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It doesn't take much to make me happy, but then it doesn't take much to annoy me either.

Politics

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biden24 JAN 2021 - David Burge is a national treasure. I was browsing thru some old links and came across this Twitchy page detailing the back and forth between Burge and some liberals about Russian election interference.

After a couple of point-counterpoint remarks, Burge breaks it down in succinct timeline fashion, then takes down the liberal media supporters. He concludes with:

"...it shouldn't have to take a drunk internet nobody to point any of this out, but hey, here we are."

Here's the link - summarized details below:

1/ John Podesta, like 100% of everyone who has ever had a email account, received a password phishing email. He fell for it.

2/ According to some accounts, the phishing email had Russian fingerprints/characteristics in its metadata.

3/ whatever the case, the password purloiners downloaded his emails, which eventually got into the hands of Wikileaks, who made them public.

4/ The emails were mildly embarrassing, revealing frequent circle jerking between the DNC and journalists. Mostly embarrassing to media.

5/ At the time of their release (Oct) they were hardly covered by any media, and largely dismissed as a big fat nothingburger.

6/ Not one of the people whose emails were revealed has ever disputed their authenticity or provenance.

7/ Fast forward to December. The October nothingburger has now magically transformed into "vote hacking" and "election hacking."

8/ new narrative: treasonous Trump operatives conspired with Putin to hypnotically mesmerize Clinton voters into pulling the wrong lever.

9/ This is not Alex Jones or angry conspiracy kook Facebook uncles, it's the NYTs, the WaPo, our beloved State Radio.

10/ how effective has this been? If polls are to be believed, 50%+ of Democrats believe the Russians literally modified vote tallies.

11/ none of this is a defense of Trump, or his garbage kleptocrat pal Putin. It's an indictment of our garbage narrative-driven media.

12/ it shouldn't have to take a drunk internet nobody to point any of this out, but hey, here we are.

 

30 NOV 2020 - Just a little political cartoon... mean Tweets appear to be the reason so many liberals hate Donald Trump.

Everything else is just window dressing.

 

25 OCT 2020 - Some gems from Twitter... almost ready to start a page dedicated to David Burge classics...

Jeffrey Toobin - lawyer, author, Harvard graduate, and frequent CNN political analyst, was caught masturbating on a Zoom call. The meeting was some sort of election strategy session with a number of high profile NY liberals. He claimed to be unaware his video was still showing, which is understandable. Why he chose this particular time to embarrass himself is still unknown.

His employers, CNN and NY Magazine, chose suspension instead of outright firing. Yet less than a week later there's speculation he will resume is non-sexual duties with CNN. I'm not sure how his co-workers can look him in the face, let alone a network producer deciding to put Toobin's face back on their program.

UPDATE: 11 NOV 2020 - Toobin has been let go from the New Yorker magazine. Toobin's actions occurred on Oct 19th, taking his employers nearly a month to determine the appropriate action after one of their employees masturbated live on camera during a company meeting.

CNN, Toobin's other employer, is still not sure if this sort of behavior is "sponge worthy".

Rest assured though - if Toobin's indiscretion had been questioning the viability of more than two genders he would have been dismissed the very next day. Despite the obvious evidence, the liberal media do adhere to some form of journalistic standards.

 

And then there's the curious case of Twitter suspending the NY Post feed after they published reports of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop containing embarrassing email and photos. Twitter's first explanation was that the source of the story was questionable and they did not want to spread false rumors. Within days the laptop was verified by the FBI as being real, not fake, and email recipients also were able to confirm they matched message timestamps which proved the account was legitimate.

And yet nearly two weeks later Twitter refuses to unlock the NY Post account. Which doesn't stop CNN from claiming a vast right wing conspiracy is attempting to discredit social media days before the election. There's a well earned reason why conservatives hate both media and social media.

 

15 SEP 2019 - An article about an article - thenewneo.com reviews George Packer's article in the Atlantic about sending his son to a public school in NYC. Long story short - George Packer is a liberal questioning the liberal policies that have taken over the NYC public schools.

As happens so often, there are gems of truth in comments that follow an article and I found this at thenewneo.com article:

Roy Lofquist on September 14, 2019 at 6:13 pm said:
“Teach them how to think” is one of the most pernicious, downright evil frauds ever foisted on the human race. Nobody has any idea what that means. It is a secret sacred rite known only to the shamans.

People don’t think too good. They are downright stupid. They is you and me. It has taken millenia (200?, 40?, 6?) to get to the point where anybody even has time to have any thought beyond surviving ’till the next sunrise. Up until this last tiny sliver of human history life has been “nasty, brutish and short”. It has only been in the last couple of centuries that even the thought of going to a school was thinkable.

We have gotten here because we paid the price in blood and guts and misery to learn what works. That is what must be taught before all else.

There's a lot of truth there... 'up until this last tiny sliver of human history life has been "nasty, brutish and short"' put together with 'it has only been in the last couple of centuries that even the thought of going to school was thinkable'

 

21 AUG 2018 - Glenn Reynolds Instapundit has a blurb about the younger generation becoming more fearful of politics, and this was a comment I added to the site:

Just starting Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules and he tells about his repulsion of WWII Nazis and wanting to understand how that era could have happened. How could reasonable people turn a blind eye to the atrocities that developed?

Well here's your start. Judges and juries are fearful of violent attacks. Electoral college voters are threatened with the same. And soon the general public understands that to pick a side will endanger their lives.

Add to that the encouragement these thugs receive when their lawlessness goes unchallenged, and you have an environment ripe for the worst. It's not a pretty picture and I would love to be a paranoid nut case here, but things are happening these days that don't seem to have precedent in my 60 years of living.

Evil happens because good people do nothing - sounds like we're in need of more than a few good people who are willing to do the right thing.

 

22 OCT 2017 - Great article about how badly the press have behaved with Trump. But the part I like was the comparison between Trump and Obama:

As Trump-loving readers of this blog have frequently complained, I am not always a fan of Donald Trump's personal style. I don't like bullies and I prefer a president who thinks before he opens his mouth. I do, on the other hand, very much like many of the things Trump has accomplished: the great judicial nominations, the taming of the regulatory state, the restoration of the rule of law at the border, leaving the silly Paris accord, the annihilation of ISIS, the attempts to hurry the implosion of Obamacare by suspending utterly illegal payments to insurance companies, calling out the NFL on its lack of patriotism, and calling out the media on a leftward bias that now amounts to simple malfeasance and corruption. That's an awful lot of good stuff, and it surely makes up for the big mouthery.

Aside from a few stupid remarks that seemed to show a lack of respect for the First Amendment — remarks that have so far not been followed up by any bad actions — I can't think of one instance in which Trump has behaved in a way that endangers the norms of American governance. He hasn’t misused the IRS like Barack Obama did, or corrupted the Justice Department like Obama did, or made illegal payouts to insurance companies like Obama did, or extended the power of regulatory agencies until they became a threat to constitutional democracy like Obama did, or lied to the people about health care or Benghazi like Obama did, or behaved so autocratically and unconstitutionally that he lost more cases before the Supreme Court than any other modern president like Obama did. In fact, Trump has been incredibly transparent with the public and has generally thrown legislative decisions to Congress -- where they belong.

 

 

11 OCT 2017 - Ouch...

28 SEP 2017 - Glenn Greenwald (yes, that Glenn Greenwald) with an excellent article ∞ calling out the press for hyperventilating over every Trump-Russia rumor, repeatedly, even though there's little to no evidence supporting any of it.

 

23 SEP 2017 - So we have a nice political storm going between sports teams and Donald Trump. Millionaire owners and players getting their panties in a bunch because they don't like the president, and he doesn't like them.

Hold my beer while I yawn.

But I had to take some time and look up the text of Trump's response to the Charlottesville incident, because that seems to be the evidence thrown around that he's a racist bigot. I found the verbatim words of the president's response, and frankly I'm confused. I see nothing here that could be ascribed as racist or even uncompassionate.

His complete initial statement is here ∞. Excerpt:

Above all else, we must remember this truth, no matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first. We love our country. We love our God. We love our flag. We're proud of our country. We're proud of who we are. So, we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville...

We must love each other, respect each other and cherish our history and our future together. So important. We have to respect each other. Ideally we have to love each other.

This apparently was not enough to satisfy his opponents, who have demonstrated in so many outrageous ways that nothing will satisfy them. And yet they act surprised when he ignores their reactions. Do they really think he will take there concerns seriously when nothing he says is acknowledged truthfully?

Trump followed up his initial comments with a second statement, which again I looked at and wonder why everyone is so agitated. Seriously - the full text is here ∞, but again an excerpt:

Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator, we are equal under the law, and we are equal under our constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.

I'm sorry, but if anyone can take these statements and describe them as being racist, bigoted, or supporting white supremacy in any manner at all, they are either delirious or disingenuous. I can't help but think that if a Democrat president had said the exact same thing there would be little to no reaction whatsoever.

 

09 SEP 2017 - Tweet of the day...

 

 

09 SEP 2017 - Excellent article that dissects, piece by piece, an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that claims the Trump investigation is close to getting something. I won't repeat the details of Don Surber's analysis, but how long do we have to wait for Mueller to dig without finding anything? The whole basis of this effort comes from a consortium of obvious anti-Trump individuals within the intelligence communty that have yet to produce anything but their "concerns" about foreign influence.

Not a week goes by without some excited speculation by the media that an investigation is close to something big. In one case, this was based on claims that a document from Trump's campaign manager - I kid you not - had the words "donation" and "RNC" near to each other. That was it - that was the damning evidence.

Here we are, nearly a year into the FBI's investigation and for as much as the media gets excited about rumors of something big, nothing ever happens.

Hold my beer while I yawn.

 

06 SEP 2017 - The Mess That is the NFL - First the 49ers parted ways with Harbaugh, who was the obvious catalyst to their success. This is followed by the weirdest off-season where star talent oddly decides to retire early. Suddenly key strengths of the team are now weakened. Then Kaepernick mysteriously loses his magic, demonstrating weekly that with his primary target covered he was out of options and would predictably tuck the ball and try to run. As if to prove intelligence was in short supply, he then proceeds to listen to his SJW girlfriend and insult the whole country over the national anthem.

But that wasn't enough.

The NFL, who's image should be affiliated with some sort of loyalty to fans that might be inclined to patriotism (for gawd sakes, the league includes a highly successful team called the PATRIOTS), decides to snub efforts to honor slain policemen while turning a blind eye to players insulting the anthem.

But that wasn't enough.

TV ratings down, ticket sales down, and it's obvious fans are reacting to the storm. Does the NFL admit what's happening? Do they acknowledge their mistake and offer even a token gesture of apology or regret? HAIL NO! Blame it on the election. Blame it on the weather. Blame it on anything other than the fact that the NFL thinks their customers are fools who will fork over mega dollars for a mediocre product while being insulted week after week.

I don't waste time on people who think I'm too stupid to connect the dots and see what's going on.

 

 

03 SEP 2017 - I have a farily strong interest in politics, mostly conservative and historically Republican. But lately I've taken a more Libertarian approach to things thanks to a Republican party that's either too afraid to make a stand or too well paid by status quo supporters.

However, before getting into the details of the mess that is politics, it must be spelled out very clearly that politics does not supersede relationships. It's never a reason to be rude or crude or denigrating of people.

All people, including friends and family, will disagree about issues. And this is right and normal - we all have different experiences and perspectives. But these individual views should never be a reason to throw away or abuse relationships. People are important, and if we find ourselves getting too caught up in the desire to trash someone instead of something, then it's likely we need to step back and regain some perspective.

We could do a lot worse than Texas as it set the standard for putting aside differences and keeping perspective. When it mattered most, people were important. 

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