Regarding Ashli Babbitt - I've gotten a few comments that make the point that Trump, not Biden, was The POTUS when Babbitt was shot. They're often the same people who claim an "insurrection" or a coup or the overthrow of the government - can't be both! The reason I lay this at the feet of Biden is that he has never mentioned her. He did not prosecute the police officer and has never condemned the action. Trump does mention her. Trump would not have wanted her shot - or would understand that it was a tragedy, where Biden does not.
He speaks of the police he believes were killed that day. He could not care about an American citizen being murdered on that day and also call them violent extremists.
The administration was in power -- when Trump was POTUS, during Jan 6, and now. That's the lesson from the last seven years. It didn't matter how we voted. They still decided the outcome.
It's also important to remember that Nancy Pelosi -- AND THE FBI -- knew there would be some kind of violence or breach of the Capitol yet they left the Capital Police to fend for themselves.
There is no way that Pence should have certified the election. He should have said that there were to many irregularities that must be investigated first.
Pence follows the established rule book. That’s why he was in the position he was to begin with. Establishment insiders and completely inept outsiders is what sank Trumps presidency. Ballet on one side, breakdancing on the other.
No doubt. But truly, why is it in the Constitution that the VP certifies the result if not to provide verification? We’re supposed to pretend that that’s not true.
Valid point. I’m no student of history but in the early days of the republic was the VP chosen from the opposing party? I’m probably wrong on that, but the sore loser has definitely become more prominent than the gracious loser. Too many gracious losers persist among the Rs if you ask me.
Originally, the VP was the candidate for president that received the second most votes and the president and vp could not be residents of the same state.
Correct - Trump asked Pence to DELAY the cert, which IS legal and Pence could have done that, in order to allow all the states to decide if they wanted to use alternate electors. It may have been fruitless, but Trump did nothing illegal or unconstitutional.
With all due respect, Trump rarely said her name either. I was very disapponted with him. Trump was noted for his practice of calling or visiting the families of veterans etc. I don't recall anything about him giving condolences to Ashli's husband or mother. If he did, it was long after her murder because I was looking for it.
It is not a fact. To say so makes YOU the fascist, Jeremy. Not her. What do we have in this country? Or used to have before it was overtaken by fanatics? Due process. Presumption of innocence. That means you are innocent until proven guilty. Calling someone a terrorist is defamatory. That people who call themselves liberals use that term -- even after everything we've lived through--is repulsive, Jeremy. It's disgusting. You know nothing about her. You couldn't describe a single crime she did that would warrant her murder by a Capital police officer.
She took part in a riot to overturn the will of the voters, jeopardizing both the lives of every lawmaker in this country and the rule of law that has protected America from descending into autocracy. Her cause was the same cause as the Confederate soldiers who died on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam, none of whom get to call themselves martyrs either.
"She took part in a riot to overturn the will of the voters." The voters. You mean not her? She's not a voter? You do not know what she was doing or why she was doing it. You have no clue. You were told what to think by the talking heads on the news. So -- strike 1.
" jeopardizing both the lives of every lawmaker in this country and the rule of law that has protected America from descending into autocracy." Every lawmaker in this country, you mean Congress? Little old Ashli Babbit unarmed and about five feet tall who was yelling at people to stop breaking windows was about to jeopardize the lives of every lawmaker and rule of law -- wow, man that is SOME KIND OF SUPER POWER. Who knew the United States was that easy to threaten and overthrow. I bet that this is great news to Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia. Just put a five foot two woman without guns and the whole empire collapses. Incredible!
The FBI knew there was going to be a breach of the Capital. Nancy Pelosi knew. They elected not to protect the Capitol. Yet no harsh words to condemn them, eh? Live up the ass of the FBI, do we? Strike 2
"Her cause was the same cause as the Confederate soldiers who died on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam, none of whom get to call themselves martyrs either." This one is so stupid I am red in the face just attempting to answer it. You're not serious are you? Is this the idiocy swirling around Democrat Facebook by now? You can't possibly spew this nonsense publicly, right? Do you know what happened during the Civil War, Jeremy? Do you even know why so many fought in that war?
Lie #1 -- all of the Confederate soldiers were "white supremacists" who hated Black people. They were fighting because they were told to fight. The ideology of that war was not necessarily applicable to those who fought it.
Lie #2 --Ashli Babbitt or MAGA were not then or are now driven by "white rage" and racism. I am sorry that this is what people told you. It breaks my heart that this level of stupidity and ignorance is so rampant on the Left. Nothing makes me more depressed that you could all be so easily influenced by propaganda.
Maybe it's easier to see it like a five year-old would. Then you can justify your rage and hatred.
Dehumanization is what you are engaging in here, applying mass hysteria and hatred to a whole group of people. ---Strike 3
It's not worth rebutting these points one by one - other than the one about the Civil War, because the founders of the Confederacy literally said they were founding a nation based on the fact that Blacks were inferior to Whites and sent 300k men to their deaths for it - maybe if you put down the "lost cause" bullshit and read an actual book by an actual historian about the Civil War, you'll see what I mean. It's frankly sad to see you even making these arguments in the first place, as you're giving voice to (and monetizing off of) people's worst impulses. And don't try to throw back "you're the intolerant one!" or some other childish projection at me, because that's one of your only moves when confronted by the reality that your beliefs are moronic at best and actively contributing to harm at worst. The truth is that it's sad watching you devolve into a right-wing hate monger, as it's such a far cry from the person I thought I knew. I hope that person comes back someday, for your own sake as well.
"And don't try to throw back "you're the intolerant one!" or some other childish projection at me." Why not? This is simply the truth, Jeremy. Sorry.
"The truth is that it's sad watching you devolve into a right-wing hate monger." I fled the hate mongers, aka YOU. You are filled with hatred, not me. YOU wish to banish a whole group of people from YOUR country, not me. YOU are the one who believes your fellow citizens are human garbage, not me.
"such a far cry from the person I thought I knew. I hope that person comes back someday, for your own sake as well." -- to quote Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment, I'd rather stick needles in my eye. It is YOU who must evolve and accept people who don't agree with you into what you believe is YOUR country. All of you, every single Democrat I know, believes exactly the same thing. And guess what? You're wrong. I was wrong. What I engaged in was wrong. I will never be someone who does what I did before. I was caught up in something that I believed was the good side with people who were good. Now, look at you and everyone like you. All you can do is label me in a way that allows you to dehumanize me and throw me away like human garbage. That is what YOU are doing, Jeremy. Did I chase you down and screech at you about what you believe? No, the opposite is true.
Yes, and? She deserved to be shot point blank because of it? Is that your contention? Did the Capitol Police Officer know that about her when he shot her? Do you think that George Floyd should be judged by his putting a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman before robbing her? And that would have justified his death too?
I also feel an affinity for Ashli who did not deserve to die that day. If she were buried in a Chicago cemetery I would visit her grave to tell her she hasn’t been forgotten.
You mean, like the one spread by those 51 "intelligence professionals" who claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story from the NY Post was "Russian disinformation"?
Fuck Sy Hersh. He's a deluded idiot who ignores war crimes and genocide in order to twist an anti-imperialist ideology to condemn the United States at all costs.
Did you see the footage? This man had no danger nor reason to shoot. Funny how it took weeks and months to report the name of the shooter. In the tv interview, he looked like a child who got caught stealing money from his parents. He often turned his face away and looked downward. He knew this shooting couldn’t be defended. Babbitt had police surrounding her. Even the parents and husband were hushed up for a long time.
Please help me understand your post. When you write "They still decided the outcome," to whom exactly does "they" refer? Please try and be as specific as you can possibly be. If you can do so, name names.
I don't really have the time to go back and forth with you. I know how this goes. It's a struggle session. You are not interested in the answer. Your motive is to try to expose me or convince me of what you think. Ain't nobody got time for that. Certainly not me. What I think it's spilled out in thousands and thousands of words on this Substack.
I read your post. I read many of the comments, including yours. I asked you to explain something that you had written. It was a simple question. I regret that you refuse to answer it.
It's not that I refuse to answer it - it's that I know the game and I don't have time to play it. I think you know what I mean - the "regime" -- administrative state, deep state, apparatus, security state, whatever you want to call it believes itself to be permanently in charge of our government and our elections. They rejected Trump because they believe they should decide. I never saw that before Trump's term. I always assumed when people vote in a leader we more or less accept it. But Trump offended too many powerful people.
OK Sasha, I will give you another chance at offering a coherent explanation of your meaning.
Sadly I do not know what you mean when you say "the 'regime' -- administrative state, deep state, apparatus, security state ..." Who are these people?
As you ought to know, many of the witnesses who testified before the House January 6 Committee (e.g., the Georgia Secretary of State and the Speaker of the Arizona House) were lifelong Republicans who voted for President Trump. These witnesses testified that they placed their oaths to uphold and defend the US Constitution above their loyalty to Donald Trump. The testimony of those witnesses now constitutes the evidentiary core of Trump's most recent Federal indictment. Are these people part of 'the regime'?
Among the people who have provided key testimony in the most recent Federal indictment is Mike Pence, Trump's Vice President. Mike Pence refused to violate the US Constitution in the counting of Electoral College votes. For that the January 6 mob shouted that he should be hanged. As you probably know Mike Pence recently said "I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again." Is he part of 'the regime'? Or was he initially not part of 'the regime' but joined it when he refused to act unconstitutionally as requested by President Trump?
So again, really, who is 'the regime"? Please cash this out so that I understand your meaning.
Your fake sincerity and well-practiced courtesy are sickening. You sound like a used car salesman.
"Among the people who have provided key testimony in the most recent Federal indictment..."
A Grand Jury hears no rebuttal witnesses, nor are any of the witnesses subject to cross examination, nor is any contrary evidence presented. That's why it is said that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.
But you know that.
You pretend to want "the truth" and claim to be "open minded", but you're really just a shill.
How do you know how the secretaries of state voted? "Life long Republicans" don't like Trump at all. They voted Republican. They voted against the Democratic nominee. That's all.
You've asked this question in good faith and I appreciate that. Unfortunately no one here will answer it in good faith because of all the brain poisoning that's gone on. But I respect you for doing your best.
Her writing is crystal clear and requires no exegesis.
You are disingenuous, merely begging for someone to waste their time producing what you shall never consider, and then moving on to a new sequence of disingenuous prompts.
If you think the events of Jan 6 were an "insurrection" then you don't know what an insurrection is. I was at the elipse. I saw the weirdo-s who had infiltratedthe crowd. I knew something was up. And use your fucking brain, there were like 2M people there and no police, no national guard (Pelosi made sure); if Trump had said go take back your country there would have been nothing to stop us. But he didn't. Most of the MAGA grandpas and grandmas there were pointing out the agent provacateurs as they became apparent. There are tons of videos showing the police opening the barricades and beckoning the people in. Video of cap police inside were those 10,000 lb doors are and gesticulating for the person looking at the monitor to release the magnetic doors. Video of cap police literally giving buffalo horn man a guided tour and gently leading him to the senate chamber. Insurrection? What a load of shit.
It was not Trump led, it wasn’t an insurrection and the root cause of the protests were election fraud incidents and then FBI fomented violence. Now you know.
Biden LOST the first three Dem primaries and was being written off politically. Then, magically, all of the other candidates dropped out and this perennial loser (1988, 2008) is basically handed the Dem nomination. THEN he can only "campaign" from his basement, and if he does venture out he can barely draw a crowd big enough to fill a phone booth. Meanwhile, Trump is barnstorming the country drawing huge, enthusaistic crowds everywhere.
THEN we have mail-in voting urgently being pushed on states due to the "pandemic" because, hey, they just want to keep us "safe". Never mind that the way we monitor elections for fairness in foreign countries is by exit polling - impossible with mail-in voting, which is ripe for fraud. (1)
And let's not forget the 51 "intelligence professionals" who lied about Hunter's laptop being "Russian disinformation" in order to get the FACTUAL story by the NY Post censored from social media and the MSM. This is clear and unambiguous election interference - you know, the same thing the Dems like to beat their chests about - since we know that if voters had understood this was a factual story it would have changed how a not-inconsequential percentage of them voted. (2)
Somehow Joe Biden(!) gets more votes than any candidate in history. This is simply unbelievable on its face.
So there are plenty of grounds for a reasonable person to question the validity of the 2020 election - and I haven't even gone into black box electronic voting machines whose codes are controlled by private corporations and the hanky-panky reported in numerous polling places.
(1) Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots
Stop and consider if we were witness to a vote-counting stoppage in, say, a Russian election. Let's say Alexey Navalny is running against Putin. Navalny is leading in the counts in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Sevastopol, Tula, and Volgograd. Then we hear that a water main break has interrupted the counting in one city and boxes of ballots have been misplaced in another. Counting is halted while the "situation is investigated" and when the lights go back on Putin is in the lead in all five towns. Would we be a mite suspicious?
A “collective psychotic break” is what Bret Weinstein says our society is experiencing in this video where he talks about the Time article of how the election was “fortified” to prevent an outcome displeasing to the left. Even the democrats themselves admitted the election was “fortified” to insure their side won. And I’m supposed to believe that Biden won fair and square? You people are insane.
“US 2020 election “fortifying” in Time article.” (11 min)
“To think you have over 11k followers. A very irresponsible statement you have made.”
Bret Weinstein has 435K subscribers on his Dark Horse podcast and in a recent Interview with Kim Iversen said our elite ruling class, which includes the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, have become like a “rabid animal” and are a lethal threat to those who oppose them. Video starts at 7:15 point. Right about the 9 min point he says this and again at the 48 min point (“like a rabid dog”) of the 1:10 min video. Could it actually be though that our elite class has become insane and a lethal threat? Sure it could. Anyone familiar with the dreadful twentieth century when men like Hitler, Stalin and Mao ruled major nations would know that this is in fact distressingly common. Well worth watching a couple of highly intelligent leftists talking about the monstrosity the Woke left has become.
“The Deterioration Of Our Nation And How To Stop It.” (1:10)
Kim Iversen. A Conversation With Bret Weinstein. July 28, 2023
The "insurrectionists" included multiple FBI plants - do you really think for one minute the FBI would not have been watching the Proud Boys and other possible extremist groups? Taibbi and Greenwald both speculate that the FBI informants may even have pushed those groups to stage a coup - something the FBI has done many times.
“can you imagine the effort required of all involved in such a staged effort to keep it quiet?”
It hasn’t been kept quiet. The latest to talk about what happened is the Capitol Chief of Police Steven Sund at the time of the Jan 6 Capitol rally in 2021 who said the “Insurrection!” was a setup by Nancy Pelosi and the FBI. A good summary of Tucker’s interview with him is this video below. You’re not aware of things like this because you only follow the msm which never reports such things. I think people like you have done immense and irreparable damage to this society. For the past 7 years Woke white leftists like you have been waging a war not only against Trump but against white, working class conservatives like me. I naturally do not appreciate that at all.
“Former Capitol Police Chief Exposes Nancy Pelosi & and Democrats Set Up Against Trump!”
Brooks writes with an arrogance of an insider who’s stature is never in doubt. His “wisdom” is nothing more than condescension and elite-splaning, and it flows freely. No introspection whatsoever. If this were the Titanic, he’d be the guy looking for a stray child to nab and call his own so he can gain access to a lifeboat.
(At the risk of violating Godwins law) From what I have read Hermann Goering, was also quick witted, personable guy, who loved his wife and children. Who just happened to be a Real Anti-Semite and started The Gestapo.
“As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice.“ What if a White person said that — substituting “race” for “class”? Every NYT reader would be appalled! They would insist that, BECAUSE one is a member of that race/class, one’s perspective is biased (ref. the entire concept of “White privilege”). Yet Brooks imagines that HE is so morally superior, that bias doesn’t apply to him.
The crucial identifier of today’s “progressives” is their moral relativism. It informs everything they do.
I often wonder how much human capital has been lost over the past three years because of the woke mob…what new books/films/music/ inventions, etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?
P.S. I find it very amusing that Trump is being accused of NOT actually believing that he won the 2020 election. Have these people been smoking crack(oh wait, that’s a Biden)? Anyone who knows anything about basic psychology could tell you that Trump, given his personality, ALWAYS believes himself to be a winner!
Trump is being accused of not heeding the advice of his "betters." They *told* him he lost, and that should be enough for him, or so says Jack Smith. It's what the rest of us have been hearing for a long time. The truth doesn't matter, only what we *tell* you.
Therein lies a hidden, massive danger. If this case succeeds, what one thinks will no longer legally matter. All that will matter is what the "experts" think, and we know how inaccurate they are. Do not underestimate how this would change the legal system for the worse.
The left has a virulent hatred for middle America and its defense of our values, traditions and institutions. The Democrats are a moral, political and cultural cancer on the body politic.
Trump truly is a winner. His belief system is the foundation for his monumental record of accomplishments over a lifetime. May God continue to bless and protect him from the fools and puppet masters who are hell-bent on destroying our Republic.
This atheist agrees completely, especially about the fools (half the Dem lay voter) and the puppet masters (the other half, if you count the wannabe Stasi).
"what new books..., etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?"
When I go to my publicly funded library to check out new books, I find authors from the NYT or similar outlets available in hardcover editions. My choices either reside in the electronic category or not at all.
Yes, I’ve been noticing that since the Covid/Floyd Era began. Librarians (per polling) are among the most woke professionals in America, and you can easily see it in their book acquisition policies. Scanning the national digital catalog (Overdrive) is a crash course in wokery: non-fiction titles on “anti-racism”, indigenous fawning, gay romance novels, women/women/women authors (the straight White male is an endangered species in publishing), YA titles (even in the grownup categories)...and murder mysteries, which (for whatever reason, they’re still buying, although they’re mostly only buying the women authors).
It’s increasingly difficult to find anything interesting, especially if one is looking for quality literature. Same for literary awards: twenty years ago, almost anything considered for the Booker Prize was worth reading; now all the prizes are “politics” over merit. Sigh.
Can you imagine Catcher, Lord of The Flies, or Lolita being published today? Or, ahem...1984? To say nothing of Faulkner, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, et al. We have by all accounts lost our way, which is an unmistaken marker for a decaying Society.
I retired as a public librarian in 2016, and it seemed to be a lefty field at that time. All this woke crap ruined a lot of SF (my favorite genre), as most stories were dystopian nightmares post Climate Apocalypse. "The left destroys everything it touches."
It's a joke degree -- which I observed even as I was obtaining one. A lot of $ to universities and professors for stuff I could have learned on the job.
The problem is that if it's not on the NYT best book list it isn't shelved in a prominent place. Unfortunately, libraries are not the sources of diverse thought that they should be.
Sadly, it’s far worse than that. I use the public library’s online system, and I apply filters, by which I can (mostly) avoid their “nudging system”, but I still find less and less that I would want to read -- AND I have to scroll through a lot more dross to find what little gold there is.
You are absolutely right that they highlight all the woke NYT stuff on the homepage, and with algorithms, but they’re also putting nearly all their budget dollars into that stuff, leaving little to none for heterodox nonfiction and/or quality new literature (written by White men). To make matters worse, woke has overtaken the mainstream publishing industry as well. Young “progressives” in the industry threaten and bully their employers to only publish the “right” sort of books, or else -- and these techniques work!
It’s not only new laws that protect Wokeism; it’s also the hidden layers of behind the scenes manipulation of outcomes that make it so pernicious and hard to fight.
You are certainly correct when you say Woke has taken over the publishing companies. I read alot of mystery / crime / fiction books. Every frigging book I read now has at least one alphabet character. These characters have absolutely nothing to do with the plot. I can read over half a book and suddenly they introduce the lesbian sister of the main character. She's in one chapter of the entire book. Even some of my favorite authors, that I have followed for twenty some years, have fallen for it. It's either that or they suffer from TDS, like Michael Connelly, Louise Penny, and Jodi Piccoult to name a few. I guess it's a good time to read the classics I've always meant to read.
I highly recommend the Scottish writer John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps being perhaps his most famous novel). Intelligent writing and high adventure. I have 18 of his fiction books. (He wrote over 100 books, including an eight-volume history of WWI).
So true, even Jack Carr has gratuitous women/minority characters. These authors know they will never get published without them. And they almost never fit, although if they actually fit into the story line, I am fine with it.
Back in May, I asked the woman checking out my books how to get on the waiting list for a book coming out in August. She told me to send book info, title, author, publisher, ISBN#, etc to suggestapurchase@phoenixpl.libanswers.com. I did so. Two days later I received the following response:
May 24 2023, 03:05pm
Thank you for your suggestion. The item you have requested is not being selected by the Library at this time. It is not available in our contracted vendors' catalogs for purchase and the library cannot purchase from author sites or online sites such as Amazon.com.
There is a quite innocuous interpretation of your difficulty.
As I had never heard of "The Book: Tucker" by Chadwick Moore, I looked it up to see what it was. Sorry, but the library did not purchase your suggested book for a good reason having nothing to do with its subject matter or its political orientation. The book simply was not published by a standard commercial publisher. It is a self-published vanity press book.
Public libraries rarely if ever purchase such self-published vanity press works.
“This wouldn’t be the first time that religious zeal scoffed at sexual norms as obstacles to holiness – the history of free-love communes and orgiastic rites offers plenty of case studies. Early Christians believed that grace and faith freed believers from observing the strictures of Jewish law, an idea called “antinomianism.” This idea historically reappears in extreme forms to make the controversial claim that breaking the earthly bonds of sin and death requires obliterating sexual taboos.”
“Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools.”
Rob, they got their asses handed to them in 2022 as well. I hate to be the bearer of bad news here but afte 2016, the Democrats launched a “Manhattan Project” to block Trump’s presidency and devise a “plausible” way to control the electoral system for the future.2018 was test 1, 2020 and the plandemic went down perfectly, and 2022 was a continuation and confirmation of the system they devised. (Notice how all vote counts that go into overtime magically go to the Democrat? That’s a statistical impossibility)
Sorry to say but the Dems are speaking and acting like a machine that doesn’t care what the people want.They are fully in control of the levers of power and the electoral process
"They are fully in control of the levers of power and the electoral process"
SEE:
"In 2024 Republicans cannot "out-fraud" the left, cannot "out-ballot-harvest" them, cannot "out-lawfare" them, cannot "out-media" them, cannot "out–contribution mule" them, cannot "out–Justice Department" them...but sure as hell can out-compute them — and that may do it."
I think unless we go back to a system of single day of voting, paper ballots, counted by two separate machines on-site employing standard error correction, no mail-in voting, no ballot harvesting, no exceptions…the system will not be acceptable.
Too much potential for corruption by either side so whoever wins will constantly be challenged and hobbled by claims of corruption and illegitimatacy.
Before anyone comes back at me with “But what about _____!!!??”
Understand that as soon as you give exceptions to any group…the whole process is corrupted and we are right back to where we are today.
Anyone who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day does not vote. Statistically it will be even in the wash and everyone knows this instinctively. Military and foreign service can vote on base or at embassies with proper ID. Any 20 year old computer can count 200 Million votes in a matter of seconds
But none of this can happen realistically, we are too far down the rabbit hole at this point. The Republicans look good on paper, and even put some money behind their candidates and campaigns....but anyone who knows will tell you that the Dems dont put their money into candidates and campaigns (hello, Biden, Fetterman...) they put all their money into ground game and infrastructure. Its practically unstoppable at this point without a major earth shattering correction.
The Left are not stupid. They are so power hungry that any mean to destroy Trump and the MAGA movement is justified e.g. truth, logic, facts and justice don't matter.
Rod Serling had a great monologue in the Twilight Zone episode. 'The Obsolete Man':
"This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like everyone of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."
"what new books/films/music/ inventions, etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?"
What is still in the process of creation is a counterculture that simply bypasses all of the corrupted institutions that previously gave us "books/films/music/ inventions, etc.". This Substack is but one aspect of that.
And post-Musk Twitter is another aspect. The Internet was designed to route around damage. And we're starting to route around the damage that we've become aware of.
“Class” is not relevant to Democrats. Class trumps race, but race is the currency that drives the Democratic party. Therefore they ignore it, and Brooks is free to refer to himself that way without anyone caring.
Poor blacks and poor whites … or let’s say people of whatever skin color or race who struggle to make a living wage…they are America’s working poor, its lower, abandoned class, just as Tucker describes them in the video Sasha provided. These were the Trump voters, which included an increase in black and Latino voters in the last election. Hmm…there was a lot of head scratching about that statistic. Why would black men vote for Trump in larger numbers than the first time around?
Because class matters. It defines where you live, what you eat, what kind of car you drive, if you can afford one, and who you vote for.
Class unites the races; race divides us. To quote black conservative author, filmmaker and scholar, Dr. Shelby Steele:
“We human beings never use race except as a means to power. It is never an end. It is always a means. And it has no place in human affairs except as a corruption.”
I read this article. David Brooks very much wants the old two party system back where men like him ruled and the peasants were supposed to be happy with the crumbs. He's as anti-populist as they come. But he knows what he thinks people want to hear, and so he says it.
How do you know he's not in earnest?
This paragraph that you quote . . .
Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.
If he was in earnest, and he knew the depths of distrust and actually understood how "bad" his "class" is? He would have left that part out. But he's still trying to maintain his class cred.
So his real message to people like him: These rubes are stupid enough that if we just pretend to care about them a little more, they'll buy it. So just pretend.
And a great way to start a new conspiracy theory on 4-chan.
"Did you know that 'they' distribute cards to their members? David Brooks admitted it."
Actually - Trump should use it in the way they butchered his "good people on both sides" comment.
He should go on about "The card-carrying members of the elite class, like David Brooks of the failing New York Times, who has admitted, in print, to having one..."
Whereas once that was shunned, albeit with a wink and a nod, it's now front and center: the Managerial Class MUST hold sway over the hoi polloi. For EVERYONE'S benefit. /s
“I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.”
LMAO My goodness. Neutral arbiters if justice? This same group, YOUR card carrying group, ALL called Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation and used BIG TECH to squash ANY media outlet showing that story. That is but a pebble of sand on the beach of hypocrisy and bias bullshit YOU and your card carrying scumbags purport to say you are for justice?
LMFAO. my goodness. Someone help me off the floor, the bullshit meter is off the charts.
You have to cut him some slack. He made a mistake and hit the tab button on his computer that auto fills “Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison” since that tagline is an auto fill to any storyline from the left.
Exceptional article. A vote for Trump is a vote against the ruling class--yes, that’s so true. Trump with his faults is so much better than any of those polished politicians lying and scheming pretending to care. Trump truly cares about our country and that’s why we support him. Biden only cares about bribes/greed/power.
The maniacs and thugs attacking Trump supporters is the fault of the media (and college professors) with their non-stop attacks and calling Trump and his supporters fascists. You never see ‘us’ attacking the people going to Biden’s rallies--well what would be the point since his numbers were embarrassingly low--but we don’t think or react like thugs as the radical left does.
How anyone can vote for a Democrat is beyond me. They have been taken over by radicals and they only care about power as they step on our freedoms and devalue our country.
Mr Brooks questioning if they’re the bad guys is laughable. Of course they are and he knows it. His pretending to care is laughable. He’s part of the anti-Trump establishment and can go f**k himself.
We are surrounded on all sides by an elite that doesn't even make an effort to hide how corrupt they are.
1. A media that every day fails the basic test of reporting without bias based on who the subject is.
2. A justice department that gives a pass to the protected class (including criminals who burn down our cities) while using "shock and awe" (their words) to go after people who protest.
3. A Republican party that shows its contempt for the people it depends on for its votes.
4. A Democrat party that manipulates it's constituencies by claiming such things as "voter id = voter suppression", and "they want to control women's bodies," while failing to carry out basic functions of government like protecting people from crime and educating children in useful life and vocational skills.
5. A military that has made defending the nation it's secondary purpose, while elevating concern for every disaffected victim group as its primary mission.
6. A bureaucracy that constantly seeks to expand it's powers to micro-manage our lives without clear legislative authorization.
7. Elected officials who increase their net worth by $millions in a few short years, on salaries under $200k/year.
This list just scratches the surface. I could write pages of this.
Just what is it exactly the elites done for us lately?
A lot of those voters don't see it. Yet. As our situation worsens, more and more do see it. For those who do, they have only bad choices, and make the least bad choice.
Consider it this way: how can someone who considers themselves a Republican continue to vote for politicians who repeatedly vote in lock step with Democrats? a.k.a. The Uniparty.
True, it does far too often come down to selecting the lesser of evils, but the chance to head off the evil in the first place is in the primaries not the general. Especially with the House, the incumbent is almost always re-elected (barring a significant scandal) due to a combination of superior funding and voter apathy.
At the end of the day it still comes down to We The People.
Add to it, Republicans are masters at committee hearing / public speech / TV interview theater- putting on a show of tearing a new asshole in their supposed political opponents, then meet the Democrats in the cloakroom an nyuk nyuk nyuk about the show they put on for the rubes. And vote for the 20th year in a row for an Omibus appropriation which includes a cat's breakfast of spending measures, few of which do what they're advertised to do.
Exactly my point. Pols like Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, etc. give good scream in a televised hearing but in the end it's all Kabuki theater. Democrat "targets" sit and get grilled, then lie through their teeth with impunity. The committee scores points with their constituents while in the end nothing ever changes. Every once in a blue moon someone is found in contempt of Congress, yet never suffers any actual penalty for it beyond some fleeting bad press.
When reelection comes up the voters recall the brief euphoria of watching the show yet don't know what bills their candidate has actually voted for or against. And that's what matters.
What is done sometimes in attack ads is a review of an opposition candidate's voting record and can be very effective against someone who voted the "wrong" way on some high profile legislation. We need more of this report card reviewing of any candidate's most recent term and which voters can access and understand. How did this candidate's vote on HB-XXX impact my life, my family, or my country? Then hold them accountable for it.
It's comical how the news organizations like AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, CNN, and all the rest assure us the elections aren't stolen. How can they know that? If the elections are being stolen, the people doing the stealing aren't going to announce it publicly. They're going to keep it low.
OTOH, any challenges to the elections being honest are met with election officials circling the wagons, and saying, "We checked into it. And we didn't find any problems." Since when is a self-audit acceptable? We don't allow publicly-traded companies to do self-audits. Why is it good enough for something far, far more important to self-government?
Remember the Cyber Ninjas hired by the Republican party to audit Maricopa County, AZ found that Biden won in AZ? And Brad Raffensperger is a REPUBLICAN who countered all of Trump's conspiracy theories when Trump called the GA Sec of state claiming he had won in a landslide and begged for just 11,790 votes?
You've accepted the media's spin on what happened.
Cyber Ninjas did NOT do an audit of the AZ voting. What they did was a hand recount. A hand recount is not an audit. An audit would examine how the ballots entered the system. CN didn't do that.
In AZ, Senate President Karen Fann offered to do a joint audit with the Maricopa County Elections Department. At first they seemed agreeable, but after going into executive session, they announced they would do their own audit. And that's what they did. Maricopa hired its own auditors. Do you remember that?
NW, do you remember that the data base was purged before the county auditors did their work? Maybe you didn't know, b/c the media didn't report a lot of what happened. Do you recall how uncooperative Maricopa County was, making the AZ Senate obtain a court order to do its audit, and forcing the AZ Senate and its auditors Cyber Ninjas to relocate the ballots and equipment to another facility. Do you recall the county recruited the US DOJ to make threats if they contacted anyone to verify where they lived, or if they actually voted?
Did you know that a lady named Liz Harris, despite the threats from the DOJ, did survey a number of voters at their homes? She and her team contacted 4570 voters. According Maricopa County, 964 did not vote. However, of those 964, 330 (34.2%) said they DID vote. Does that sound like a trivial error to you? If those results are extrapolated county-wide, 165,000 to 180,000 voters voted, but weren't recorded by the county.
Harris has sworn affidavits backing up her work.
There are a lot more anomalies that these. They may not be iron-clad proof of wrongdoing, but they are powerful reasons the AZ election should be put under the microscope by independent reviewers.
In GA, Raffensperger agreed under threat of lawsuit from Democrat lawyer Marc Elias to relax requirements for signature verification of ballots. Sorry, but he was just plain not authorized to do that. Those requirements are made by the legislature. Raffensperger has no more authority to change the signature verification than he does to pardon a murderer on death row,
Again, there are a multitude of problems in GA, too numerous to recount here. The spin on Trump's phone call with Raffensperger was he asked Raffesnperger to gin up some phony votes. His request to "find" 11,000 votes was prefaced by these comments:
1. 250,000-300,000 voters who were mysteriously dropped on the the rolls, much of that in Fulton County. Trump asked that the signatures be checked.
2. A large number of voters showed up at the polls and were told they couldn't vote, b/c "they had already voted." But they hadn't. How do you explain that, NW?
3. There were over 18,000 vacant address voters. How does that happen?
There are more, but those are the highlights.
Aside from Trump's list of irregularities, some poll workers reported suspicious-looking ballots- no crease, showing they hadn't been mailed in an envelope, and identical markings. appearing to have all been printed on a copier. This is a case where Raffensperger's people said they looked in two or three boxes, found nothing wrong, so everything's good. Does that sound on the level to you, NW?
My favorite GA anomaly was found by private citizen Joe Rossi. Long story short, he found the data posted publicly by Raffensperger did not account for 275,000 ballots on the tally sheets.
You comment that Raffensperger is a Republican. Meaning what? Do you seriously think he's going to admit he was out-foxed by Elias, and how badly he bungled Georgia's election? If you think that, let me ask you, when has a politician EVER admitted they fucked up? Please provide names.
NWCitizen, I don't expect you to take my word for it. It's all in the book, and the book is well-footnoted. For the sake of discussion, let's say what I'm saying here is true. And that the book is true.
Do you REALLY think it's acceptable for election officials to do their own self-audits? Shouldn't there be independent review? Is that really being unreasonable?
I read the AZ mirror piece. The author of "Debunked?" addresses the county's remarks in his Table 2 of chapter 5. To summarize, the county made numerous comments about how Cyber Ninja's got things wrong. Example: The county said CN found the voter had moved several decades earlier, but the county's data showed the voter had moved much more recently. The thing is, the county refused to say what their data source was. Why won't they say?
2nd example: The county relies on voter attestation "or a trusted source" to verify voter address. CN used USPS and NCOA to determine change of address. The county refuses to say specifically what it means by "or a trusted source." If the "trusted source" is a phone call to the phone number on the application, it may be a phone call to a fraudster. Why can't the county say what their "or trusted source(s) are? What are they hiding?
I didn't re-watch the Jan 6 hearings, b/c I watched some of them at the time- specifically Raffesnperger's and Barr's testimony. This was a proceeding where all Trump-haters were questioning other Trump haters. Do you disagree with that? There's a reason the adversary process is used in court and elsewhere where the truth is disputed and a resolution is needed. If you're ever put on trial, you better pray to God it's a true adversary proceeding, not a show trial like the Jan 6 hearing was.
You didn't answer my question- repeating: Do you REALLY think it's acceptable for election officials to do their own self-audits? Shouldn't there be independent review? Is that really being unreasonable?
I think the examples I gave here, where the election officials say the other party got it wrong but won't say their own data source, are strong reasons why election officials should not be allowed to slide by with a self-audit.
If you disagree, please say why. If you want to include links to support what you're saying, fine. But please don't take the lazy man's way out by using links as a substitute for your own reasons.
Yes. He's one of us. He is not elite and that is what drives them crazy too. Does he act like a jackarse sometimes? Yes (which I don't like). But so have some other great men and women in our history. And I'll add that I think Ron DeSantis truly cares about people too and about our system of government with our individual rights and our country. When he was a Senator, he didn't go on the NGO/special interest sponsored trips or took their money (at least not like others). I saw an interview on C-span once and they kept trying to trip him up with (for example) "Did you go to Cancun for the Republican "study group"?" and he said "No, I don't go to any of that stuff and I don't take their money for my campaign".
The insufferable David Brooks epitomizes what is wrong with our elites and their adjacent or just-below wannabes in the media and the professional classes, not just their incompetence, corruption, and social uselessness but their helpless thirst for power and fear and hatred of truth and reality. However outstanding it may be for the NYT, his article is at best only a half truth, repeating things that have been said better and more fully by many others (like Michael Lind, Joel Kotkin, Charles Murray, or Christopher Lasch on the revolt of the elites) long before Brooks got around to half-acknowledging the truth of the matter. And it leaves out the most important, because Orwellian, part. Our sinister, dangerous elites are going totalitarian in a desperate attempt to cling to power because they are no longer able to benefit the country as a whole or even in the majority. As he virtually admits, they now serve only themselves and in effect want to enslave everyone else. That is the source of Orwell's theory of "Oligarchic collectivism"--a totalitarian regime made possible by certain features of modernity such as mass media, advertising, and digital technology to control, repress, brain-wash, intimidate, terrorize, and atomize the rest of society through fear and manipulation. That is the elite Mr. Brooks declares himself a proud "card-carrying" member of--though he is not a member of the Inner Party but only of the Outer Party, the educated bien pensants. That, however, is the key to the power of the Inner Party, which would be helpless without its ability to attract and overpower its adjacents and just-belows. Mr. Brooks has had a Winston Smith moment, though just a brief one, before he is psychologically crushed and brought back to the Party his savior.
BUT BUT BUT BUT, you've got to put in term limits for the staff too! Otherwise, as the people's representatives come and go every couple of years, the staff/bureaucracy is continually there, running the show. CA put in term limits a decade or two ago and yet, the state continued to become more and more corrupt and leftist.
The reason you've never been asked by a Democrat is that all the Democrats who were capable of asking you that have all been ejected from the Dems and are currently conservatives or politically homeless.
We Had a GREAT economy under Trump which was HUGE. I can't overstate that enough....until Covid. (And he trusted Fauci at first).
He brought manufacturing jobs back to the USA by providing tax incentives for businesses to comeback.
He's implemented "School Choice" for poor students in bad schools to go to better schools- somethings Democrats are against, I might add.
He made us energy independent and starting drilling in Anwar, etc. Gas prices were much lower.
He invested in our military.
He's patriotic and brought that excitement back to our country.
He funded black colleges for a decade in stead of yearly.
The Democrats disenfranchised the voters who voted for Trump by spying on his campaign and undermining his entire presidency w/ fake Russia story, etc.
him every step of the way.
The MEDIA'S our major problem. They're still lying, and many fair Democrats & independents, etc., don't know the truth- or the peril we're in - as evidenced by the ACTIONS of the authoritarian Democrat party.
Obama had one of the weakest recoveries from the 08 disaster. The reason Trumps economy was so good are the actions HE took; loosening regulations and lowering the corporate business tax rate so businesses could hire more. Everything improved under Trump, especially for the middle class of which I'm one. I own an entertainment business and my partner has a consulting company and this year is worst only second to the Covid lockdowns, where politicians, paid by the taxpayer, forbid us from working. They disrespected the people as if we wouldn't stay home and protect ourselves until we knew how to deal with Covid. This after having over 100 years of data stating we should keep the world running as normal as possible. Then they censored us when we should have been debating more than ever. As the Great RFK Jr said, and I'm paraphrasing, The good guys are never the ones on the side of censorship. They're doing so much harm to the people, and Trump recognizes this. It's our gov't too. They should listen to us instead of calling us names.
Democrats are also against Charter schools, which have a much better track record of graduating students that can actually read, write and do math at grade level. School choice is vital and no one knows about it- or seems to care- especially the elites. They actually think poor people are stupid. Research Georgia Rep Mesha Mainor who just left the Democrat party to join the Republicans because the Dems would do nothing to help Black African Americans- for nearly 100 years.
Gas prices are $3.89 here in Florida, they were at least a $1.00 cheaper per gallon under Trump because of his drilling policies. Biden would rather buy oil from our enemies and make THEM richer. Still hurts the earth right? But Americans must suffer under the Democrats.
Black unemployment was at an all time low under Trump. And he's Pro Law enforcement, not pro criminal as the Dems are. Dems have controlled Chi Town for 90 years, Baltimore for 75 and nothing gets better. They don't care. They'd do better to elect Republicans, the party that's always been better for black Americans.
Trump released in tax records last year under court order I believe. Now, you hear nothing about them. Interesting. They must have been OK.
MSM lied 20 years ago too, they just hid it better.
Trump speaks to the working class (and enacts policies to help them, as I mentioned above), long forgotten by the Democrat party and the Republican establishment.
There is nothing miraculous about Donald Trump. But so far he is the only one willing to take on the elites (both left and right) and their policies, accurately described by David Brooks as making those who support them the “bad guys”.
Republicans aren't doing "witch hunts" or making up scandals regarding Dems, so I don't see the hypocrisy of calling out the Bidens. I'd say that if the political parties were not so all-powerful, an honest "match up" in 2016 would've been Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz; because Trump's baggage, if it was honestly revealed and reported on from the beginning, would've kept him from gaining steam, I think. But providence! Look at Trump's interviews from 30 years ago -he sounds the same and that means there's integrity there - when it comes to his vision of this country, which is a vision that largely lines up with our founding.
The first thing you mention regarding "institutional reform" is the media, but the media is NOT a government institution. As for DeSantis having more success, it's because that's baked into our constitutional republic of a union of states. The States are supposed to have the majority of the power.
I remember thinking after Trump got elected that he had to fire nearly everyone in the executive branch and bring in outsiders for his house cleaning the swamp to work. Btw, I like DeSantis too (he didn't take gifts, trips, etc. from the NGOs and special interest lobbyists while he was Senator) and I don't get the hate some Trump supporters have for him. I'd vote for either one of them.
As for the SCOTUS justice appointment, McConnell went by precedent: With Garland, there was ONLY ONE TIME in history that a justice DID get confirmed by a vote when it was the very last year of a president of the opposite party of the Senate majority. And when McConnell did have a vote for Coney Bryant, there was ONLY ONE TIME that a justice DID NOT get a vote if the president was in his last year of what could be his first term and he was the same party of as the majority in the Senate.
As for Mexico, they did pay for the care of all the asylum seekers that had to stay in Mexico while waiting (sometimes years) for their court date, due to Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy and Trump did get about 500 miles of wall built (partly replacing old fencing). As for the ACA, the first step was to repeal it, with some provisions (1) and then replace it after (2); but on step 1 was stopped from passing by ONE vote: John McCain.
Trump's rumored germ-a-phobia was his Achilles heal and they took advantage of that, but remember that he talked of therapeutics and that masks didn't work, long, long before the MSM and Industrial Medical Complex/Big Pharma would take these issues seriously. As for the "clot shot", it has killed thousands.
I'm not "swallowing" anything as if it's "the Sermon on the Mount". I nearly stayed up all night on election night and I saw the videos, pictures, people's own witnessed testimony of all the bull that happened that night and the next days: the covering up of the windows to the "curing room" where ballots were "cured" (only DEMOCRAT voting ones, of course), so that observers couldn't see what was going on, observers kicked out of the buildings altogether or kept 20 to 50 feet away (one Democrat-leaning swing district gave binoculars to the Republican observers so they could "observe". What a crock of crap). For the first time on our history, swing districts were SHUT DOWN over a urinal leak that was called a "water main break". Why lie? Because after all the observers and MSM went home, the ballot counters wheeled out hidden suitcases with ballots and counted them. Other swing districts had ballots arrive in bags from the back of unmarked vans, well after election day. The COVID election rules, pushed by Mark Zuckerberg's "Zuckbucks" made our election insecure. A friend's European family and friends (where she grew up) were astonished at the circus it was; so insecure, like a banana republic.
Personally, I thought neither Biden nor Trump would get to 270 electors, resulting in a vote in the House. As for the judges - they no doubt remembered the 2000 election fiasco where judges ended up resolving it and they didn't want to go there. And regarding Trump campaign lawsuits, I think that all but 2 lawsuits were not even allowed through the doors of the courts, which squashes the narrative that "60 courts ruled against Trump's claims of fraud". And the Sec. of States you mentioned, were cowards, in my estimation.
McConnell is more of a RINO and I always wondered why Pence jumped on board as VP and I realize now that it was to keep an eye on Trump -btw, in a speech at a conservative conference in Dec. 2020, Pence said that he'd "NOT REST UNTIL ALL FRAUDULENT VOTES WERE FOUND AND REMOVED". Did you know that recently Pence admitted that he could've sent electors back to their states to review the votes, but he didn't do it because "chaos would've ensued......", but I'd say that CHAOS reigns supreme under Biden's regime!
Why did Trump do so poorly in the election, with a great economy (largest increase in real wages, lower taxes for the middle/working class, low inflation and unemployment, some manufacturing came back and I could go on) and relative peace and a lot accomplished (see the last paragraph for more accomplishments)? I think it's largely because the headlines were dominated with "Russia collusion" and the bogus impeachments instead of his the work that he did.
As for the Senate losses, their losses were more about their lack of experience in politics/gov rather than being "election deniers". Did you know that Democrats voted for them in the primaries? It's cut-throat, dishonest, dishonorable, immoral, unethical, etc. to do so, but they've been doing that for years. It's easy in open primaries (calling all red states: CLOSE YOUR PRIMARIES) and in closed primary states, they sometimes register as Republicans just so they can vote in the primaries for the "most likely Republican to lose in the general election".
Trump was very effective. He had a "promiseskept.com" website that listed all he did and I wanted to copy it all, but it numbered in the many hundreds so I couldn't. He got tax reform down, the Abraham Accords (which Biden & Dems ended), the Remain in Mexico policy, the 500 miles of wall (some replaced old fencing), cleaned up the VA, got NATO countries to cough up more money ("but OH, he was so UNCOUTH at the NATO meetings!"), negotiating an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan that Trump halted because the Taliban was ignoring the boundaries that Trump set up. This was in contrast of the shit-show that Biden did in Afghanistan (ignoring Trump's work) which he later called "a spectacular success" or something like that. Biden wanted the credit, no matter the cost in American's lives who were tortured and killed and the $60 billion of our military equipment left behind for the Taliban, CCP China and Russia. Finally, Trump didn't run for pres originally for self-interest reasons and most of the supposed lies that he supposedly told were (and are) distorted and twisted and edited from what he really said (or actually didn't say).
I didn't imagine what I wrote. I've seen it, read it or heard it over the last decades, by way of the thousands of hours I've spent on news sites, C-span, Youtube, watching hearings, Congressional procedings, interviews, press briefings, etc. Did I get some dates, figures wrong? Probably and I tried to make it fague in that respect. But mark my words, I've seen and heard and read all I've written and since leftist Democrats don't even have those standards, I'll write what I know and invite all to research and correct me. BTW, I'll probably vote for Ron at this point, but who knows when the time comes. Roseanne Barr just said she thinks the election will be postponed.
unfortunately, though, our blue team is trying to out-China-hate the red team, and also, we take as kindly to an anti-war voice as we do to a comedian on campus... but you can prove your point by reading through the last 10 or so Woodward books. Every administration from both parties are wall-to-wall scandals, and all have had special counsel investigations. Every dang one of them...
Sasha is right on this, the blue team's biggest mistake. if only we had just kept a free and fair press. THEN, we could attribute Trumf's success to the red team's realization that they were simply outnumbered and his was a protest vote. Kind of like beer-drinkers cheering Wally George and whatnot... But honest and sane (must be alterative, now) journalists like Matt Tabibi now make the NYT give Biden 4 Pinochio noses retroactively about the whole 'I knew nothing, my druggie son did everything overseas all by himself' nonsense.
Really good observation! Every time I try to explain to my Regressive Dem friends that an authoritarian coup has succeeded in taking over the U.S., and it isn't Trump, all they say is, "You're not becoming a Trumpette, are you?!!" Questions that start with the phrase "You're not" aren't questions, they are commands. And isn't "Trumpette" a sexist term?
I’m in Portland too and it’s crazy how close minded people are here. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic asking “is this thing really so deadly that we need to give up our civil liberties?” and being shocked that I got shut down. “I think Dr. Fauci knows more than you!”
Hey Michael! It's nice to hear from you, too! I noticed that you had not been posting. I have thought of taking a break myself, and can certainly relate to someone deciding to do that.
Things have definitely not become less weird in Portland.
Interesting to hear about Philly. Maybe it's because it's bigger and much more "diverse" than Portland. Portland has been mostly a monoculture of educated white liberals. There are substantial Hispanic communities in the rural areas in surrounding counties. Also, a growing population of Indian Americans working for Intel and other high tech companies west of the city. But that's about it. Nothing like the patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods that (used to?) exist in big cities on the East Coast. I totally have missed the food that went with that.
I'll let you know if I lighten up on my posting frequency. It has been disconcerting to lose people.
I learn so much from people like you, Seva, Matt, Danimal, HeyJude, Heritic and others here and do miss their humor and wisdom when they go missing. Like Richard Bickers. Philly cheese steaks, hoagies, pizza, snapper soup are great. The rolls here not found elsewhere. The diversity is result of migrations of Italians, Irish, blacks, whites, Quakers, Hispanic, Jewish, Asian to the area for jobs, education and freedom.
"You’ve all been treating Trump like an elusive mob boss who engaged in dirty dealings, drug smuggling, prostitution, bribery, and even murder, which justified taking extraordinary measures against him to put him in prison finally." - Nah, that's Biden! Sasha, since when do the perjury charges against Clinton look ridiculous now? The man was guilty of perjury, even is fellow Democrats admitted it, they just didn't want to throw him out of office - and neither did Republicans. Clinton was actually guilty of worse, such as using his power to force INS to naturalize a million immigrants so they could vote for him. He was being investigated for that very thing but then Ken Starr got involved and that investigation was shoved into the background and died.
As for David Brooks, the man is Canadian. As for him being "conservative," he's as conservative as the Radical Republicans of Lincoln and Grant's day. He got that label because of his association with Buckley, but look at many of the Buckley followers today - they're the epitome of anti-Trumpers and instead of being conservative, they're right-wing progressives. (Incidentally, the Republican Party was founded by Progressives.) I pay him not little attention, but no attention at all.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious and correct perjury charges against Clinton were duly charged. That one sentence in Sasha’s otherwise great article rubbed me the wrong way. I guess if one is a democrat for 40 years, it’s hard to admit how bad Clinton, Gore, and Kerry are. Bill Clinton is a weasel and as corrupt as Hillary. His presidency was held in check by Gingrich and the Republican House. I’m a lifelong Republican, but I can look back and see how badly GW Bush governed, pushed war, grew our government with DHS, and installed the horrid Patriot Act.
I don't know that he's as corrupt as Hillary. Dolly Kyle said Hillary was the power behind the throne. Jim McDougal said Hillary was the corrupt one. The irony is that Hillary was a Goldwater Girl before she went to college and was brainwashed.
Jim NcDougal made that clear in his book. Bill was taking bribes when he was governor. Bill was probably involved in drug smuggling into Mena. John Y Brown was the favored candidate but he got caught so Democrats switched to Bill. He picked Hillary up in Washington. Incidentally, Bill was kicked out the UK after being accused of assault. They are both despicable but people went nuts over Hillary. She had to leave Arkansas to get elected to the Senate. One of the funniest things I ever saw was a t shirt I saw a young woman wearing in Kentucky. It said, "If Bill Clinton does for America what he did for Arkansas, I hope he wears a condom."
I can't stand the Bushes, including Bush the first. Reagan did not like him at all, from what I've read, but was forced to make him his running mate. What if the Bushes and Clintons NEVER GOT IN POLITICS? It doesn't bare thinking about because it's so sad to think about the much better place we'd be in right now!!
Bush Sr along with GW add two politicians that fooled many. I always wondered why Bush was so timidity polite when it came to Obama. He used the excuse of protecting the image of the presidential office, but had no qualms of disrespect when it was Trump. Both Bushes palled around with Bill Clinton as if he was a long forgotten family member 🤮 even Barbara Bush sucked up to Bill. Then Bush Sr and Clinton headed that foundation together that I’ve never read any concrete proof they actually helped anyone. Then GW had that horrible AIDS Foundation in Africa—again, who did they actually help?
And sorry but Newt is just as corrupt as any of the rest of them…. His own party had its fill of him and booted him out! Dick Army was the other bookend in that destructive duo that drove honest thoughtful moderate Republicans out and let the Dixiecrat faction take over with their Tea Party religion. They lead to the ascendance of Bush/Cheney..
As I recall, Ron Paul was the driver of the Tea Party and he was very much opposed to people like Bush and Cheney because they were Neocons and for big government. Do I miss something about why you think Tea Party led to Bush/Cheney? I think the Tea Party were mostly libertarian politically; and that Bush and Cheney were not.
The Tea Party was AGAINST the Bush/Cheney tax and spend and warmongering bullcarp. I was an original Tea Partier and we were more conservative (but not in the neocon way) than Newt and the establishment. We thought Newt gave up the fight to soon and didn't follow through... yes, him not "being thoughtful" was part of it.
The people you describe as "honest thoughtful moderate Republicans" back then would be the Mitt Romneys, Liz Cheneys, John McCains, Adam Kinzingers, Mitch McConnells, Lisa Murkowskis, and Lindsay Grahams of today.
"Honest thoughtful moderate" Republicans are the Republicans who hate their voters.
Really?? You think honest thoughtful people have no place in the Republican party?? You are appalling! No wonder you call yourself “Evil Incarnate” and we are supposed to take you as one of the Good Guys, huh?
I don't think that at all. I think my view of who is honest and thoughtful is diametrically opposed with who the media describes as honest and thoughtful.
I also think you view of H&T aligns with the media's.
If you think the names I listed are H&T, we don't have anything further to discuss. Let's just agree to disagree. If you want do call me appalling, or worse, you just go right on ahead.
Wait, you say "Canadian" as if that explains everything lol. Don't throw all of us under the bus! I left The Left a few years ago and proudly voted Conservative in our last federal and provincial elections. I woke up and, like Sasha, actually watched the Trump rallies and speeches in their entirety, not just the clips on MSM to push the narrative that he is a racist monster. Granted, most Canadians are cozy in their blindness but there are more than you think that are fully awake and understand what is going on.
I say Brooks is Canadian by birth. So is Ted Cruz. Jeet Heee is another Canadian who writes about US issues. Brooks is a New Yorker and his politics are more inline with 50s Republicans, who were as progressive as they come.
Clinton was also being investigated for his ties to CCP Chinese (didn't he have a Chinese national in his admin?) - his giving of satellite/missile technology to them! Again, this was shoved onto Star's plate and he dropped it!! THAT, AND CLINTON'S ILLEGAL INS ACTIONS, IS WHAT CLINTON'S IMPEACHMENT SHOULD'VE BEEN ABOUT. Maybe that was the point Sasha was trying to make.
Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury. He was being investigated for other crimes and actions before Starr decided to focus on the Arkansas accusations. The most serious was that he ordered the INS to rush the naturalization of a million immigrants in certain key states. Henry Hyde appointed a Chicago lawyer, a Democrat, to head the investigation. I don't remember anything about giving technology to China. He did a lot of things, such as waging war against Yugoslavia.
So I'm assuming that Henry Hyde buried the whole thing? I was young at the time, but I got the idea that Starr couldn't take the heat anymore and checked out. Democrats no doubt thought Trump would do the same while they waged their "resistance".
"... since when do the perjury charges against Clinton look ridiculous now?"
It was a so-called process crime. Real, but... It's a "gottcha" crime--"I couldn't get you on anything substantive, but I got you on something technical during the process." Hanging an impeachment charge on a process crime about denying the reception of a BJ is indeed ridiculous. If there was something worse, that would have to be the tact, not catching him lying about a BJ under oath.
"High crimes and misdemeanors are crimes and misdemeanors like a shoe tree is a tree."--Raoul Berger
Loved the whole essay and am so thankful for such a powerful and articulate writer speaking truthfully. Especially liked the reference to “Positively 4th Street”; one of the lines from that song that applies to the NYT for me is “Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
I am 9th of 10 children and 2nd generation immigrant. Father was a bartender. 4 brothers and me served in military. No need to lecture me about being poor because my family and I lived it. We became wealthy (1% lol) through sacrifice, hard work and good fortune and stayed clear of government programs. I pay over 40% of income in taxes to the welfare mooches. The middle class are screwed because that’s the group the Socialists and Communists get; top 1% like me already has dual citizenship with EU countries and money and property shielded. Middle class doesn’t. No need for making racist comments comments against me here and elsewhere. I am sorry you feel unable to achieve as much without government income obtained by other people’s hard work and not your own. Indeed it must be difficult to feel pride in your situation. But no need to continue the racist and personal attacks, Anon. And it is not the fault of all white people as you state in another post. Instead, why don’t you tell us about how you grew up (how many kids?), in the military or not? abd education, so that we can better understand how you came to identify with - as you say - wage earners.
David Brooks is a puppet. He was brought onto PBS Friday night weekly news analysis after leftist Mark Shields had worn out William Safire, Paul Gigot and David Gergen. The premise was a conservative foil to Shields to provide a sense of balance. After a few years of watching Brooks repeatedly say 'I agree with Mark' the ploy was obvious. Brooks, a left leaning centrist was declared a true conservative by PBS, and anyone to the right was deemed a right wing extremist. And the leftist elite who were mostly the programs audience, bought it. After all these years it appears Brooks is still not sure know who he is and what he believes.
I agree completely with this column, extremely well written. I’m concerned though about whether the center will hold after this election if Trump wins. To what lengths will these progressive elites go to hold onto power? Buckle up, pray for our country.
The Dems and their apparatus won’t let Trump win. We will become an even angrier nation. I keep asking myself where our country will be after the left installs another puppet. Who will that puppet be?
The "center" will not hold - regardless of the result, nor should it.
No, I belive that owing to worlwide financial collapse, and violence as a result of the left tiring of not getting the response to its efforts to provoke republicans, there will be a social and political upheaval and realignment like nothing this nation has ever seen.
SS...l usually prefer to read my substacks but when I see ‘listen now’ below your essay titles, I get giddy and eagerly await your performative content. This ‘Saturday night special’ did not disappoint! Spot on. Thank you.
Regarding Ashli Babbitt - I've gotten a few comments that make the point that Trump, not Biden, was The POTUS when Babbitt was shot. They're often the same people who claim an "insurrection" or a coup or the overthrow of the government - can't be both! The reason I lay this at the feet of Biden is that he has never mentioned her. He did not prosecute the police officer and has never condemned the action. Trump does mention her. Trump would not have wanted her shot - or would understand that it was a tragedy, where Biden does not.
He speaks of the police he believes were killed that day. He could not care about an American citizen being murdered on that day and also call them violent extremists.
The administration was in power -- when Trump was POTUS, during Jan 6, and now. That's the lesson from the last seven years. It didn't matter how we voted. They still decided the outcome.
It's also important to remember that Nancy Pelosi -- AND THE FBI -- knew there would be some kind of violence or breach of the Capitol yet they left the Capital Police to fend for themselves.
There is no way that Pence should have certified the election. He should have said that there were to many irregularities that must be investigated first.
Pence follows the established rule book. That’s why he was in the position he was to begin with. Establishment insiders and completely inept outsiders is what sank Trumps presidency. Ballet on one side, breakdancing on the other.
No doubt. But truly, why is it in the Constitution that the VP certifies the result if not to provide verification? We’re supposed to pretend that that’s not true.
Valid point. I’m no student of history but in the early days of the republic was the VP chosen from the opposing party? I’m probably wrong on that, but the sore loser has definitely become more prominent than the gracious loser. Too many gracious losers persist among the Rs if you ask me.
Originally, the VP was the candidate for president that received the second most votes and the president and vp could not be residents of the same state.
I think that’s true about the VP in the early days.
The vice president wasn't always in the same party as the president. I don't think you have to select a v.p. from your party.
Correct - Trump asked Pence to DELAY the cert, which IS legal and Pence could have done that, in order to allow all the states to decide if they wanted to use alternate electors. It may have been fruitless, but Trump did nothing illegal or unconstitutional.
With all due respect, Trump rarely said her name either. I was very disapponted with him. Trump was noted for his practice of calling or visiting the families of veterans etc. I don't recall anything about him giving condolences to Ashli's husband or mother. If he did, it was long after her murder because I was looking for it.
Ashli Babbitt was a domestic terrorist. Full stop. That's not dehumanizing her, that's just a fact.
It is not a fact. To say so makes YOU the fascist, Jeremy. Not her. What do we have in this country? Or used to have before it was overtaken by fanatics? Due process. Presumption of innocence. That means you are innocent until proven guilty. Calling someone a terrorist is defamatory. That people who call themselves liberals use that term -- even after everything we've lived through--is repulsive, Jeremy. It's disgusting. You know nothing about her. You couldn't describe a single crime she did that would warrant her murder by a Capital police officer.
She took part in a riot to overturn the will of the voters, jeopardizing both the lives of every lawmaker in this country and the rule of law that has protected America from descending into autocracy. Her cause was the same cause as the Confederate soldiers who died on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam, none of whom get to call themselves martyrs either.
"She took part in a riot to overturn the will of the voters." The voters. You mean not her? She's not a voter? You do not know what she was doing or why she was doing it. You have no clue. You were told what to think by the talking heads on the news. So -- strike 1.
" jeopardizing both the lives of every lawmaker in this country and the rule of law that has protected America from descending into autocracy." Every lawmaker in this country, you mean Congress? Little old Ashli Babbit unarmed and about five feet tall who was yelling at people to stop breaking windows was about to jeopardize the lives of every lawmaker and rule of law -- wow, man that is SOME KIND OF SUPER POWER. Who knew the United States was that easy to threaten and overthrow. I bet that this is great news to Iran, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia. Just put a five foot two woman without guns and the whole empire collapses. Incredible!
The FBI knew there was going to be a breach of the Capital. Nancy Pelosi knew. They elected not to protect the Capitol. Yet no harsh words to condemn them, eh? Live up the ass of the FBI, do we? Strike 2
"Her cause was the same cause as the Confederate soldiers who died on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam, none of whom get to call themselves martyrs either." This one is so stupid I am red in the face just attempting to answer it. You're not serious are you? Is this the idiocy swirling around Democrat Facebook by now? You can't possibly spew this nonsense publicly, right? Do you know what happened during the Civil War, Jeremy? Do you even know why so many fought in that war?
Lie #1 -- all of the Confederate soldiers were "white supremacists" who hated Black people. They were fighting because they were told to fight. The ideology of that war was not necessarily applicable to those who fought it.
Lie #2 --Ashli Babbitt or MAGA were not then or are now driven by "white rage" and racism. I am sorry that this is what people told you. It breaks my heart that this level of stupidity and ignorance is so rampant on the Left. Nothing makes me more depressed that you could all be so easily influenced by propaganda.
Maybe it's easier to see it like a five year-old would. Then you can justify your rage and hatred.
Dehumanization is what you are engaging in here, applying mass hysteria and hatred to a whole group of people. ---Strike 3
It's not worth rebutting these points one by one - other than the one about the Civil War, because the founders of the Confederacy literally said they were founding a nation based on the fact that Blacks were inferior to Whites and sent 300k men to their deaths for it - maybe if you put down the "lost cause" bullshit and read an actual book by an actual historian about the Civil War, you'll see what I mean. It's frankly sad to see you even making these arguments in the first place, as you're giving voice to (and monetizing off of) people's worst impulses. And don't try to throw back "you're the intolerant one!" or some other childish projection at me, because that's one of your only moves when confronted by the reality that your beliefs are moronic at best and actively contributing to harm at worst. The truth is that it's sad watching you devolve into a right-wing hate monger, as it's such a far cry from the person I thought I knew. I hope that person comes back someday, for your own sake as well.
"And don't try to throw back "you're the intolerant one!" or some other childish projection at me." Why not? This is simply the truth, Jeremy. Sorry.
"The truth is that it's sad watching you devolve into a right-wing hate monger." I fled the hate mongers, aka YOU. You are filled with hatred, not me. YOU wish to banish a whole group of people from YOUR country, not me. YOU are the one who believes your fellow citizens are human garbage, not me.
"such a far cry from the person I thought I knew. I hope that person comes back someday, for your own sake as well." -- to quote Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment, I'd rather stick needles in my eye. It is YOU who must evolve and accept people who don't agree with you into what you believe is YOUR country. All of you, every single Democrat I know, believes exactly the same thing. And guess what? You're wrong. I was wrong. What I engaged in was wrong. I will never be someone who does what I did before. I was caught up in something that I believed was the good side with people who were good. Now, look at you and everyone like you. All you can do is label me in a way that allows you to dehumanize me and throw me away like human garbage. That is what YOU are doing, Jeremy. Did I chase you down and screech at you about what you believe? No, the opposite is true.
Yes, and? She deserved to be shot point blank because of it? Is that your contention? Did the Capitol Police Officer know that about her when he shot her? Do you think that George Floyd should be judged by his putting a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman before robbing her? And that would have justified his death too?
And you for Hitler.
I also feel an affinity for Ashli who did not deserve to die that day. If she were buried in a Chicago cemetery I would visit her grave to tell her she hasn’t been forgotten.
Ad hominem, JMc. Can you answer Sasha's questions?
"conspiracy theories"
You mean, like the one spread by those 51 "intelligence professionals" who claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story from the NY Post was "Russian disinformation"?
“Her posts included videos of profane rants against Democrats, COVID-19 mask mandates and illegal immigration.”
“The Harm Caused by Masks.”
A new study suggests that the excess carbon dioxide breathed in by mask-wearers can have major health consequences.
City Journal. May 9, 2023
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-harm-caused-by-masks
“Chicago officials refuse to disclose how they spent more than $120 million in tax money.” (5 min)
CBS Chicago. Aug 7, 2023
https://youtu.be/zuBkby6jPVw
"Ashli Babbitt was a domestic terrorist. Full stop."
Gosh, I must've missed her trial.
Here, try this one:
Joe Biden is an international terrorist. Full stop.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
“We will bring an end to it. I promise you.”
Joe Biden. Feb 7, 2022
Fuck Sy Hersh. He's a deluded idiot who ignores war crimes and genocide in order to twist an anti-imperialist ideology to condemn the United States at all costs.
Joe blew up Nord Stream - civilian infrastructure. This is an act of terrorism, pure and simple.
Not even you dispute it.
So the best you can do is shoot the messenger.
You don't bother much with credibility, do you?
Did you see the footage? This man had no danger nor reason to shoot. Funny how it took weeks and months to report the name of the shooter. In the tv interview, he looked like a child who got caught stealing money from his parents. He often turned his face away and looked downward. He knew this shooting couldn’t be defended. Babbitt had police surrounding her. Even the parents and husband were hushed up for a long time.
Sasha,
Please help me understand your post. When you write "They still decided the outcome," to whom exactly does "they" refer? Please try and be as specific as you can possibly be. If you can do so, name names.
I don't really have the time to go back and forth with you. I know how this goes. It's a struggle session. You are not interested in the answer. Your motive is to try to expose me or convince me of what you think. Ain't nobody got time for that. Certainly not me. What I think it's spilled out in thousands and thousands of words on this Substack.
Ms. Stone,
Excellent response.
You get right to the point.
Sasha,
I am sorry that you respond in that way.
I read your post. I read many of the comments, including yours. I asked you to explain something that you had written. It was a simple question. I regret that you refuse to answer it.
Please accept my apologies.
It's not that I refuse to answer it - it's that I know the game and I don't have time to play it. I think you know what I mean - the "regime" -- administrative state, deep state, apparatus, security state, whatever you want to call it believes itself to be permanently in charge of our government and our elections. They rejected Trump because they believe they should decide. I never saw that before Trump's term. I always assumed when people vote in a leader we more or less accept it. But Trump offended too many powerful people.
Sasha,
OK Sasha, I will give you another chance at offering a coherent explanation of your meaning.
Sadly I do not know what you mean when you say "the 'regime' -- administrative state, deep state, apparatus, security state ..." Who are these people?
As you ought to know, many of the witnesses who testified before the House January 6 Committee (e.g., the Georgia Secretary of State and the Speaker of the Arizona House) were lifelong Republicans who voted for President Trump. These witnesses testified that they placed their oaths to uphold and defend the US Constitution above their loyalty to Donald Trump. The testimony of those witnesses now constitutes the evidentiary core of Trump's most recent Federal indictment. Are these people part of 'the regime'?
Among the people who have provided key testimony in the most recent Federal indictment is Mike Pence, Trump's Vice President. Mike Pence refused to violate the US Constitution in the counting of Electoral College votes. For that the January 6 mob shouted that he should be hanged. As you probably know Mike Pence recently said "I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again." Is he part of 'the regime'? Or was he initially not part of 'the regime' but joined it when he refused to act unconstitutionally as requested by President Trump?
So again, really, who is 'the regime"? Please cash this out so that I understand your meaning.
"I will give you another chance..."
Your fake sincerity and well-practiced courtesy are sickening. You sound like a used car salesman.
"Among the people who have provided key testimony in the most recent Federal indictment..."
A Grand Jury hears no rebuttal witnesses, nor are any of the witnesses subject to cross examination, nor is any contrary evidence presented. That's why it is said that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.
But you know that.
You pretend to want "the truth" and claim to be "open minded", but you're really just a shill.
Back to shill school, sonny.
She responded twice that she didn’t have the time to go back and forth. Do you harass other women like this also.
Oh good grief. She has answered you. Do some deep dives on J6 and you will discover the truth, as well.
How do you know how the secretaries of state voted? "Life long Republicans" don't like Trump at all. They voted Republican. They voted against the Democratic nominee. That's all.
You've asked this question in good faith and I appreciate that. Unfortunately no one here will answer it in good faith because of all the brain poisoning that's gone on. But I respect you for doing your best.
"I am sorry that you respond in that way."
Give me a barf bag.
"Please accept my apologies."
I fake accept your fake apologies.
"Please help me understand your post."
What, is she speaking Chinese?
Remember: Never go full retard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q
Deep state actors, I imagine.
Her writing is crystal clear and requires no exegesis.
You are disingenuous, merely begging for someone to waste their time producing what you shall never consider, and then moving on to a new sequence of disingenuous prompts.
"Kindly" eff off.
If you think the events of Jan 6 were an "insurrection" then you don't know what an insurrection is. I was at the elipse. I saw the weirdo-s who had infiltratedthe crowd. I knew something was up. And use your fucking brain, there were like 2M people there and no police, no national guard (Pelosi made sure); if Trump had said go take back your country there would have been nothing to stop us. But he didn't. Most of the MAGA grandpas and grandmas there were pointing out the agent provacateurs as they became apparent. There are tons of videos showing the police opening the barricades and beckoning the people in. Video of cap police inside were those 10,000 lb doors are and gesticulating for the person looking at the monitor to release the magnetic doors. Video of cap police literally giving buffalo horn man a guided tour and gently leading him to the senate chamber. Insurrection? What a load of shit.
It was not Trump led, it wasn’t an insurrection and the root cause of the protests were election fraud incidents and then FBI fomented violence. Now you know.
"lie about election fraud"
Biden LOST the first three Dem primaries and was being written off politically. Then, magically, all of the other candidates dropped out and this perennial loser (1988, 2008) is basically handed the Dem nomination. THEN he can only "campaign" from his basement, and if he does venture out he can barely draw a crowd big enough to fill a phone booth. Meanwhile, Trump is barnstorming the country drawing huge, enthusaistic crowds everywhere.
THEN we have mail-in voting urgently being pushed on states due to the "pandemic" because, hey, they just want to keep us "safe". Never mind that the way we monitor elections for fairness in foreign countries is by exit polling - impossible with mail-in voting, which is ripe for fraud. (1)
And let's not forget the 51 "intelligence professionals" who lied about Hunter's laptop being "Russian disinformation" in order to get the FACTUAL story by the NY Post censored from social media and the MSM. This is clear and unambiguous election interference - you know, the same thing the Dems like to beat their chests about - since we know that if voters had understood this was a factual story it would have changed how a not-inconsequential percentage of them voted. (2)
Somehow Joe Biden(!) gets more votes than any candidate in history. This is simply unbelievable on its face.
So there are plenty of grounds for a reasonable person to question the validity of the 2020 election - and I haven't even gone into black box electronic voting machines whose codes are controlled by private corporations and the hanky-panky reported in numerous polling places.
(1) Confessions of a voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots
https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/
(2) Media’s suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop was election interference
Had Biden voters known of scandal, election would've tipped to Trump
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/24/medias-suppression-of-hunter-laptop-was-election-i/
Stop and consider if we were witness to a vote-counting stoppage in, say, a Russian election. Let's say Alexey Navalny is running against Putin. Navalny is leading in the counts in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Sevastopol, Tula, and Volgograd. Then we hear that a water main break has interrupted the counting in one city and boxes of ballots have been misplaced in another. Counting is halted while the "situation is investigated" and when the lights go back on Putin is in the lead in all five towns. Would we be a mite suspicious?
That's what happened here in 2020.
https://media.tenor.com/j5YcO9slE7YAAAAC/leslie-nielsen-nothing-to-see-here.gif
A “collective psychotic break” is what Bret Weinstein says our society is experiencing in this video where he talks about the Time article of how the election was “fortified” to prevent an outcome displeasing to the left. Even the democrats themselves admitted the election was “fortified” to insure their side won. And I’m supposed to believe that Biden won fair and square? You people are insane.
“US 2020 election “fortifying” in Time article.” (11 min)
Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying. Feb 12, 2021
https://youtu.be/NMRn7ZQOl1I
Nice try Birtha.
“To think you have over 11k followers. A very irresponsible statement you have made.”
Bret Weinstein has 435K subscribers on his Dark Horse podcast and in a recent Interview with Kim Iversen said our elite ruling class, which includes the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, have become like a “rabid animal” and are a lethal threat to those who oppose them. Video starts at 7:15 point. Right about the 9 min point he says this and again at the 48 min point (“like a rabid dog”) of the 1:10 min video. Could it actually be though that our elite class has become insane and a lethal threat? Sure it could. Anyone familiar with the dreadful twentieth century when men like Hitler, Stalin and Mao ruled major nations would know that this is in fact distressingly common. Well worth watching a couple of highly intelligent leftists talking about the monstrosity the Woke left has become.
“The Deterioration Of Our Nation And How To Stop It.” (1:10)
Kim Iversen. A Conversation With Bret Weinstein. July 28, 2023
https://rumble.com/v32v6kw-the-deterioration-of-our-nation-and-how-to-stop-it-a-conversation-with-bret.html
The "insurrectionists" included multiple FBI plants - do you really think for one minute the FBI would not have been watching the Proud Boys and other possible extremist groups? Taibbi and Greenwald both speculate that the FBI informants may even have pushed those groups to stage a coup - something the FBI has done many times.
That is true, and is irrelevant to my point - Trump did not plan, incite nor approve of the rioting Jan 6.
“can you imagine the effort required of all involved in such a staged effort to keep it quiet?”
It hasn’t been kept quiet. The latest to talk about what happened is the Capitol Chief of Police Steven Sund at the time of the Jan 6 Capitol rally in 2021 who said the “Insurrection!” was a setup by Nancy Pelosi and the FBI. A good summary of Tucker’s interview with him is this video below. You’re not aware of things like this because you only follow the msm which never reports such things. I think people like you have done immense and irreparable damage to this society. For the past 7 years Woke white leftists like you have been waging a war not only against Trump but against white, working class conservatives like me. I naturally do not appreciate that at all.
“Former Capitol Police Chief Exposes Nancy Pelosi & and Democrats Set Up Against Trump!”
Black Conservative Perspective. Aug 11, 2023
https://youtu.be/Oqc4kV8bhUo
Brooks writes with an arrogance of an insider who’s stature is never in doubt. His “wisdom” is nothing more than condescension and elite-splaning, and it flows freely. No introspection whatsoever. If this were the Titanic, he’d be the guy looking for a stray child to nab and call his own so he can gain access to a lifeboat.
Ouch! What a powerful analogy!
Succinctly stated. Brooks is a quick-witted, slimy thing that would dump the horn-rimmed glasses, and put on a dress and a wig to complete the ruse.
(At the risk of violating Godwins law) From what I have read Hermann Goering, was also quick witted, personable guy, who loved his wife and children. Who just happened to be a Real Anti-Semite and started The Gestapo.
That says as much for his readers as it does for the author himself.
Touché! Well said!
“As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice.“ What if a White person said that — substituting “race” for “class”? Every NYT reader would be appalled! They would insist that, BECAUSE one is a member of that race/class, one’s perspective is biased (ref. the entire concept of “White privilege”). Yet Brooks imagines that HE is so morally superior, that bias doesn’t apply to him.
The crucial identifier of today’s “progressives” is their moral relativism. It informs everything they do.
I often wonder how much human capital has been lost over the past three years because of the woke mob…what new books/films/music/ inventions, etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?
P.S. I find it very amusing that Trump is being accused of NOT actually believing that he won the 2020 election. Have these people been smoking crack(oh wait, that’s a Biden)? Anyone who knows anything about basic psychology could tell you that Trump, given his personality, ALWAYS believes himself to be a winner!
Trump is being accused of not heeding the advice of his "betters." They *told* him he lost, and that should be enough for him, or so says Jack Smith. It's what the rest of us have been hearing for a long time. The truth doesn't matter, only what we *tell* you.
Trump, whatever he is, is NOT a politician. This is simultaneously his best and worst trait. Which says a lot.
"They *told* him he lost, and that should be enough for him"
An attempt to hang him with the "reasonable person" standard.
Of course, their own characterization of Trump as an unreasonable person undercuts it.
Therein lies a hidden, massive danger. If this case succeeds, what one thinks will no longer legally matter. All that will matter is what the "experts" think, and we know how inaccurate they are. Do not underestimate how this would change the legal system for the worse.
Trust me, I'm not. This isn't about Trump, not really. He's just the way they change the rule so truth doesn't matter. "Truth" is what they say it is.
In other words, all joking aside, this is very, very bad.
The left has a virulent hatred for middle America and its defense of our values, traditions and institutions. The Democrats are a moral, political and cultural cancer on the body politic.
Trump truly is a winner. His belief system is the foundation for his monumental record of accomplishments over a lifetime. May God continue to bless and protect him from the fools and puppet masters who are hell-bent on destroying our Republic.
This atheist agrees completely, especially about the fools (half the Dem lay voter) and the puppet masters (the other half, if you count the wannabe Stasi).
Well stated.
Bravo!!!
"what new books..., etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?"
When I go to my publicly funded library to check out new books, I find authors from the NYT or similar outlets available in hardcover editions. My choices either reside in the electronic category or not at all.
Yes, I’ve been noticing that since the Covid/Floyd Era began. Librarians (per polling) are among the most woke professionals in America, and you can easily see it in their book acquisition policies. Scanning the national digital catalog (Overdrive) is a crash course in wokery: non-fiction titles on “anti-racism”, indigenous fawning, gay romance novels, women/women/women authors (the straight White male is an endangered species in publishing), YA titles (even in the grownup categories)...and murder mysteries, which (for whatever reason, they’re still buying, although they’re mostly only buying the women authors).
It’s increasingly difficult to find anything interesting, especially if one is looking for quality literature. Same for literary awards: twenty years ago, almost anything considered for the Booker Prize was worth reading; now all the prizes are “politics” over merit. Sigh.
Can you imagine Catcher, Lord of The Flies, or Lolita being published today? Or, ahem...1984? To say nothing of Faulkner, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, et al. We have by all accounts lost our way, which is an unmistaken marker for a decaying Society.
No William Faulkner or Mark Twain. They both used the n word in their books.
I retired as a public librarian in 2016, and it seemed to be a lefty field at that time. All this woke crap ruined a lot of SF (my favorite genre), as most stories were dystopian nightmares post Climate Apocalypse. "The left destroys everything it touches."
Librarians are not really "professionals," unless telling people to "sshhh" is a profession. Lol.
It's a joke degree -- which I observed even as I was obtaining one. A lot of $ to universities and professors for stuff I could have learned on the job.
The problem is that if it's not on the NYT best book list it isn't shelved in a prominent place. Unfortunately, libraries are not the sources of diverse thought that they should be.
Sadly, it’s far worse than that. I use the public library’s online system, and I apply filters, by which I can (mostly) avoid their “nudging system”, but I still find less and less that I would want to read -- AND I have to scroll through a lot more dross to find what little gold there is.
You are absolutely right that they highlight all the woke NYT stuff on the homepage, and with algorithms, but they’re also putting nearly all their budget dollars into that stuff, leaving little to none for heterodox nonfiction and/or quality new literature (written by White men). To make matters worse, woke has overtaken the mainstream publishing industry as well. Young “progressives” in the industry threaten and bully their employers to only publish the “right” sort of books, or else -- and these techniques work!
It’s not only new laws that protect Wokeism; it’s also the hidden layers of behind the scenes manipulation of outcomes that make it so pernicious and hard to fight.
You are certainly correct when you say Woke has taken over the publishing companies. I read alot of mystery / crime / fiction books. Every frigging book I read now has at least one alphabet character. These characters have absolutely nothing to do with the plot. I can read over half a book and suddenly they introduce the lesbian sister of the main character. She's in one chapter of the entire book. Even some of my favorite authors, that I have followed for twenty some years, have fallen for it. It's either that or they suffer from TDS, like Michael Connelly, Louise Penny, and Jodi Piccoult to name a few. I guess it's a good time to read the classics I've always meant to read.
"a good time to read the classics"
I highly recommend the Scottish writer John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps being perhaps his most famous novel). Intelligent writing and high adventure. I have 18 of his fiction books. (He wrote over 100 books, including an eight-volume history of WWI).
Enjoy ☺
So true, even Jack Carr has gratuitous women/minority characters. These authors know they will never get published without them. And they almost never fit, although if they actually fit into the story line, I am fine with it.
We should get back to your local librarian being a local girl who needed a job.
Back in May, I asked the woman checking out my books how to get on the waiting list for a book coming out in August. She told me to send book info, title, author, publisher, ISBN#, etc to suggestapurchase@phoenixpl.libanswers.com. I did so. Two days later I received the following response:
May 24 2023, 03:05pm
Thank you for your suggestion. The item you have requested is not being selected by the Library at this time. It is not available in our contracted vendors' catalogs for purchase and the library cannot purchase from author sites or online sites such as Amazon.com.
The Book: Tucker by Chadwick Moore
hope,
There is a quite innocuous interpretation of your difficulty.
As I had never heard of "The Book: Tucker" by Chadwick Moore, I looked it up to see what it was. Sorry, but the library did not purchase your suggested book for a good reason having nothing to do with its subject matter or its political orientation. The book simply was not published by a standard commercial publisher. It is a self-published vanity press book.
Public libraries rarely if ever purchase such self-published vanity press works.
williamj
Are you sure that's vanity press? Their home page sure pushes a lot of other titles. https://www.allseasonspress.com/
The library systems now suck. But one possible workaround until things are fixed is to use the interlibrary loan system.
Wokism (neo-markism / neo-racism) is infecting everything.
https://newdiscourses.com/2023/07/american-library-association-is-queering-the-catalog/
“This wouldn’t be the first time that religious zeal scoffed at sexual norms as obstacles to holiness – the history of free-love communes and orgiastic rites offers plenty of case studies. Early Christians believed that grace and faith freed believers from observing the strictures of Jewish law, an idea called “antinomianism.” This idea historically reappears in extreme forms to make the controversial claim that breaking the earthly bonds of sin and death requires obliterating sexual taboos.”
“Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools.”
Real Clear Investigations. Jun 13, 2023
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/06/13/queering_jesus_how_its_going_mainstream_at_progressive_churches_and_top_divinity_schools_903535.html
“Camille Paglia on Transgender Mania.” (6 min)
Apr 9, 2023. From a 2016 talk.
https://youtu.be/mB3Knhmfogo
I truly wonder how bad an ass whuppin Trump gave Biden in '20'. Sadly, we'll probably never know.
Rob, they got their asses handed to them in 2022 as well. I hate to be the bearer of bad news here but afte 2016, the Democrats launched a “Manhattan Project” to block Trump’s presidency and devise a “plausible” way to control the electoral system for the future.2018 was test 1, 2020 and the plandemic went down perfectly, and 2022 was a continuation and confirmation of the system they devised. (Notice how all vote counts that go into overtime magically go to the Democrat? That’s a statistical impossibility)
Sorry to say but the Dems are speaking and acting like a machine that doesn’t care what the people want.They are fully in control of the levers of power and the electoral process
"They are fully in control of the levers of power and the electoral process"
SEE:
"In 2024 Republicans cannot "out-fraud" the left, cannot "out-ballot-harvest" them, cannot "out-lawfare" them, cannot "out-media" them, cannot "out–contribution mule" them, cannot "out–Justice Department" them...but sure as hell can out-compute them — and that may do it."
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/06/2024_how_to_outcompute_the_left.html
I think unless we go back to a system of single day of voting, paper ballots, counted by two separate machines on-site employing standard error correction, no mail-in voting, no ballot harvesting, no exceptions…the system will not be acceptable.
Too much potential for corruption by either side so whoever wins will constantly be challenged and hobbled by claims of corruption and illegitimatacy.
Before anyone comes back at me with “But what about _____!!!??”
Understand that as soon as you give exceptions to any group…the whole process is corrupted and we are right back to where we are today.
Anyone who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day does not vote. Statistically it will be even in the wash and everyone knows this instinctively. Military and foreign service can vote on base or at embassies with proper ID. Any 20 year old computer can count 200 Million votes in a matter of seconds
I would only add that anyone voting has to present a valid I.D.
Of course. Almost goes without saying.
But none of this can happen realistically, we are too far down the rabbit hole at this point. The Republicans look good on paper, and even put some money behind their candidates and campaigns....but anyone who knows will tell you that the Dems dont put their money into candidates and campaigns (hello, Biden, Fetterman...) they put all their money into ground game and infrastructure. Its practically unstoppable at this point without a major earth shattering correction.
Love that link. The dude is a genius!
That has to be the most encoraging thing I've read in a long time!
Exactly spot on, got nothing to add except this appropriately (imo right?) hyperbolic and redundant response, did I say I agree?
It could be a national holiday.
The Left are not stupid. They are so power hungry that any mean to destroy Trump and the MAGA movement is justified e.g. truth, logic, facts and justice don't matter.
Rod Serling had a great monologue in the Twilight Zone episode. 'The Obsolete Man':
"This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like everyone of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."
"what new books/films/music/ inventions, etc. do we NOT have because the people who would have created them were hounded out of society?"
What is still in the process of creation is a counterculture that simply bypasses all of the corrupted institutions that previously gave us "books/films/music/ inventions, etc.". This Substack is but one aspect of that.
And post-Musk Twitter is another aspect. The Internet was designed to route around damage. And we're starting to route around the damage that we've become aware of.
“Class” is not relevant to Democrats. Class trumps race, but race is the currency that drives the Democratic party. Therefore they ignore it, and Brooks is free to refer to himself that way without anyone caring.
Poor blacks and poor whites … or let’s say people of whatever skin color or race who struggle to make a living wage…they are America’s working poor, its lower, abandoned class, just as Tucker describes them in the video Sasha provided. These were the Trump voters, which included an increase in black and Latino voters in the last election. Hmm…there was a lot of head scratching about that statistic. Why would black men vote for Trump in larger numbers than the first time around?
Because class matters. It defines where you live, what you eat, what kind of car you drive, if you can afford one, and who you vote for.
Class unites the races; race divides us. To quote black conservative author, filmmaker and scholar, Dr. Shelby Steele:
“We human beings never use race except as a means to power. It is never an end. It is always a means. And it has no place in human affairs except as a corruption.”
"What if a White person said that — substituting “race” for “class”"
Great point! The problem is really clear when you state it that way.
I read this article. David Brooks very much wants the old two party system back where men like him ruled and the peasants were supposed to be happy with the crumbs. He's as anti-populist as they come. But he knows what he thinks people want to hear, and so he says it.
How do you know he's not in earnest?
This paragraph that you quote . . .
Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.
If he was in earnest, and he knew the depths of distrust and actually understood how "bad" his "class" is? He would have left that part out. But he's still trying to maintain his class cred.
So his real message to people like him: These rubes are stupid enough that if we just pretend to care about them a little more, they'll buy it. So just pretend.
You nailed the articulation: "As a card-carrying member of my class" - a very polite way to admit your specific class bias.
And a great way to start a new conspiracy theory on 4-chan.
"Did you know that 'they' distribute cards to their members? David Brooks admitted it."
Actually - Trump should use it in the way they butchered his "good people on both sides" comment.
He should go on about "The card-carrying members of the elite class, like David Brooks of the failing New York Times, who has admitted, in print, to having one..."
Gives me an idea - set up a stand outside of Dem rallies and give away business cards that identify the holder as "Elite Class". They'd eat that up!
...Or get you beat up. :-(
...and get your story spun by a Fascist media.
Whereas once that was shunned, albeit with a wink and a nod, it's now front and center: the Managerial Class MUST hold sway over the hoi polloi. For EVERYONE'S benefit. /s
It used to allude to commies. Still does.
"Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt?"
The incredulity that people somehow disbelieve the same crowd that pushed the "Russiagate" hoax for years is comical.
I think for a lot of them that it's all they have to save face.
Bingo!
“I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.”
LMAO My goodness. Neutral arbiters if justice? This same group, YOUR card carrying group, ALL called Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation and used BIG TECH to squash ANY media outlet showing that story. That is but a pebble of sand on the beach of hypocrisy and bias bullshit YOU and your card carrying scumbags purport to say you are for justice?
LMFAO. my goodness. Someone help me off the floor, the bullshit meter is off the charts.
You have to cut him some slack. He made a mistake and hit the tab button on his computer that auto fills “Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison” since that tagline is an auto fill to any storyline from the left.
That must be the new TDS AI they've been working on.
LOL
It's "infected" all software up to and including AI.
Edit: I forgot to start with: LOLOL!
Exceptional article. A vote for Trump is a vote against the ruling class--yes, that’s so true. Trump with his faults is so much better than any of those polished politicians lying and scheming pretending to care. Trump truly cares about our country and that’s why we support him. Biden only cares about bribes/greed/power.
The maniacs and thugs attacking Trump supporters is the fault of the media (and college professors) with their non-stop attacks and calling Trump and his supporters fascists. You never see ‘us’ attacking the people going to Biden’s rallies--well what would be the point since his numbers were embarrassingly low--but we don’t think or react like thugs as the radical left does.
How anyone can vote for a Democrat is beyond me. They have been taken over by radicals and they only care about power as they step on our freedoms and devalue our country.
Mr Brooks questioning if they’re the bad guys is laughable. Of course they are and he knows it. His pretending to care is laughable. He’s part of the anti-Trump establishment and can go f**k himself.
We are surrounded on all sides by an elite that doesn't even make an effort to hide how corrupt they are.
1. A media that every day fails the basic test of reporting without bias based on who the subject is.
2. A justice department that gives a pass to the protected class (including criminals who burn down our cities) while using "shock and awe" (their words) to go after people who protest.
3. A Republican party that shows its contempt for the people it depends on for its votes.
4. A Democrat party that manipulates it's constituencies by claiming such things as "voter id = voter suppression", and "they want to control women's bodies," while failing to carry out basic functions of government like protecting people from crime and educating children in useful life and vocational skills.
5. A military that has made defending the nation it's secondary purpose, while elevating concern for every disaffected victim group as its primary mission.
6. A bureaucracy that constantly seeks to expand it's powers to micro-manage our lives without clear legislative authorization.
7. Elected officials who increase their net worth by $millions in a few short years, on salaries under $200k/year.
This list just scratches the surface. I could write pages of this.
Just what is it exactly the elites done for us lately?
Well said. And if left unchecked, the Republic will be unable to survive.
There's more complexity w/#5, but this pretty much triangulates the Bullseye.
"triangulates the Bullseye" [saved]
Edit: that means I'm gonig to plagiarize it someday...
Nw...i plagiarized it from somewhere! Useful metaphor
I kinda figured.
Hey! It coulda been me came up w/it!
"A Republican party that shows its contempt for the people it depends on for its votes."
What does that say about the voters who put and keep these cretins in office, year after year?
A lot of those voters don't see it. Yet. As our situation worsens, more and more do see it. For those who do, they have only bad choices, and make the least bad choice.
What do you think it says, BradK?
Consider it this way: how can someone who considers themselves a Republican continue to vote for politicians who repeatedly vote in lock step with Democrats? a.k.a. The Uniparty.
True, it does far too often come down to selecting the lesser of evils, but the chance to head off the evil in the first place is in the primaries not the general. Especially with the House, the incumbent is almost always re-elected (barring a significant scandal) due to a combination of superior funding and voter apathy.
At the end of the day it still comes down to We The People.
I don't disagree w/ anything you wrote.
Add to it, Republicans are masters at committee hearing / public speech / TV interview theater- putting on a show of tearing a new asshole in their supposed political opponents, then meet the Democrats in the cloakroom an nyuk nyuk nyuk about the show they put on for the rubes. And vote for the 20th year in a row for an Omibus appropriation which includes a cat's breakfast of spending measures, few of which do what they're advertised to do.
Exactly my point. Pols like Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, etc. give good scream in a televised hearing but in the end it's all Kabuki theater. Democrat "targets" sit and get grilled, then lie through their teeth with impunity. The committee scores points with their constituents while in the end nothing ever changes. Every once in a blue moon someone is found in contempt of Congress, yet never suffers any actual penalty for it beyond some fleeting bad press.
When reelection comes up the voters recall the brief euphoria of watching the show yet don't know what bills their candidate has actually voted for or against. And that's what matters.
What is done sometimes in attack ads is a review of an opposition candidate's voting record and can be very effective against someone who voted the "wrong" way on some high profile legislation. We need more of this report card reviewing of any candidate's most recent term and which voters can access and understand. How did this candidate's vote on HB-XXX impact my life, my family, or my country? Then hold them accountable for it.
If only our votes actually count, and ARE counted.
Exactly.
It's comical how the news organizations like AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, CNN, and all the rest assure us the elections aren't stolen. How can they know that? If the elections are being stolen, the people doing the stealing aren't going to announce it publicly. They're going to keep it low.
OTOH, any challenges to the elections being honest are met with election officials circling the wagons, and saying, "We checked into it. And we didn't find any problems." Since when is a self-audit acceptable? We don't allow publicly-traded companies to do self-audits. Why is it good enough for something far, far more important to self-government?
Remember the Cyber Ninjas hired by the Republican party to audit Maricopa County, AZ found that Biden won in AZ? And Brad Raffensperger is a REPUBLICAN who countered all of Trump's conspiracy theories when Trump called the GA Sec of state claiming he had won in a landslide and begged for just 11,790 votes?
You've accepted the media's spin on what happened.
Cyber Ninjas did NOT do an audit of the AZ voting. What they did was a hand recount. A hand recount is not an audit. An audit would examine how the ballots entered the system. CN didn't do that.
There are too many irregularities in both AZ and GA to retell here. If you want details of what happened in AZ and other states, read "Debunked?" by Joseph N. Fried. https://www.amazon.com/Debunked-auditor-reviews-election_and-lessons/dp/1645720756/ref=sr_1_1?crid=F7NLWC9D4L69&keywords=debunked%3F&qid=1691364743&s=books&sprefix=debunked+%2Cstripbooks%2C255&sr=1-1
In AZ, Senate President Karen Fann offered to do a joint audit with the Maricopa County Elections Department. At first they seemed agreeable, but after going into executive session, they announced they would do their own audit. And that's what they did. Maricopa hired its own auditors. Do you remember that?
NW, do you remember that the data base was purged before the county auditors did their work? Maybe you didn't know, b/c the media didn't report a lot of what happened. Do you recall how uncooperative Maricopa County was, making the AZ Senate obtain a court order to do its audit, and forcing the AZ Senate and its auditors Cyber Ninjas to relocate the ballots and equipment to another facility. Do you recall the county recruited the US DOJ to make threats if they contacted anyone to verify where they lived, or if they actually voted?
Did you know that a lady named Liz Harris, despite the threats from the DOJ, did survey a number of voters at their homes? She and her team contacted 4570 voters. According Maricopa County, 964 did not vote. However, of those 964, 330 (34.2%) said they DID vote. Does that sound like a trivial error to you? If those results are extrapolated county-wide, 165,000 to 180,000 voters voted, but weren't recorded by the county.
Harris has sworn affidavits backing up her work.
There are a lot more anomalies that these. They may not be iron-clad proof of wrongdoing, but they are powerful reasons the AZ election should be put under the microscope by independent reviewers.
In GA, Raffensperger agreed under threat of lawsuit from Democrat lawyer Marc Elias to relax requirements for signature verification of ballots. Sorry, but he was just plain not authorized to do that. Those requirements are made by the legislature. Raffensperger has no more authority to change the signature verification than he does to pardon a murderer on death row,
Again, there are a multitude of problems in GA, too numerous to recount here. The spin on Trump's phone call with Raffensperger was he asked Raffesnperger to gin up some phony votes. His request to "find" 11,000 votes was prefaced by these comments:
1. 250,000-300,000 voters who were mysteriously dropped on the the rolls, much of that in Fulton County. Trump asked that the signatures be checked.
2. A large number of voters showed up at the polls and were told they couldn't vote, b/c "they had already voted." But they hadn't. How do you explain that, NW?
3. There were over 18,000 vacant address voters. How does that happen?
There are more, but those are the highlights.
Aside from Trump's list of irregularities, some poll workers reported suspicious-looking ballots- no crease, showing they hadn't been mailed in an envelope, and identical markings. appearing to have all been printed on a copier. This is a case where Raffensperger's people said they looked in two or three boxes, found nothing wrong, so everything's good. Does that sound on the level to you, NW?
My favorite GA anomaly was found by private citizen Joe Rossi. Long story short, he found the data posted publicly by Raffensperger did not account for 275,000 ballots on the tally sheets.
You comment that Raffensperger is a Republican. Meaning what? Do you seriously think he's going to admit he was out-foxed by Elias, and how badly he bungled Georgia's election? If you think that, let me ask you, when has a politician EVER admitted they fucked up? Please provide names.
NWCitizen, I don't expect you to take my word for it. It's all in the book, and the book is well-footnoted. For the sake of discussion, let's say what I'm saying here is true. And that the book is true.
Do you REALLY think it's acceptable for election officials to do their own self-audits? Shouldn't there be independent review? Is that really being unreasonable?
See https://www.azmirror.com/2022/01/05/maricopa-county-rebuts-audit-findings-bogus-election-claims/
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmXoPI_mgU
I read the AZ mirror piece. The author of "Debunked?" addresses the county's remarks in his Table 2 of chapter 5. To summarize, the county made numerous comments about how Cyber Ninja's got things wrong. Example: The county said CN found the voter had moved several decades earlier, but the county's data showed the voter had moved much more recently. The thing is, the county refused to say what their data source was. Why won't they say?
2nd example: The county relies on voter attestation "or a trusted source" to verify voter address. CN used USPS and NCOA to determine change of address. The county refuses to say specifically what it means by "or a trusted source." If the "trusted source" is a phone call to the phone number on the application, it may be a phone call to a fraudster. Why can't the county say what their "or trusted source(s) are? What are they hiding?
I didn't re-watch the Jan 6 hearings, b/c I watched some of them at the time- specifically Raffesnperger's and Barr's testimony. This was a proceeding where all Trump-haters were questioning other Trump haters. Do you disagree with that? There's a reason the adversary process is used in court and elsewhere where the truth is disputed and a resolution is needed. If you're ever put on trial, you better pray to God it's a true adversary proceeding, not a show trial like the Jan 6 hearing was.
You didn't answer my question- repeating: Do you REALLY think it's acceptable for election officials to do their own self-audits? Shouldn't there be independent review? Is that really being unreasonable?
I think the examples I gave here, where the election officials say the other party got it wrong but won't say their own data source, are strong reasons why election officials should not be allowed to slide by with a self-audit.
If you disagree, please say why. If you want to include links to support what you're saying, fine. But please don't take the lazy man's way out by using links as a substitute for your own reasons.
I no longer believe that
Nor do I.
Yes. He's one of us. He is not elite and that is what drives them crazy too. Does he act like a jackarse sometimes? Yes (which I don't like). But so have some other great men and women in our history. And I'll add that I think Ron DeSantis truly cares about people too and about our system of government with our individual rights and our country. When he was a Senator, he didn't go on the NGO/special interest sponsored trips or took their money (at least not like others). I saw an interview on C-span once and they kept trying to trip him up with (for example) "Did you go to Cancun for the Republican "study group"?" and he said "No, I don't go to any of that stuff and I don't take their money for my campaign".
The insufferable David Brooks epitomizes what is wrong with our elites and their adjacent or just-below wannabes in the media and the professional classes, not just their incompetence, corruption, and social uselessness but their helpless thirst for power and fear and hatred of truth and reality. However outstanding it may be for the NYT, his article is at best only a half truth, repeating things that have been said better and more fully by many others (like Michael Lind, Joel Kotkin, Charles Murray, or Christopher Lasch on the revolt of the elites) long before Brooks got around to half-acknowledging the truth of the matter. And it leaves out the most important, because Orwellian, part. Our sinister, dangerous elites are going totalitarian in a desperate attempt to cling to power because they are no longer able to benefit the country as a whole or even in the majority. As he virtually admits, they now serve only themselves and in effect want to enslave everyone else. That is the source of Orwell's theory of "Oligarchic collectivism"--a totalitarian regime made possible by certain features of modernity such as mass media, advertising, and digital technology to control, repress, brain-wash, intimidate, terrorize, and atomize the rest of society through fear and manipulation. That is the elite Mr. Brooks declares himself a proud "card-carrying" member of--though he is not a member of the Inner Party but only of the Outer Party, the educated bien pensants. That, however, is the key to the power of the Inner Party, which would be helpless without its ability to attract and overpower its adjacents and just-belows. Mr. Brooks has had a Winston Smith moment, though just a brief one, before he is psychologically crushed and brought back to the Party his savior.
Excellent comment.
Yeah it is. Brutal honesty.
Political pundit is a job that is not profitable unless there are profits to the world of politics.
The best thing we can hope for are constitutional amendments for
1) Term Limits
2) Lifetime maximum federal salary payouts for individuals
3) Full transparency on all federal salaries
BUT BUT BUT BUT, you've got to put in term limits for the staff too! Otherwise, as the people's representatives come and go every couple of years, the staff/bureaucracy is continually there, running the show. CA put in term limits a decade or two ago and yet, the state continued to become more and more corrupt and leftist.
I wonder where the wealthiest counties in the US are, and if those residents would actively work to solidify their hold on wealth?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/swamps-gold-6-of-10-richest-counties-in-america-are-dc-suburbs-10-of-the-top-20
Lets say 30 million Biden voters (conservative estimate, no pun intended)
Each know at least 10 Trump supporters
See/talk/text them 10 times a day
For 3000 days now.
Which means 9 TRILLION opportunities to ask:
"While I don't like Trump, you seem to, why?"
Total number of times asked?
0
Oh, I have been TOLD the insulting narrative-consistent reasons I voted for him.
I have had political poll surveyors call and ask, "You are not one of those racists who is going to vote for that Nazi Trump, are you?!"
But no one has ever asked. Absolute 0 intellectual curiosity, even from "smart" liberals.
And when I take the opportunity to tell them, it is all they can do to cover their ears and say ""Na na na, I don't want to hear racism"
I am glad you have gotten out of your bubble Sasha, (and brave enough to write about it) but you are quire exceptional.
The reason you've never been asked by a Democrat is that all the Democrats who were capable of asking you that have all been ejected from the Dems and are currently conservatives or politically homeless.
We Had a GREAT economy under Trump which was HUGE. I can't overstate that enough....until Covid. (And he trusted Fauci at first).
He brought manufacturing jobs back to the USA by providing tax incentives for businesses to comeback.
He's implemented "School Choice" for poor students in bad schools to go to better schools- somethings Democrats are against, I might add.
He made us energy independent and starting drilling in Anwar, etc. Gas prices were much lower.
He invested in our military.
He's patriotic and brought that excitement back to our country.
He funded black colleges for a decade in stead of yearly.
The Democrats disenfranchised the voters who voted for Trump by spying on his campaign and undermining his entire presidency w/ fake Russia story, etc.
him every step of the way.
The MEDIA'S our major problem. They're still lying, and many fair Democrats & independents, etc., don't know the truth- or the peril we're in - as evidenced by the ACTIONS of the authoritarian Democrat party.
Obama had one of the weakest recoveries from the 08 disaster. The reason Trumps economy was so good are the actions HE took; loosening regulations and lowering the corporate business tax rate so businesses could hire more. Everything improved under Trump, especially for the middle class of which I'm one. I own an entertainment business and my partner has a consulting company and this year is worst only second to the Covid lockdowns, where politicians, paid by the taxpayer, forbid us from working. They disrespected the people as if we wouldn't stay home and protect ourselves until we knew how to deal with Covid. This after having over 100 years of data stating we should keep the world running as normal as possible. Then they censored us when we should have been debating more than ever. As the Great RFK Jr said, and I'm paraphrasing, The good guys are never the ones on the side of censorship. They're doing so much harm to the people, and Trump recognizes this. It's our gov't too. They should listen to us instead of calling us names.
Democrats are also against Charter schools, which have a much better track record of graduating students that can actually read, write and do math at grade level. School choice is vital and no one knows about it- or seems to care- especially the elites. They actually think poor people are stupid. Research Georgia Rep Mesha Mainor who just left the Democrat party to join the Republicans because the Dems would do nothing to help Black African Americans- for nearly 100 years.
Gas prices are $3.89 here in Florida, they were at least a $1.00 cheaper per gallon under Trump because of his drilling policies. Biden would rather buy oil from our enemies and make THEM richer. Still hurts the earth right? But Americans must suffer under the Democrats.
Black unemployment was at an all time low under Trump. And he's Pro Law enforcement, not pro criminal as the Dems are. Dems have controlled Chi Town for 90 years, Baltimore for 75 and nothing gets better. They don't care. They'd do better to elect Republicans, the party that's always been better for black Americans.
Trump released in tax records last year under court order I believe. Now, you hear nothing about them. Interesting. They must have been OK.
MSM lied 20 years ago too, they just hid it better.
Trump speaks to the working class (and enacts policies to help them, as I mentioned above), long forgotten by the Democrat party and the Republican establishment.
"... economic numbers are good under Biden."
https://www.profstonge.com/p/bidens-fake-manufacturing-boom
There is nothing miraculous about Donald Trump. But so far he is the only one willing to take on the elites (both left and right) and their policies, accurately described by David Brooks as making those who support them the “bad guys”.
Republicans aren't doing "witch hunts" or making up scandals regarding Dems, so I don't see the hypocrisy of calling out the Bidens. I'd say that if the political parties were not so all-powerful, an honest "match up" in 2016 would've been Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz; because Trump's baggage, if it was honestly revealed and reported on from the beginning, would've kept him from gaining steam, I think. But providence! Look at Trump's interviews from 30 years ago -he sounds the same and that means there's integrity there - when it comes to his vision of this country, which is a vision that largely lines up with our founding.
The first thing you mention regarding "institutional reform" is the media, but the media is NOT a government institution. As for DeSantis having more success, it's because that's baked into our constitutional republic of a union of states. The States are supposed to have the majority of the power.
I remember thinking after Trump got elected that he had to fire nearly everyone in the executive branch and bring in outsiders for his house cleaning the swamp to work. Btw, I like DeSantis too (he didn't take gifts, trips, etc. from the NGOs and special interest lobbyists while he was Senator) and I don't get the hate some Trump supporters have for him. I'd vote for either one of them.
As for the SCOTUS justice appointment, McConnell went by precedent: With Garland, there was ONLY ONE TIME in history that a justice DID get confirmed by a vote when it was the very last year of a president of the opposite party of the Senate majority. And when McConnell did have a vote for Coney Bryant, there was ONLY ONE TIME that a justice DID NOT get a vote if the president was in his last year of what could be his first term and he was the same party of as the majority in the Senate.
As for Mexico, they did pay for the care of all the asylum seekers that had to stay in Mexico while waiting (sometimes years) for their court date, due to Trump's "Remain in Mexico" policy and Trump did get about 500 miles of wall built (partly replacing old fencing). As for the ACA, the first step was to repeal it, with some provisions (1) and then replace it after (2); but on step 1 was stopped from passing by ONE vote: John McCain.
Trump's rumored germ-a-phobia was his Achilles heal and they took advantage of that, but remember that he talked of therapeutics and that masks didn't work, long, long before the MSM and Industrial Medical Complex/Big Pharma would take these issues seriously. As for the "clot shot", it has killed thousands.
I'm not "swallowing" anything as if it's "the Sermon on the Mount". I nearly stayed up all night on election night and I saw the videos, pictures, people's own witnessed testimony of all the bull that happened that night and the next days: the covering up of the windows to the "curing room" where ballots were "cured" (only DEMOCRAT voting ones, of course), so that observers couldn't see what was going on, observers kicked out of the buildings altogether or kept 20 to 50 feet away (one Democrat-leaning swing district gave binoculars to the Republican observers so they could "observe". What a crock of crap). For the first time on our history, swing districts were SHUT DOWN over a urinal leak that was called a "water main break". Why lie? Because after all the observers and MSM went home, the ballot counters wheeled out hidden suitcases with ballots and counted them. Other swing districts had ballots arrive in bags from the back of unmarked vans, well after election day. The COVID election rules, pushed by Mark Zuckerberg's "Zuckbucks" made our election insecure. A friend's European family and friends (where she grew up) were astonished at the circus it was; so insecure, like a banana republic.
Personally, I thought neither Biden nor Trump would get to 270 electors, resulting in a vote in the House. As for the judges - they no doubt remembered the 2000 election fiasco where judges ended up resolving it and they didn't want to go there. And regarding Trump campaign lawsuits, I think that all but 2 lawsuits were not even allowed through the doors of the courts, which squashes the narrative that "60 courts ruled against Trump's claims of fraud". And the Sec. of States you mentioned, were cowards, in my estimation.
McConnell is more of a RINO and I always wondered why Pence jumped on board as VP and I realize now that it was to keep an eye on Trump -btw, in a speech at a conservative conference in Dec. 2020, Pence said that he'd "NOT REST UNTIL ALL FRAUDULENT VOTES WERE FOUND AND REMOVED". Did you know that recently Pence admitted that he could've sent electors back to their states to review the votes, but he didn't do it because "chaos would've ensued......", but I'd say that CHAOS reigns supreme under Biden's regime!
Why did Trump do so poorly in the election, with a great economy (largest increase in real wages, lower taxes for the middle/working class, low inflation and unemployment, some manufacturing came back and I could go on) and relative peace and a lot accomplished (see the last paragraph for more accomplishments)? I think it's largely because the headlines were dominated with "Russia collusion" and the bogus impeachments instead of his the work that he did.
As for the Senate losses, their losses were more about their lack of experience in politics/gov rather than being "election deniers". Did you know that Democrats voted for them in the primaries? It's cut-throat, dishonest, dishonorable, immoral, unethical, etc. to do so, but they've been doing that for years. It's easy in open primaries (calling all red states: CLOSE YOUR PRIMARIES) and in closed primary states, they sometimes register as Republicans just so they can vote in the primaries for the "most likely Republican to lose in the general election".
Trump was very effective. He had a "promiseskept.com" website that listed all he did and I wanted to copy it all, but it numbered in the many hundreds so I couldn't. He got tax reform down, the Abraham Accords (which Biden & Dems ended), the Remain in Mexico policy, the 500 miles of wall (some replaced old fencing), cleaned up the VA, got NATO countries to cough up more money ("but OH, he was so UNCOUTH at the NATO meetings!"), negotiating an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan that Trump halted because the Taliban was ignoring the boundaries that Trump set up. This was in contrast of the shit-show that Biden did in Afghanistan (ignoring Trump's work) which he later called "a spectacular success" or something like that. Biden wanted the credit, no matter the cost in American's lives who were tortured and killed and the $60 billion of our military equipment left behind for the Taliban, CCP China and Russia. Finally, Trump didn't run for pres originally for self-interest reasons and most of the supposed lies that he supposedly told were (and are) distorted and twisted and edited from what he really said (or actually didn't say).
I didn't imagine what I wrote. I've seen it, read it or heard it over the last decades, by way of the thousands of hours I've spent on news sites, C-span, Youtube, watching hearings, Congressional procedings, interviews, press briefings, etc. Did I get some dates, figures wrong? Probably and I tried to make it fague in that respect. But mark my words, I've seen and heard and read all I've written and since leftist Democrats don't even have those standards, I'll write what I know and invite all to research and correct me. BTW, I'll probably vote for Ron at this point, but who knows when the time comes. Roseanne Barr just said she thinks the election will be postponed.
Nothing more miraculous aside from the fact that he didn't do what hillary would have done had she won.
Sometime benign neglect is a better situation than being ruled by someone who actively despises you.
The left is a cult too, just an ideological one. It doesn't matter who is charge - collectivists don't care who actually is the figurehead.
unfortunately, though, our blue team is trying to out-China-hate the red team, and also, we take as kindly to an anti-war voice as we do to a comedian on campus... but you can prove your point by reading through the last 10 or so Woodward books. Every administration from both parties are wall-to-wall scandals, and all have had special counsel investigations. Every dang one of them...
Sasha is right on this, the blue team's biggest mistake. if only we had just kept a free and fair press. THEN, we could attribute Trumf's success to the red team's realization that they were simply outnumbered and his was a protest vote. Kind of like beer-drinkers cheering Wally George and whatnot... But honest and sane (must be alterative, now) journalists like Matt Tabibi now make the NYT give Biden 4 Pinochio noses retroactively about the whole 'I knew nothing, my druggie son did everything overseas all by himself' nonsense.
Really good observation! Every time I try to explain to my Regressive Dem friends that an authoritarian coup has succeeded in taking over the U.S., and it isn't Trump, all they say is, "You're not becoming a Trumpette, are you?!!" Questions that start with the phrase "You're not" aren't questions, they are commands. And isn't "Trumpette" a sexist term?
I gave up trying to argue with my Dem friends a long time ago. I just avoid the topic. It is quite something living with an open mind in Portland, OR.
Nice reading you again, Sandra. I haven’t spent much time in these comments in awhile. 😉
I’m in Portland too and it’s crazy how close minded people are here. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic asking “is this thing really so deadly that we need to give up our civil liberties?” and being shocked that I got shut down. “I think Dr. Fauci knows more than you!”
Even asking questions is verboten.
Nice to hear from you vernon! Anytime you want a dose of commiseration feel free to reach out to me.
Hey Michael! It's nice to hear from you, too! I noticed that you had not been posting. I have thought of taking a break myself, and can certainly relate to someone deciding to do that.
Things have definitely not become less weird in Portland.
Please don’t go missing! Btw seems Philly has more freedom of thought than Portland. Yo, go figur
Interesting to hear about Philly. Maybe it's because it's bigger and much more "diverse" than Portland. Portland has been mostly a monoculture of educated white liberals. There are substantial Hispanic communities in the rural areas in surrounding counties. Also, a growing population of Indian Americans working for Intel and other high tech companies west of the city. But that's about it. Nothing like the patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods that (used to?) exist in big cities on the East Coast. I totally have missed the food that went with that.
I'll let you know if I lighten up on my posting frequency. It has been disconcerting to lose people.
I learn so much from people like you, Seva, Matt, Danimal, HeyJude, Heritic and others here and do miss their humor and wisdom when they go missing. Like Richard Bickers. Philly cheese steaks, hoagies, pizza, snapper soup are great. The rolls here not found elsewhere. The diversity is result of migrations of Italians, Irish, blacks, whites, Quakers, Hispanic, Jewish, Asian to the area for jobs, education and freedom.
"You’ve all been treating Trump like an elusive mob boss who engaged in dirty dealings, drug smuggling, prostitution, bribery, and even murder, which justified taking extraordinary measures against him to put him in prison finally." - Nah, that's Biden! Sasha, since when do the perjury charges against Clinton look ridiculous now? The man was guilty of perjury, even is fellow Democrats admitted it, they just didn't want to throw him out of office - and neither did Republicans. Clinton was actually guilty of worse, such as using his power to force INS to naturalize a million immigrants so they could vote for him. He was being investigated for that very thing but then Ken Starr got involved and that investigation was shoved into the background and died.
As for David Brooks, the man is Canadian. As for him being "conservative," he's as conservative as the Radical Republicans of Lincoln and Grant's day. He got that label because of his association with Buckley, but look at many of the Buckley followers today - they're the epitome of anti-Trumpers and instead of being conservative, they're right-wing progressives. (Incidentally, the Republican Party was founded by Progressives.) I pay him not little attention, but no attention at all.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious and correct perjury charges against Clinton were duly charged. That one sentence in Sasha’s otherwise great article rubbed me the wrong way. I guess if one is a democrat for 40 years, it’s hard to admit how bad Clinton, Gore, and Kerry are. Bill Clinton is a weasel and as corrupt as Hillary. His presidency was held in check by Gingrich and the Republican House. I’m a lifelong Republican, but I can look back and see how badly GW Bush governed, pushed war, grew our government with DHS, and installed the horrid Patriot Act.
I don't know that he's as corrupt as Hillary. Dolly Kyle said Hillary was the power behind the throne. Jim McDougal said Hillary was the corrupt one. The irony is that Hillary was a Goldwater Girl before she went to college and was brainwashed.
Bill was very involved with the Clinton Foundation, the Haiti disaster corruption up to his eyeballs. They are both despicable corrupt people.
Jim NcDougal made that clear in his book. Bill was taking bribes when he was governor. Bill was probably involved in drug smuggling into Mena. John Y Brown was the favored candidate but he got caught so Democrats switched to Bill. He picked Hillary up in Washington. Incidentally, Bill was kicked out the UK after being accused of assault. They are both despicable but people went nuts over Hillary. She had to leave Arkansas to get elected to the Senate. One of the funniest things I ever saw was a t shirt I saw a young woman wearing in Kentucky. It said, "If Bill Clinton does for America what he did for Arkansas, I hope he wears a condom."
So true. Yep, Bill screwing Arkansas literally all while taking bribes.
So was HW, for that matter...globalist elites stick together.
Read Killary's thesis on Lucifer worshiper Saul Alinsky:
https://www.capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/2009/09/hillaryclintonthesis.pdf
I can't stand the Bushes, including Bush the first. Reagan did not like him at all, from what I've read, but was forced to make him his running mate. What if the Bushes and Clintons NEVER GOT IN POLITICS? It doesn't bare thinking about because it's so sad to think about the much better place we'd be in right now!!
Bush Sr along with GW add two politicians that fooled many. I always wondered why Bush was so timidity polite when it came to Obama. He used the excuse of protecting the image of the presidential office, but had no qualms of disrespect when it was Trump. Both Bushes palled around with Bill Clinton as if he was a long forgotten family member 🤮 even Barbara Bush sucked up to Bill. Then Bush Sr and Clinton headed that foundation together that I’ve never read any concrete proof they actually helped anyone. Then GW had that horrible AIDS Foundation in Africa—again, who did they actually help?
And sorry but Newt is just as corrupt as any of the rest of them…. His own party had its fill of him and booted him out! Dick Army was the other bookend in that destructive duo that drove honest thoughtful moderate Republicans out and let the Dixiecrat faction take over with their Tea Party religion. They lead to the ascendance of Bush/Cheney..
As I recall, Ron Paul was the driver of the Tea Party and he was very much opposed to people like Bush and Cheney because they were Neocons and for big government. Do I miss something about why you think Tea Party led to Bush/Cheney? I think the Tea Party were mostly libertarian politically; and that Bush and Cheney were not.
👏👏
The Tea Party was AGAINST the Bush/Cheney tax and spend and warmongering bullcarp. I was an original Tea Partier and we were more conservative (but not in the neocon way) than Newt and the establishment. We thought Newt gave up the fight to soon and didn't follow through... yes, him not "being thoughtful" was part of it.
The people you describe as "honest thoughtful moderate Republicans" back then would be the Mitt Romneys, Liz Cheneys, John McCains, Adam Kinzingers, Mitch McConnells, Lisa Murkowskis, and Lindsay Grahams of today.
"Honest thoughtful moderate" Republicans are the Republicans who hate their voters.
That list of Republicans are Democrats in hiding. Despicable
Really?? You think honest thoughtful people have no place in the Republican party?? You are appalling! No wonder you call yourself “Evil Incarnate” and we are supposed to take you as one of the Good Guys, huh?
I don't think that at all. I think my view of who is honest and thoughtful is diametrically opposed with who the media describes as honest and thoughtful.
I also think you view of H&T aligns with the media's.
If you think the names I listed are H&T, we don't have anything further to discuss. Let's just agree to disagree. If you want do call me appalling, or worse, you just go right on ahead.
Wait, you say "Canadian" as if that explains everything lol. Don't throw all of us under the bus! I left The Left a few years ago and proudly voted Conservative in our last federal and provincial elections. I woke up and, like Sasha, actually watched the Trump rallies and speeches in their entirety, not just the clips on MSM to push the narrative that he is a racist monster. Granted, most Canadians are cozy in their blindness but there are more than you think that are fully awake and understand what is going on.
I say Brooks is Canadian by birth. So is Ted Cruz. Jeet Heee is another Canadian who writes about US issues. Brooks is a New Yorker and his politics are more inline with 50s Republicans, who were as progressive as they come.
David Brooks a conservative?
I've read somewhere David Brooks described as "the New York Times' pet conservative."
Very apt IMO.
Clinton was also being investigated for his ties to CCP Chinese (didn't he have a Chinese national in his admin?) - his giving of satellite/missile technology to them! Again, this was shoved onto Star's plate and he dropped it!! THAT, AND CLINTON'S ILLEGAL INS ACTIONS, IS WHAT CLINTON'S IMPEACHMENT SHOULD'VE BEEN ABOUT. Maybe that was the point Sasha was trying to make.
Clinton was impeached for lying to a grand jury. He was being investigated for other crimes and actions before Starr decided to focus on the Arkansas accusations. The most serious was that he ordered the INS to rush the naturalization of a million immigrants in certain key states. Henry Hyde appointed a Chicago lawyer, a Democrat, to head the investigation. I don't remember anything about giving technology to China. He did a lot of things, such as waging war against Yugoslavia.
So I'm assuming that Henry Hyde buried the whole thing? I was young at the time, but I got the idea that Starr couldn't take the heat anymore and checked out. Democrats no doubt thought Trump would do the same while they waged their "resistance".
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Clinton+impeachment&i=stripbooks&crid=1K9UVCTQBZMYJ&sprefix=clinton+impeachment%2Cstripbooks%2C175&ref=nb_sb_noss This is the book I'm referring to. David Schippers was the chief investigator. Although he was a Chicago Democrat, he was disgusted with Clinton.
"... since when do the perjury charges against Clinton look ridiculous now?"
It was a so-called process crime. Real, but... It's a "gottcha" crime--"I couldn't get you on anything substantive, but I got you on something technical during the process." Hanging an impeachment charge on a process crime about denying the reception of a BJ is indeed ridiculous. If there was something worse, that would have to be the tact, not catching him lying about a BJ under oath.
"High crimes and misdemeanors are crimes and misdemeanors like a shoe tree is a tree."--Raoul Berger
Loved the whole essay and am so thankful for such a powerful and articulate writer speaking truthfully. Especially liked the reference to “Positively 4th Street”; one of the lines from that song that applies to the NYT for me is “Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is to see you”
My favorite line, Lib.
What a drag it is. 🤣
I am 9th of 10 children and 2nd generation immigrant. Father was a bartender. 4 brothers and me served in military. No need to lecture me about being poor because my family and I lived it. We became wealthy (1% lol) through sacrifice, hard work and good fortune and stayed clear of government programs. I pay over 40% of income in taxes to the welfare mooches. The middle class are screwed because that’s the group the Socialists and Communists get; top 1% like me already has dual citizenship with EU countries and money and property shielded. Middle class doesn’t. No need for making racist comments comments against me here and elsewhere. I am sorry you feel unable to achieve as much without government income obtained by other people’s hard work and not your own. Indeed it must be difficult to feel pride in your situation. But no need to continue the racist and personal attacks, Anon. And it is not the fault of all white people as you state in another post. Instead, why don’t you tell us about how you grew up (how many kids?), in the military or not? abd education, so that we can better understand how you came to identify with - as you say - wage earners.
David Brooks is a puppet. He was brought onto PBS Friday night weekly news analysis after leftist Mark Shields had worn out William Safire, Paul Gigot and David Gergen. The premise was a conservative foil to Shields to provide a sense of balance. After a few years of watching Brooks repeatedly say 'I agree with Mark' the ploy was obvious. Brooks, a left leaning centrist was declared a true conservative by PBS, and anyone to the right was deemed a right wing extremist. And the leftist elite who were mostly the programs audience, bought it. After all these years it appears Brooks is still not sure know who he is and what he believes.
PBS lost it's mind before other news entities, I think. Or maybe at about the same time as CNN, MSNBC, etc.
I agree completely with this column, extremely well written. I’m concerned though about whether the center will hold after this election if Trump wins. To what lengths will these progressive elites go to hold onto power? Buckle up, pray for our country.
The Dems and their apparatus won’t let Trump win. We will become an even angrier nation. I keep asking myself where our country will be after the left installs another puppet. Who will that puppet be?
The "center" will not hold - regardless of the result, nor should it.
No, I belive that owing to worlwide financial collapse, and violence as a result of the left tiring of not getting the response to its efforts to provoke republicans, there will be a social and political upheaval and realignment like nothing this nation has ever seen.
A potent combo of knock-it-out-of-the-park facts combined with a spooky simpatico simply leaves me reeling. Bravo, Sasha.
Wow! Says exactly what I’ve felt regarding the never ending barrage of anti-Trump mania. Move on a-holes!!!
SS...l usually prefer to read my substacks but when I see ‘listen now’ below your essay titles, I get giddy and eagerly await your performative content. This ‘Saturday night special’ did not disappoint! Spot on. Thank you.
Wow! Kickass, Sasha!