Political Pistachio: January 2016

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Manipulating Language (Philip K. Dick)

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The concept of language manipulation is nothing new. Five times in his Federalist Papers writings James Madison felt the need to explain what a republic is. The Constitution had two foes; the anti-federalists who feared the creation of a central government, and the nationalists who felt the creation of the federal government did not go far enough. The latter, in an attempt to sabotage the new Constitution, and move the system closer to a pure democracy (which is a transitional government to oligarchy, once the voting public is convinced to vote away individual rights and liberty), worked to convince the public at large that there is no difference between a republic, and a democracy.

Andrew Jackson finally convinced a large portion of the voting public that we are indeed a democracy, or at least we should be, and under his drive for a more democratic system, Thomas Jefferson's party, the Democratic-Republicans, abandoned the republican standards it had been known for, and changed its name to the Democratic Party.

Even Karl Marx recognized the usefulness of democracy to tyranny. He said, "Democracy is the road to socialism."

The Federalist Party, the party of John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, sought to manipulate language with the very naming of their new political party. Federalism was a concept that emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The Federalists, however, were nationalists. To hide their big government tendencies they chose to be called Federalists, to make it sound like they embraced the Constitution. In reality, their goal was to subvert the Constitution through concepts like implied law and judicial review.

The term liberal has also been manipulated by statists. During the Progressive Era, the term "progressive" was losing steam as the policies of the statists were seen as a failure to the voting public. The liberals, classic liberals that were strict constitutionalists, were seen in a more favorable light. The limited government principles of the liberals were successful, and popular with the voters. So, the progressives hijacked the word for themselves. Now, a hundred years later, the new liberals are working the word "progressive" back into the lexicon, since they have soiled the term "liberal," and nobody remembers the failings of the original progressives.

In today's society, through political correctness and political preferential treatment, language is experiencing constant change. The word "gay" has gone from "happy," to "stupid," to "homosexual." Marriage is being redefined to fit a political agenda (some may say "undefined"), and one can never seem to put a finger one what a politician is saying anymore. One thing is for sure, government has decided it is their job to define language as they please, in turn redefining rights, liberty, and who their enemy is. Once the voting public is convinced that those who stand for liberty are the enemy, they will raise the red flag of tyranny willingly and enthusiastically themselves, while sacrificing those who in truth are all that stands between them, and bondage.

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
― Philip K. Dick

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Battlestar Galactica: Precipice (S3/E2)

by JASmius

Rating: **

Written by: Ron Moore
Directed by: Sergio Gezzan

When Commander (Lee) Adama, CO of the battlestar Pegasus, first appeared on my TV screen, I was impressed with how much more of him there was than the last time I saw him. It was almost like looking in my own mirror. This is a guy who has, shall we say, “let himself go” something awful. Which can’t be all that thrilling for Mrs. Adama, who thought she was marrying a stud warrior and ended up with a pudgy couch potato instead.

But then it’s not like the Galactica and Pegasus have had much to do these last four months. Why, I’m not sure. As I recall, there were three Cylon base ships that jumped into the New Caprica system. I would have expected at least one of them to be dispatched to pursue the fleeing “ragtag fleet” and eliminate any possibility of subsequent counterattack and rescue. That’s what the classic Cylons would have done; the idea apparently never occurred to their twenty-first century counterparts.

On the other hand, I’m not sure what the Adamas have been doing ever since other than, in #1 son’s case, sitting around working on his beer belly. It took them, or rather the admiral, that long to make up his mind to go back and attempt a rescue mission? (Which, come to think of it, is also a suicide mission, or should be, but obviously won’t) What’s the elder Adama been doing, feeling sorry for himself? Drinking his way through Tigh’s private reserve? Wanking furiously to the Tricia Helfer poster he keeps secreted in his quarters?

Well, okay, that’s probably not entirely fair. The thing that contrives the latest conflict between father and son is the repeated battle drills ordered by the former that irritate the frak out of the latter because, so Lee rationalizes, any attempt at rescuing New Caprica will be suicide. Which, of course, would be spot-on accurate in the real world, but here is just an excuse for the Pegasus CO not to get off his fat, and ever spreading, ass.

The real motivations are that Lee has “lost his edge,” and, let’s face it, has all his needs being met right where he is with food (and plenty of it, by the looks of him) and nookie (from a doubtless increasingly revolted Dualla) right at hand. Why endanger that on a fool’s errand that can’t possibly succeed? Whereas his father can’t live with the notion of leaving another Human colony behind again at the Cylons’ mercy.

This familial impasse leaves the admiral with nobody to turn to for commiseration except….Boomer v. 2.0, whose initial “misdirecting” of a Raptor to New Caprica in the first place seems to have been completely and conveniently forgotten. Except here, of course.

Enough with the table-setting. Let’s cut to the chase.

A “hidden” Raptor dispatched by Admiral Adama to “observe” New Caprica finally makes contact with the insurgent leaders. No, I don’t know why this would take four months, nor why the Cylons wouldn’t be perforce jamming every frequency to prevent just such a clandestine communication. Or where the insurgents got all that computer hardware including flat-screen monitors or where they’re getting their power from or how the Cylons wouldn’t detect it or…. Never mind. Point is, if Tigh and his two goofball lieutenants had had the presence of mind to build a failsafe into their “detonate me, Duck” device, a rescue mission might remotely, conceivably, possibly have been barely, infinitesimally possible. After the demolition of the NCP commencement, the Cylons start clamping down with a vengeance.

This, of course, is its own dramatic pretzel. We still have no idea how Caprica Six and Boomer v. 1.0 were able to flip the entire Cylon race over to their allegedly (and comparatively) pacifist way of thinking so quickly, nor how the notion of Human and Cylon going their separate ways in peace translated into the Cylons conquering New Caprica. Surely even the most starry-eyed idealist – Cylon, anyway – could not have seriously supposed that Humans would docilely submit to permanent captivity and inexorable cultural annihilation. Realization of such was the foundation of the Cylons’ original genocidal mission.

Only thing I can think is that Six and Boomer didn’t flip their fellow “skin jobs” but rather negotiated a compromise – conquest rather than annihilation in order to give the two “heroes of the Cylon” a chance to test their new philosophy of “peaceful coexistence” to a literally captive audience. That does make some sense; unfortunately we’re not given a hint of it in the dialogue, other than in the most implicit sense of growing dissension within the ranks of the Cylon leadership.

At any rate, the escalation begins, as the Cylons have their Human collaborators – oh, sorry, the NCP – round up hundreds of “suspected insurgents” at random as a message to the insurgent leadership who, naturally, all evade the dragnet. Included in this sweep is Cally, Tyrol’s wife, but not their newborn son, Nicholas, whom Tyrol finds bawling in his crib when he returns to their tent. I guess "now, it’s personal", right?

Not to Tigh, who refuses to stop the suicide bombing campaign even over the objections of Laura Roslin, who has no authority to dispute anything with the one-eyed sailor but doggedly tries to do so anyway. Like any civilian, she fears the escalation and believes that nothing will come of it except the eventual extermination of the remaining Human colonists. In the real world, she’d be right, but this is fiction, and the story demands that the Cylons keep their escalation gradual and piecemeal, so Tigh’s rejection of her objection carries the day.

Sure enough, after another suicide bomber blows up a power substation, the Cylons force President Baltar at gunpoint to sign a death warrant for the random execution of two hundred Humans. Interestingly, Baltar refuses at first – before the gun is put to his head – and hesitates even after it is while Imaginary Six gives him the “live to fight another day” speech, which is so lame even Baltar doesn’t buy it since he never has fought the Cylons to begin with.

I found it odd that the Doral model that was holding the gun resorted to high-decibel verbal badgering to bully Baltar rather than letting the gun do his talking – as it did when he shot Caprica Six (Baltar’s current bedmate, don’t forget) right between her baby blues when she tried to intercede on the prez’s behalf. But then Baltar looks down at the document and sees his signature there, almost as if it wrote itself without his knowledge. Clearly even Baltar’s self-serving nature is not, after all, bottomless, and some breaking point is approaching. Frankly it’s the only remotely interesting story track animating the current tired saga.

Speaking of squared circles, Leobin Conoy finally makes progress in his subversion of Starbuck via the most insidious gambit imaginable – a little hybrid girl named Kacey, born of Conoy’s and Starbuck’s “genetic material,” the latter of which was obtained back on Old Caprica in “The Farm”. Or so Conoy tells her, anyway.

Conoy attempting to romantically win over Kara is creepy enough, but this is REALLY creepy. And at first the Galactica CAG doesn’t buy it. But Conoy doesn’t argue; he simply departs, leaving the little girl in Starbuck’s charge. Still Kara doesn’t soften, until, after having left the living room, she hears a thud. Looking around, she finds little Kacey face-down, unconscious, blood pooling around her head, apparently having fallen off the staircase.

As you might expect, Kara’s maternal instinct starts kicking in. Or at least her sense of decency. Whatever Conoy and his toaster cohorts have done to her and her people, little Kacey isn’t responsible for any of it. In many of the same ways she’s as much as victim of Cylon tyranny as Kara is. She certainly can’t help existing or being what she is, and Kara’s battle with Conoy has nothing to do with her.

Only, of course, it does. Little Kacey is as much a weapon as a gun or a cannon or a raider or a nuke or a base ship. But in order to fight that weapon Starbuck would have to treat Kacey just like a Cylon gun or cannon or nuke or raider or base ship. And this she cannot do, just as Conoy calculated.

By the end of the ep not only has Kara bonded with her unasked-for daughter, but she’s not even aware of Conoy starting to feel her up at Kacey’s bedside. Brrrr; made my skin crawl, it did.

It probably needs pointing out that Hera, the first Cylon-Human hybrid, is still being concealed from the Cylons as if she was still one-of-a-kind. Which, I guess, she is so far as the insurgents know. With the introduction of Kacey, that raises the question of what disposition will be made of both little half-breeds. Perhaps if this series runs long enough, they’ll both grow up to be the BG equivalent of Neo and Agent Smith, super-beings, one good, one evil, upon whose battle the fate of two entire races will turn.

Or maybe we’ll be flooded with star-children by the end of season three. Does Ron Moore even know at this point?

The ep’s ending crescendo builds as, at an undisclosed location in deep space, Admiral Adama bestows an officer’s commission on Boomer v. 2.0 and dispatches a team under her command to New Caprica to coordinate the rescue with the insurgents; compromises with his son by agreeing to let the Pegasus and the civilian fleet resume the search for Earth while he takes the Galactica back to try and rescue the New Caprica colony (guaranteeing that Lee will come to his pop’s rescue at the Last Possible Moment [tm] – Hey, maybe this will be how they get rid of the Pegasus); while, back on the ground, the Cylons prepare to execute their two hundred “insurgents,” including Cally Tyrol, Laura Roslin, and Tom Zarek.

The execution scene is vintage infamy and misdirection. Infamy in that a Cavil model orders the truck convoy halted so that the prisoners can “[compress] their legs,” only to have a line of centurions come clanking up the embankment, weapons at the ready. Misdirection in that one of the NCPers, having raging second thoughts about his collaboration, frees Cally and tells her to “run and don’t look back.” Which she doesn’t, as her ears catch the cavalcade of fire that we imagine is mowing down the Human prisoners, but which we never actually see.

There’s a reason for that, explained most explicitly by Mary McDonnell’s continued presence in the opening credits. Unless, of course, she’s actually a Cylon, too.

Oops, did I give away the next swerve? Gods, I hope not.

Next: The “Exodus” commences.

Remember When Republicans Nominated Republicans Who Were Conservative & Weren't Jerks?

by JASmius

France Declares War On Israel

by JASmius

In the trademark French passive/aggressive fashion, of course.

Funny how nobody but us Zionists ever stops to think about the Israeli-"Palestinian" "problem" and exclaim, "Just who the hell do the Euros (and the Obamunists) think they are that they blatantly interfere in Israeli national sovereignty and dictate to the Jews what they can and cannot do on and with their own territory? If any country or coalition tried pulling that anyplace else in the world, they'd be condemned as aggressors and ethnic cleansers and a great many other epithets. But when the target is the Jews, somehow that's perfectly alright.

Well, okay, the "international community" did pull that on the Serbs in the late 1990s over Muslim Kosovo, to date the lowest, most shamefully infamous point in NATO history. But what, in this case, the French are trying to do to Israel is even worse:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for a more "sober" approach towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in dismissing a French peace initiative as only encouraging Palestinians to shun compromise.

The proposal on Friday by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for an international peace conference was the latest sign of Western frustration over the absence of movement toward a two-state solution since the collapse of U.S.-brokered negotiations in 2014.

Fabius said that if the French plan did not break the deadlock, Paris would recognise a Palestinian state.

Such a step would raise concern in Israel that other European countries, also long opposed to its settlement-building in occupied territory, would follow suit.

Think about that, folks. The dynamic in the so-called Middle East "peace process" from day one a quarter of a century ago has been the "international community" bullying Israel into self-disembowelment of its meager territory in order to set up a "Palestinian" state inside its borders run by bloodthirsty jihadists who are bent on finishing the "Final Solution" Adolph Hitler started. When the Israelis have meekly cooperated, no concession they have ever made has ever been enough, and the result has been one Intifada after another for which they get blamed by the "international community". When the Israelis have justifiably balked, the "international community" issues economic and diplomatic threats, including recognition of a "Palestinian" state that does not and never will be allowed to exist as long as it would be populated and led by bloodthirsty jihadists.

It is an ongoing attempted mugging. The "international community" makes no pretense of being balanced or even-handed but is blatantly pro-Pal and anti-Semitic, which sends and reinforces the message to the Pals that what they're doing - bloodthirsty jihadism - is working and being rewarded, incentivizing more of that same bad behavior. That is all that Prime Minister Netanyahu is saying - that if there is to be a "two-state solution" and genuine peace (which is impossible, but work with me here), there must be expectations and requirements of the Pals as well as the Jews, and first and foremost among them is the immediate cessation of their institutionalized Jew-hatred and the violent jihad it breeds. No such expectations or requirements are ever imposed on them because the "international community" is scarcely any less anti-Semitic than are the Pals. And that's the problem, and why there can be no "Middle East peace". It isn't Israel's fault, but nobody ever holds the Pals accountable.

But the French are so "frustrated" at this "lack of progress" that they're prepared to....reward the Pals for their bad behavior with full diplomatic recognition of a statehood that does not exist. Laurent Fabius might just as well send a one-sentence telegram to Bibi that says, "Vas te faire encule, Juifs."

I'm sure the former IDF commando would be happy to respond in kind.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Epic Global Debt Defaults

by JASmius

It's funny how this subject makes so much no-brainer sense on an individual level but governments make such a conundrumical mystery out of it. It's the simplest of the simple: If you live way beyond your means, you will go into debt, and if you don't start living well within your means and discharge that debt, but instead keep piling it up, the less likely it is that you ever will pay it off. That is what is called a default.

When individuals do so, they go into some form of bankruptcy; when a government does so, and it's a penny-ante one like Greece, their creditors just roll over their debt and let it keep piling up. When it is the entire First World, let's just say that the Sweet Meteor of Death can't get here fast enough:

A former central bank chief economist warns that a deluge of global debt defaults will endanger social and political stability. [emphasis added]

That's a sinus-clearing candor for a lede, isn't it?

"The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up," William White, chairman of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's review committee, recently told the London Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

i.e. Print towering mountains of worthless currency and use them to monetize equally towering mountains of additional debt that no actual human being would buy because actual human beings expect risk and return to be directly proportional. Don't solve the problem by cutting taxes and spending and drastically downsizing the size of government but simply cover it with an inflationary fever and another huge bubble that will inevitably burst like the last one did. Kick the can down the road....until you run out of road and you have to mortgage your foot.

There is a term for what's coming: "day of reckoning". And it's always worse in direct proportion to how long and far it's been kicked down the road.

"Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief," said White, the former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

"It was always dangerous to rely on central banks to sort out a solvency problem ... It is a recipe for disorder, and now we are hitting the limit," he said.

"It will become obvious in the next recession that many of these debts will never be serviced or repaid, and this will be uncomfortable for a lot of people who think they own assets that are worth something," he told the Telegraph just before the recent World Economic Forum in Davos.

Economic stimulus from quantitative easing and zero rates after the last recession inflated credit bubbles and sparked a surge in dollar borrowing that was hard to control, White said. [emphasis added]

If memory serves, it was global economic instability that led to the last global war. Draconian Treaty of Versailles reparations imposed on Germany led to the Weimar hyperinflation, with the 1929 stock market crash only being held off by the laissez faire capitalist economic policies of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. But it was the statist/socialist "remedies" to that financial crisis that collapsed the global economy in what I have always referred to as The Great Trade War, and all of you know as The Great Depression. First World countries raised protectionist trade barriers against each other, the global economy collapsed, it was "every country for itself," and some, like Germany and Japan, went in "unfortunate" directions.

The last decade hasn't matched that pattern completely, though it's about to if Donald "45% tariffs" Trump gets his way. Instead of immediately going to economic war with each other, the First World....kicked the can down the road by making the problems that brought about the Panic of 2008 even worse. And now when the defaults come, the outrage and anger of an already outraged and angry world will stimulate the madness logarithmically - The European Union is already perhaps weeks from collapse, the Sino-Russian Axis is girding and building up for war (and remember that with the collapse of oil prices, the Russians are down to a year and a half of foreign currency), and the United States is on the precipice of disaster economically, militarily, and jihadistically, with Barack Obama poised to exploit the crisis to complete his "fundamental transformation" mission.

Remember a month ago when I said that 2016 will be the most cataclysmic year in American history? That piper is coming to be paid, and he's not going to take no for an answer.

New York Times Endorses....John Kasich?

by JASmius

There's really only one question to be asked in response: Why?:

More than a half-dozen other candidates are battling for survival....

And have nominal to enormously better of a chance at the nomination than Governor Huntsman, um, Kasich does.

Jeb Bush has failed to ignite much support, but at least he has criticized the bigotry of Mr. Trump and the warmongering of Mr. Cruz.

The Times would be endorsing Jeb if his surname wasn't "Bush". And they hate Ted Cruz. But then, so does just about everybody else.

Senator Marco Rubio, currently embracing the alarmist views of the front-runners, seems to have forgotten his more positive “New American Century” campaign, based on helping the middle-class.

Seeing as how Rubio hasn't changed his "New American Century" campaign one jot or tittle, I have no idea what the Times is talking about here.

The terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino exposed Ben Carson’s inability to grasp the world.

Which leads to Senator Cruz's "warmongering," actually.

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has said he would shoot down Russian planes, engage with the dead king of Jordan and bar refugees, including orphaned Syrian toddlers.

Especially the six-foot tall "Syrian toddlers".

Governor John Kasich of Ohio, though a distinct underdog, is the only plausible choice for Republicans tired of the extremism and inexperience on display in this race. And Mr. Kasich is no moderate. As governor, he’s gone after public-sector unions, fought to limit abortion rights and opposed [sodo]marriage.

And embraced amnesty and ObamaCare and expanded Medicaid, among other heresies, claiming that anybody who opposed either was "violating God's will". Which is what makes Kasich "plausible" to the Times. As they define it, "The least Republican candidate in the GOP field except for Donald Trump, who's actually a Democrat".

It sure makes their lame attempt to put Kasich over as "no moderate" look awfully lame, preparatory to their long exposition bolstering the fact that he's precisely that:

Still, as a veteran of partisan fights and bipartisan deals during nearly two decades in the House, he has been capable of compromise and believes in the ability of government to improve lives. He favors a path to citizenship for [illegal alien]s, and he speaks of government’s duty to protect the poor, the mentally ill and others “in the shadows.” While Republicans in Congress tried more than sixty times to kill ObamaCare, Mr. Kasich did an end-run around Ohio’s Republican Legislature to secure a $13 billion Medicaid expansion to cover more people in his State.

But he's "no moderate".

If they wanted the Ohio governor to have a "plausible" chance at the GOP nomination, they would, of course, not be endorsing him. That they are endorsing him tells us foir whom the Times is REALLY rooting....

.....or they and their media fellow-travelers wouldn't be feeding The Donald more free media than he could ever buy or even afford.

Exit question: If the Times had been honest and endorsed Trump - which is, or at least always had been in the past, the political equivalent of catching herpes - how long do you think it would have taken him to tweetstorm the bragging about that endorsement? And how many points hire would it boost him in the polls?

U.S. "Invades" South China Sea

by JASmius

Or "The U.S. calls Red China's bluff":

A U.S. Navy destroyer sailed within twelve nautical miles of an island claimed by [Red] China and two other states in the South China Sea on Saturday to counter efforts to limit freedom of navigation, the [Obam]agon said.

A serious provocation? A stirring of the pot? A raising of tensions? Not judging by Beijing's reaction:

[Obam]agon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said no ships from [Red] China's [nav]y were in the vicinity of the guided-missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur when it passed near Triton Island in the Paracel Islands....

The [Red] Chinese foreign ministry responded Saturday evening with a statement on its website condemning the action.

"The American warship has violated relevant Chinese laws by entering Chinese territorial waters without prior permission, and the [Red] Chinese side has taken relevant measures including monitoring and admonishments," [Red] China's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Monitoring anbd admonishments". That's pretty badass, isn't it?

Either the Paracel Islands are not a top ChiComm priority, or the "People's Liberation" Navy was asleep at the switch, or their foreign ministry belatedly realized how flaccid their initial statement sounded, because they quickly downed a bottle of rhetorical Viagra and came around for a second pass:

[Red] China's defense ministry followed up later Saturday night with a far more forceful statement on its website, calling the American action "intentionally provocative and "irresponsible and extremely dangerous."

The ministry also said that [Red] Chinese navy vessels had immediately taken responsive action, conducted identification checks and promptly gave warnings for the ship to keep its distance.

"Regardless of whatever provocative steps the American side takes, [Red] China's military will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and security," the ministry statement concluded.

Bluster undergirding the bluff. There's nothing "irresponsible" or "extremely dangerous" about American warships steaming through international waters. The ChiComms attempting to annex the entire South China Sea is a test to see just how far they can push, how much they can get away with, and how far we will retreat. If we simply do what we're perfectly entitled to do under international law - among other things, not allow $5 trillion of annual international trade be held hostage - Beijing is not going to go to war over that.

Not directly, anyway. They're far more likely to use North Korea to stir up trouble by proxy, or test our commitment to Taiwan. So while upholding freedom of the seas quarterly is better than nothing, it's so just barely. Let's see how long The One will keep even that up.

Obama To "Visit" Baltimore Mosque

by JASmius

Doesn't even really need a lede, does it?:

Barack Obama plans to visit a mosque near Baltimore on Wednesday to make a plea for tolerance and religious freedom, the White House said Sunday.

Note that this plea is not to his Muslim audience, but that they are his amen chorus as he harangues the rest of us again for our vile "Islamophobia" - or what we think of as not wanting to perish as jihadist hands.

Also, while he's there, he'll satisfy his evening prayer obligation.

"The president will travel to Maryland to visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque to celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation....

Like 9/11 and the Brooklyn Bridge plot and the Pantybomber and the Times Square bomber and Major Hassan at Fort Hood and the Chattanooga jihadist shooter and the San Bernardino jihadist shooters and....

....and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom," a White House official said.

If Islam were actually a religion as opposed to the satanic death cult it is.

The official said Obama would meet with community members and then deliver remarks emphasizing "the importance of staying true to our core values....

Note the context for the term "our core values" - a Muslim audience.

....welcoming our fellow Americans, speaking out against bigotry, rejecting indifference and protecting our nation's tradition of religious freedom."

Versus protecting the American people from Islamic cultural imperialism and violent jihad, which is O's actual constitutional duty. At this point it would be progress if he would stop shilling and otherwise serving as a front man for Islamic Fundamentalism.

Exit question: Does anybody take seriously the AFP's assertion that this is King Hussein's first visit to an Obamerikastani mosque? Next they'll be claiming he doesn't know how to spell "golf".

Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs: End Game

American Daily Review: Out of this World

YOU WILL BELIEVE!

Government Prosecutors Using Bundys' Own Words Against Them

by JASmius

So many "See, I told you so"s, so little time:

The main leaders of the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge have been denied pretrial release as prosecutors used their own words on social media and videos against them to argue that they were a danger to the community.

Ammon Bundy, the principal leader of the group that seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge nearly a month ago, and others used the platforms to summon armed recruits to join their takeover of the refuge.

Court documents against the eleven occupiers under arrest show that FBI agents have scrutinized social media postings, interviews and online talk shows that were broadcast refuge during the standoff that began January 2nd.

Such as an online video that showed Ammon Bundy saying the group planned to stay for several years,. and calling on people to "come out here and stand," adding: "We need you to bring your arms." And a video posted January 4th showing another defendant, Jon Ritzheimer, saying he was "100% willing to lay my life down." And unspecified "threats of violence" against against the sixteen federal employees of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That latter claim is the weakest, but it's clear that the Bundy Gang set out to be martyrs to their cause, or at least to call a federal bluff that was never actually in play. Eventually federal and State law enforcement did move in, they did get the drop on some of the "occupiers," had them heavily outgunned, and Robert LaVoy Finicum chose martyrdom and finally got it through the thick skulls of his buddies how serious this was and how foolish their actions were.

Which I suppose makes it unsurprising that they're not willing to pay the price for their civil disobedience, and are already turning on each other:

Bundy and several other jailed leaders appeared Friday in federal court in Portland, where a judge denied their release. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman said Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy and Ryan Payne pose a danger to the community, and she is concerned they would not follow orders to return to Oregon for criminal proceedings.

The "danger to the community" part is dubious, but that the Bundys would disappear like an illegal alien is indisputable.

Four holdouts continued to occupy the refuge in the snowy high country near Burns, and they posted a YouTube video Friday demanding pardons for everyone involved in the occupation.

A speaker believed to be David Fry said he asked the FBI whether it was possible to "get out of here without charges," but "they keep saying that's not possible."

You see, guys, there's this thing called "leverage," and you and your friends have never had it and possess even less now. Which is another way of saying that (1) they actually believed Ammon Bundy's romanticist "last stand/right makes might/blaze of glory" BS, and (2) are dead men, because they clearly will never allow themselves to be taken alive. "True believers," in other words.

Ammon Bundy's lawyer, Lissa Casey, said her client is not aligned with those remaining at the refuge and wants to go back to his family in Idaho. "He is done in Harney County; his message has been sent," she said. [emphasis added]

Nice, huh? He throws his true-believer buddies under the bus (much like the Hammonds disavowed the Bundys from day one), abandons them to die at federal hands, wants to escape the consequences of his foolhardy actions, AND changes his story to "I was sending a message" instead of the "I'm going to force the feds to give up all Western lands and release Dwight and Steven Hammond" on which he insisted for the past month. What a delusional, dishonorable coward. Those "remaining at the refuge" were sure as heck aligned with you, Ammon; you got them into this predicament, and now you're abandoning them and refusing to own your actions. And to "send a message" that those actions preemptively discredited and which has quite obviously and predictably been completely ignored. Nicely done, Mr. Bundy.

Bundy and his followers took over the refuge to demand that the federal government turn public lands over to local control. They have complained about what they say are onerous federal rules governing grazing and mining rights across the West.

And they were absolutely right. But who was and is going to listen to "anti-government militants," as the media has taken to calling them? A label they'd have gotten tarred with anyway, but one they went out of their way to earn. What a fiasco.

And one other thought to consider: Amendment II absolutely forbids the federal government from regulating firearms in any way, shape, or form. All federal gun laws are indeed unconstitutional. "The right to keep and bear arms" is an unequivocally declarative and absolute statement. And in the time that this Amendment was promulgated and ratified, armed individual citizens could organize into ad hoc militias, like the Bundys did, and have a plausible chance of defending themselves from government tyranny (although sometimes not even then). But we should not kid ourselves that the right to keep and bear arms can protect us from federal tyranny today, as Robert LaVoy Finicum found out the hard way.

It reminds me of something the late George Carlin said: "We have [flamethrowers]....well, we don't have them - the Army has them. That's right; the Army has all the flamethrowers. I'd say we're f#$%ed if we have to go up against the Army, wouldn't you?"

In this case, the Army, and law enforcement, don't have all the guns; but they have a lot more, and bigger, guns than we do.

And they, yes, also have flamethrowers - and tactical nuclear weapons, too.

Let us not lose sight of the fact, as the Bundys egregiously did, that the "fight" to reconstitutionalize America is a metaphorical, not literal, one, in which the "battlefield" is education and persuasion of minds and hearts, not armed incursions on what should not be but still is federal land. And let us also remember that if it is too late, as I believe it is and has been for over three years, then let us not throw our lives away on a cause that has not been lost, but has simply become one of generations instead of a single election cycle.

We don't need martyrs, in other words; we need apostles. And if we get martyred anyway, let us not bring it needlessly upon ourselves.

Conservative Voice Radio: First Up

Host Douglas V. Gibbs, and the round-table of Banning-Beaumont-Cherry Valley Tea Party participants (Glenn, Jan, and Diane), are at it again this week on Conservative Voice Radio. Here's the topics they will be discussing at 8:00 am on KMET 1490-AM:

Hillary's emails

Obamacare Penalty

Medicare Problems

Beaumont's Newest City Council Member

Helicopter-Killing Rifle found at El Chapo's Hideout, traced back to Fast and Furious Scandal

Palin Backs Trump

Glenn Beck comes out against Trump

Establishment is losing control of the Election

Bloomberg to spend Billions?

If Trump Wins, Will You Vote for Him?

What's the difference between a communist and a socialist? ...and a Nazi? ...and a Democrat?

Friday, January 29, 2016

Russians & Iranians Buzz U.S. Aircraft & Carrier, Respectively

by JASmius

The "New Smart Power Normal" now that we're "at the level of the rest of the world". The only question is which one of these "incidents" becomes the flashpoint for the all-out onslaught against us.

Let's take the Russians first:

A Russian fighter jet buzzed an Air Force reconnaissance plane – coming within fifteen feet of the American aircraft in an "unsafe" incident over the Black Sea, reports say.

"On January 25th, 2016, a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace over the Black Sea was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 Flanker in an unsafe and unprofessional manner. We are looking into this particular incident," Army Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Baldanza, a Defense [Commissariat] spokesperson, said in a statement, ABC News reports.

Another military official tells CNN the Russian jet flew along the right side the U.S. plane, then turned away in a maneuver that adversely impacted the "controllability of the U.S. aircraft."

The unnamed official didn't know if the Russian jet was armed at the time.

Anybody care to take any bets that it wasn't? Because you're an idiot if you do.

This wasn't a lack of safety or professionalism; this was a direct provocation. It was, at minimum, an attempt to create an international incident in order to further humiliate Barack Obama, who would back down, back off, seek a "diplomatic solution" in which to make more concessions to Czar Vlad, etc. At worst....well, that's why there's no doubt that the Flanker was armed. And one of these times, they're going to open fire and shoot down our recon aircraft or sink our destroyer over or in "their" Black Sea, and then we would REALLY get to see "smart power" in action.

Meanwhile, in the Persian Gulf:

Iran flew a surveillance drone over a U.S. aircraft carrier and took "precise" photographs of it as part of an ongoing naval drill, state television reported Friday. The U.S. Navy said an unarmed Iranian drone flew near a French and American carrier on January 12th, but couldn't confirm it was the same incident.

The reported drone overflight comes after a series of naval incidents between Iran and the U.S. in the greater Persian Gulf, including test rocket fire by the Islamic [Empire] and its brief capture of American sailors.

The report by state television said the drone flight occurred on the third day of the naval exercise, suggesting it happened Friday. Later, its website and the semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, published footage it said was of the drone's flight.

The footage showed the drone launch and later hover above what appeared to be an aircraft carrier underway in a body of water. The footage zoomed into a row of fighter jets on the carrier's deck. There were no identifying marks visible on the carrier.

The Obama Regime's statement sounds almost verbatim to its response about the latest Black Sea incident:

Commander Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said an unarmed Iranian drone flew near the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and "directly over" the USS Harry S. Truman on January 12th as the vessels were in international waters in the Persian Gulf.

He said the drone "posed no danger to the ship" as the unmanned aircraft was unarmed and the carrier wasn't conducting flight operations at the time.

How the heck does he know that drone wasn't armed? Again, would you take bets that it wasn't? The reason I'd surmise that it didn't fire on the Truman or De Gaulle is that if you're going to attack an aircraft carrier, you're going to launch an anti-ship cruise missile at it, not cannon fire or even an air-to-ground missile attack from a drone. This maneuver was intended to first prove that they could do it, second, embarrass us (again) and third, create a diversion - or lay the ground work for doing so the next time - to distract from an anti-ship missile strike that could seriously damage or destroy the Truman or whichever other of our dwindling number of carriers is deployed to the Persian Gulf in its place. After which still another round of concessions and "smart diplomacy" would ensue.

Next came the Regime's magic words

"It was, however, abnormal and unprofessional," Stephens said. He added that the U.S. Navy was "not in a position to verify the authenticity of the video as there are countless examples of similar footage to be found on the Internet."

Denial and haughty underestimation. Calling "unprofessional" a successful hostile incursion against a U.S. aircraft carrier that the mullahs are bragging about at full-throated volume today and which was VERY professional in terms of what the Iranians' intention and objective was - to carry out this op and pile more humiliation on Barack Hussein Obama, who is incapable of not seeing this mountain of chickenshit as chicken salad.

This country is going to be at war before 2016 is out - and I don't just mean against ISIS. Mark my words.

Some Hillary Clinton E-Mails Too Damaging To Release

by JASmius

I suppose this is the only next level to which this scandal could go, and now we've arrived at it:

The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary Clinton’s emails “too damaging” to national security to release under any circumstances, according to a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding.

The decision to withhold the documents in full, and not provide even a partial release with redactions, further undercuts claims by the State [Commissariat] and the [Rodham] campaign that none of the intelligence in the emails was classified when it hit [Mrs.] Clinton’s personal server.

Fox News is told the emails include intelligence from “special access programs,” or SAP, which is considered beyond “Top Secret.” A January 14th letter, first reported by Fox News, from intelligence community Inspector General Charles McCullough III notified senior intelligence and foreign relations committee leaders that “several dozen emails containing classified information” were determined to be “at the CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, AND TOP SECRET/SAP levels.” [emphasis added]

The idea here is that if these additional emails are released, now matter how thoroughly redacted, the Russians, the ChiComms, the Iranians, the North Koreans, ISIS, al Qaeda, and every other U.S. enemy - all of whom, of course, have the entire clintonemails.com archive - might be able to find these particular messages in that archive using what wasn't redacted on the released copies. This, of course, assumes that three or more years wasn't long enough for Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang, Raqqa, et al to have gone through the entire stockpile already, at least some part of this Regime is being prudent and cautious, even if it is years too late.

This appears to have finally motivated Foggy Bottom to start taking Emailgate seriously, and, perhaps and perchance, to withdraw the public relations solar sail they've been using to cover the Ugly Dutchess's enormous ass:

The Obama administration is confirming for the first time that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained some closely guarded secrets, including material requiring one of the highest levels of classification. …

Spokesman John Kirby tells the AP that no judgment on past classification was made. But the [commissariat] is looking into that, too.

Emphasis on "appears" above. Does this mean the White House is preparing to shiv Mrs. Clinton in search of bone and muscle tissue beneath all that blubber and loose skin, or is this part of a grand master plan to pretend to prosecute her (thus taking the heat off of the Regime) only to pull back next fall, "PSYCH!"-like, drop all the charges, and stick a warp nacelle, completely with warp reactor (because that's what it would take) in her pantsuit to propel her to November victory?

I still lean toward the latter. But it will make for some diverting drama in the meantime.

Hard Starboard Radio: Trump's Big Mistake?

"Chicago, Chicago, that shootin' town...."; North Korea to test another ICBM; ABC to carry out some long-overdue GOP "mercy killings"; Hundreds of DHS badges, guns, phones & naval intelligence are missing; Did Robert LaVoy Finicum try to shoot first?; Demotion of disgraced VA executives reversed; and final Pre-Iowa GOP debate: Rubio edges Cruz, routs Trump via forfeit.

We went to a reality TV taping and a political debate broke out on Open Thighs Friday at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.

Final Pre-Iowa GOP Debate: Rubio Edges Cruz, Routs Trump Via Forfeit

by JASmius

That was the verdict of Frank Luntz's Iowa focus group:

For my evaporating money, it was entirely appropriate that Cruz and Rubio got the lion's share of the mic time as if they were the top two candidates in Iowa, because they ARE the top two candidates in Iowa - or top two REPUBLICAN candidates, anyway.

Both took feeble and futile fire from their inferiors - Cruz from the rodential Rand Paul, Rubio from the hapless Jeb Bush - without any marks being left. They didn't tangle with each other all that much, other than when Cruz made a lame joke about walking off the stage if the Fox moderators asked "mean questions," which fed Rubio for the easy dunk retort of vowing that he'd take any question they had to dish out.

The other day I advised Senator Cruz to ignore Trump and make his closing argument for why Iowa 'Pubbies should cast their ballots for him. Cruz ignored that advice last night, making lame jokes like the aforementioned, trying to relive his moment of glory in the infamous CNBC-moderated debate by trying to pick fights with Wallace, Baer, and Kelly - an odd impulse given that he couldn't have drawn a friendlier moderator panel than one from Fox News - and got humiliatingly shut down in short order (which Trump will doubtless gleefully be pointing out over the weekend). Overall it came off as Cruz trying not so much to mock Trump as to BE Trump, begging the question of why he would ever want to do, or be, that.

Rubio gave a much better alpha-male performance by being aggressive, sticking to his strongest issue topics (national security), slapping down any and all challenges from his on-stage rivals, and dishing out red meat like Ruth's Criss Steakhouse:

My pick for this Monday? Well, we know that approximately a third of Trumplicans are past non-voters whose reliability to show up, not at a polling place but in some stranger's living room to argue and debate and hash things out into the wee hours of the morning is not great. So unless and until Trump proves otherwise, I'm calling his poll numbers overhyped exaggeration, and I'm calling Iowa for Ted Cruz:

Cruz 29%, Trump 21%, Rubio 20%.

And remember, as Trump will be telling us for the next few weeks, it'll all be Megyn Kelly's fault.

UPDATE: Here's an alternative theory of why Cruz is focusing his final attack ads on Rubio: Maybe the two of them really are the top two candidates in Iowa, and Trump is destined to finish third. Funny how nobody is considering that possibility. Other than yours truly, of course.

UPDATE: Further reason to believe my take:

In essence, Trump is not just accusing Ted Cruz of not being constitutionally eligible for the presidency; he's accusing him of being an illegal alien AND an "anchor baby" in two countries. The former is arguable; the latter is reckless, lunatic gibberish that, coming from anybody else, would be seen as flailing desperation. Is his campaign's internal polling showing that his performance Monday night won't be all that YUGE?

But even if Trump does win Iowa, this is still an appallingly stupid line of attack:

If Trump is headed for a two-man race with Rubio then he should be thinking already about how to lure Cruz’s voters, some of whom are open to Trump because he’s a populist but some of whom are open to Rubio because he’s more conservative than Trump is. Trump should want to do everything he can to tear down Cruz at this point by attacking his record without doing something that angers persuadable Cruz fans so much that they opt for Rubio over Trump out of spite if forced to choose....

Accusing Cruz of being an “anchor baby” in Canada and of possibly not even being a U.S. citizen is, I think, the sort of attack that’ll alienate Cruz voters more than garden-variety stuff like “Cruz doesn’t play well with others.” It’s dirty pool in a way that attacks on his record in the Senate aren’t.

Of course, you could make the "genius" argument about Trump skipping last night's debate in that he had Megyn Kelly effectively doing his job for him in kneecapping Cruz AND Rubio on illegal immigration. But that gets back to why he's doubling down on the biggest low blow he's thrown at Cruz when the Texas senator is already purportedly wounded. Why not attack that on that issue instead of permanently cutting himself off from a large pool of voters he could use in a two-man post-Iowa race? My best guess is that Trump's ego has written off Rubio as a non-factor, with Cruz as the last obstacle left between him and the nomination. But doesn't pride still goeth before a fall?

Demotion Of Disgraced VA Executives Reversed

by JASmius

At the Veterans Administration you may not be able to "fire your way to excellence" or "prosecute your way to justice," but you sure as shinola can sue your way to reinstatement:

The Merit Systems Protection Board has overturned the Veterans Affairs [Commissariat]’s decision to demote Kimberly Graves, a former senior executive accused of using her position for personal gain.

The reversal means that Graves, the former director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s St. Paul, Minnesota, regional office, will be reinstated to the Senior Executive Service. An MSPB administrative judge issued the oral decision on Wednesday after a hearing in Chicago; the court transcript of the ruling should be available on MSPB’s website by Friday…

It’s not yet clear what the MSPB judge’s rationale was for reversing the commissariat’s decision.

I would imagine it had either a plethora of dollar signs, ecstatic bodily fluids, or blackmailing in close proximity to it. An identical decision for Diana Rubens, Miss Graves' partner in crime, is expected early next week.

And, as you've probably already deduced, the Merit Systems Protection Board is not limited to the V.A.:

The Merit Systems Protection Board is an independent, quasi-judicial agency in the Executive branch that serves as the guardian of Federal merit systems…

The Board assumed the employee appeals function of the Civil Service Commission and was given new responsibilities to perform merit systems studies and to review the significant actions of OPM. The CSRA also created the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) which investigates allegations of prohibited personnel practices, prosecutes violators of civil service rules and regulations, and enforces the Hatch Act. Although originally established as an office of the Board, the OSC now functions independently as a prosecutor of cases before the Board.

Remember what I concluded seven weeks ago: "This also, in turn, helps explain why there has been no reform of and at the V.A. in the year and a half since the original V.A. scandal broke. And why would there be when the culture in that agency is indistinguishable from the the imperious, morally supremacist, royally entitled mentality that permeats the entire Obama Regime? If you want genuine reform at the V.A., you're going to have to wield your ax a lot higher in the chain of command than Sloan F'ing Gibson." I'd say that case has been closed.

Exit thought: Become a conservative, go to college, learn a profession, seek an honest living in the private sector, scratch and claw your way to a nice, comfortable career niche, earn a decent living for twenty years, then get (in vocational terms) anally raped out of it by an overweight, balding corporate pimp; or undergo "race (and gender) reassignment," become a liberal, go to college, go into government, allow your ideology and skin color and "new gender" to waft you to the upper bureaucratic echelons, and be unfireable or even undemotable even if you moonlight as an ax murderer. Boy, did I take the wrong tine at that fork in the road thirty-two years ago.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Did Robert LaVoy Finicum Try To Shoot First?

by JASmius

That's what the unedited law enforcement video appears to indicate:

Maybe Finicum had his cell phone on "vibrate" and there was an incoming call, in which case he should have let it go to voice mail. Perhaps he was reaching for his wallet in anticipation of being asked to show his ID, in which case he should have waited to be specifically asked for it. Or, most likely, he was reaching for his sidearm in order to shoot first, which was a really stupid thing to attempt given that the feds and Oregon State cops already had the drop on him and his friends and could be expected to be on a heightened state of alert and "shoot first, ask questions later" readiness. It suggests that Finicum, at least, was resolved to "never be taken alive" and to "go out in a blaze of glory". And he went out, alright - in a hail of bullets that sure didn't look glorious to me.

I know what some of you are going to say - "Unedited? S'hya, right! The feds had Finicum marked for death before they ever pulled that car over!" And I'll acknowledge that they didn't really have anything to lose by reducing a few "domestic terrorists" to room temperature, given how thoroughly the Bundy Gang discredited themselves over the past month. But, again, if that were the case, why did they only shoot him and nobody else in the car? According to this video footage, it was because Finicum was the only one who made a "suspicious" move in a literally hair-trigger situation.

The last Knight Templar said it best.

My advice to Bundy defenders at this point is to let this sorry episode go and distance yourselves and the constitutionalist cause from it and the Bundys as rapidly as possible - and as you'll recall the Hammonds, on whose behalf the Second Battle Of Bundy Hill was ostensibly fought, did from day one of it. The Bundy Gang completely botched the propaganda optics of this op from start to finish, accomplished nothing, and further discredited everything they say they believe in.

And a man is dead because of it and his own misguided, vainglorious foolishness.

Not the kind of "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"ing we need to be doing, wouldn't you all agree?