We are the drain the swamp people

This group via the redoubtable warrior HP

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“…if you only watch Fox News, because it’s reinforcing what you believe, you are not an informed citizen.”

So what are you, General, when you watch ‘only’ MSNBC, or ‘only’ CNN, or…?

Such profound insight into people and historic events. Where DO we get such brilliance. To think he was let go as White House Chief of Staff.

Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly denounced at least a portion of Fox News’ audience for being ill-informed if that’s their only source of news.

The respected retired Marine Corps general finds himself in a war of words with a reinvigorated President Trump, who unsurprisingly isn’t content to take Kelly’s criticisms lying down.

Mediaite’s Adrian Carrasquillo reports:

“You have to be careful about what you are watching and reading because the media has taken sides,” he said. “So if you only watch Fox News, because it’s reinforcing what you believe, you are not an informed citizen.”
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This should read , “the once respected retired Marine Corps general…”

When he was named President Trump’s Chief of Staff, General Kelly brought all of his considerable political baggage with him. And, he obviously read all of his ‘press coverage’ which tended to tout him as Trump’s boss!

In our opinion, and from having gotten news and information from a wide variety of media sources, some, of course, including Fox News, Chief of Staff Kelly was anything but a loyal employee… much like another of the generals the president mistakenly thought was capable of honorable service, H.R. McMaster.

McMaster, according to one ABC report, …”urged continuation of the Iran nuclear deal” ; opposed the label “radical Islamic terrorism” and forcefully protested the racially charged violence in Charlottesville.

He also purged the NSC of ‘conservative’ members. That’s all fine, to have personal views on controversial issues, but like many others who somehow got into Trump’s inner circle, he did not confine his airing of those views only to the president.        dlh

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Surprising?  NOT!

Motto of education grant-writers

– That many of our nation’s most “prestigious” universities would participate in any scheme that was counter to the interests of American students, and the U.S. itself…

– Yale, Harvard, Georgetown, Cornell…recognize any of those “elite” institutions? These are the ‘factories’ that produce the politicians and bureaucrats who attempt to run our country and control every aspect of your life!
(And you’ve wondered how many of our ‘betters’ learned to be so arrogant!)

– This is where the ‘swamp life’ begins its existence, receives its sustenance!      dlh

At the Wall Street Journal:

Education Department Investigating Harvard, Yale Over Foreign Funding

– “Officials accuse schools across U.S. of soliciting funds from foreign governments, companies known to be hostile to the country…”
– “In addition, while the department said it has found foreign money generally flows to the U.S.’s richest universities, “such money apparently does not reduce or otherwise offset American students’ tuition costs,” the document said.

– “The arrest last month of the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department on federal charges of lying about receiving millions of dollars in Chinese funding through the program while the U.S. shelled out more than $15 million to fund his research group catapulted the issue into the spotlight.”

Reading the article one finds some delicious excuses from academe ~~ “the complicated nature of reporting“~~  this from the the champions of big-government oversight on everything.

And the guffaw producing  ~~ “Georgetown carefully reviews all gifts to ensure they are in alignment with our values and our educational objectives and retains full authority over expenditure decisions.” ~~   With regard to their Catholic heritage, of course they have demonstrated at various times, no values, or should we say “flexible” or “interpretive” values.

As to the claim of  “full authority over expenditure decisions” what BS.  These universities design grant requests to conform to donor desires.

Who seriously believes that, for example, an international relations curriculum that does not enure to the foreign funders perceived benefit will continue to be funded?      R Mall

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• That normal people know the difference is one reason for Trump’s success
• We are not all that enamored with people who would not say shit if their mouth was full of it, because we don’t believe their core piety is so great
• Who knows what is in the hearts of the prigs who would have a policy against private talk?
• Denis Prager writing at American Greatness has an excellent article that triggered our comments. First ours, then our betters

Most people with their heads screwed on straight know that bluster talk is just that, the over-the-top attempt at humor, injecting something outlandish even gross to upset the mundane. The stereotypical cheap shot at one group to somehow differentiate oneself or show (pretend) superiority or membership in another group. It is usually silly or presumptuous twattle.  Such talk may be expressions of frustrations even injustice perceived or real with another group, stereotypical but not necessarily individualistic.

Boisterousness is not serious discussion, nor does it involve debates, and if such is engaged, it typically results in moderation, capitulation or change of subject. Actual interactions demonstrated in work, play, general human intercourse are civil.  Trash talk is not serious policy proposal nor would the rare serious advocacy be given power or prestige.  The nutcases desiring to have their talk taken seriously as if a policy proposal reveal themselves and are shunned.

There is a huge and essential difference between thought and action in all of us. If there was not then we would all be in jail.  We grant that some people think out loud too much but does a private expression reveal character?  What does it reveal?  If I say “that son of a bitch”  does it mean I know his mother?  Even if directed one-on-one to a person is it meant to say something about his real mother?  It is an epithet, lost to literal meaning, to be taken more seriously depending on context. Venal sin perhaps, but true heart and context are everything.

The notion of hypocrisy is wrapped up in all this. We do not like liberal Democrat policy makers, and we do not think much of the character of rank and file Democrats who should know better by now than to aid and abet such people. If they are true believers than they can share our disgust. That said we would not fault a Democrat  for something said in private conversation contra an idea they have espoused unless they have voted for a person intent on actionable policy to implement punishment (political or civil) for others doing the same thing. Hypocrisy best understood is the doing or expressing something that you would punish others for but expect that you are immune from because of your status or whatever.

Claiming the right to revise and extend our remarks we move you toward Prager’s comments which we largely support. Our only demurral is as regards theology not being potentially revealing, if that is what he meant.

Why Private Speech Doesn’t Tell Us About a Person’s Character 

Fools judge people by their theology and their private statements.

Very few things I have said have elicited as much negative attention as this: What people say in private tells little, if anything, about their character. Left-wing critics have had a field day mocking me (mockery is the left’s substitute for argument), but even some religious conservatives have taken issue with me (without the mockery)⁠—don’t I know that it is precisely how we act in private that most clearly reveals our character?

This issue, of course, originally arose as a result of what then-reality TV host Donald Trump said in private to then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005. I thought then, as I do now, that people greatly overstated the importance of the remarks⁠—because they were made in private.

In order to understand why private remarks usually mean nothing, we need to make two critical distinctions: between private and public, and between speech and actions.

Here are the four categories:

1. Private speech.
2. Private actions.
3. Public speech.
4. Public actions.

The last three are very important and, therefore, reveal a person’s character. But what we say in private is not important. Why? Because it doesn’t necessarily affect anyone (except potentially the person hearing us).

This is so obvious that it is depressing that it needs to be spelled out. It shows how small a role reason, especially moral reasoning, plays in many people’s lives. We live at a time when what people feel substitutes for thought and reason. In the infamous “Access Hollywood” case, most people feel repulsed by what Trump said, and for most of them, that suffices to determine Trump’s character.

So, then, allow me to spell this out.

Does what you say to your therapist, which is obviously in private, reveal your character? No one believes so. If a faithful married man were to tell his psychiatrist that he often fantasizes about having sex with women other than his wife⁠—and for that matter, wishes he could grab women by their genitalia⁠—would that reveal what type of person he is? If a woman, after years of taking care of her elderly mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, were to tell her therapist or a close friend that sometimes she wishes her mother would die, would that tell us anything about the woman’s character?

Ironically, the answer is yes⁠—but in a completely different way than most people think. If people say something ignoble in private but don’t act on what they say, that shows good character, not bad.

To cite another example, then-President Richard Nixon was taped making private comments about his dislike of many Jews. When this was revealed, people who hated Nixon used those tapes to label Nixon an anti-Semite. But it was Richard Nixon as president who Israeli leaders credited with saving Israel during the Jewish state’s 1973 war (the Yom Kippur War) with Egypt. Two years ago, Haaretz, Israel’s leading left-wing newspaper, wrote: “Nixon stands out among presidents for taking the boldest risk for Israel: a much-needed arms airlift during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. … Preoccupied by Watergate and mired in Vietnam, and against the advice of his Jewish adviser, Nixon risked a new war with the Soviets to save Israel. Nixon ‘made it possible for Israel to win, at some risk to his own reputation and at great risk to the American economy,’ historian Stephen Ambrose said.”

A similar situation existed regarding former President Harry Truman. According to biographers David McCullough and Merle Miller, in private, Truman often used the word “kike” when talking about Jews (for example, he referred to New York City as “kike town” in a letter to his wife). That is the Jewish equivalent of the N-word, a word he also often used in private. Yet it was Truman in 1948 who, against the pleas of the entire State Department, was the first world leader to recognize the new state of Israel, and who, as president, racially integrated the U.S. armed services.

Actions (and public speech) matter, not private speech.

Maybe Truman and Nixon didn’t like Jews. As a Jew, I don’t give damn what you think about Jews. I only care about how you treat Jews. Most evangelicals believe I cannot go to heaven because I do not accept Christ. But evangelicals are not only among my closest friends; they are, by far, the Jews’ best friends today. That’s what matters to me. I don’t judge people by their theology any more than I judge people by their private statements. Fools judge people by their theology and their private statements.

One more question for those who believe private speech tells us all we need to know about a person’s character: Do thoughts tell us all we need to know? And if not, why not?

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• Romney’s history a profile in betrayal*
• Who ever told us Romney was our best chance to beat Obama?
• Prior to the nomination we took it easy on him, believed in conversion
• We still do, just not that it applied to him
• After the nomination we defended the guy
• But what we got was a rerun of McCain 08, during and as a Senator
• Better to have gone down with a fight than the likes of Romney or McCain
• Trump has proved the pearl clutching polling devotees to be ignoramuses

Words of wisdom in this American Greatness article by Bart Marcois. Bold emphasis ours.

Mitt Romney Betrays Republicans and Utah

Senator Mitt Romney portrays his decision to vote “yes” on removing President Trump as one he came to with difficulty and because of principle. He studied and prayed about it. He quoted scripture and church hymns to explain and justify it. But to me, a former supporter, fundraiser, organizer, and fellow faith adherent, it’s a betrayal.

I was an early supporter of Mitt’s original run for the presidency. Starting in 2003, I encouraged young Mormons to get involved in political organizing, in either party. I told them to stop imagining that politicians are pure and holy.

“Politicians pander,” I told them. “Your job is not to change their nature, but to be so involved that they start to pander to you, in addition to other interest groups.” Many of them eventually found their way to the Romney campaign, and are still part of his orbit.

When Mitt ran again in 2012, I knew his inner circle and was a tireless fundraiser. I raised over $950,000, mostly in small donations. As a lifelong diplomat and policy analyst, I was not wealthy, and neither were my friends.

But I believed in Mitt. I believed in his decency, and his ability to manage and to govern.
Mitt’s Betrayal in 2012

Mitt’s first betrayal was his choice to lose the 2012 campaign. The whole nation had seen him snuff Obama during the first debate. He looked like a winner. We thought he was fighting for us. But in the next debate, he soft-pedaled his criticism. He declined to criticize Obama for his failure to protect four Americans killed in Benghazi, although I knew he had been well briefed about what happened there.

I was with him and his team that night. I asked why he had pulled his punches. “Criticism didn’t play well with independent women in Ohio,” a senior aide told me. He stopped fighting because it didn’t look decent.

My family and I were with the Romneys and his inner circle in Boston on Election Night, and for breakfast the morning after. All we could think of was the devastation that four more years of Obama meant for us. Mitt gave up America’s victory for what he perceived as his own private decency.
Mitt’s Betrayals in 2016 and 2018

At the height of the 2016 campaign, Mitt called Donald Trump a “fraud” and a “con man.” He encouraged Republican voters to throw away their votes, allowing Hillary Clinton to become president.

I told people that while Trump may burn down the Washington establishment, Hillary was an invasive species. She would choke the life out of everything, and the country would never recover. I could believe Mitt was principled if he had called out the Clintons in a similar way, but he didn’t.

Mitt knew what the Clintons are, and the destructive policies they would implement. But he let his personal pique at Trump cloud his judgment. I have written elsewhere about Trump’s pleasant manner in private. My family knocked on over 5,500 doors for Trump, and we knew the hope he gave American voters.

In spite of Mitt’s attempt to sabotage the Trump campaign, President-elect Trump interviewed him to be secretary of state. I would believe Mitt’s opposition to Trump was principled if he had politely declined the position. But he didn’t. He interviewed for the job.

When Mitt became a senator from Utah, he used his position to attack his own party. Again, had he called out the unconstitutional, unlawful, and vulgar behavior of the Democrats, we could believe that he was motivated by principle. But he has not criticized a single Democrat for any action, no matter how egregious, in all his tenure in Washington.

Mitt’s Betrayal in 2020

Romney’s vote last week was a betrayal of his Republican colleagues in the Senate, and an act of consummate hypocrisy.

When Mitt ran for president, he had no use for Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas. Their outspoken devotion to constitutional rule of law—their “grandstanding,” as he saw it—made it difficult for Republicans in swing states. Cruz and Lee should have helped their colleagues win in purple states.

It is Mitt’s vote on impeachment, though, that actually betrays swing-state Republicans. It allows Democrats to call their condemnation of President Trump bipartisan. It is rumored in Washington that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pushed for a futile impeachment vote to damage Republican Senators in left-leaning states. Mitt helped him to do that.

Mitt betrayed the president whom he once wanted to serve, who generously considered him for the most senior appointment in his cabinet, the president whose help he requested when he ran for Senate. We all like decency, but at what price? Romney is prepared to barter away liberty, due process, democratic governance, and the rule of law for it. That may make Romney some short-term friends at MSNBC, but for the rest of America, it’s another betrayal.

Why won’t Mitt just own his decision? Instead, he invokes hymns and scripture to justify it. That is a betrayal of the many Latter-day Saints who support Trump.

I sing the same hymns and read the same Bible, same scriptures, and I thank God every day for President Trump, and ask God’s blessing upon him. With Judaism and Christianity under fierce attack, I am grateful for a president who will fight for us, as he promised, who protects our First Amendment rights to speak and assemble, and our Second Amendment rights to self-defense.

But Mitt’s greatest betrayal is the betrayal of his constituents. They didn’t send him to Washington to conduct a personal vendetta. President Trump is more popular in Utah than Mitt Romney is. They sent him to make their lives better, to vote for policies that would let them provide for their families and preserve their liberty. President Trump is doing that, and I suspect Utah voters want Senator Romney to help him. But Romney sided with Democrats who want to take away from Utah voters, and every other American, the right to choose their president in less than nine months.

There is a bill wending its way through the Utah legislature that will allow voters to recall a sitting U.S. senator: HB 217, sponsored by Rep. Tim Quinn. Quinn said he proposed the bill weeks ago, and it is not related to impeachment. The bill sets a high threshold for removal: it would require gathering about 265,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot, and a simple majority to remove a senator. It will be interesting to see whether it passes, and when Utah voters put it to use.

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Or should that be Moreon Night at the Oscars, or, Oscar Moreon Night??

Anyway . . .

Damn! (we are in “Joe” mode) I’m so disappointed. I had hoped to see decrepit, one time “star”, Robert DeNiro take the stage and make a total ass of himself one more time before he heads for the pricey nursing home for aging airheads.     dlh

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• Joe knows his cuss words??????!!!!!

LYING, DOG-FACED PONY SOLDIER”!?  (Biden’s Wooing the New Hampshire Voters With his Unique style of Campaigning)

What the hell is “Uncle Joe” talking about? A “dog-faced”!? A “pony soldier”.

Western movies in the 50’s used the term “pony soldier” to describe a horse-mounted U S cavalry soldier. It was not generally used as a pejorative any more than ‘Ground pounder” or “leatherneck”, etc

Same with “Dog-face”…

” The term was used in media during WWII, such as “Up Front” by combat cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who may have heard the term while serving with the 45th Infantry Division in Italy.

“The term gained a high profile in the USA when it was used in the 1955 Hollywood film To Hell and Back, based on the best-selling autobiography of Audie Murphy, the most decorated U.S. soldier of World War II, and starring Murphy in the lead role. The film included a song, The Dogface Soldier, originally written in 1942 by two U.S. Army infantry soldiers; it was adopted as the song of the 3rd Infantry Division, and was widely played and sung during the war.[2] The song eventually sold 300,000 copies. The song is still sung every morning after reveille by the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division while in garrison at Fort Stewart, Georgia and Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.”(Wikipedia)
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Poor old Joe…that’s why Democrats need to get behind Joe and give him the nomination for president.  Like the rest of America, Democrats are horrified at the prospect of a President Biden, but out of pity for this old political ‘war horse’ (Joe might want to use that term in insulting one of his voters ), Dems need to send him into retirement with this one last “honor”.                       dlh
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BIDEN IN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

Biden, in New Hampshire, jokingly calls student ‘a lying, dog-faced pony soldier’

(Joe) Biden, 77, has gone on the offensive following his disappointing fourth-place finish in last week’s disastrous Iowa caucuses, well behind rivals Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

(A student from) Mercer University in Georgia, (asked) Biden how he could remain competitive in the race after that performance.

“It’s a good question,” Biden responded. “Number one: Iowa’s a democratic caucus. You ever been to a caucus? No you haven’t. You’re a lying, dog-faced pony soldier. You said you were; but now you got to be honest. I’m gonna be honest with you. It was a little bit confusing in Iowa.”

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We have referred to P T Barnum in the past, paraphrasing his “a sucker”  (we prefer, a “Democrat” ) is born every minute.

“Fast Eddie from Michigan” sends another Barnum venture as he sees the coming debate between Trump and Mini Mike Bloomberg:

Related reading: ABC’s Karl: Based on Tonight, No Dem ‘Has the Trump Campaign Quaking in Their Boots’

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• He is fun to watch
• commentary below

“OLD WHITE JOE” HAS ALWAYS BEEN OUR FAVORITE DEMOCRAT TO FACE OFF AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP THIS NOVEMBER.

Now here’s a guy that knows how to lose…and lose leaving’em laughing. No joke!

Joe Biden has been a disaster as an officeholder throughout his long time (way too long in our view) on the national political scene. As former Sec. of Defense, Bob Gates, described Joe, “…I think he’s been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue of over the past four decades.”

Even Biden’s carefully nurtured public image as a “nice guy’, as “Joe lunch bucket”, everybody’s ‘everyday guy’, is false; he is as nasty a politician as any who ever graced the American political scene (ie. see his treatment of Clarence Thomas). It is not just old age showing today on the campaign trail that persuades even Democratic voters that he’s a world class buffoon. He has always been.

Despite his claim of a high IQ, and a top graduate of his law school class, Joe Biden of late, is proving every day, that he just isn’t very bright.

And, further, despite some silly self-image he seems to have of himself as a ‘tough guy’ (from challenging gang leader ‘Corn Pop’ as a youth to today’s daring an octogenarian to a pushup contest), there’s every indication that if he tried to ‘take Trump out behind the schoolhouse’, poor old Joe would get his ass kicked all the way back to Scranton.

Space doesn’t permit a recounting of Joe’s numerous gaffes over the years and on this election’s campaign trail, but they factor mightily in our belief that, —

a) Donald Trump never had in mind attacking Biden as a political opponent in 2020 with his Ukraine phone call; why would he when the more knowledgeable politics watchers were certain Biden would not be the nominee and, if he were, Trump would have him laughed off the debate stage?,

b) no serious Democratic election expert would ever want Biden as a candidate for any office ever again!

So, again, we renew our call for Republicans, conservatives, Trump supporters everywhere…Help ‘Joe” stay in the Race!               dlh

Joe Biden Is Collapsing   By Walter Shapiro at New Republic

Who’s going to pick up his mantle as the establishment favorite?

Joe Biden brought his “No Malarkey” tour to a New Hampshire debate stage on Friday night. But in promising to tell the truth, he accidentally exposed his own doleful (or I should say, Bob Dole-ful) prospects in Tuesday’s opening-gun primary.

In his first words of the debate—the moment when candidates are usually the most scripted—Biden confessed, “I took a hit in Iowa and I’ll probably take a hit here.” It was a novel campaign strategy; few candidates ever say, “Vote for me because I’m going to lose here.”

If his comments were a brief misstep in an otherwise smooth debate, it would have been one thing. But throughout the evening, Biden adopted a combative tone that undercut one of his strongest assets as a candidate—his avuncular persona. Biden may merely have been frustrated; the 77-year-old can see himself losing New Hampshire to the dewy Pete Buttigieg (who was born during Biden’s second term in the Senate) and to the perpetual leftwing Senate gadfly Bernie Sanders. But he ought to know better: The night Bob Dole lost the 1988 New Hampshire GOP primary, he snapped at George H.W. Bush in a television interview, “Stop lying about my record.” Friday night in Manchester, Biden seemed ready to shout, “Stop ignoring my 47-year record.”

It all came to the surface when Buttigieg made his standard generational attack on “the politics of the past” and stressed the need to “bring change in Washington before it’s too late.”

For Biden, the ultimate Washington candidate, this was too much. Playing his remember-whose-veep-I-was card, Biden said with exasperation, “I don’t know what about the past of Barack Obama and Joe Biden was so bad. What happened? What is it that he wants to do away with?”

*You can’t make this stuff up: https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/09/biden-woman-lying-dog-faced-pony-soldier-new-hampshire/

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