Shenanigans!

We all need to be on the alert for voter fraud or elections fraud in November. The Democrats are already using social media for ‘dirty tricks’ to keep down the attendance at Trump rallies. Who knows what they will do in the election?

This article is based on three sources–a U.K. Mail article posted yesterday,  a Geller Report article from today, and a Fox News article from today.

The U.K. Mail reports:

TikTok users and K-pop fans claim they reserved hundreds of tickets for Donald Trump‘s Tulsa rally on Saturday night with no intention of attending.

Political strategist Steve Schmidt, an outspoken critic of Trump, tweeted on Saturday night: ‘My 16 year old daughter and her friends in Park City Utah have hundreds of tickets. You have been rolled by America’s teens.

‘@realDonaldTrump you have been failed by your team. You have been deserted by your faithful. No one likes to root for the losing team.’

…Brad Parscale, campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 campaign, tweeted Saturday night: ‘Radical protestors, fueled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage, interfered with @realDonaldTrump supporters at the rally.

‘They even blocked access to the metal detectors, preventing people from entering. Thanks to the 1,000s who made it anyway!’

The Geller Report reports:

News outlets would probably have dismissed as conspiracy theory the notion that people – liberal wackos, American teenagers, KPop fans, and even foreigners – gamed the Trump Tulsa rally by reserving tickets that they had no intention of using in order to deliberately drive down the attendance and crowd size, had it been Trump who brought it up.

But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not only admits that it happened, she’s THRILLED about it. In tweets on Saturday she directly taunted Trump about it and praised those who did it.

…Oh so it’s all cool then? Russians on Facebook is the END OF DEMOCRACY but teenagers and anonymous users foreign and domestic using China’s TikTok app to prevent people from attending the other party’s campaign event is some great and wonderful thing? Remember when they bashed Rush Limbaugh as unpatriotic and possibly Satan for suggesting interfering in Democratic primaries?

Fox News reports:

“Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud,” Ocasio-Cortez added.

In a separate message, Ocasio-Cortez thanked “KPop allies,” a term referring to fans of Korean pop music.

“KPop allies, we see and appreciate your contributions in the fight for justice too,” the congresswoman wrote.

…Many of those participating in the alleged scam deleted their posts after 24 to 48 hours in a bid to limit word of the plan from spreading on mainstream social media, the Times report said.

“These kids are smart and they thought of everything,” Daniel told the paper.

KPop activists were previously linked to campaigns to raise money for Black Lives Matter, fight racist hashtags on Twitter and disrupt the eyewitness app of the Dallas Police Department, Vulture.com reported.

This is simply disgusting. It is foreign election interference although those responsible will never be charged. If Americans want to see fair play in the election season, they are going to have to stop voting for people who brag about doing things like this.

A Message I Wish Everyone Would Heed

Townhall posted a very timely article today. The conservative movement received a stomach punch yesterday when Rush Limbaugh announced he had advanced lung cancer. Rush stopped smoking cigarettes years ago, but still enjoyed his cigars. Unfortunately, smoking anything is not good for you.

The article notes:

Quitting smoking is no guarantee of anything. The effects of cigarettes linger long after the smell is washed away. But the damage those cancer sticks have done can’t start to be reversed unless and until you’re rid of them forever.

While Rush quit cigarettes long ago, he was famous for being a cigar aficionado. But tobacco is tobacco; inhaling smoke in any form, even the small amounts cigar smokers who “don’t inhale” are inhaling is still inhaling smoke. It’s better just to walk away from all of it.

I know a little of what Rush is going through. Last year, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. We got lucky, if you can call it that. My father had pneumonia and ended up in the hospital because of it. While treating him for that, they noticed something on a chest x-ray they otherwise wouldn’t have done. They biopsied it and it was cancer. Thankfully, it was very early.

The article concludes:

Rush doesn’t have any children, but what he lacks in offspring he makes up for with other family and millions of fans. His brother David is a good and strong man of faith who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know and can safely say he’s worth at least three kids in situations like this. And Rush is willing to do whatever is necessary, which will help.

Add to that the millions of fans pulling for him, and no prognosis is absolute.

If you were like I was and started smoking as a kid because there’s nothing dumber than a teenager, quit. You feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof when you’re young. You realize you aren’t when you grow up. Quitting is no guarantee of avoiding a horrible diagnosis or good health, but continuing is simply stupid. If you love someone, or even ever hope to, quit. Your body can’t start getting better until you stop making it worse.

I grew up in a house that was always filled with smoke. I grew to hate the smell and never started smoking. I am grateful for that, but I lost both of my parents way too soon due to health problems either directly or indirectly related to their smoking. We know enough to know that smoking is not good for you. We also know that it is highly addictive. We need to work harder to bring up children who see the danger and the negative health impacts and never pick up a cigarette. We also need to encourage tobacco farmers to find other crops and to stop any government subsidies that go to tobacco farmers.

Sad News Out Of Florida

Breitbart is reporting today that Rush Limbaugh has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He announced today that he will be undergoing treatment and will continue to broadcast his radio show during this time. Please follow the link to the article to read his entire statement.

In about 1990, I worked in a company that allowed me to listen to the radio at my desk while I worked. During the Gulf War I began listening to the briefings by United States Army General Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. These briefings were generally around lunchtime, and if I left the radio on, the Rush Limbaugh show followed. My first impression of Rush Limbaugh was that he made events in Washington understandable to political neophytes like me. That began a pattern of listening to at least a portion of the Rush Limbaugh Show throughout my working career. I learned a lot. I eventually learned how to look behind what I was being told and see what was really happening. I began my career as a blogger in 2008. I was inspired by the idea that an ordinary citizen could learn how our government works and how it doesn’t work.

I wish Rush Limbaugh a full and speedy recovery. However, in looking at the impact of this announcement, we need to realize the road he has paved for the success of some of the people who have followed in his footsteps. We now have Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Andrew Wilkow, David Webb, Sebastian Gorka, Todd Starns, Glenn Beck, and countless others. Hopefully we will have Rush Limbaugh for many more years, but we will also have the conservative talk show hosts that have so beautifully followed in his footsteps, and we can thank Rush Limbaugh for that!

The Problem With Boycotts

Boycotts are a peaceful means of protest. If enough people get involved, they are effective. But in order to be effective, the people encouraging them need to have a fairly good read on public opinion. Focus groups before boycotting would probably be a good idea. In recent years, we have seen a number of examples of boycotts that failed because the people behind the boycott were not in tune with popular opinion.

Recently boycotts of the sponsors of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham have been attempted. All have failed. Some sponsors left the shows, but generally speaking, new sponsors appeared. A few years ago there was a boycott of Chick-fil-A because its founder supported traditional marriage. That was a massive failure. I drove for an hour to go to a Chick-fil-A during that boycott, and I am sure other people went out of their way to show their support. Anyone is free to boycott anything for any reason. However, it is interesting to me that the boycotts of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Ingraham (and Chick-fil-A) were all attempts to stifle free speech. In a sense, the boycott of In-N-Out is an attempt to intimidate people making political contributions.

As much as I want to see transparency in the money in politics, the boycott of In-N-Out is one reason why releasing the names of donors to political causes might be a really bad idea in today’s political climate. Last week there was an attempted boycott of In-N-Out  because they donated money to the California GOP. So how did that go? The American Thinker posted an article today about that boycott.

The article reports:

Ashley Reese of The Slot writes that she’s “never been more insulted by a burger” in her life. 

She should have known, she says, that this revelation was coming.  After all, she knew that In-N-Out “hid Bible scriptures on their soda cups and burger wrappers,” and that “reeks of GOP.”  But what’s perhaps most telling is that her indignation continues even though she is quite aware that the chain also donates to Democrats, including $80K “this election cycle to Californians for Jobs and a Strong Economy, a committee focused on electing business-friendly Democrats to the State Legislature.”

In-N-Out quickly addressed the “controversy” in its having donated to Republicans with the following statement: “For years, In-N-Out Burger has supported lawmakers who, regardless of political affiliation, promote policies that strengthen California and allow us to continue operating with the values of providing strong pay and great benefits for our associates.”

To a reasonable observer, that statement suggests balance, not a partisan agenda.

But, Reese whines, “that doesn’t make me feel better, you guys!”

When did Bible verses become insulting? When did Bible verses become associated with one political party? What happened to the fact that our legal system in America is based on the Ten Commandments in the Bible?

The article concludes:

This boycott will be no more successful than the Chick-fil-A boycott, I predict, likely for the same basic reason.  As Jaime Regalado, emeritus professor of political science at California State University, Los Angeles describes, “[t]he stomach overrules the mind … a cheap, good-tasting burger is hard to dismiss politically.” 

But the premise of left-wing activists for this boycott is even more radical than the boycott of Chick-fil-A, given that In-N-Out’s only crime is that it is beholden to the non-ideological goal of “providing strong pay and great benefits” for its employees and appears to seek bipartisan solutions to attain such progress legislatively.  That is, in fact, what many Americans in the political center want.   

It’s as if the universe is providing us with yet another metaphor for just how radical and intolerant the left is rapidly becoming, and how leftists would rather scream more loudly into their ideological echo chamber than appeal to anyone outside it.

I don’t want to give the Democrats any worthwhile ideas, but I think they are in need of a good focus group.

When The Shoe Is On The Other Foot

No person is entirely objective. No honest person claims to be. In the field of journalism, some of the people who claim to be objective are not, and some people simply admit their biases and go on from there. I have no problem with a reporter being biased as long as he is honest about where he is coming from. Tilted journalism occurs on both sides of the aisle. It is, however, interesting to see how far left of center most journalists have moved in the last thirty years. Up until the early 1990’s, there was one point of view being put forward–it began with The New York Times and continued through the three major television networks’ nightly news. When Rush Limbaugh began his national radio show, things began to change–conservative viewpoints were being heard. The monopoly was over. Fox News is actually slightly right of center, but is always being attacked as right wing. Actually CNN is so far left of center that it seems as if the center has moved. We will never have totally centered news–what we actually need is balance. A new network is attempting to bring that balance, and the cries of those in fear of losing their monopoly are getting loud.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about Sinclair Broadcasting, a network which forced its news anchors to read a promotional statement on air about fake news. The gist of the statement was that Sinclair was not going to be fake news and was going to endeavor to be fair and objective. The reaction by other media was telling.

The article reports:

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said that Sinclair appeared to running “Pravda-style propaganda” that he likened to the old Soviet Union. “So here you have an entire broadcasting system running a propaganda clip.

“People will say, ‘Oh, look at the conservatives reading their scripts,’ [but] it’s actually got nothing to do with conservatives, it’s Trumpian and it does smack of … state-run media for an autocrat,” Scarborough said.

The promo video did have one big booster: Trump tweeted his support.

One Sinclair insider said a news anchor at one station had objected when he read the script and said he felt “uncomfortable.”

Does anyone remember President Obama’s JournoList? On July 25, 2010, The Daily Caller posted an article about the JournoList.

The article reports:

In 2007, when Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein founded Journolist, an online gathering place for several hundred liberal journalists, academics and political activists, he imagined a discussion group that would connect young writers to top sources.

But in the heat of a bitter presidential campaign in 2008, the list’s discussions veered into collusion and coordination at key political moments, documents revealed this week by The Daily Caller show.

In a key episode, Journolist members openly plotted to bury attention on then-candidate Barack Obama’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman, for instance, suggested an effective tactic to distract from the issue would be to pick one of Obama’s critics, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

…Yet Journolist’s discussions show an influential left-wing faction of the media participating in a far more intentional sort of liberal bias.

Journolist’s members included dozens of straight-news reporters from major news organizations, including Time, Newsweek, The Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, PBS and a large NPR affiliate in California.

Aren’t these some of the same people who are going crazy because Sinclair Broadcasting spoke out against fake news? Seems like the pot calling the kettle black.

 

 

Some Thoughts On Hawaii’s Mistaken Alert

Rush Limbaugh said some very interesting (and true) things about Hawaii’s false missile alert. I would like to share them here.

This is part of the transcript of what Rush Limbaugh said yesterday on his radio show:

You know, I mentioned on this program countless times that one of — you know, we all have pet peeves. And one of my biggest pet peeves is arrogant condescension. People who know less than I do who think they know more than everybody else, and they’re arrogant about it. And then they condescend, treat you like you’re an idiot, treat you like you can’t possibly know what you’re talking about.

The second — and it’s kind of related — the second pet peeve that I have is people insulting my intelligence, and it happens frequently. And we are in the midst of it right now with this explanation of what happened in Hawaii with the, “Oops, the guy hit the wrong button!” And for 34 minutes, the people of Hawaii thought they were dead. Yeah, he hit the wrong button twice.

Have any of you — don’t do this if you haven’t — have any of you on your iPhone ever had to erase the whole thing for whatever reason to start over? It’s called settings, general, reset. And there are many different things you can reset. You can reset network settings, you can reset the whole damn thing, which means that you are going to erase everything on the phone. You have to confirm that a minimum of three times.

Apple will not let you do that accidentally.  And it’s an iPhone and there’s not a single nuclear code on an iPhone.  All there is is your personal data.  All of your passwords, your settings, whatever is on the phone, if you have to erase it, which you can do, you will get three different alerts asking you if that’s what you really intend to do, if you’re really certain about it. And there are areas like this all over the iPhone.

There is a feature that hardly anybody knows about.  It’s well hidden.  It happens to be one of my favorite features that Apple will not divulge anything about.  It’s called significant locations.  I’m not even gonna bother to tell you where it is.  That’s not the point.  But you can clear the location history from your phone if you want to.  Your phone records, where you’ve been.  I happen to think that’s marvelous and magic and great and I love it.  And I use it.  Other people are paranoid about it.  They think Tim Cook is spying on everything they do, just like Zuckerberg spying on every Facebook user and the Twitter people — (laughing) it turns out the Twitter people are spying on you!  O’Keefe has yet another video from Project Veritas.

They’re collecting everything at Twitter on you, everything, including your photos.  They’re creating a sexual file of all of their users.  They’re creating a data file on everybody at Twitter, by their own admission.  More details on that.  Anyway, if you want to clear your location. Let’s say you have effectively been made paranoid about your phone recording where you’ve been.  And you find out about it, “Oh, no, I want to get rid of that.”  Okay.  You go into significant locations, and you tap on “clear history.”

You will have to do it three times.  You’ll have to confirm that’s what you want to do three times. Just like if you want to erase the whole phone, you’ll have to confirm that three times. “Are you sure you want to?”  Yes.  “Are you really, really sure?  This is gonna erase everything on your phone, and you can’t go back and undo this.  Are you sure you want to do it?”  You tap “yes.”

It comes back, “Do you really know what you’re doing here?  Are you certain that you want to take this phone and make it like it’s brand-new out of the box?”  And yet we’re told that on a nuclear warning test, the guy hit the wrong button twice.  We’re now told the guy hasn’t been fired.  He’s barely been reprimanded.  We don’t know his name.  He’s going to be reassigned.

…And we’re told, “Ah, the guy hit the wrong button.”

I just can’t accept this, not within the context of everything that has gone on that has been originated in or perpetrated by the American left and our administrative state. The Hawaii emergency management administrator, Vern Miyagi, reported one of his employees clicked the wrong button twice, said, “It’s embarrassing, but again, it’s a mistake.”

Why hasn’t it happened before? If it’s this easy to make this kind of mistake, why hasn’t it happened before? And why did it take 34 minutes to correct this mistake? People were living in abject fear, except for one guy who kept playing golf. I like that guy. He said (paraphrasing), “Even if it’s true, I’m going out doing what I love. To hell with it. I’m not hiding in some sewer drain.” But that’s what people were doing. They were hiding their kids everywhere they could. I mean, for 34 minutes the Hawaii emergency management administration allowed abject fear to percolate in the state of Hawaii.

“Vern Miyagi, the administrator, said, that he “was supposed to select the option for a drill. Instead, he chose the real thing twice. ‘A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes. This is not a drill.’” Grab audio sound bite number 17. Here is what it sounded like…

VOICE: The U.S. Pacific Command has detected a missile threat to Hawaii. A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes. This is not a drill. If you are indoors, say indoors. If you are outdoors, seek immediate shelter in a building. Remain indoors well away from windows. If you are driving, pull safely to the side of the road and seek shelter in a building or lay on the floor.

So let’s say the employee did this on purpose. Thank God America did not respond. The military would have known if there actually were missiles in the air, so they would have known the alert was a mistake. Did the military scramble? Did they know about the alert?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the person who pushed the button thought that if he could get a dangerous response out of President Trump, President Trump could be declared unfit for office. Having watched the media for the past year, I am convinced that there are some people out there who would put the safety of America at risk to bring down President Trump. The irrational hatred of President Trump is totally amazing. Was this person willing to start World War III in order to prevent President Trump from succeeding? I don’t know. I do know that Microsoft Word won’t even let me close down its window without telling me that I am going to lose what I have typed. Surely, our missile alert system is better than that.

Confirming What We Knew All Along

On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about media coverage of President Trump. Those of us who thought that according to the media President Trump could do nothing right have been proven correct.

The article includes the following:

Aside from being unfair, this is not good for Americans. This is divisive and accomplishes nothing.

The article reminds us:

The obvious counterpoint is that Trump’s first 60 days had an unusual amount of bad news in them so of course the coverage would be negative to match. He rolled out the travel ban in late January without much of a heads up to John Kelly or James Mattis; he watched the House GOP introduce a fantastically unpopular health-care bill and fail to pass it; his national security advisor resigned over discussions he’d had with the Russian ambassador about sanctions; and Trump himself did what Trump tends to do, popping off on Twitter about Obama wiretapping his phones, assuring congressional leaders that he actually won the popular vote, and so on.

Still, the first 60 days were also when Trump delivered his well-received address to Congress, and it was a period in which various well-regarded cabinet members were nominated and/or confirmed. He nominated the eminently qualified and amiable Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court just 10 days into his term. Still: 5/62 on the coverage. Even allowing for the fact that there’s more overtly partisan media now than there was when Obama took office, let alone Bush or Clinton, some of the media outlets and programs tracked by Pew for this survey include *overwhelmingly* pro-Trump entities like Breitbart, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Tucker Carlson. Exclude them from the data and what’s the split on positive and negative coverage overall? 1/62? 0/62?

As the mainstream media becomes more irrelevant because of alternative news sources, they are jockeying for a place in the new news paradigm. Today’s reporters live in a politically left vacuum where facts are irrelevant. When today’s liberals are confronted with facts, they either change the subject or personally attack. It is my belief that the anti-Trump bias we are seeing in the mainstream media is the result of the fact that the 60’s hippies became college professors and chose to indoctrinate their students rather than teach them to think. That may be why the average liberal reacts the way he/she does when confronted with facts.

 

Thought For The Day

Some wisdom from Rush Limbaugh:

Is it the sudden realization that Trump imploding, if they think that’s what’s happening — by the way, don’t bank on that yet, folks.  Don’t infer anything yet.  But they perceive it.  The media perceives it.  The media is trying to create the impression, is it that they’re associating a Trump implosion with a party implosion?  Is it that they thought maybe they could arrange it so that Trump would bomb out but that wouldn’t have any effect on the party? 

How it can be that when these people, the people I’m talking about have made it clear that they’re abandoning the party as long as Trump’s there.  The party’s not worth standing with and saving.  No.  Because Trump’s the head of it as the nominee, because Trump’s saying he’s a Republican.  It’s not worth saving the Republican Party.  No, I’m going to join the Democrats or I’m going to join some third party or I’m going to go independent or raise money for Hillary or whatever. 

Now, the need for an intervention, that story’s coming from Trump supporters.  And, by the way, who is it, somebody’s claiming that Newt started that story, that it’s not a genuine story.  

Donald Trump is a serious threat to the status quo. Those who have held the reins and brought us to where we are will no longer be in charge if he is elected. Those who have been increasing their own wealth at the cost of the American taxpayer will no longer be able to do that. The lobbyists will have to reevaluate which parties to attend and who to suck up to. I don’t know if Trump is imploding or not, but I know that the Washington elites would prefer Hillary and would not at all be in a panic if Trump imploded. Therefore, I hope the story is a lie.

Who Gets The Job?

This is not an article–it is just a question. Does anyone else see the problem with Donna Brazile and George Stephanopoulos doing the coverage of the Republican convention on one of the major networks? If you don’t see a problem with this, are you willing to let Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh do the network coverage on the Democratic convention?

The North Carolina Establishment Republicans Are Not Behaving Well

One of the best sources for information about the battle between the conservative and establishment Republicans in North Carolina is the Daily Haymaker. They have posted two stories recently about that battle (here and here). The latter story illustrates how the GOP establishment has carried its battle into South Carolina.

Rush Limbaugh explained this on his program today:

I have an incredible story here last night — and, by the way, just to give you a little bit of inside data, if you watched the debate last night, did you hear a lot of boos for Trump? (interruption) Did you wonder about that? (interruption) Well, you knew where it was coming? (interruption) Where was it coming from? (interruption) Where do you…? (interruption) No. (interruption) No. (interruption) It might have been the Bush camp, but I’ll tell you where the boo birds were coming from.  They were coming from North Carolina. 

The North Carolina GOP bused a bunch of people down there and their express purpose was to try to show that there is no massive support for Trump.  They wanted to do some damage.  They are grudgingly accepting Ted Cruz now.  But can you go back just maybe three, four weeks? How many of you remember the Republican establishment embracing Ted Cruz, promoting Ted Cruz, thinking Ted Cruz would be the solution? I mean, it didn’t happen, did it?  But it has worked out that way. 

The only way to stop this sort of garbage is for Americans to begin to do their own research about the candidates and get out and vote their consciences. As I have explained before, I am not a supporter of Donald Trump, but I hate the fact that the establishment Republicans want to run another moderate for President. The lessons of history show that moderate Republicans do not win presidential elections.

Debunking The Media Lies

Donald Trump is not a media darling. He is not even an establishment Republican darling. His support seems to come from people who are fed up with politics the way it is currently done and looking for change. He has a few major political players gunning for him–Republican and Democrat. Therefore it should not be surprising when his remarks are twisted to make it sound like he said something he did not. I need to mention here that I am not a supporter of Donald Trump. He is not at all my first choice for a Republican presidential candidate, although I would vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton.

The Associated Press is reporting today:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has voiced support for creating a mandatory database to track Muslims in the United States – the latest in an escalating series of responses following the deadly attacks in Paris.

This seems like an odd comment from someone who generally handles the press as well as Donald Trump does. Well, Rush Limbaugh posted the actual transcript of the remarks the media statement claims to be quoting.

This is the transcript (from Rush Limbaugh):

TRUMP:  There should be a lot of systems beyond database.  We should have a lot of systems.  And today you can do it.  But right now we have to have a border.  We have to have strength.  We have to have a wall.  And we cannot let what’s happening to this country happen.

REPORTER:  But is it something your White House would like to implement?

TRUMP:  Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely.

REPORTER:  What do you think the effect of that would be?  How would that work?

TRUMP:  It would stop people from coming in illegally.  We have to stop people from coming into our country illegally.

REPORTER:  Muslims specifically, how do you actually get them registered into a database? 

TRUMP:  It would be just good management.  What you have to do is good management procedures.  And we can do that.

It seems to me that Donald Trump was talking about a wall to keep illegal immigrants out. I think the question he was answering was not the same as the question he was being asked.

At any rate, the story is questionable at best.

The commentary at Rush Limbaugh also mentions the following:

I think the reporter is Hunter Walker.  If that’s who it is, you need to know that this guy is a major backer of Hillary Clinton, as most in the Drive-By Media are.  He has written endless articles championing her, and now I think he writes for Yahoo News and is the Business Insider politics editor. 

We are in the silly season–the time when you really can’t believe most of what you hear from the mainstream media. Be on guard, there is an obvious attempt at manipulation here.

Are We Being Played?

It looks as if Paul Ryan will be the next Speaker of the House. That is not horrible news, but for the average conservative, it really isn’t great news. Paul Ryan is very smart, he understands the budget better than almost everyone, and he is well respected. However, he is not a strict conservative. The upside of Paul Ryan as speaker is that he can explain positions and articulate ideas very well. He will be good at contrasting differences between Republican and Democrats on most issues. The downside is that he is not really a strict conservative. So why are we getting Paul Ryan as Speaker?

There is such a thing as the ‘political class.’ There is also such a thing as the ‘donor class,’ the people who supply large sums of money to election campaigns. According to Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday, Paul Ryan’s position on immigration appeals to both the Republican and Democratic donor class. The Democrats want voters and the Republicans want cheap labor. Therefore, Paul Ryan will be the next Speaker of the House.

The Daily Caller also posted an article about this yesterday.

The Daily Caller concludes:

Politics is messy. And while members of the Freedom Caucus are hard core conservatives, they do not share the same passion that animated the people who were most actively opposed to a Speaker Ryan. Additionally, Ryan has assured them he will not seek immigration reform while President Obama is in office.

Once you get past the “amnesty” issue — which was a deal breaker for some — Ryan is obviously the most conservative candidate who could ever realistically get the job. And a super majority of conservatives in the House, it seems, agree.

As usual, there is no perfect solution. The question in my mind is whether or not the people have a say in this process. Have we reached the point where the political class and the donor class unite to overrule the people’s class? We will see in the future whether or not this was an acceptable solution.

Sometimes Media Bias Is Very Subtle

One way the mainstream media is showing its favoritism toward Democrat candidates is the way the debates are conducted. A website called bizpacreview posted a story today about CNN’s plans for the debate.

This is the quote that says it all:

As much as CNN “trumped” up their Republican debate to get the candidates digging at each other, the network will handle the Democrats with kid gloves.  And nobody is expecting sparks to fly, with Rush Limbaugh calling it “a dryball.”

Moderator and CNN host Anderson Cooper said in a Sunday interview, “Going into the Republican debates, you pretty much knew there were a number of candidates who were willing to [attack each other].” He added, “That’s not the case, so far as we’ve seen, on the Democratic side.”

“I’m always uncomfortable with that notion of setting people up in order to kind of promote some sort of a face off,” Cooper continued, contradicting the entire format of the Republican debate CNN hosted.

CNN’s Jake Tapper seemed very comfortable getting the GOP candidates to face off against each other.

Translated loosely, what is being said here is simple–we are hoping that the Republican Presidential candidates will destroy each other and we can appear to be objective. However, we don’t want the Democratic Presidential candidates attacking each other, as that would provide ammunition for the Republicans during the actual Presidential campaign.

The article reports Rush Limbaugh’s comments on Monday:

So it’s Anderson Cooper who’s just out front here saying, sorry, we’re not gonna do that, we’re not gonna pit these people against each other…  [They] certainly don’t think they have to be critical of people on their own side for credibility, which, sadly, is what many Republicans still believe.  That the only way you can be credible as a Republican or as a conservative media person is to be critical of your own team.  That proves that you’re not biased.  That proves you are not afraid to criticize your own people.  Except it never happens on the left.  CNN would never, ever, do anything. Now, the candidates might, but CNN’s not gonna do anything to make any of these people look bad.  They rally the troops. They circle the wagons. They do everything they can to protect.

The political parties (and the people in them) are entitled to act in any way they please. It is just a shame that the mainstream media chooses to take sides and the American voters do not get a clear picture of their choices.

Kindness Seems To Be A Bit One-Sided

I am not going to print any excerpts from the article I am referencing. I am simply asking you to follow the link and read the article itself. The article contrasts the reactions of various people when Rush Limbaugh went into drug rehabilitation after becoming addicted to pain bills taken for a back problem with the reactions when Bob Beckel took a break from The Five for a similar problem. The difference in the responses is amazing. The differences in the situations are very minor.

This Isn’t News–Some Of Us Have Known It All Along

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article about a recent statement by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy.

The article reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public health as coal-fired power plants are shuttered. McCarthy, however, put special emphasis on how the rule would reduce asthma rates, which affect African-American children.

Rush Limbaugh said once that if the world were going to end tomorrow, the New York Times headline would be, “World Ends Tomorrow–Women And Children Most Effected.”

If we have any doubt that the climate-control movement was the new home of the communists and socialists, the above statement by Ms. McCarthy should remove all doubt.

The article reports:

Green For All acknowledges the need to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our current economy was based upon human trafficking, the exploitation of labor, and violent racism,” according to the group’s website. “We are safe enough to be invited into spaces where power-building groups are not, and radical enough to push a deeply justice-based agenda in those spaces. We are radical enough to partner with grassroots organizations when other national groups are turned away, and enough of an ally to offer resources and support in those spaces.”

The article reminds us that the disruption in the economy would hit the very people the movement claims to be helping the hardest. The higher energy costs would impact small businesses, causing people to lose their jobs. Lower paid and unskilled workers would be impacted. Low income people would be devastated by higher energy costs.

Wealth redistribution never accomplishes anything good. It simply makes more people poor. It also allows certain people who are in control to be immune from having their wealth redistributed. Generally speaking, it is a really bad idea. Socialist and communist countries have a much lower standard of living than countries where people are free and have property rights. To move in the direction of socialism or communism is to move toward poverty–not toward economic equality or freedom.

When Government Works

Yes, government can actually work. You haven’t heard about this one example because it really does not illustrate what the media wants illustrated, but government can work.

Yesterday The Blaze reported on some comments made by Rush Limbaugh about what is happening in Wisconsin. You haven’t heard much about this, but the state has done an amazing turn around.

The story reports:

The state of Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is “rapidly falling” and the government’s budget ended the year with a $912 million surplus, Limbaugh explained. He says the dramatic turnaround is due in large part to the conservative policies of Gov. Scott Walker.

What’s even more amazing, he continued, is the fact that Walker is going to “rebate the money in the form of tax cuts to the people, who he said own the money.” Limbaugh says the news is “earth-shattering” because, in one of the bluest states, Walker was targeted for removal twice but continued to implement conservative policies that he was confident would help his state — and his strategy appears to be working.

If you think back a little bit, you remember what Governor Walker went through to implement his plans for the state. He had protestors trashing the capitol, he survived recall elections, and personal attacks, but he just kept on moving forward.

The article reminds us:

“He’s going to cut income taxes and property taxes, and he made the point that it’s not just a gimmick of budgeting or accounting. It’s the result of serious, significant policy changes,” Limbaugh argued.

“Now, folks, what I just told you was not reported once anywhere in what you would consider mainstream media. It was not reported on one cable network, much less all of them. It was not reported in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the LA Times,” he added. “It was reported in Wisconsin. There was an AP story on it, maybe some local papers picked it up, but just as a filler.”

“And to me, for us as conservatives, Wisconsin and Governor Walker, I mean, everything that we want to happen, happened there,” the radio host concluded.

When government is done right, unemployment goes down, taxes go down, and everyone gains. When government is done wrong, unemployment goes up, taxes go up, the number of people receiving food stamps goes up, and everyone loses.

It is, in the long run, up to the voters to decide what they want.

“He’s going to cut income taxes and property taxes, and he made the point that it’s not just a gimmick of budgeting or accounting. It’s the result of serious, significant policy changes,” Limbaugh argued.

“Now, folks, what I just told you was not reported once anywhere in what you would consider mainstream media. It was not reported on one cable network, much less all of them. It was not reported in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the LA Times,” he added. “It was reported in Wisconsin. There was an AP story on it, maybe some local papers picked it up, but just as a filler.”

“And to me, for us as conservatives, Wisconsin and Governor Walker, I mean, everything that we want to happen, happened there,” the radio host concluded.

Listen to the segment via the Daily Rushbo:

Walker is proposing a $504 million property and income tax cut plan as a means to return some of the surplus money to the people of Wisconsin. Some Democrats and Republicans are already criticizing the plan and are calling for changes.

“The budget surplus is really your money,” Walker recently said at a meeting of the Wisconsin Grocers Association. “You earned it.”

However, some lawmakers are concerned that Walker’s tax cut plan would increase the state’s projected budget shortfall from $700 million to $800,000 million. The Republican governor argues the estimates don’t take into account any revenue growth, which he says will cover the difference.

The unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped to 6.2 percent in December and has been dropping steadily since 2011.

Featured Comments

  • Shreknangst

    A $912 million surplus, turns into a projected $700-$800 million deficit … a $1.6 Trillion negative shift.
    Somehow that sounds like Reagan era traditional GOP math and economics … Where are the Tea Party and their idea of cutting deficits? This guy seems to be creating a massive one, and, naturally, Rush doesn’t see it.
    A 6.2% unemployment rate doesn’t leave much room for growth in the economy. To wipe out that $1.6 Trillion negative shift, the state would need to get to nearly zero unemployment.

    Shreknangst

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Is There Any Part Of This Plan That Will Improve Healthcare?

My husband and I are in the process of moving, which is why posts have been rather erratic lately. In the process of getting everything done, I had a chance to listen to Rush Limbaugh today. He made some very interesting points about ObamaCare. In his comments, Rush Limbaugh mentioned a Forbes article written by Steven Hayward predicting that even if the ObamaCare website is repaired, ObamaCare will be repealed before the 2014 election.

The article states:

Senate Democrats endangered for re-election will lead the charge for repeal perhaps as soon as January, after they get an earful over the Christmas break.  They’ll call it “reform,” and clothe it in calls for delaying the individual mandate and allowing people and businesses to keep their existing health insurance policies.  But it is probably too late to go back in many cases.  With the political damage guaranteed to continue, the momentum toward repeal will be unstoppable.  Democrats will not want to face the voters next November with the albatross of Obamacare.

Rush Limbaugh pointed out some basic facts about this “reform.” He pointed out that if healthy people do not sign up for ObamaCare and pay the higher premiums, there will be no way to pay for healthcare for sick people and the whole system will collapse. The Democrats will probably attempt to solve the problem by offering subsidies to middle class families. America cannot afford to do that–we are already running unsustainable deficits, but the Democrats won’t care about that–they simply will be looking for a way to be re-elected.

Meanwhile, the Western Center for Journalism reported the following:

Lisa Martinson called customer service after she forgot her password. That’s when she was told that three different people were given the password to her account, her address, and her Social Security number. Then she was told it would take up to five days to get her personal information offline.
Please follow the link to the article to watch a short video of her story.
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About Those Fiscal Cliff Negotiations…

Friday’s Wall Street Journal posted some of the details of the negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker Boehner.

The article reports:

Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.

Blaming may work politically up to a point, but I honestly don’t see it as a way to move the discussion forward.

The article cites some of the actual negotiations:

At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”

“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

Good grief!

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article on Friday about the negotiations on the fiscal cliff. In the article he quoted Senator Jeff Sessions:

President Obama today gave yet another speech about the fiscal cliff. No plan, nothing that can be scored or analyzed, just another speech. If President Obama wishes to avoid the fiscal cliff then he, with all the power and influence he holds as the leader of this nation, must submit to Congress – in legislative form – a plan that he believes can pass both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. No more secret meetings and pointless press conferences. Certainly this is not too much to ask. So we await his action: will he move from an unscorable speech to scorable legislation? If he is unwilling to submit such a plan then we may be left with only one persuasive conclusion: that he has used two years of secret meetings with Republican leaders not as an opportunity to achieve fiscal reform, but as a political exercise to defeat his opposition and preserve the expansion of federal spending.

There are a number of ideas as to what President Obama is doing. Two of them are very interesting. Rush Limbaugh believes that this exercise is an attempt to divide and destroy the Republican Party by getting them to admit that tax hikes on the rich are necessary. Dick Morris believes that the current negotiations are an effort to change to discussion from excessive spending to the idea that we need more revenue. Each is plausible. Meanwhile, the American economy sits in limbo waiting to see what happens next. We need some grown-ups in Washington. Let’s elect some in 2014.

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A Consice Summation Of A Really Dumb Story

Hugh Hewitt (my favorite talkshow host – on the internet at Townhall.com) posted an article at the Washington Examiner that I think totally sums up the recent Rush Limbaugh dust-up. The headline of the story is “Nothing shocks when anything goes.”

Mr. Hewitt states:

There is one standard for all commentary, and it ought to apply to Palin and Ms. Fluke, to President Obama and President Bush, to Justice Thomas and to Justice Kagan.

So credit nothing of a condemnation from anyone who has not first articulated his or her standard, preferably backed up with a reference to the rebukes they have handed out to themselves and their own team, and only if that standard condemns all of the profane, the vulgar and the bigoted.

Can we now get back to the real issue of a government forcing an organization to provide services that go against their religious beliefs?

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How Does This Woman Find Time To Study ?

 Rush Limbaugh has come under fire recently for his rather crude comments of the moral character of supposed co-ed Sandra Fluke. Although I might not agree with his words, he was telling the truth and making some good points. There does seem to be more to the story. Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday detailing some of Sandra Fluke’s biography.

The article reports:

The Democrat’s token abused college coed is actually a 30 year-old hardcore women’s rights activist.

Sandra Fluke is also the past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice.

The Democrat’s token abused college coed is actually a 30 year-old hardcore women’s rights activist.

Sandra Fluke is also the past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice.

Jammie Wearing Fool reported on Sandra Fluke’s status as a student:

I put that in quotes because in the beginning she was described as a Georgetown law student. It was then revealed that prior to attending Georgetown she was an active women’s right advocate. In one of her first interviews she is quoted as talking about how she reviewed Georgetown’s insurance policy prior to committing to attend, and seeing that it didn’t cover contraceptive services, she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy. During this time, she was described as a 23-year-old coed. Magically, at the same time Congress is debating the forced coverage of contraception, she appears and is even brought to Capitol Hill to testify. This morning, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, it was revealed that she is 30 years old, NOT the 23 that had been reported all along.

In other words, folks, you are being played. She has been an activist all along and the Dems were just waiting for the appropriate time to play her.

It gets worse. CNS News reported some of her testimony and did the math:

“Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school,” Fluke told the hearing.

…So, they can earn enough money in just one summer to pay for three full years of sex. And, yes, they are full years – since that could translate into having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently.

At a dollar a condom if she shops at CVS pharmacy’s website, that $3,000 would buy her 3,000 condoms – or, 1,000 a year. (By the way, why does CVS.com list the weight of its condom products in terms of pounds?)

Assuming it’s not a leap year, that’s 1,000 divided by 365 – or having sex 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years. And, I thought Georgetown was a Catholic university where women might be prone to shun casual, unmarried sex. At least its health insurance doesn’t cover contraception (that which you subsidize, you get more of, you know).

I will admit that I was married before the ‘sexual revolution’ and that I don’t really understand how things work today, but why is it the government’s responsibility to pay for contraception? And why is the Obama Administration so desperate to get rid of the conscience clause in medicine? On Monday, RedMassGroup pointed out that the healthcare plan proposed by Hillary in 1994 recognized a religious and moral right of healthcare insurers and workers to refrain from providing healthcare services that violated their consciences. Why is Obamacare different?

What I need to say in conclusion is that we have all been sidetracked. The battle is for the right of conscience and the right to live your life in accord to your religious and moral convictions. The battle is not about how a talk show host describes the sex life of a supposed co-ed.

 

 

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Something I Hadn’t Noticed

 When I heard President Obama say that he wanted to cut some government agencies, I thought that was good news. Washington, D.C., is one of the few areas of the country that has experienced job growth since President Obama took office; the government does need to shrink. However, CNS News posted an article yesterday the curbed my enthusiasm somewhat.

Yesterday on his show, Rush Limbaugh pointed out that all of the agencies the President wants to shrink or cut are ‘pro business.’

The article points out:

Let’s look at the types of agencies Obama wants to the authority to shrink, Limbaugh said:

“The Commerce Department, The Small Business Administration, The Office of the U.S Trade Representative, The Export/Import Bank, The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, The Trade and Development Agency.

“Now what do these agencies all have in common?”

“They’re all pro-business…and this is where Obama wants to shrink.  You can even say those agencies might lean to being pro-Republican or pro-Conservative.”

Rush is right. I guess I should have been paying closer attention. Please follow the link to the article at CNS News. The comments are as informative as the article!

 

 

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