it's not surprising that 7 months into his administration his populist allies like Steve Bannon or Sebatstian Gorka have slowly been replaced by establishment insiders.  President Trump is facing a Great Wall of resistance.  Even a team of true-believers in swamp draining could not have accomplished by now what we want them to have accomplished.  Surely we didn't believe that the establishment would roll over for the president?  Surely we did not think they would accommodate the president's agenda instead of fighting back tooth and nail and try to destroy the agenda by destroying the man?

Maybe, naively, we did. 

Therefore it has come time to reassess the Trump presidency.  Yes progress has been slow.  No, the agenda has not been implemented. Not yet.  But what we have not gotten right is our fault not the president's.  What we have been wrong about is not the president (at least so far) but rather the time it will take to do this thing.

The establishment will not be cowed in a day.  The government will not become accountable to the people in a year. It will not happen even in 10 years.  To see this through, it's going to take not one term of president Trump and not even two.  Rather I suspect this is going to take 10 to 15 years of constant hammering, or rather chipping away at the foundation of big government and insider politics to make a difference.  Think about it; it took generations for progressivism to seep into government and the public consciousness. They understood the idea of generational shifts. This swamp problem does not go away in that short of a time frame.  We have been wrong to expect it to do so.

This is no time for the right of center to shy away from president Trump's agenda.  We should hold his feet to the fire, and we should do the same with the Republicans in the senate and congress and the White House.  We should demand he eschew liberal Democrat thinking people within his administration.  It is also incumbent upon us to ensure that we do not abandon the agenda and seek a second term of president Trump and that we follow that with someone with a similar agenda so that it might be continued.

This is a critical juncture in American history. On the heels of Reagan's presidency conservatives voted for president Bush, someone who was the embodiment of political establishmentarianism within the GOP. Between that and today we have seen liberal Republicanism in presidents and nominees as well as liberal Democrat presidents. President Trump, despite his flaws, is possibly the last best shot at chipping away at the stone of establishment/bureaucracy/progressivism.  The opportunity must not be squandered.

Russia did not dissuade president Trump's supporters and nothing the left throws at him in the media will do so.  While the less obvious but continual push back from the inside establishment might dishearten us, we must not let it do what the leftist media cannot - turn our support from president Trump, or if you prefer, his stated agenda of smaller, accountable government, and American exceptionalism.   To cede to the pressure is to accept a managed decline of American greatness.  As a nation capable of far more, you deserve far more than that. Do not settle for less than the sheer greatness of which America is capable.

Get out of Google

I wouldn't have a problem with Google making money provided they operate the with their original intent (see video below for details).  Indeed, ads are a good thing.  My problem is the extent to which Google has become a monopoly (not good for consumers) and started skewing search results for either financial or political philosophical reasons.

Google is not neutral.

There are other options - Yippy, StartPage, Dogpile for example. They're all small potatoes compared to Google, but it doesn't mean they aren't useful, viable alternatives.

Sunday verse (audio and video version)

Saturday Learning Series - The Democratic party today

Democratic pollster and adviser speaks on the state of the Democratic party today. He's not your typical Hillsdale College speaker but nevertheless, an insightful offering.

Friday Musical Interlude - Life of Illusion

Joe Walsh's 1981 song Life of Illusion, that only made it to #34 on the Billboard charts, but nevertheless was a really good song about life.

For a more visual version, there's this:

When the lunatics have taken over the asylum

An interesting quote from Greek philosopher Plato about the tangentially related to the decline of the Greek Empire (Plato said this during the era of Alexander The Great, which ended roughly 100 years later).  The interesting point is how it mirrors what's happening in American schools and how being taught about global warming and having safe spaces is more important than math and critical thinking.  The only way to save the American republic is to avoid what happened to ancient Greece. Take back the 'asylum' from the lunatics who want to let everyone in provided they conform to the proper voting patterns they are told to follow (i.e. vote Democrat).

Instead of complaining about the liberal media, let's do this.

This, should scare you.

I ventured this morning into a web journey spurred by ESPN's inane logic that broadcaster Robert Lee, an Asian, should not broadcast the University of Virginia football game (clearly as a result of the recent violence in Charlottesville though they claim otherwise). The political correctness was galling and offensive. Imagine the reaction broadcaster Robert Lee must be having to his switch to another game, simply because his name resembles that of a historical figure from 150 years ago who is currently not in vogue on the unhinged left.

For those of you who missed it:

But that was merely the start of my web journey. I wanted to know why ESPN has become so political in recent years. ESPN is, as is ABC, owned by the Walt Disney Company. That's a $40 billion conglomerate. ABC has clearly not been overly friendly to the president. But neither has Disney, for a number of reasons.

That got me thinking.  With Fox seemingly slipping slightly leftward, what's a conservative going to have to do for news and media in the future? The problem I spoke about back in 2008 is the old saw about the media being the message.  Conservatives have precious little influence on the media narrative, and what the right does control is often establishment Republican types at the helm.

So what to do?  There are options. We could continue complaining about the media but where has that gotten us so far?  A more robust course would be to start seeing journalism, government, teaching and entertainment as viable career options as conservatives and slowly infiltrate the offending institutions the way the liberals have already so effectively done.  That's good, except that the hubris we are seeing today is the culmination of decades of tireless socialist drive toward that end that includes the inculcation of the wealthy and establishment Republicans into their cadre of villainous traitors to America.  It's not clear America has the time left any more to wait out that solution.

Other options?  Conservatives could co-opt the typical solution employed by the Left - protests, marches and boycotts. The problem with that is, as a conservative when you look at an ANTIFA march, what are you thinking to yourself?  "Idiots". "Snowflakes". "Zombies".  What do you suppose the Left thinks when there's a Tea Party march? "Rubes". "Uneducated hicks". "Racists". "Idiots".  Protests make great television maybe but not convincing arguments.

All of which brings me to my suggestion.  What is it that conservatism regards as the best economic system in the world? Capitalism.  And what does capitalism espouse? Private ownership. What does every major media player have?  SHAREHOLDERS.  If you own the company, you can dictate the direction it goes. Ownership takes the medium and therefore owns the message. Jeff Bezos had an agenda so he bought the Washington Post, and changed it.

Now someone sitting in Iowa or West Virginia can't buy out all the shares of the Walt Disney Company. But millions of conservative voters can, and should consider a coordinated effort to do just that. Well not exactly that. Instead of Disney, the target should be Comcast.  It's the largest media conglomerate in the world. It owns everything needed - major mainstream media (NBC, Telemundo, CNBC, A&E etc.) cable subscribers, digital cable subscribers, internet and even phone customers. It's also consistently ranked as the worst company in the country. It's  a starkly obvious opportunity - a left-leaning megalith that people who use, don't even like. Get rid of the progressive liberals and repair the  company's image in one fell swoop.  Plus, you get to make dividends in the process.

Of course, besides the money, there's another hiccup. Comcast is publicly traded but is still a family-owned business.  The Roberts family owns one third of voting shares.  That's a hurdle but it's not a problem that cannot be solved. I say it's worth the shot despite the fact that the how to do it part requires a lot more discussion and organization.

Quote of the week - runner up

CNN is busy covering up Antifa violence*

Another great take on the recent Antifa vs. neo-Nazi brouhaha comes from American Greatness, and Robert Kimball's take is equally brilliant;

Trump was correct when he suggested that the alt-Left is just as much a problem as the alt-Right. Indeed, if we needed to compare the degree of iniquity of the neo-nazis, “white supremacists,” and Ku Kluxers, on the one hand, and Antifa and its fellow travelers, on the other, I am not at all sure which would come out the worse. Real Nazis—the kind that popped up like mushrooms in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s—are scary. But American “neo-nazis”? They are tiny bunch of pathetic losers. The Ku Klux Klan was a murderous Democratic terrorist group in its earlier incarnations. Now it too is a tiny bunch (the Anti-Defamation League says it has 5,000-8,000 members) of impotent malcontents.

Antifa has brought its racialist brand of violent protest to campuses and demonstrations around the country: smashing heads as well as property. I suspect that paid-up, full-time members of the group are few, but the ideology of identity politics that they feed upon is a gruesome specialité de la maison of the higher education establishment today.

I also thought that Trump was right to ask where the erasure of history would end. This week it was a statue of Robert E. Lee. But why stop there? Why not pronounce a damnatio memoriae on the entire history of the Confederacy? There are apparently some 1,500 monuments and memorials to the Confederacy in public spaces across the United States. Some of them were erected during the Jim Crow era, something else that was brought to you courtesy of the Democratic Party.

A few quick points - Nazis are socialists, not capitalists. All of the original African American congressmen after reconstruction were Republicans. Maybe we should ask the conniving Democrats if they'd rather erect statues to those men. I can guess what their answer would be.

*Via Daily Wire

Quote of the week

FYI - American government was designed to prevent mob rule.

Wall Street Journal writer Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. nails it with this quote;

Well, that was a bit embarrassing. Antifascist liberals mounted thousand-strong counter-rallies all weekend against a Nazi threat that proved nonexistent or thin on the ground. Leftists imagined themselves to be modern-day versions of the Czech resistance or the Warsaw uprising, but it turns out they were the majoritarian mob shouting down a handful of losers who’ve been an execrable but small part of the American pageant for as long as most of us can remember.

We don’t know what speakers at Saturday’s “free speech” rally in Boston might have said. It was organized, according to the local papers, by libertarians protesting campus speech codes, though they opened their platform to anybody, left and right. The meeting ended early; the speakers were all drowned out. Nazis and white supremacists, if any were present, were shown to be vastly outnumbered by Americans who reject such doctrines.

To state another obvious point, our civil liberties are meaningless if they don’t protect unpopular views. It’s not the mob but the mob’s targets that need protection.

...More relevant is the principle that large mobs are more dangerous than small mobs, and likely to harbor more psychopaths. Apparently running out of Nazis to resist, Boston protesters threw rocks and urine-filled bottles at police.

Self-reflection is in order on the left.  So too on the right, where there appears to be a disconnect between voters and Republicans they have elected.  But that's another story.

The American system of government was designed to prevent oppression - from government and mob rule (or majority tyranny).  The leftist progressives made their names protecting the downtrodden. Now that they are the establishment, and they believe they are the real majority, they like the idea of majority tyranny.  From the notion of removing the electoral college to the daily browbeating of the president and his supporters by the mainstream media  they are demanding the acquiescence of the American people. If you support that, you are supporting tyranny, plain and simple. 

Skip the media edits - full Trump speech on Afghanistan

Watch the full unedited speech not the sound bites the media want to feed you:

Sunday verse

Saturday Learning Series - Iran, The Nuclear Deal and Road Forward

Stratfor's analysis on the Iran nuclear deal and the road forward. Stratfor does some great geopolitical in-depth analysis on a variety of issues. They are worth checking out.

Friday Musical Interlude - Let's Stick Together

I've shared this Wilbert Harrison song (Let's Stick Together), recently but you gotta love this dance competition entry that's worth the revisit to the song.

Washington Post slanders Steve Bannon for supposed flip flop

In an article today, Washington Post highlights Steve Bannon's disavowal of white supremacists in a seemingly impromptu interview with progressive magazine The American Prospect. In the article, well below the topics of China and North Korea, came this;

“Ethno-nationalism — it’s losers. It’s a fringe element,” Bannon told the magazine. “I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, eh, help crush it more.”

“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added.

The remarks were startling coming from Bannon, who spent more than four years running the far-right website Breitbart News before he was tapped to join Trump’s campaign.

Bannon, the site’s former executive chair, has called the Breitbart “a platform of the alt-right.”

The alt-right, by some definitions, is a small, deeply conservative movement that seeks a whites-only state. It was his strategy to use the site to channel white supremacist support for Trump and provide a mouthpiece for his populist message during the 2016 election, a move that helped secure him a senior role in the administration.

Bannon states exactly how he, and most conservatives feel about white supremacists. It's  not a flip flop, it's positionally consistent.  It's the last paragraph above that irks. They have taken the alt-right definition (they even 'say by some definitions') that suits their narrative. Breitbart has never espoused a whites-only state. To be clear - the alt-right is not equal to white supremacists. That is outright slander. Bannon is exactly correct - it's a fringe element and the media has played it up to make it seem that it's only racists who support Republicans. In doing so they have completely alienated half the country who mostly vote conservative values for economic or value or social sorts of reasons. It's a self defeating approach for the left and for the country.

So it's not only Bannon that gets slandered, it's half the country's voters. But Bannon is the focal point of the article and the Washington Post article and it's Bannon who should take the WaPo to task and set the record straight on the alt-right label on behalf of everyone who has been slandered. 

Just as there are communists in the alt-Left, there are white supremacists in the alt-right (and possibly the alt-Left too). More importantly what many on the right would consider the alt-right are conservatives who do not espouse the go-along-to-get-along, country club, establishment Republican niceties. They prefer to fight back and are not afraid to get rough and tumble rather than sit back and take it. It's Bannon or The Rebel, or Breitbart or Milo Yiannopolis rather than Mitch McConnell or Charles Krauthammer or even razor sharp Ben Shapiro (some of whom still have our admiration and respect). That's the real alt-right, not white-supremacists or Neanderthals. But the left and the media will not relent on their narrative. In the end they are likely doing themselves a disservice, but only time will tell. Meanwhile stories with slants like this one need to be called out for what they are - misleading at a minimum or possibly even slander.

Congratulations Me

Over the last couple of days, I'm not exactly sure when as I had not been paying attention, I passed 1.5 million page views on this blog.  I never thought I'd reach a mark like that.  And thanks to Google, over the last almost 9 years, I've made dozens of advertising dollars in that time.  The internet clearly is willing to reward conservative bloggers. All is good. Yay me. 

CNN bias unabated, despite president Trump's correct prediction.

CNN's Jim Acosta's rant about president Trump's incorrect extrapolation of events is sadly ironic;

...Acosta said, “The president has an issue…when he is challenged on something that he feels deeply personal about. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to reign things in. … And president trump demonstrated here in the lobby of his own building. He couldn’t feel more at home than he could feel here at Trump Tower. He has talked about it time and time again, that this is his home. And yet, he felt very comfortable espousing some views that are — very, I mean, I would say they’re almost white nationalist-lite, in that, he was complaining, bemoaning the removal of Confederate statues across the country and asking whether or not George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are next.”

He continued, “You could go to just about any history professor at any college in America, you could go to any history teacher at any high school in America, and they will tell you the reason why these Confederate statues are coming down across the country, Wolf –, and remember, Nikki Haley took down the — his UN Ambassador took down the Confederate flag at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina. Those symbols of the Confederacy cause so much hurt, cause so much pain for so many Americans across the country, that it is really understandable to most level-headed, rational Americans that these kinds of monuments, these kinds of symbols eventually just need to come down.

Why?  Because Teddy Roosevelt is next apparently.

Leftist Activists Demand New York Museum Take Down Statue of ‘Racist’ Theodore Roosevelt https://t.co/T3Ta0QWGGM

— Kevin Gutzman (@KevinGutzman) August 15, 2017

Left hysteria and fake news on Charlottesville

The left-leaning media has tried to rip the president over the unfortunate violent events at Charlottesville. Let's be clear on a few things

(1) President Trump is no more to blame for the violence than Bernie Sanders was to blame for the nut job who was a Sanders supporter and tried to shoot multiple Republican congressmen recently.

(2) President Trump condemned the violence on all sides.  When the media went crazy for him not only condemning one side his response was brilliant in it's accuracy and simplicity:

(3) Those on the ridiculously named Antifa ALT-Left were responsible for instigating the violence and indeed, their agenda is a fascist one.

Tucker Carlson's question about what statue will be demanded next is exactly correct.

So.....Comey lied?

It looks like Comey knew about the tarmac conversations between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch.  Either that or he was incompetent and not fit to lead the FBI. I'd argue both.

But this goes deeper. A three page redacted document relating to the conversation means that the conversation participants were not talking about kids and weddings. That stuff does not need to be redacted.

There's a massive cover-up underway that extends from the Clintons to the Obama White House and involves all sorts of government officials.  This is something that needs to be uncovered if the Republic is to be saved.

Sunday verse

Saturday Learning Series - Fibonacci Sequence

I've posted on the Fibonacci Sequence before, but it's worth revisiting out of pure mathematical interest.

Yet another right of center voice being silenced

Seriously? Again with the politically correct power tripping? How do I start a more open-to-freedom-of-opinion version of YouTube so I can take all of their business?

Via Gateway Pundit:

Pro-Trump personalities Diamond and Silk took to Twitter Thursday, accusing Google-owned YouTube of demonetizing 95 percent of their videos. The pair believes YouTube’s decision was driven by their support for President Trump.

.@YouTube @TeamYouTube stopped over 95% percent of our videos from being monetized, stating: "It's Not Suitable For All Advertisers"........ pic.twitter.com/qDpaL8A4ec

— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) August 10, 2017

I wonder if it's just a coincidence that they recently appeared on the closing monologue of the Sean Hannity radio show.

Or may be it's that Google just realized who they were. Either way it's a shameful response by an Overlord mentality. Forget Youtube, how do we start a more open-to-ideas version of Google? I wish I knew because I could make billions.

Real diversity vs SJW diversity

Diversity. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Today, people who call themselves liberals insist that America (or the West in general) is not diverse enough.  They claim that we are not diverse enough with respect to gender (no really, there are more than two genders. Okay.) or ethnicity or sexual orientation, or religion.   The problem with their claims is actually two distinct problems: (1) that's not really diversity and (2) it goes against actual liberal principles.

Real diversity means diversity of thought.  The way liberals classify diversity by identifiable categories like race and gender is literally, superficial.  Real diversity - the diversity that makes America a great country - is diversity of thought. Making sure that society is a certain percentage gay, a set percentage female, an exact ratio Muslim and an equal proportion of African American, Hispanic, Asian, White or otherwise does absolutely zero.  The ultimate question is what does that offer?  Next to zero benefit will arise from the supposed fairness this offers. I'll save the fairness argument for another time. Instead let's look at viewpoint diversity.

Tackling a problem with viewpoints from the left and right, from a passive or aggressive viewpoint, a scientific and humanitarian perspective concurrently, allows for a greater possibility of a comprehensive and successful solution to a problem than one developed by a visibly diverse but otherwise homogeneously-thinking group.  Without ideas being challenged they do not get tested before being put in place.  That's a recipe for failure.  But that's exactly what social justice warriors want to happen.

This is where the other problem of incongruity with liberal principles comes into play.  As a reminder, here's what classical liberalism actually is:

Classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology belonging to liberalism in which primary emphasis is placed on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government.

The philosophy emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe and the United States.

It advocates civil liberties with a limited government under the rule of law, private property, and belief in laissez-faire economic policy.

"Securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of government".  Social Justice Warriors want the government to impose equality on everyone. And by that they mean equality of outcome, not of opportunity.  They mean equality of visibility based on visual identifiers.  That comes at the expense of ideas.  There will be no diversity of ideas under that model and that means that individual freedom of thought is superseded by these visual markers.  That represents the death of liberty and true classical liberal ideals.

The problem for the country is that leftist leadership are adept at using that social justice warrior thinking to increase the preponderance of that sort of thinking. And while they have had a lot of success at doing that, they have simultaneously tried to tamp down individual thinking within these identity groups; if you are African American you have to be a Democrat.  If you are gay and are a Republican you need to have your head examined.  If you don't use the pronouns people choose to identify themselves by, you are a racist, misogynist homophobic neanderthal. 

The synergy of progressive liberalism with the consolidation of superficial identity groups is a recipe for totalitarianism. Classical liberalism it is not.

Friday Musical Interlude - Thunder and Lightning

Chi Coltrane's 1972 Top 20 hit, Thunder and Lightning. A surprisingly underrated song.

McMaster must go

Based on these points alone, if these points are correct, McMaster must go.

Google: Do as we say, not as we do

Proof for liberals that those who claim to espouse your values do not actually share your values comes again; this time in the form of Google duplicity;

Google has spent much of the past 72 hours insisting its commitment to diversity is “unequivocal” after the internal publication and subsequent leak of an anti-diversity polemic by a Google engineer. The unidentified software engineer argued, among other things, that biological differences between men and women account for the extreme gender imbalance at Google and other technology companies.

...Google might prefer the discussion to end there, but the reality is there is a lot more to say about the company’s commitment to diversity.

The public relations blitz may be a corporate necessity given the virulent backlash against the document by many of Google’s own employees. On Monday night, Bloomberg reported that the engineer said he had been fired; Google declined to comment on individual employee cases.

But public commitments to diversity from Google executives do not tally with the company’s workforce data.

Window Dressing?

Google’s workforce is, by its own accounting, 69% male and just 2% African American. Just 20% of technical jobs are held by women. Google may be unequivocal in its “belief” about diversity, but the figures make its shortcomings clear. The company tends to hire white and Asian men over women and other racial minorities.

What a terrible indictment of the liberal tech giant. Or is it? The point in sharing this story is not that Google is not diverse enough - I expect a huge swath of progressive sites to focus on that, and while they may well be right, it's not relevant to my points. My points are twofold; (1) don't necessarily believe Google as an example, when and they espouse open borders on morale grounds because they don't necessarily do themselves what they demand others do and/or (2) question the foundation of the story - maybe the percentage of the population who go into technical roles who are female is only 30% and Google may not be out of line with the industry as a whole. In that case it may not their fault if there are just not enough females applying to work for Google.

In other words, don't just swallow media story lines without actually thinking about what's behind them first. If the population of America did that, there would be far less progressives running around trying to destroy the country.

Sunday verse

Saturday Learning Series - The other view

There are a lot of 'progressive' ideas espoused in this video, but learning from your opponents is a good thing.  And this video names a lot of names you may have never heard who worked behind the scenes to ensure that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency in 2016 - no matter what rules had to be broken.

Given that, isn't possible that all of the Trump Russia collusion frenzy has been drummed up by this same cabal?

Friday Musical Interlude - Trumpular

Pogo is a remix musician with some pretty interesting songs, some of which are quite catchy.   This one is a remix of Donald Trump speeches.  Ironically, Pogo is banned from entering the U.S. because he came to America, worked and made a lot of money but didn't have a proper Visa.  I'm not sure he's exactly a Trump fan or detractor (I'd suspect the latter). Take from that what you will.  Personally, I just like the melodic twist/tale on Trump speeches.  As someone in the comments to this video said, he should have been pardoned so he could attend the Trump inauguration.  It would have been great to hear this remix there.

Does McMaster need to go from Trump White House?

It seems, based on a few conservative Trump supporting websites that H.R. McMaster needs to be purged from president Trump's team, rather than being the purger-in-chief himself.

Via the Free Beacon:

An ongoing staffing purge being conducted by White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has thrown the West Wing into chaos, according to more than half a dozen Trump administration insiders who told the Washington Free Beacon that McMaster has been targeting long-time Trump loyalists who were clashing with career government staffers and holdovers from the Obama administration.

The purge is part of a larger drama unfolding inside the administration, between veteran Trump staffers committed to the president's campaign vision of "draining the swamp"‘ in Washington and entrenched bureaucracies seeking to maintain control over policy decision-making, according to these sources, who said that many of these actions against his supporters are being conducted without Trump's knowledge.

And via Gateway Pundit:

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is leading the globalist purge of pro-Trump loyalists from the White House. After firing a number of ‘America First’ orientated officials, reports have surfaced that the motive behind firing Rich Higgins, Derek Harvey, and Ezra Cohen-Watnick may run deeper than just removing out Trump allies. A new report reveals McMaster may have purged the officials because they were also pro-Israel. McMaster is reportedly deeply hostile towards Israel and even banned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from accompanying President Trump to the Western Wall.

And this;

National Security Advisor H.R McMaster has been in the news a great deal this week as he continues his purge of Trump loyalists. Now there are reports McMaster might be shipped off to Afghanistan to oversee the war. The news also comes amid reports McMaster was caught leaking internal White House politics to now former Acting FBI Head Andy McCabe.

For those of us for whom McMaster wasn't really on the radar, it seems rather suddenly, that he needs to go.  It doesn't help his case when he is also suddenly being defended by the likes of Slate. For conservatives that defense should be the kiss of death for McMaster's executive branch career.

Democrats + Big Business = Death to America

Of all the liberal canards about conservatism, the one that has become the most perplexing is the notion that Republicans favor the wealthy at the expense of the working class.  Every week we see more and more evidence of the ties between near-monopolistic big businesses and the Democratic party.  It's almost as if their desired structure for government is that of an oligopoly consisting of the federal government, Silicon Valley, establishment media and key, allied big businesses.

CNBC has reported that Apple owns more US Treasury securities than many nations on earth, in fact it ranks 24th among treasury holders, roughly half as many as Russia.  Meanwhile Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has hired a former Clinton pollster, perhaps for his own political ambitions or perhaps simply to try to help shape political opinion for his preferred candidate(s). From Solyndra, to GE, to Uranium One, the Democrats have been about graft and/or choosing winners that match their progressive agenda.  There are a myriad of other examples before you even get into the foreign donors issue. It's an unholy union that means death to America. 

The reason the unhealthy and likely frequently illegal relationships are so bad is because of the fallout.  For example, Big Business wants cheap, often illegal labor.  So the Democrats convince people that legal immigration and illegal immigration are the same thing and that not allowing everyone into the country is heartless. Meanwhile they convince voters that they are the party of compassion because they demand an untenable minimum wage.  It doesn't work, but it sure sounds compassionate.  The real fallout though is that by tilting the playing field in favor of mammoth companies by requiring things like Dodd-Frank compliance, or having employer requirements for Obamacare the smaller business struggle to comply.  Bigger business can absorb the burden in exchange for diminished or weakened competition from start-ups or smaller, more innovative companies.

This disincentive for smaller companies, ensures monopolistic or near-monopolistic environments in many industries and that in turn reduces innovation and international competitiveness.  Combined with the offshoring of jobs, America becomes less competitive, less innovative and therefore less influential globally.  At the same time as jobs erode, so does the standard of living for Americans.

But Democrats don't care because they get their slice of the pie in return.  Republicans don't get off the hook so easily either; many of them support the same status quo of decline.  The differences is that the Republicans at least have some diversity of opinion within the party.  The repeal Obamacare vote failed because of that diversity.  There are those within the Republican party who want more competitive diversity because they understand it will drive the economy, it will spur innovation and that will improve the lives of all Americans.  In that at least, there is hope for a different future than the decay and rot that the Democrats ultimately offer America.

John McCain, fall guy

I'm not much of a fan of Glenn Beck.  But this opinion makes sense given the deafening silence of GOP Senate leadership in response to his vote.

It's not just John McCain who lied to constituents

Some of the blow back to John McCain, for his Benedict Arnold actions on Obamacare is detailed in this video. But it's not enough.  The real blowback should be coming from Mitch McConnell. Why is he so silent on this?  The GOP did not want top repeal Obamacare - at least not Republicans in the ssenate.

But McCain is not alone in his lies. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski also lied to their constituents.

John McCain, turncoat

Just a follow up to my previous post. Via Breitbart:

This man does not deserve a pass because of his condition, because he's abandon people who supported him for medical reasons of their own. He betrayed their trust.

Republican senate - move it or lose it

The Republican-controlled senate seems unable to do anything - no repeal of Obamcare, no movement on president Trump's plan for tax reform and cuts, no discussion of a border wall.  Nothing.  Sure they invoked the nuclear option and got Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch whom president Trump nominated.  But that was a no-brainer.  It will turn out to be a a double-edged no-brainer someday, but it doesn't count as a Republican senate win.  The Republican senate otherwise, has been so ineffectual it has to be deliberate.

I've speculated before as to why they are dragging their feet but here is a laundry list of possible reasons.

(1)  They truly are too divided and there is just too much distance between positions of those like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz vs. Lisa Murkowski and Susan 'phony slow clap' Collins and turncoat John McCain.  If this is the case, and they are hoping for a a bulletproof majority after 2018 they are doomed.

(2)  They either hate president Trump or do not want him to succeed at draining the swamp because they benefit from it.

(3) They're afraid of the media and don't want to look like villains.  If that's the case they are not worthy of being leaders of the nation or the party. Anything that will make a difference requires bold changes.

(4) John McCain needs to remove himself from the process. He won't but why they did not remove him from the party after the thumbs down vote that killed the skinny repeal is a red flag.  Maybe the Republicans are too big of a tent (unlike the non-thinking lockstep Democrats) and allow too many ideas.  Or maybe they are indeed too timid. They don't want to look like villains for drumming out a turncoat because he has brain cancer.

Obamacare aside, what about tax reform?  What about a wall? Why has nothing been done.

The Republican controlled senate needs to move it or lose it.  Do something.  Look like you freaking care.

They are not the only problem.  A lot of Never-Trumpers said that president Trump was going to act like a Democrat once elected.  I argued that as a Republican we could more effectively hold his feet to the fire.  What's missing now is conservative voters holding the GOP senate's feet to the fire.  Why is that not happening?  Why are you not doing anything?  I bet you remember going to a townhall in 2010 and yelling at your representative to not pass Obamacare.  What have you done for your values lately?