(see 1 below.)
And Then. (See 1a below.)
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Comment from a dear friend and fellow memo reader regarding my recent posting on The Feminist Movement; "Your piece on feminism is excellent, a significant example of the best of conservatism, as we discussed: i.e. proceeding from ones experience, as opposed to more "liberal" theories.
The significance of what you wrote lies, I believe, in the fact that, apart of the alienation, polarization, impulse for "divorce" in our very selves (head-heart-and-hands) nothing is more fundamental than the "spirit of divorce," if I may use that term, that is undermining our gender relations.
In light of this fact, Dick, if it makes sense, can you elaborate on what you have written? I refer to passages such as:
Visually and anatomically there are differences between men and women, and sexually there are differences between men and women. Even when it comes to the composure of the brain there are differences between men and women. Statistically speaking and related to a variety of interests, reactions, feelings, proclivities etc. there are differences between men and women.
For, the old devil is, as you know, in the details.
I would like to share your following letter, along with any further thoughts you care to offer, with a wider circle of friends.
My warm greetings.
S-----"
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https://youtu.be/EJK2JveCAbI A rational response to Woodward's accusations from a friend and fellow memo reader.
"It says a nervous breakdown of his "presidency," not the president. And, I can't imagine any normal human not being paranoid with all of the attacks on him. Actually, it isn't paranoia when it's reality! I know of no one else that has had to endure such lies and attacks from every single direction.
Still, through it all, he has done some incredible, positive things for the country--his list too long to elaborate on: from the Keystone pipeline to Jerusalem, from ISIS to unemployment, the GDP and far beyond. And with the Mueller sham investigation? The trumped up dossier?
And with Hillary getting away with her Russian connection?
What Trump has accomplished is admirable, and I know of now one else that could have done it. I'm sticking with him. R--"
As for myself, Woodward is a good investigative reporter, works for the newspaper organization that consistently does hit jobs on Trump. The paper is owned by the man who founded Amazon and there is no love lost between Bezos and Trump.
I continue to judge Trump by what he accomplished rather than what he says. I wish he had a different personality but I also would remind those who read what I write and post that McCain was loved by Democrats and the mass media and lived a life very similar to Trump's.
Washington is no better than the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. D.C attracts those who lust for power and will do most anything even drinking the blood of their victims.
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Do you have a problem when wealth from one area, with totally different values, invades your region for the purpose of changing your region through the ballot box?
I have cut back on my overall political contributions and only in very rare instances have I supported candidates who live outside my own area. I believe it is not right for me to support candidates that serve elsewhere. I did support Mia Love nominally because I thought she was a deserving minority candidate in her first election. (See 2 below.)
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All too often when a politician makes a comment the mass media fails to link them with past utterances and/or behaviour so that the reader/listener can put them in rational context.
Former president Obama is particularly egregious when it comes to making statements that belie his own previous actions knowing few people go through the process of connecting and/or linking one with the other.
Being a conservative elephant I still possess a good memory when it comes to linkage. (See 3 below.)
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Commentary on the Kavanaugh Hearings. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Just another One of Obama's many illegalities that goes by the board because the mass media would rather focus on Trump. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
A very self-important college freshman attending a recent football game took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation. 'You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,' the student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear; 'The young people of today are much more advanced than people your age. We grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, a man walking on the moon and the internet. We have cell phones, nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers, automated manufacturing, amazing. technologies, ...and, 'pausing to take another drink of beer.
The senior took advantage of the break in the student's litany and said, ‘You're right, son. We didn't have those things when we were young..so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little shit, what are YOU doing for the next generation?’
The applause was resounding… I love senior citizens.
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Do you have a problem when wealth from one area, with totally different values, invades your region for the purpose of changing your region through the ballot box?
I have cut back on my overall political contributions and only in very rare instances have I supported candidates who live outside my own area. I believe it is not right for me to support candidates that serve elsewhere. I did support Mia Love nominally because I thought she was a deserving minority candidate in her first election. (See 2 below.)
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All too often when a politician makes a comment the mass media fails to link them with past utterances and/or behaviour so that the reader/listener can put them in rational context.
Former president Obama is particularly egregious when it comes to making statements that belie his own previous actions knowing few people go through the process of connecting and/or linking one with the other.
Being a conservative elephant I still possess a good memory when it comes to linkage. (See 3 below.)
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Commentary on the Kavanaugh Hearings. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Just another One of Obama's many illegalities that goes by the board because the mass media would rather focus on Trump. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Nike, NFL, and Levis Strauss Political Business Strategy – The Much Bigger Geopolitical and Trade Picture….
From a pure economic/financial perspective this Nike branding campaign doesn’t make sense…. unless, you realize a much bigger picture. A hidden bigger picture.
On its face, it just seems absurd. Why would any major corporation intentionally stake out a branding position that is adverse to their financial interests?
I’ve spoken to some very excellent business actuaries on this late today; and one specific conversation finally helped to make it all make sense. During that conversation a good ally shared: “a multinational corporation would never make a branding decision adverse to their financial interests. Unless there is a hidden risk unrelated to what is visible on the surface.” ….BINGO, there it is, the lightbulb went on.
A hidden risk that likely has nothing whatsoever to do with Colin Kaepernick.
The bigger risk to Nike has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter, U.S. Consumers, or Antifa-like political advocacy. The bigger financial risk to the Nike Corporation has everything to do with geopolitics and a reset of international trade agreements.
Here’s the hidden aspect with research to back it up. Nike Inc. has hitched its massive corporate existence to a 10-year business plan that is dependent on the continuance of recently negotiated manufacturing contracts.
The contracts for the manufacture of the Nike products are almost exclusively based on international agreements with Asian companies. Some are ASEAN countries; but specifically the most quantifiable risk stems from Chinese and North Korea contracts.
“Apple, Nike and 18 other U.S. companies have $158 billion at stake in China trade war” (details)
President Trump is likely, some would say predictably, about to levy a massive round of Section 301 tariffs on imported Chinese goods. Nike would be one of the U.S. manufacturing companies hardest hit by such a move. The current Trump administration objective toward renegotiated trade deals with China represents the most significant and mostly quantifiable threat to the Nike business plan.
This is the epicenter of the issue.
The hearings on $200 billion worth of Chinese tariffs ended today. It is not coincidental that Nike stakes out a political position in opposition to those pending tariffs.
But wait…. it gets worse. The Nike contracts with China have almost certainly been sub-contracted to non-publicized, generally secret, manufacturing facilities in North Korea.
DANDONG, China (Reuters) – Chinese textile firms are increasingly using North Korean factories to take advantage of cheaper labor across the border, traders and businesses in the border city of Dandong told Reuters.The clothes made in North Korea are labeled “Made in China” and exported across the world, they said.Using North Korea to produce cheap clothes for sale around the globe shows that for every door that is closed by ever-tightening U.N. sanctions another one may open. The UN sanctions, introduced to punish North Korea for its missile and nuclear programs, do not include any bans on textile exports.“We take orders from all over the world,” said one Korean-Chinese businessman in Dandong, the Chinese border city where the majority of North Korea trade passes through. Like many people Reuters interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. (more)
The people I have spoken to virtually guarantee that Nike goods and apparel are made in North Korean sweatshops. The contracts are with Chinese companies, but a corrupt Beijing process allows many -approved by China- companies to use DPRK sweatshops as sub-contractors.
Due to the scale of operations, Nike uses contracted manufacturing in multiple nations. The use of sub-contractors allows plausible deniability toward the North Korean facilities by the parent corporation signing the contract(s).
This presents a dual risk. #1 there are likely to be tariffs on Chinese imports; and #2 there are current sanctions against any companies operating in North Korea.
A multinational company doing simultaneous business with ASEAN nations, China and North Korea for the majority of their manufacturing is extraordinarily exposed to the risks inherent within a U.S. -vs- China/DPRK trade reset.
A 20% drop in Nike value (based on current evaluations), as a result of branding themselves with controversial and political Kaepernick, is nothing compared to the staggering financial risk inherent within multi-billion manufacturing contracts that can become worthless overnight.
Losing the entire supply chain, all future inventory and an inability to manufacture goods would cost much more than if half of the U.S. consumer base stopped buying Nike products. Many of the current DPRK sanction breeches have been overlooked (but not unnoticed) by President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Therefore the Nike Company would be sympathetic to, and financially dependent on, alignment with the objectives of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, with so much on the line, Chairman Xi Jinping would openly embrace and assist anti-U.S. endeavors around trade.
To that extent Beijing (the ultimate decision-maker and approval body) would willingly lower production costs to offset any drops in U.S. revenue for parent corporation, Nike. A rather interesting quid-pro-quo.
And that answers the question: “Why would any major corporation intentionally stake out a branding position that is adverse to their financial interests?”
They, wouldn’t; and they didn’t.
The Nike political branding position is reconciled when you look at the bigger picture and see where the real financial risk aligns. The Nike economic decision is to align with China, and by extension North Korea, for a position of mutual benefit. It is all about the proverbial $$$$ and Nike’s best financial play is to mitigate risk and assist Communist China in their trade strategy.
China is willing to subsidize Nike (lower production costs), and replace any dropped revenue, in exchange for mutually beneficial political opposition against Trump and by extension his policies that are a risk to Beijing. As a result there is minimal financial risk to the Nike Corporation.
And with the current multinational Wall Street agenda now being confronted, we should not expect this approach to stop at Nike. Likely, many more multinational (globalist) corporations, specifically those in the apparel sector, will stake out a similar position.
Remember, part of the NFL brand and business is also apparel; an industry virtually wiped out in the U.S. by outsourced manufacturing in Asia. Small companies, those more nationally minded, gain from the Trump business tax cuts, expensing and investment opportunities. However, the big brand Wall Street multinationals don’t benefit as much from Trump policy and are invested overseas.
- Nike = Apparel
- NFL = Apparel
- Levi Strauss = Apparel
See the connection? Remember, there are TRILLIONS at stake.
Now, does this also make sense?
WASHINGTON – American denim giant Levi Strauss & Co. announced Tuesday that it is launching a series of new initiatives to benefit groups working to prevent gun violence.Levi Strauss’s CEO and President Chip Bergh wrote in Fortune on Tuesday that the company “simply cannot stand by silently when it comes to issues that threaten the very fabric of the communities where we live and work.”“You may wonder why a company that doesn’t manufacture or sell guns is wading into this issue, but for us, it’s simple,” Bergh wrote. “Americans shouldn’t have to live in fear of gun violence. It’s an issue that affects all of us – all generations and all walks of life.”Bergh said it was his responsibility to speak up for important issues since he leads a “values-drive company that’s known the world over as a pioneer of the American West and one of the great symbols of American freedom.” (more)
The multinational Wall Street firms are aligning with domestic political positions that align with Democrats; that is to say they align against President Trump and the economic/trade policy therein.
The agenda is to defeat the Trump-trade-reset; however, they, in this example Levi Strauss, cannot openly side with China and Asia against the United States. The PR optics would be horrible…. So they do it covertly by supporting domestic political policies and opposition toward the President who is threatening the construct of their multinational business model.
Together the NFL, Nike and Levi Strauss stand to retain their current level of trade benefit (profit) if President Trump is blocked from instituting America-First trade and manufacturing policies. Supporting gun control (Levi Strauss) or supporting BLM/Antifa (Nike) is simply a tool to support the political opposition of the policy-maker adverse to their financial interests.
Can you see what’s happening?
Just like the DeceptiCON moves in the U.S. Congress, this is exactly how U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue works. Donohue is aligned with both Democrat and Republican wings of the UniParty. Any group in the momentary position to best support the efforts of his Wall Street corporations is where Donohue focuses his lobbying efforts.
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1a) Stunning Senior Moment
1a) Stunning Senior Moment
A very self-important college freshman attending a recent football game took it upon himself to explain to a senior citizen sitting next to him why it was impossible for the older generation to understand his generation. 'You grew up in a different world, actually an almost primitive one,' the student said, loud enough for many of those nearby to hear; 'The young people of today are much more advanced than people your age. We grew up with television, jet planes, space travel, a man walking on the moon and the internet. We have cell phones, nuclear energy, electric and hydrogen cars, computers, automated manufacturing, amazing. technologies, ...and, 'pausing to take another drink of beer.
The senior took advantage of the break in the student's litany and said, ‘You're right, son. We didn't have those things when we were young..so we invented them. Now, you arrogant little shit, what are YOU doing for the next generation?’
The applause was resounding… I love senior citizens.
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2) A political committee bankrolled by two SAN FRANCISCO millionaires and dozens of other secret sources just made their first TV buy of the general election in Georgia.
PowerPAC has a history of supporting candidates that back a Democratic socialist... or full-blown socialist... agenda. In 2007, alone, they spent $10 MILLION to elect Barack Obama.
PowerPAC has a history of supporting candidates that back a Democratic socialist... or full-blown socialist... agenda. In 2007, alone, they spent $10 MILLION to elect Barack Obama.
And now, they're all in for Abrams.
They've already spent $721,243 to help Abrams clear the primary, and they've committed to spending another $10 Million in Georgia's general election.
They've already spent $721,243 to help Abrams clear the primary, and they've committed to spending another $10 Million in Georgia's general election.
Consequently with literally millions of dollars flooding in from San Francisco, it's going to take even more from our in-state supporters.
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3) Send in the clown(s)
Former President Barack Obama, who made waves with a speech in South Africa in which he turned the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture into a thinly veiled rant against President Donald Trump, is making a(nother) comeback. Obama, who used the July speech to caution "strongman politics are ascending suddenly," and that "those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning," is continuing his roadshow next week when he accepts the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government. In an event which will be closed to the general public, Obama is expected to "echo his call to reject the rising strain of authoritarian politics and policies..."
Pardon me while I pull the handbrake on the hypocrisy highway, but when did the University of Illinois turn into a Monty Python sketch? I get that President Pen'n'Phone is an Illinois homeboy, hailing from the "gun-free" paradise of Chicago and that putting a president's face on the flyer certainly helps draw the big-money donors. But giving the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government to a guy like Obama means the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government is really just a participation trophy. The plaque might as well read "To Barack Obama. At least you tried." When it comes to people who embody "ethics in government," Obama ranks right up there with Boss Tweed and Warren Harding. It's almost worth asking the prize committee if they have the right Barack Obama. The same Barack Obama who:
Personal Liberty® doesn't have the bandwidth for me to list the arrogant hypocrisies which have come to define the Party of Jefferson (speaking of hypocrites — Ms. Hemmings says "hi," Mr. Jefferson). We could do this all day. They needed a lot more than a three-point turn to reverse course from Hillary Clinton's admonishment to accept the results of the election. The #MeToo movement counterpoints as well with the party's lengthy roster of powerful men who have to figure out that "no means no." For Pete's sake, the Clintons were back at Harvey Weinstein's Long Island Sound palace just two weeks ago as special guests at a party which included — if I'm lyin', I'm dyin' — circus performers and a big-top tent. Their chairhole, Tom Perez, says that "socialism is their future," and is proving it by backing bubble-headed Alexandria "Chiquita Khrushchev" Ocasio-Cortez and the policies that made Venezuela such a party. But dragging Obama out of retirement to throw them an electoral life preserver, especially considering the wreck he left of his party, is silly. To try and burnish his legacy as a champion of ethics is hilarious.
Obama is gonna be around a lot this fall. As the polling gap between the two parties has narrowed, the Democrats are waking up to the reality that "Trump sux!" isn't exactly a steamroller of a platform. The obvious ploy is to trot out the man in the great tan suit. It strikes me that counting on a 2012 all-pro to lead a 2018 party to the end zone suggests that "Trump Sux!" might be the better game plan. But it makes the opposition's job a little easier. Granted, the GOP will probably pay consultants millions to come up with "nuh-UH!," but that's not far from a winner. The Democrats are becoming a parody of themselves. Let them send in the clown(s).
— Ben Crystal
Former President Barack Obama, who made waves with a speech in South Africa in which he turned the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture into a thinly veiled rant against President Donald Trump, is making a(nother) comeback. Obama, who used the July speech to caution "strongman politics are ascending suddenly," and that "those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning," is continuing his roadshow next week when he accepts the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government. In an event which will be closed to the general public, Obama is expected to "echo his call to reject the rising strain of authoritarian politics and policies..."
Pardon me while I pull the handbrake on the hypocrisy highway, but when did the University of Illinois turn into a Monty Python sketch? I get that President Pen'n'Phone is an Illinois homeboy, hailing from the "gun-free" paradise of Chicago and that putting a president's face on the flyer certainly helps draw the big-money donors. But giving the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government to a guy like Obama means the Douglas Award for Ethics in Government is really just a participation trophy. The plaque might as well read "To Barack Obama. At least you tried." When it comes to people who embody "ethics in government," Obama ranks right up there with Boss Tweed and Warren Harding. It's almost worth asking the prize committee if they have the right Barack Obama. The same Barack Obama who:
- Turned the Internal Revenue Service into his own personal brute squad. Ethics Obama, aided by minions like Jon Koskinen and Lois Lerner, used what is arguably the most powerful agency in the federal government to systematically target and harass conservative-leaning groups. The settlement between 400 of them and the Feds was finally settled last year, in favor of the good guys. Obama's morally-upstanding objection to tyranny cost the U.S. taxpayers what has been described as a "substantial" amount of money.
- Turned the NSA into his personal dirt collection agency. During the Obama regime, the excesses of our digital spies got so out of hand, no one was safe from their prying; no matter how insignificant they might be. But nothing says "opposition to authoritarian government" like keeping tabs on what kind of ceramic cats your Gam-Gam buys from the Home Shopping Channel.
- Spied on — and even jailed — journalists. Wanna know how deep Obama's affinity for openness and transparency is? Ask James Risen and Dinesh D'Souza. Be forewarned, a copy of your message will likely be stored on a bathroom server somewhere.
- Left us to clean up the moldering corpse of Obamacare, a fraud-riddled and deliberately opaque bureaucratic power grab which threw the nation's health care system into chaos. The man selected by the Douglas Prize committee for his steadfast manning of the barricades against statism literally forced the entire country to buy what he commanded or face the full might of the aforementioned goons at the IRS.
Personal Liberty® doesn't have the bandwidth for me to list the arrogant hypocrisies which have come to define the Party of Jefferson (speaking of hypocrites — Ms. Hemmings says "hi," Mr. Jefferson). We could do this all day. They needed a lot more than a three-point turn to reverse course from Hillary Clinton's admonishment to accept the results of the election. The #MeToo movement counterpoints as well with the party's lengthy roster of powerful men who have to figure out that "no means no." For Pete's sake, the Clintons were back at Harvey Weinstein's Long Island Sound palace just two weeks ago as special guests at a party which included — if I'm lyin', I'm dyin' — circus performers and a big-top tent. Their chairhole, Tom Perez, says that "socialism is their future," and is proving it by backing bubble-headed Alexandria "Chiquita Khrushchev" Ocasio-Cortez and the policies that made Venezuela such a party. But dragging Obama out of retirement to throw them an electoral life preserver, especially considering the wreck he left of his party, is silly. To try and burnish his legacy as a champion of ethics is hilarious.
Obama is gonna be around a lot this fall. As the polling gap between the two parties has narrowed, the Democrats are waking up to the reality that "Trump sux!" isn't exactly a steamroller of a platform. The obvious ploy is to trot out the man in the great tan suit. It strikes me that counting on a 2012 all-pro to lead a 2018 party to the end zone suggests that "Trump Sux!" might be the better game plan. But it makes the opposition's job a little easier. Granted, the GOP will probably pay consultants millions to come up with "nuh-UH!," but that's not far from a winner. The Democrats are becoming a parody of themselves. Let them send in the clown(s).
— Ben Crystal
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4) The Kavanaugh Histrionics
Senate Democrats turn the hearing into a presidential campaig
By
Expectations were low for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, and Senate Democrats on Tuesday wasted no time meeting them. We can’t tell if they’re going through the histrionic motions or if they might actually try to block a confirmation vote.
Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley couldn’t finish his first sentence before California Democrat Kamala Harris interrupted to demand a hearing delay. Democrats continued to speak over the Chairman even after they were ruled out of order to the jeers of protestors who had to be removed from the hearing room. Democrats interrupted 44 times in the first hour, part of what NBC reported as a “plotted, coordinated strategy” organized by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over the weekend.
The main charge is that Mr. Grassley is “denying” crucial documents to “hide” Judge Kavanaugh’s record. The Senators are ignoring the 307 opinions he has written, and the 17,000 pages of material he provided in response to the committee’s questionnaire—the most extensive ever demanded of a nominee. The Senators have already received more than half a million pages about his time as a lawyer and judge—more documents than were provided for the past five Supreme Court nominees combined.
Democrats haven’t found a killer issue in all of this, so they are demanding documents from Judge Kavanaugh’s time as a staff secretary in the Bush White House. The documents would reveal little about Judge Kavanaugh’s legal thinking, since as staff secretary his job was to vet and monitor what President Bush saw each day.
Most of these documents are privileged, and for good reason. They represent high-level deliberations that require honest advice. When Democrat Pat Leahy ran the Judiciary Committee, he didn’t even ask the Obama White House to provide documents from Elena Kagan’s tenure at the Solicitor General’s office, though they surely were relevant to her legal views.
Jeff Sessions, a GOP Senator at the time, asked Ms. Kagan during her 2010 hearing about the need for such privilege. She agreed that such documents “ought not to be produced” since it would undermine the “confidentiality” necessary for “effective decision-making.”
Once they got past this procedural tantrum, Democrats used their opening statements to take shots at Judge Kavanaugh’s integrity. Ms. Harris (#KamalaIn2020) derided him as a partisan who would not be loyal “to the people of the United States.” Is he a traitor? Several Senators claimed Donald Trump chose Judge Kavanaugh to protect the President from indictment or impeachment or something. Never mind that Judge Kavanaugh has written opinions that are skeptical of unchecked presidential power.
Democrats portray Mr. Kavanaugh as some Trumpian legal gargoyle, but he’s the epitome of a mainstream legal conservative that any GOP President would have had on his short list. Some 97% of the opinions and orders that Judge Kavanaugh took part in over 12 years on the federal bench were unanimous. He was in the majority 98% of the time.
Of his 62 dissents, the Supreme Court has adopted his legal reasoning in at least nine cases—an extraordinary number for an appellate judge. He’s a center-right version of his colleague on the federal bench, Merrick Garland, whom Democrats continue to laud as an ideal Justice.
The political question is whether this is all for show, or are Democrats willful enough to use Senate rules to block the nomination from proceeding to a vote? They could do so for a while if they stage a walkout, and Tuesday’s melodrama suggests they might be up for such a self-defeating gesture. About half of the Democrats on Judiciary are running for President, but have they consulted their Senate colleagues running for re-election this year?
4a)Res Ipsa Loquitur
"the thing speaks for itself"
Donald Trump in his Twitter storms apparently has no idea that he is winning. The Brett Kavanaugh opening hearing turned into a progressive circus, with shouting would-be Democratic presidential candidates vying with screaming protesters to see who could be the most obnoxious. Ossified senior Democrat senators appeared bewildered how to match or somehow channel the street theater of activists on their left flank and ended up being sort of punked by their own protesters. It will be hard for network news to find a soundbite from all that to look presentable, given that democracy cannot function when elected officials join the mob.
The consecutive Friday and Saturday funerals of the late Aretha Franklin and Senator John McCain reminded us why funerals are not good occasions for politicking and editorializing and end up reflecting poorly on those who try. There are 364 days a year to damn Trump without doing so at a funeral, especially by crowd-pleasing invective from those who call for civility and unity — and in the past often have shown neither to each other.
New revelations about the strange nexus between Christopher Steele, Bruce Ohr, and a Russian oligarch only remind the public that Robert Mueller is looking for Russian collusion (to the extent that he is now, or ever was really) in all the wrong places. Future unredacted disclosures about the FISA warrants or communications between now-disgraced DOJ and FBI officials will be interesting.
The great economic news — unemployment, GDP growth, Wall Street records, energy production, retail sales, and consumer confidence — continues to outpace even optimistic predictions.
Abroad, the Iranian and Turkish economies are in shambles, and those countries’ hostility to the U.S. is proving to be a bad economic gamble.
There is progress on NATO funding. Nobody is protesting over the supposedly radical decisions of leaving the Paris climate accord and the Iran deal, moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, or assuming that, after 70 years, the surviving Palestinian “refugees” and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — like the 13 million who in 1945-7 walked back from Eastern Europe into Germany, or the 1 million Jews long ago ethnically cleansed from the Arab world, or the millions of “displaced persons” in post-war Western Europe — are no longer refugees.
China shows signs of economic tension and does not seem to have its heart in an existential trade war with the U.S., given that it could probably keep its huge trade surpluses by simply trimming them down in art-of-the-deal fashion. NAFTA might be rebranded and improved.
In other words, Trump’s superb foreign-policy team (Pompeo, Mattis, Bolton, and Haley) and his economic and judicial-appointments advisers have real accomplishments that reflect well on the Trump administration, and thus are driving the media and the Left into abject hysteria.
All this is missing is a little silent forbearance on Trump’s own part to allow both his achievements and his critics, respectively, to speak for themselves, without need of his Twitter editorialization.
It reminds one of the saloon-brawling scene in Shane, when the bloodied Joe Starrett and Shane keep beating up the Ryker outfit, apparently oblivious to their ongoing success — until the bartender shoos them out and orders them to quit brawling, with the verdict: “You’ve won.”
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5)Obama’s Forgotten Scandal (One of Them)
Posted by Tim Kaelinn
“Justice delayed, is justice denied,” and although this is a small victory for the thousands of men and woman targeted by the IRS under the Obama régime, it’s a victory nevertheless. While there was sparse news coverage of what actually took place under the Obama Administration – targeting conservatives because of their political points of view is one of the darkest chapters within America’s history. Reminiscent of the tragic events in Benghazi, the media fell silent.
Obama and his minions (with the help of the media) are masters at covering their numerous acts of malfeasance.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press initially reported that conservative groups were the subjects of illegal and unwarranted scrutiny by the federal agency solely for political purposes.
“It shows that when a government agency desires to target citizens based on their viewpoints, a price will be paid,” said Edward Greim, a lawyer who led the class-action case in federal court in Cincinnati.
The IRS agreed to a declaratory judgment, stating that “it is wrong” to purposely scrutinize a tax return because of a taxpayer’s name or political philosophy, the report said. Along with the favorable judgment, the conservative groups received a “sincere apology” from the IRS…
Under the tutelage of former President Obama, then-senior executive of the IRS, Lois Lerner, became aware of the targeting in 2011 of conservative groups legally applying for tax exemptions – however encouraged auditors to target them.
And yet Lerner, a former IRS senior executive, requested that her testimony be sealed – and it was.
Her lawyers claimed that there was “exceedingly low” public interest in having their depositions released, and they said tea party groups are pushing for disclosure out of “spite.”
Her lawyers claimed that there was “exceedingly low” public interest in having their depositions released, and they said tea party groups are pushing for disclosure out of “spite.”
“The public disclosure of this personal and sensitive information and details of the harassment would further no legitimate end while undermining substantial privacy and physical safety interests,” the women said in briefs filed by their lawyers.
The settlement appears to be a “pay-off” or perhaps more bluntly a “bribe” not to pursue any further with the class-action lawsuit.
The Justice Department under then President Obama personally cleared Lerner of any wrongdoing, even praising her in a public statement for stopping the targeting of conservatives when she learned of the infraction. In Leftist World, the fact that this version contradicts the sworn testimony of others just doesn’t matter.
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