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[The election has understandably sucked the oxygen out of all other topics. On the off chance that some readers may still be looking outside our borders to a see a fully functioning world, here’s some fresh sand in which to note your observations. H/T to reader for the graphic below. gjr]
George Rebane
[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary to be broadcast tonight. I am posting it early due to the heavy reader interest and related comments pertaining to yesterday’s election.]
Early this morning columnist David Brooks, NYT’s futile nod to political balance, opined that Trump’s victory was made possible by Americans who are so “morally numb” that they suffer from “an inability to be offended”. This view is now calcified in the liberal mind that remains blind to the bullet the country dodged by rejecting Hillary Clinton’s presidency. Yesterday history was made at the polls across the land as a bamboozled, lied to, and frustrated electorate sent an outsider to try something different in Washington.
George Rebane
RR has long maintained that not all franchised American citizens should exercise their right to vote (e.g. here). For the good of our republic, they should just stay home, watch, learn, and prepare themselves for the next election. As a public service we again issue the same appeal to all voters on the margin, and offer here a simpler, updated voter test that can be auto-administered.
Dear reader, please don’t vote if you …
[8nov16 update] Happy election day! And here’s what we’re talking about in this post as Dr Walter Williams reminds us in his ‘The Astonishing Ignorance of Young Adults’. These people definitely should stay out of the voting booths and devote the time to some remedial book learning.
How America has ideologically wandered off track is dissected by another nationally known black scholar, Dr Shelby Steele. In ‘Trump, Clinton and the Culture of Deference’ he describes the rise of America’s guilt and the Left’s co-opting the role as the champion of our redemption, while it implements policies that assure continuing victimization and teach its victims to demand eternal protection from the ‘assaults’ of the Right.
[It's been fun listening to NPR (National Propaganda Radio) and reading the AP (All Propoganda) news service. Both are bending over backwards attempting to output unbiased reports on the election while failing miserably as they not so subtly characterize Trump's 'unsuitability' for the presidency while describing Hillary's herculean efforts to keep her lead in the polls while ignoring the prime reasons why the polls are tightening in the first place. Sure explains away why our progressive neighbors have a skewed picture of the world when they sole source their news. gjr]
George Rebane
The destruction of America’s economy in order to demonstrate climate change ‘leadership’ hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles. Elsewhere in these comment streams I recently remarked, “Nothing will speed post-Americanism more than acceding to the economy busting hysterical nostrums that are supposed to counter anthropogenic global warming. That is one of the many forms of now operant national suicide that the Left is busy implementing.” In the 1nov16 WSJ two more scientists again attempt to teach the teachables that atmospheric CO2 in the realistically contemplated concentrations will indeed warm the earth slightly. But that warming will be a blessing to the nutritional and living space needs of the arriving billions over the remainder of this century. Meanwhile technology has already and continues to reduce/remove environmental toxins and CO2 emissions without the draconian measures prescribed by the promoters of Agenda21 objectives and those non-participants expecting a handout in the process. (more here)
Don Rogers, publisher of our local newspaper The Union, goes through a tortured analysis cum apology (here) of why he decided to publish the now notorious 29oct16 political advertisement by Mr Frank Pinney. His soul searching concludes with a remarkable statement that I hope he, upon reflection, will reconsider. Mr Rogers’ apologetic ends with –
Where “censorship” and “judgment” meet is highly subjective and ever present. Where do we trust readers to make their own determinations and where do we decide to protect sensibilities beyond the conventions of libel in this era, and this race in particular? … From what I’m hearing from readers, we drew the lines too loosely. Or rather, I did. I made the final call. Ironically enough, I did so not out of sympathy for the positions taken, but in trying to apply standards of libel, invasion of privacy, obscenity and clearness of opinion from facts. And also from the standpoint of political rhetoric in an advertisement as opposed to news or commentary. … This does raise an obvious question that doesn’t seem to bother our big league brethren: If it wouldn’t make the cut for commentary, why should it get a chance as a political advertisement? … It’s one we’ll have to consider more thoroughly in the future, plainly.
First, we’ll forgive him for confusing the orthogonality of “trusting readers to make their own determination” with his self-anointed task “to protect sensibilities beyond the conventions of libel”. The answer here is simple – trust your readers! But the apex of his suffering comes from mistaking advertised political speech for commentary qualifying as the paper’s editorial content. Conflating the two as eschewed by his “big league brethren” does indeed expose his tendency to become the community’s censor of political speech. The rules for libel, especially in a heated election season, are almost non-existent as evidenced by the torrent of invectives from the candidates and their political ads nationwide. In this category Mr Pinney’s exhortations were low-grade ore. So Mr Rogers, ignore the progressive pinhead contingent of your readership, and let it be.
George Rebane
Recent email revelations have put paid on the longheld conclusion that America’s Left is actively working to take us into a post-American future. This view is underwritten by most on the Right and many on the Left. The entire proposition is wrapped up in the widely accepted notion of an evolving America. Currently there stand two much read publications which discuss this issue – the Nov/Dec 2016 Foreign Affairs, flagship publication of the prestigious left-leaning Council on Foreign Relations (CRF), and the Oct 2016 Imprimis, the widely read publication (circulation over 3.6 million) from the right-leaning Hillsdale College.
FA devotes its entire issue to the discussion of populism in which we read ‘Populism on the March – Why the West Is in Trouble’ by CNN’s Mr Fareed Zakaria, and ‘Populism is not Fascism’ by Columbia’s Professor Sheri Berman. Imprimis summarizes a recent (12oct16) speech by Professor Edward Erler – ‘Who We Are As a People – The Syrian Refugee Question’.
For openers FA identifies what they label an “ethno-nationalist trend” that is ongoing on both sides of the Atlantic and championed in America by Donald Trump. From the issue’s introductory overview it is clear that populism is any broadly held socio-political view by people who don’t support progressive globalism. One senses that there is a perceptible cloud over such people.
[Boy did I screw up. We all got involved in the election and I didn't even notice that I'd forgotten to freshen up the sand until readers began to shoe horn in important off-topic topics in what seemed the closest fit. My apologies again. But I would appreciate a crisp nudge from any reader who has something that doesn't fit under any of the recent topics which don't include a recent sandbox. Thanks. gjr]
[This commentary was submitted by RR reader and correspondent Mr Norm Sauer who is also a member of The Union’s Editorial Board. His writings have graced these pages before, and today’s contribution is a spirited assessment of our future under Hillary that concludes with a compelling endorsement of Donald Trump for president. This piece also appears in today’s (29oct16) edition of The Union. gjr]
Norm Sauer
On October 20, 2016, the Washington Times reported Hillary Clinton has aligned herself closely with a vision for America laid out by her benefactor—left-wing financier George Soros. Soros is a Hungarian Jew who, without guilt or remorse, assisted the Nazis in confiscating Jewish property during WWII.
Soros promotes international governance, more open borders, increased Muslim immigration into the West, and diminished U. S. global power. He has donated nearly $11 million to Hillary’s campaign and three major Super PACs.
Hillary, who at the presidential debates never wore an American flag pin, was exposed by WikiLeaks’ data dump telling Brazilian bankers her “dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.”
Open borders means we have no country, and open trade means no new jobs—rather vital concepts in a presidential race. However, WikiLeak’s disclosures were buried by CBS, NBC, and ABC morning and evening shows between October 7 and 13 which spent 4 hours 13 minutes on Trump alleged sex assaults versus 36 minutes on various WikiLeaks’ disclosures during one week.
Why did the media systematically ignore WikiLeaks’ whistleblowing disclosures? Because those e-mails thoroughly damaged Hillary and her campaign.
The Clintons are dangerous and we all know it. They are corrupt and will stop at nothing to gain power and money. If Hillary becomes our next president this corruption will continue to be institutionalized on an even larger scale than now.
Look what happens when Democrats are in control. The Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS, the State Department and the EPA have all been politicized. Hillary’s abuse of our national security doesn’t even merit a wrist slap. The corruption of the Clinton Foundation is ignored, and the media buries the disclosure of DNC operatives engaging in voter fraud and inciting violence at Trump rallies. (Google: ‘Project Veritas videos.’)
Do we Americans wish to stay in this forest primeval, where nightmare and danger reign, and only the New York to Washington D.C. knights of darkness prevail, while we the people are without a champion?
Despite being politically manipulated, most Americans know our future with a corrupt government means working 70 hours a week to feed ourselves and make ends meet while the government, corporate and media elites wine and dine with their fellow progressive socialist rulers. These elites are the true oppressors while we ‘the unwashed’ continue on the road to serfdom.
Diminishing expectations faced the people of Great Britain who were being stripped of their borders and overwhelmed by Muslim immigration by the socialist E.U. controllers from Brussels. By over a million votes, British nationalism and love of country resulted in a vote to leave the E.U., even in the face of early victory celebrations by the media and elites that Brexit would fail.
We Americans are faced with the same threats as the British. Can we survive as a nation with open borders, open trade, and global socialist governance? Americans need to buck up and vote like our lives and our country depend on our vote, because they do.
We need a warrior, a ruthless fighter, and a patriot. In my view, we have these qualities in Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump is by no means perfect, but he is a man with dash and total conviction, combining conservative substance and celebrity style with a good portion of go-to-hell panache.
While the propaganda main stream media has incessantly urged women to hate Mr. Trump, many nevertheless still realize this presidential election is not about social justice but rather saving our exceptionally great country, its Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Our propaganda media that teaches us to hate the oppressed and love the oppressors, tells us Clinton has already won the election, even in the face of polls that 87% of Americans don’t trust the federal government.
So, as Americans we must rise above the noise and clutter of our broken politics and embrace that great faith and optimism that has always been the central ingredient of the American character, and there is nothing better or stronger than an American character.
Most Americans do not want illegal immigration, wide-open borders, more Syrian refugees, more hard drugs coming into our country, and more taxes on the middle class. They want to preserve liberty, our personal freedoms, and our sovereign nation.
Realizing a Clinton administration would be more of the Obama administration, ie. rotten from the top down, our choice is clear: Vote Trump for President. He’s a winner.
George Rebane
Ever wonder why the IRS has not audited the Clinton Foundation? You are not alone as that organization’s true nature has been revealed over the last 18 months. Things got so bad last year to worry Chelsea enough about the foundation’s shenanigans that she hired a top-tier law firm to do an internal investigation of the organization. The emails about its findings have now been leaked (more here), but the IRS continues its established role as a rogue agency in the pocket of progressives.
Latest in the ongoing leftwing assault on free speech is happening in Washington state. Passage of their measure 1464 (courtesy of the Washington state Public Disclosure Commission) would put the state’s political speech police on retainer to keep 50% of the fines they assess – and remember, with these people you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. Now the state’s Left is doubling down on Lizzy Warren’s nationwide stealth program to have government at all levels become the unassailable interpreter of the First Amendment (more here).
The revelations of Team Hillary’s hacked emails would have torpedoed past candidates so indicted by the record of their corruptions. Today, Wikileaks’ October surprise elicits a yawn from the terminally isolated from information that cannot be succinctly summarized in a tweet. [update] Well sumbich! maybe Comey will redeem himself after all. Breaking news (here and here) comes of the FBI reopening the criminal investigation of Hillary's emails and the operation of her private email server. This net may yet cast wider than expected.
RR has tracked the progress of our national dumbth for the last ten years. At no time has our intellectual descent been more visible than in the recent presidential elections when promises by demonstrably incompetent candidates, adulated by the lamestream media, have proved impervious to arguments based on history and the public record. It is as if most Americans today are ready to abandon all in order to get their promised ‘fair share’ from the country’s wealthier citizens without giving a thought (even if they had one to give) as to how and in what kind of environment such wealth may be created. As our freedoms evaporate unnoticed and unmourned, we have lost count of how many times the road to tyranny has been paved with these exact same arguments for ‘social justice’. Again the echo of Jefferson’s ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’
[30oct16 update] OK, here’s question I haven’t seen asked yet. It’s now reported that the FBI has discovered hundreds of thousands (about 650K) of stored emails on Weiner’s laptop, many of them related to the Clintons – how and why did they get there? A plausible answer is that Weiner’s wife and Hillary’s left lobe Ms Abedin stashed them there as an insurance policy should she ever fall out of favor with the Clinton Machine (more here). The job of poring over these emails will take weeks if not months, accompanied by a new invigorated drip-drip of releases and announcements that contain enough to cover Comey’s butt with a very pissed off DoJ (recall LorettaL gets to keep her job under Hillary; alternatively, will Trump keep a rehabilitating Comey?). Connecting this shifting blizzard of dots has got to be better than fantasy football.
[31oct16 update] Grossly stupid or evil, or sporting generous dollops of both is the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center now branding as ‘Anti-Muslim’ moderate Muslims working for the reform of their faith and communities. The recent SPLC report teaches us “that criticizing Islamist movements, ideologies and regimes, and Islam itself, is the same as hating Muslims.” You simply can’t make this stuff up, especially when they apply the standard to Ms Hirsi Ali and Mr Majeed Nawaz, two internationally prominent Muslim reformers. Their great sin? They both argue the obvious, that there is “an ideological and theological dimension to what used to be called the war on terror.” Further evidence of the progressive mind revealed and justifiably reviled. (more here)
Voter fraud in America has been endemic for some years according to the Pew Center. Millions of 'voters' have invalid registrations of are misregistered (every 1 of 8), millions are registered in at least two states, and almost two million are getting help voting from the grave. (more here) Exit question: Members of which party are happy and/or deny the whole thing?
George Rebane
While I’m working on a piece to again attempt – more graphically this time – to explain the fragility of highly categorized poll results, the news of the election’s uncertain outcome pours in. Readers should take special note of the financial markets in which the big kids such as the very wealthy, institutional funds, corporations and corporatists, and nation-states play. A look at the way they are placing their bets today indicates these people are extremely anxious in their ignorance about the results of 8 November. As an example I point you to today’s ‘Selling Sweeps Global Government Bonds; U.S. 10-Year Yield Above 1.8%’ that reports on how the market for the ‘risk free’ securities is behaving. The financially astute recall it is the risk-free Treasuries’ rate that underpins all other rates for leveraging the purchase of everything from houses through commodities to corporations.
However, in these pages we are fortunate to have readers who are blessed with powers of insight that totally abolish all such doubts, having replaced it with the certitude of Job to know and assure the rest of us on the outcome of the upcoming election, especially when we focus on the race for president. Perhaps it would be a public service if some of these shrewd rural county Californians would deign pick up the phone or write an email to those nail biters on Wall Street and the world’s financial centers, and share their wisdom to resolve the matter, thereby restoring a blessed quietude over the roiling markets. Methinks it would be the least they could do in these troubled times.
[28oct16 update] Ramirez pretty much sums it up.
[29oct16 update] A reader and correspondent with a penchant for simple but effective solutions suggests a simple but expedient household implement to explore how Hillary might look under a less corrupt justice system. Such exercises also help lighten the mind-numbing news and pundit commentaries that overflow pre-election cable programming.
