The Progressives have not yet figures out that Donald J Trump, when attacked, likes to fight back, and is very good at it.
Hat tip to Ann Althouse.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus three:
Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin pushed for Americans to work together to "burn down the Republican party" in the hopes of extinguishing any trace of the enthusiasm for President Trump.I don't think it is helpful for the body politic to make all discussions life or death. Maybe we need to turn down the rhetoric a tad. Maybe not talk in terms of "burning down" the opposition.Rubin appeared on MSNBC's "AM Joy" Sunday and said that not only does Trump have to lose in 2020, but there must be a purging of "survivors" who still support the commander-in-chief.
"It's not only that Trump has to lose, but that all his enablers have to lose," she said. "We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party."
"We have to level them because if there are survivors -- if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again."
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Reason, by Reporter Robb Soave, 29 June 2019.
Here is the lede plus two:
Andy Ngo, a photojournalist and editor at Quillette, landed in the emergency room after a mob of antifa activists attacked him on the streets of Portland during a Saturday afternoon demonstration. The assailants wore black clothing and masks, and were engaged in a counter-protest against several right-wing groups, including the Proud Boys. Ngo is a well-known chronicler of antifa activity, and has criticized their illiberal tactics on Fox News. He attended the protest in this capacity—as a journalist, covering a notable public event. According to Ngo, his attacker stole his camera equipment. But video footage recorded by another journalist, The Oregonian's Jim Ryan, clearly shows an antifa activist punching Ngo in the face. Others throw milkshakes at him:Nation of Change denigrates Reporter Andy NGO as not being a real Reporter, but that is no reason for violence. What jerks think otherwise?
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
This article, datelined Yuma, Colorado, is about Incumbent US Senator Cory Gardner interacting with two of his potential challenger. Interacting in a very civilized manner. Compared to the Mainstream Media.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Politico, by Ms Heather Caygle, 5 June 2019.
Here is the lede plus three:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Donald Trump “in prison” as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings.Notwithstanding what is happening, I still see Representative Nancy Pelosi as a shrewd player and think she is dealing with a very challenging caucus. A caucus that would as soon engage in self-immolation as give President Trump an inch.Pelosi met with Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several other top Democrats who are aggressively pursuing investigations against the president, according to multiple sources. Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.
Nadler pressed Pelosi to allow his committee to launch an impeachment inquiry against Trump — the second such request he’s made in recent weeks only to be rebuffed by the California Democrat and other senior leaders. Pelosi stood firm, reiterating that she isn’t open to the idea of impeaching Trump at this time.
“I don’t want to see him impeached, I want to see him in prison,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the meeting. Instead of impeachment, Pelosi still prefers to see Trump defeated at the ballot box and then prosecuted for his alleged crimes, according to the sources.
I am hoping the DOJ counter-Investigations will help cool the ardor of some of the more excitable Democrats, and do it without burning the house down, so to speak.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus three:
On Wednesday, PJ Media told you about a group of Asians who were harassed in the street because they were wearing MAGA hats.This was truly boorish behavior, behavior encouraged by parts of the Democratic Party.An individual who goes by "Bigalow Black" on Twitter proudly posted a short video clip on April 30 showing several street thugs harassing a group of what looked like Asian tourists.
"Not Around Here Pimp...Ain’t None Of That Make America Great Again Sh*t," wrote Black, who hails from Washington D.C., and Miami, according to his Twitter profile.
The video shows a group of black men surrounding the Asians, grabbing the MAGA hats off their heads, and throwing one of them in the air before stomping on it.
It gets worse. PJ Media has since learned more about the individuals who were attacked.What ever happened to the New Civility?"The Asians wearing MAGA hats were not just tourists," Wendy Wright, president of Christian Freedom International, told PJ Media. "They are North Korean defectors and South Koreans who get rice, medicine, and Bibles into North Korea and North Korean defectors out."
The attack happened in Washington, D.C, Wright said.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From PJ Media, by Mr Tyler O'Neil, 4 March 2019.
Here is the lede plus four:
Last Thursday, the Judeo-Christian law firm American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) sued Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) Executive Director Agustin Arbulu for using the arm of the state to quash their First Amendment rights. Nessel and Arbulu had referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) "hate group" labels in launching a new hate-crimes unit "to fight against hate crimes and the many hate groups ... in our state."I am not sure that substituting the word hate for the words ignorant or stupid is doing us much good. It sure doesn't do anything for civility. Didn't the Democrats once promise us a "new civility?""It’s one thing for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a private organization, to engage in political propaganda and political hyperbole," Robert Muise, co-founder and senior counsel of AFLC, told PJ Media on Monday. He said it's a violation of the Constitution "when you have the attorney general who’s relying on that political propaganda to investigate and target us with the power of the state."
"You now have the government giving its endorsement to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s nonsense — that now triggers our constitutional protections," Muise insisted.
He summarized the new policy in Michigan succinctly: "'We're going to keep files on you.' It's Orwellian. It's Big Brother. It's the thought police."
The AFLC lawsuit brings three claims against Nessel and Arbulu: violation of free speech rights under the First Amendment; violation of expressive association rights under the First Amendment; and violation of equal protection as guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Democrats, being the party of science, should realize that across the bell curve of human beings there will always be small numbers at both extremes. Having those people will not change that. On the other hand, love might shrink the numbers at the edge.
Remember the words of Governor Huey P Long, when Fascism comes to America it will call itself Antifascism.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus five:
Yamiche Alcindor of National Public Radio asked the president why he calls himself a “nationalist” when he should know that the word has been twisted into a meaning it once never had.It isn't just about CNN's James Acosta, who has had his White House Press Pass lifted.♠ The Press Corps seems to be trying to prove, during Press Conferences, how evil the White House is, under President Trump.“Mr. President,” she said, “on the campaign trail you called yourself a ‘nationalist,’ and some heard that as emboldening white nationalists. There are some people that say the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?”
This is the classic ‘when-did-you-stop-beating your wife’ question. To answer it is to accept the premise, that a nationalist is a racist and bigot simply because “some people” say so, and that “the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of [the president’s] rhetoric.” She apparently never learned that “some” is not a legitimate source.
The president might have delicately said something like “I have never said anything to support racial bigotry,” or merely defined “nationalism,” a devotion to national rather than international goals, and let it go. But It’s difficult for anyone, even a president, to let such an accusation go. Attributing bigotry to someone with whom you disagree has become a liberal’s first line of argument, and even a president finds it hard to ignore, and this president doesn’t do letting it go.
“I don’t know why you’d say that,” Mr. Trump replied. “Such a racist question. Honestly? Let me tell you, that’s a racist question. Why do I have the highest poll numbers ever with African Americans? That’s such a racist question. I love our country, I do. You have nationalists, and you have globalists. But to say what you said to me is so insulting to me. It’s a very terrible thing you said.”
“The Washington Press Corps,” reported one Web publication, “was floored.” The White House reporters, who can sometimes seem like a “corps,” but the reporters who cover the presidents are never so organized as a “corps.” (Aside to Barack Obama, the scholar from Harvard, Columbia, and Occidental College, it’s still pronounced as if it were spelled “core” not “corpse,” which is a dead person.)
The only thing that is surprising is that the Press Corps, and their Masters back at the newspapers and stations, are surprised that the President pushes back.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
♠ It did seem like Mr Acosta was acting like he was the star of the show and should be afforded more than his fair share of the time.
From The Federalist, Senior Editor Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, 7 November 2018.
Here is the lede plus one:
Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., revealed plans for House Democrats to investigate and impeach Justice Brett Kavanaugh for alleged perjury and investigate and impeach President Donald Trump for alleged treasonous collusion with Russia.The blogger at InstaPundit, Mr Stephen Green, comments:In post-election chats with various callers while riding the Acela train from New York to Washington, Nadler gave advice to a newly elected representative and discussed potential 2020 Democratic presidential nominees with another. He also lamented identity politics and the thriving economy and worried about Democrats losing working-class voters while gaining elite former Republicans and suburban women.
The Kamikaze Wing is in charge and they haven’t even been sworn in yet.Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
From Life News, by Reporter Hen5ry Rodgers, 16 October 2018.
Here is the lede:
A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party was suspended after saying Republicans should be brought “to the guillotines” after the November midterm elections.The problem with revolutionaries is that they eventually eat their own.
Just saying
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede:
I would like fair-minded liberal readers to take a look at this op-ed from The New York Times, and consider that this is exactly the kind of left-wing racist rant that drives many of us white people into the arms of the Republican Party — not out of any particular love for the GOP, but out of fear of what this progressive racism would do in power. Alexis Grenell, the author, is a white woman and a Democratic strategist. Here’s the headline on her article. Note well that authors do not choose their headlines. This was written by someone at the Times:As an aside the headline is a bit awkward.
White Women, Come Get Your People
.
They will defend their privilege to the death.
Here is the conclusion of the article, and it points to a bad future if we don't mend our ways:
Alexis Grenell — who earned her master’s degree in 2015 from an Ivy League school (Columbia) — is the face and the voice of elite liberalism. The Times editors read her savage essay and considered it within the mainstream of commentary, whereas no responsible editor of any serious publication would have published the same kind of rhetoric wielded against people of color.So the accusation of being a Jacobin may not mean much to you, but if that is so, it is because you don't know your history. Let us cheat and check the dictionary:Rivers of blood … blood pact … gender traitors … defend their privilege to the death.
This is the language of tribalism. This is blessed by elite liberal gatekeepers, as long as it is wielded by the Righteous Tribe, against the Deplorable Tribe.
Members of the Deplorable Tribe are fools if they fail to notice this, and to respond to it. And you’re a fool if you don’t recognize that you are part of the Deplorable Tribe whether you want to be or not.
I prefer not to be. I prefer to be part of the American tribe, judging people not on the basis of their reproductive organs or the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That’s the America I want to live in. It’s the America that people like Alexis Grenell and the editors of The New York Times want to end.
Useful to get that learned. These people are Jacobins.
jacobin | nounThe Terror? Here is a statistic:historical a member of a democratic club
established in Paris in 1789, The Jacobins were the
most radical and ruthless of the political groups
formed in the wake of the French Revolution, and in
association with Robespierre they instituted the
Terror of 1793-4.
Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris.In the Comments of Mr Rod Dreher's article:
I’m just waiting for the day when the NYT changes it’s tagline to “White People are our Misfortune”.A classic reference.
Like Mr Dreher, "I prefer to be part of the American tribe". And I prefer that we give others the space to be wrong, and they us.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Kulturkampf is a "culture struggle", or struggle for cultural survival.
From The Federalist, by Doctoral Researcher Sumantra Maitra, 26 September 2018.
Here is a key paragraph:
The Kavanaugh nomination battle of course is the culmination of this leftist Kulturkampf. The soft coup didn’t happen in one day. The Obama era metastasized a massive bloating of public bureaucracy with liberal extremists and ideologues, the spread of campus kangaroo courts, activism, and aggressive public movements and marches, the replacement of news with social media controlled by amoral technocrats and shadowy edited algorithms, and the cultural battlefield totally ceded to the neo-Marxist left.If you think this isn't the case wait for the next nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. She is, after all, a member of the People of Praise Community at Norte Dame.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus one:
A Massachusetts woman was reportedly taken into custody on Monday after she allegedly drove into a car sporting a Trump bumper sticker.I wonder how many people have been dinged in a parking lot, or had their car keyed for a bumper sticker?The arrest of Chloe Wright, 25, followed an alleged hit-and-run in Hyannis on June 30, the Cape Cod Times reported, citing a police report.
I hope the woman who did this gets the [mental] help she needs.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
This is how it starts out:
Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rejected calls of civility in a recent interview, calling for “strength and resolve” to resist President Trump.Speaking of "uncivil", I think using the phrase "Failed presidential candidate" is pretty uncivil. Not as uncivil as inviting the President's Press Secretary to leave the Red Hen, but still, at some level, uncivil. "Losing" would be better. On the other hand, "Failed" is closer to the truth.The Guardian reports that when asked about some on the left becoming “uncivil” recently, she responded:
“‘Oh, give me a break,’ she erupts, eyes widening into indignation. ‘Give me a break! What is more uncivil and cruel than taking children away? It should be met with resolve and strength. And if some of that comes across as a little uncivil, well, children’s lives are at stake; their futures are at stake. That is that ridiculous concept of bothsideism.'”
Clinton also mocked people who call for civility in political discourse, imitating, “Well, you know, somebody made an insulting, profane remark about President Trump, and he separated 2,300 children from their families, that’s both sides, and we should stop being uncivil — oh, and, by the way, he should stop separating children.”
That said, being uncivil can reach a plateau, or dissipate, or get more harsh. The interesting question, the important question, is what happens if it gets more harsh. Are there any limits? When does rhetoric turn to violence? And once violence begins, how far does it go? Frankly, violence seems to lead to civil war, does it not?
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
While we are now in the shunning phase, with people being run out of restaurants, we will come to a fork in the road, where we return to civilization, a new civility that the Democrats once talked about in the recent past, or we go full James T. Hodgkinson, with bullets flying.
I am hoping that this heated rhetoric will soon cool off. Maybe a report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller saying that there was no collusion will calm things down. We can only hope.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Doxxing is publishing on the Internet the personal information of someone you find odious in some way.
Doxxing results in people being harassed, losing their jobs and losing their businesses. Sometimes even folks a couple of degrees of separation away from the primary target.
Please don't engage in doxxing. It is definitely low-rent.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede plus five:
One of the activists who chased Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen out of a Mexican restaurant Tuesday night over the Trump administration’s immigration policies is an employee of the Department of Justice, The Daily Caller News Foundation has confirmed.The right to free speech is the right to be stupid, or uncouth, as in this case.Members of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America crashed Nielsen’s meal with a demonstration full of chants and other outbursts.
One of those participants, _______ ______,♠ actually works for the Trump administration — as a paralegal in the DOJ.
“Kirstjen Nielsen, you’re a villain, locking up immigrant children,” activists can be heard saying in a video.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Not doxxing here.
Here is the lede plus five:
As Twitchy reported, Michelle Wolf said some pretty horrible and unfunny things about Sarah Sanders at the lame White House Correspondent’s Dinner last night and from we can tell from her equally lame tweets when people called her out, she’s not overly sorry she bullied Trump’s press secretary.Ever been at a T-Intersection, where both the left and right streets were One Way, toward you? I think that is where Sarah Huckabee Sanders is, vis-a-via the White House Correspondents.Liberals, right?
Welp, seems The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern had someone else in mind to blame for the way Wolf treated Sanders:
Marlow Stern
@MarlowNYC
The White House purposely sent Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway to the #WHCD to then feign outrage at the jokes made at their expense, so... don't fall for it
9:56 PM - 28 Apr 2018
God Bless you, Sarah.
Hat tip to the Instapundit.
Regards — Cliff
What is this supposed to mean?Asks Law Professor Ann Althouse, at her blog, on 27 December 2017.
Here is the closing paragraph:
So the illustration means that the Senate holds the gavel and it "must" smash Thomas Alvin Farr in the face with it. I understand it now. It's very crude, violent, and ugly. And somebody at the NYT decided it belonged on that column.Remember The Old Gray Lady of old, the one with refinement such as to make it our "Newspaper of Record"? That was a long time ago.
Hat tip to Ann Althouse.
Regards — Cliff
Here is the lede:
Reputations aren’t what they used to be. The bigger they are, the faster they fall. Reputations that lurched upright for decades, showered with a confetti of newspaper clippings, festooned with honorary degrees, and fortified with genuine accomplishments, can be brought down today with an inglorious crash in a frenzy of social-media fury, like Frankenstein’s monster given the old village stomp. Two thousand seventeen has hosted a monster mash of big-name demolishings, an extended Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of problematic men. Disturbing, unsavory rumors had long ghost-dogged the producer Harvey Weinstein, the producer-director Brett Ratner, and the writer-director James Toback, dark princes whose names became associated by many in the film industry with a bad moon rising. (Disclosure: I’ve known and been on friendly terms with Toback since the 1970s, when we met through the movie critic Pauline Kael.) Louis CK’s masturbatory spasms were the simmering subject of gossip and speculation seemingly for ages, likewise the salacious rumors and bad vibes riding on the skulking shoulders of Kevin Spacey. The accusations against Spacey of sex with minors and aggressive groping of co-workers which led to the demise of House of Cards and the radical excision of his performance from Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World confirmed suspicions that had brewed in the whisper zones of show business for a considerable spell. Hence, it was mulishly mistaken of journalistic Hall of Famer Gay Talese to fume at the New York Public Library’s Literary Lions celebration, “I hate that actor that ruined this guy’s career,” as if the incident with Anthony Rapp were an isolated lapse that leapt out of the blue. (As for Talese’s lecturing adult survivors of sexual abuse to “suck it up once in a while!,” oy. It sounded like something Larry David might blurt out on Curb Your Enthusiasm, landing himself in a heap of grief.) However, I understand Talese’s reportorial itch to profile Spacey and ask what it’s like to lose “a lifetime of success and hard work” in a whoosh. Only, the person I’d want to know that of is Mark Halperin, a journalistic juggernaut formerly of ABC, MSNBC, NBC, HBO, Showtime, and the best-seller list, now professionally stuck in oblivion.We are talking a long article, with long paragraphs.
But, the thing is, the sarcastic Mr Wolcott is a sexual harasser. I point to "…McCain’s ding-a-ling running mate, Sarah Palin." Gratuitous. Adds nothing. Shows him to be a jerk. I give it a TL/DR.
Hat tip to Memeorandum.
Regards — Cliff
