Good Morning!
1 I thought the weekend’s violence story was going to only be Senator Rand Paul getting attacked and beaten up by his next-door neighbor, a frustrated socialist, but no. Then we learned that a madman in Sutherland Springs, Texas had opened fire on a church congregation and killed at least 26, wounding another 30 or more.
It now appears that the shooter was not permitted to purchase or own guns, which means that no law, short of gun banning and confiscation—good luck with that in Texas—could have prevented the massacre. Nevertheless, the immediate—can I say hair-trigger?—response from predictable anti-Second Amendment demagogues came in waves. Notable was the country’s #1 demagogue—and yet she persists!—Bay State Senator Elizabeth Warren, who in successive tweets signaled her gun-fearing virtue to gentle progressives, presumably the ignorant ones:
“I’m heartsick for the victims, families & community of Sutherland Springs. But I’m more than heartsick – I’m angry…How many more people must die at churches or concerts or schools before we stop letting the @NRA control this country’s gun policies?…How many kids must die of gun violence on playgrounds & streets every day with no attention at all before we wake up to what’s happening?…Thoughts & prayers are not enough, GOP. We must end this violence. We must stop these tragedies. People are dying while you wait.”
What does this mean? All it means is “Do something! ARRGH!” That is not a mature, rational, professional and responsible reaction from an elected official. The other thing it means is “repeal the Second Amendment,” which is the anti-democratic position of most of Warren’s supporters and followers. Since this episode would not have been prevented by anything but preventing the availability of guns nationwide, except, of course, to the government the public does not trust, Warren is doing nothing more nor less than blaming Republicans and the NRA for a lunatic’s rampage no one could have foreseen or prevented. This, in turn, ramps up the partisan and ideological hatred and division that has been the strategy of Democrats for a full year now, and that leads to Republicans being shot on baseball fields, Senators being mauled by socialist neighbors, and maybe even some mass shootings.
Then we have the muddled and useless “thinking” conveyed by this kind of fatuous commentary, which, to summarize, argues that we need “new ideas” and that a single maniac’s single act from motives nobody yet knows tells us that the rest of the public is devoid of optimism and hope. The author’s candidate for a “new idea”? “Maybe we need to start thinking about guns the way one physician has started thinking about opioids.”
Or maybe we should take a gun apart, put it in a brown paper bag, spin it over our heads and scream like a chicken. Although that’s not exactly new…
On the conservative side, gun defenders are making great hay out of the apparent fact that the killer was pursued and perhaps killed by legally gun-toting church neighbors. That’s moral luck, and nothing more.
2. The Democratic Party really is doubling down on its denials of Donna Brazile’s not-quite-whistle-blowing-since-the game-she-helped-try-to-cheat-in-was-over- a-year-before -she-blew. Amazing. I heard Robbie Mook, Hillary’s incompetent and corrupt former campaign manager, argue that Bernie’s campaign could have bought into the DNC too, so Brazile’s accusation is unfair. The agreement that gave the Clinton campaign control over the DNC was cut in 2015, before the Sanders campaign was anything but a hope, a prayer, a lark and a shadow. Of course Clinton had money: she had been gathering a coronation war chest for years. This was a bright line, classic, conflict of interest by the Democrats, and one that created a terrible appearance of impropriety (because it WAS improper) , except that it was kept a secret. That the Democrats deny this indicates that they don’t know what is inappropriate, and don’t see anything wrong with conflicts of interest as long as they suit their needs.
In other words, the party is corrupt, and likes it that way.
3. Did Hillary Clinton really throw an expletive-laden tantrum at Donna Brazile after Matt Lauer went off a pre-approved script of questions and grilled her on the air about her email practices? The explosive account has been around for a while, and was reported last year as fact in many right-wing blogs and websites. Now, in the aftermath of Brazile’s allegations, it is being publicized again. The remarkably detailed version of the rant goes like this: quoth Hillary to Donna, in front of staffers and NBC personnel:
“You stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo, while letting fucking Lauer get away with this betrayal? Get the fuck to work janitoring this mess- do I make myself clear???”
Ooh, janitoring!
If a Republican had been reported to have used that term to an African-American staffer, it would have sparked a race-baiting orgy from the Left. Luckily for Hillary, no mainstream media outlet reported the story at all, or, as far as I can find, investigated it. Snopes leaped to declare it FALSE–of course it did-–when the story first surfaced, calling it a “rumor.” It may have been true and it may have been false, but the account was not a “rumor.” It was based on the claims of anonymous sources who witnessed it, or claimed to.
Has Snopes fact-checked any of the dozens–hundreds?—of accounts leaked from the White House and other sources regarding what President Trump said or did? No. Has it called those “FALSE” and “rumors?” No. Has the mainstream media hesitated to publish anonymous accounts what Trump said in phone conversations and other meetings when the alleged words reflected badly on President Trump? Hardly.
What would have happened to Hillary Clinton’s support if the “brain dead buffalo janitor” story had been reported by the mainstream media and a member of the Clinton campaign or DNC had confirmed it in October of 2016? Would Clinton be blaming that on “Russian collusion” too?
All we ask is fair and consistent standards, objectively applied to both parties and all individuals. Apparently this is beyond the ability of our journalists.
And anyone who accuses Ethics Alarms of having a conservative bias for insisting on objective journalism standards, can, to quote Donna yesterday, go to Hell. I’m not in the mood.
4. Continuing on the topic of bigotry and the DNC, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez provided Virginia voters (like me) some insight about the party they will be supporting if they vote for Democrat Ralph Northam in the governor’s race next Tuesday. An independent group supporting Northam, the Latin Victory Fund, issued a disgusting TV spot showing a pick-up truck with a bumper- sticker supporting Northam’s GOP opponent, Ed Gillespie, trying to run down a group of minority children.
Nice. This is a crude reference to Gillespie’s belief that the immigration laws should be enforced, a now discredited position among Democrats and progressives. NBC’s Chuck Todd. on “Meet the Press,” gave Perez a chance to disclaim the implication that drivers of pickup trucks aren’t racist child-hunters. Being Chuck Todd and a mainstream journalist, he didn’t also ask Perez to reject the contention that Republicans are racist…that would have been too easy a question.
Here was the exchange, which began with Todd playing both the Evil GOP Rednecks Hunting Kids spot, and the Virginia Republicans’ response, which said,
“DRIVE A PICK UP TRUCK? DEMOCRATS THINK YOU’RE A RACIST. SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT? DEMOCRATS THINK YOU’RE A RACIST. IT’S DESPICABLE AND IT’S WRONG.”
TODD: I’m sure you’ve been familiar with the ad itself and the controversy around the ad. And the Republican party’s response, that it was basically, Democrats don’t like it when, you know, when Republicans stereotype. Aren’t you stereotyping? Are all pickup trucks–I drive a pickup truck. I mean, are all pickup truck drivers racist? That’s what the ad–do you understand why some people think the ad implies that?
TOM PEREZ: Well, Chuck, let’s be clear about what’s happening in the race in Virginia and in all too many races, dog-whistle politics. Steve Bannon just endorsed Ed Gillespie in Virginia this morning. And throughout this campaign, Ed Gillespie has been fear mongering. He’s been doing the same thing Donald Trump did. That’s not fair. That’s not right. Virginia, under Ralph Northam’s leadership, under Justin Fairfax leadership, they’re looking for a way to unite people. And Ed Gillespie, throughout the campaign, has been dividing people. And when you, when you hit the bully back, and the bully starts crying, those are crocodile tears to me.
Translation: “Our dog-whistle and divisive politics are justified, Republicans hate minorities and kids, it’s racist to want to enforce the immigration laws, and yes, drivers of pick-up trucks are mostly racist.”
Again, nice. “Despicable and wrong” seems completely fair.
5. Gillespie, it should be said, is fear-mongering as well, making the absurd slippery slope argument that accepting Dreamers will lead to sanctuary cities and Virginia versions of the deadly MS-13 gangs.
You know, it really isn’t necessary to make apocalyptic arguments for enforcing the immigration laws. Immigration laws are essential, a nation has to enforce its borders, policies cannot create incentives for foreign citizens to enter the country illegally, and no one has made a rational argument to the contrary. (No, “Think of the children!”, “We’re a nation of immigrants!”, “But..the Statue of Liberty!,” “They are just looking for a better life!” and “We stole all that land from Mexico!” are not rational arguments.)
6. Flipping a middle figure to the President’s motorcade is protected speech. Flipping said finger to the President when one works for a company dependent on government contracts and plastering photos of one doing this on social media is not what I would call wise, and Julie Briskman would have reasonably expected her employers to admonish her to keep the company’s public image in mind the next time she as tempted to bite the hand that feeds it. Akima LLC, however, a Virginia-based company, fired her.
They have every right to do this, but it was a gross and cruel over-reaction. Worse, the company wasn’t even honest about its rationale,telling her that company policy forbade an employee having anything ‘lewd’ or ‘obscene’ on your social media. Sure. “The finger” is undeniably rude. Obscene it’s not.
Ethics Alarms 
1) I’ve only seen stories that an armed neighbor of the church engaged the shooter, who promptly fled. That’s not moral luck. That’s literally the reason to be armed…to have immediate ability to fight back against someone who wants to kill you.
4) with no digression on “Latin victory”, on this topic, they immediately pulled the ad after a minority immigrant (Muslim) used a truck to drive down a crowd of Americans.
1) It’s also notable because it suggests that none of the parishioners themselves were armed. This guy was a neighbor and had to respond from outside of the event. In many states, churches are “gun free zones”, just like schools. I’ll have to research TX to see if that is the case.
To that end, my “do something” response here is “Quit demonizing the gun. Embrace it so that people don’t feel ashamed to be a carrier. Encourage more good guys with guns, not less.”
Also, I noticed a change in the chorus from the left, they’ve switched from “Do something!” to “Enough!” So….now I’m a bit confused. Have we done enough?
I think your “do something” response is outstanding, myself.
If you want to ‘do something’, do something that works. The advice I have consistently gotten from law enforcement and trainers is that ‘doing something’ in a mass shooting scenario is engaging the shooter. In most cases, they run and/or kill themselves at the first sign of resistance. Gunshots fired in their general direction are enough in most cases. The ‘experts’ are now being trained not to wait for backup, but to charge in and confront as soon as possible with whatever you have at hand. The neighbor did just this, not even putting on shoes (insert your Texas joke that a firearm was closer at hand than shoes).
To the people who want to ban guns and rely on the government to protect you, I ask “Where is your government now?”. This man attack his wife several times, pointed a loaded gun at her head, and fractured a child’s skull. The press is reporting that the government dropped most of the charges (including the one about pointing a loaded gun at his wife’s head) and let him go without prison time. They failed to report to the FBI that he was a prohibited person. They failed to stop him from illegally obtaining firearms. The government failed to protect his wife’s family who were being harassed and threatened by him. They also failed to show up to prevent the shooting, stop the shooting, or follow the suspect.
It may be moral luck that the neighbor was able to drive him off by shooting him, however, without firearms, the neighbors would have definitely not been able to help. I will take the percentage above 0% please.
”In many states, churches are “gun free zones”, just like schools. I’ll have to research TX to see if that is the case.”
It’s up to the church. Not to disclose too much but our church doesn’t discourage it, however, I’m personally deeply conflicted on the topic.
On the “enough” topic; from what I’ve seen “enough” is followed by a “do something” argument.
No Weapons signs on entry doors will not stop violent shooters from carrying their weapons into the building and murdering the people within. License to concealed carry has a purpose, this shooting is a perfect example of what that purpose might be and why I routinely spend a little time preparing for such things to keep reactions relatively automatic. Everything that makes me who I am would drive me to exert all that I am to put a bullet in that murdering SOB’s brain and put an end to the violence and if he shot me in the process then maybe others could escaped while the SOB was forced to engage me; let it be said that I went down fighting to save lives.
Katsumoto: “I think this is a very good death.”
Valhalla awaits.
No Weapons signs on entry doors will not stop violent shooters from carrying their weapons into the building and murdering the people within.
Sure, but that’s not their purpose, any more than “No Smoking” signs are designed to prevent gang members from selling crack to children.
The purpose of “No Weapons” signs is to let law-abiding people know that weapons are not welcome on the premises. There are many reasons for disallowing weapons, from preventing accidents to just making sure people “feel” safer. But I don’t think anyone believes that they keep out mass shooters.
For the record, I do support concealed carry and believe that businesses and churches should be able to make their own rules about whether people can be armed on their premises.
Chris wrote, “Sure, but that’s not their purpose, any more than “No Smoking” signs are designed to prevent gang members from selling crack to children.”
If you read your comparison a couple for times you’ll find that it’s not a very good comparison but I understand what you’re trying to say. I do think you might have missed the point of my comment.
Of course not.
You need a United States Army infantry squad to back up the words behind the sign.
Otherwise, it is just a suggestion.
Michael Ejercito wrote, “Otherwise, it is just a suggestion.”
For the most part that’s true; however, there are places where it’s considered a crime to conceal carry, I abide by those rules/signs 100%. Otherwise as you said it’s a suggestion and the ones who put up the sign will have to enforce it by 1) figuring out that I’m carrying and 2) asking me to leave because of it, at which time I will graciously leave.
“It’s up to the church.” It’s ultimately up to the parishioner, or attendee. Churches that are gun-free zones typically don’t have TSA-like scanners. Even scanners can be evaded. No – Jack will just have to admit that the attendance at a church service by one sinner who happens to choose to commit a particular sin on a particular day and hour is just moral luck. Liz Warren will just have to leave her Secret Service detail outside the building. But then, Liz would probably never go inside one of THOSE churches.
I get the point Jack is making about Moral Luck. But I don’t think it’s that simple. I haven’t responded because I’m still working through my protest.
I get Jack’s point, too, and similarly think it is not that simple. Just because I might never manage to articulate the correctness of my immovable position, that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with my position.
Nice.
“I’m personally deeply conflicted on the topic.”
I’m not. I hope I made that clear. Not to disclose too much, but it won’t be long before our governments decide to ban deep personal conflicts. Not to brag, but I guess I’m just ahead of my time. [snickering]
Yeah, I’m not sure how moral luck came into play here,either. Maybe because he just happened by, and wasn’t at the service. But that still doesn’t seem like moral luck to me…
It’s moral luck because it changes nothing. It was a random occurrence. If no one with a gun was there, it wouldn’t change the fact that an armed citizen might have helped. If an armed citizen shot and missed, or shot and killed the wrong person, that wouldn’t change what happened or the validity of the Second Amendment either.
Moral luck is when people read significance into the fact that an unpredictable event occurred when it just as easily might not have occurred, changing how people frame conduct and the event itself.
I going to have to disagree with Jacks opinion this being moral luck.
Moral luck would have been if the neighbor had been gofer hunting in his yard, fired his firearm at a gofer and the bullet ricocheted off the ground and hit the mass murderer as he walked out the door. Or if the neighbor had been unknowingly walking to the door of the church when the murder came out and the murderer tripped over the neighbor’s foot, fell and shot himself. Etc.
What the neighbor did was not moral luck, it was not luck that he lived there, it was not luck that he the 2nd Amendment gave him the right to own a firearm, it was not luck that knew how to use the firearm, it was not luck that he was willing to put himself in harms way to use the firearm, this was the moral choice of an armed citizen to intentionally insert himself into harms way to prevent further action on the part of the murderer! What the neighbor did was a selfless moral choice and it was heroic, the neighbor’s actions and the subsequent car chase literally ended the murderous actions of the murderer at that location and prevented the murderer from continuing his rampage at any other location.
The neighbor’s actions were not the result of moral luck, they were the result of moral choices.
You seem to misunderstand what moral luck means, ZS. Moral luck does not preclude human agency. The point is that unpredictable events that might or might not have happened should not be used to redefine the core issue. If no barefoot gun owner had come on the scene, would that have meant that guns are not legitimate tools for law abiding citizens? If one of the citizen shooters had not been an NRA trainer, would that have meant that the NRA isn’t a legitimate gun rights advocate? What if the gun owner had missed, and then was killed by the crazy? Would that mean that citizens shouldn’t try to intervene and should allow the police, who should be the only ones with guns, to handle these episodes? You know that’s what the anti-gun zealots would argue.
These are just details that don’t change a thing about the crime, its causes or individual rights. They can just be exploited by advocates to distort the basic issue and facts involved.
Jack Marshall wrote, “You seem misunderstand what moral luck means, ZS.”
That may be true.
I did have to do some searching to get a better understanding of this and I found the following that seemed to sum up how my thought were steering me and I used it as the basis for my argument: “Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences.” I think the neighbor is the moral agent in this, he had full control of his actions, his actions were to prevent further action therefore it’s not moral luck.
I can accept that I may be a bit ignorant on this.
Jack Marshall wrote, “Moral luck does not preclude human agency. The point is that unpredictable events that might or might not have happened should not be used to redefine the core issue.”
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this concept of moral luck.
I had to read the above quote a bunch of times and if, and I really really do mean if, I’m understanding it correctly then everything that happens is moral luck regardless of choices made my any individual involved in the event; therefore, all things that we consider to be heroic due to choices made by individuals regardless of possible consequences are really just moral luck.
Sorry that this might seem a little obtuse on my part but I’m really feeling like I’m missing something important in this whole concept of moral luck.
Remember, we are talking about evaluating principles and values, based on events. Moral luck involves attendant events that seem to change the equation, but really don’t. It is like consequentialism. Nothing about guns, violence or rights is really changed by the action of the citizen shooters. There could have been such citizens, and that’s true whether they appeared or not. Basing the analysis on the fact that they did appear means that if they didn’t, that would undermine the argument that the right to own guns benefits society. No, that’s flawed reasoning. Think of it this way: there were no citizen shooters. If someone said, “See? With all those guns, the police still had to take him down. Those gun-owning Texans did nothing! They don’t need guns!” that would be a flawed argument based on the moral luck occurrence that no gun owners happened to be available. But that random fact would still warp the framing of the story.
Does that help?
Jack Marshall wrote, “…Does that help?”
I don’t know yet. I feel like I’m wading through quicksand and getting nowhere on this one. Thanks for the additional input, I’ll think on it some more.
Jack,
After going back and rereading your original statement in the blog about moral luck, I think I’ve realized that our opinions “might” be due to looking at different sides of the same coin. My new perception of what you wrote, based on followup comments, is that it was moral luck that the murderer chose a spot to perform his evil task that just happened to be “next door” to people that were willing to stop him with a firearm, not necessarily that it was moral luck that the person actually chose to risk his life to stop the murderer.
Am I getting closer or do I need to think about this a bit longer?
I have to agree with Zoltar and tex here, for once.
Of course if there hadn’t been an armed citizen who stopped the shooter in this one case, that wouldn’t necessarily change the equation we must consider when determining how to properly balance gun rights with reasonable regulations.
However, what if there had never been a case of a shooter being stopped by an armed citizen? What if every time an armed citizen tried to do this, they only caused more innocent lives lost? If that were the case, I would expect our ethical calculus to be a bit different; but then I do lean a bit more utilitarian/consequentialist than most on this blog.
The fact that an armed citizen stopped this shooter isn’t what proves the case for the second amendment. But it is evidence, and it is fair for gun rights advocates to bring up.
texagg04 wrote, “1) I’ve only seen stories that an armed neighbor of the church engaged the shooter, who promptly fled. That’s not moral luck. That’s literally the reason to be armed…to have immediate ability to fight back against someone who wants to kill you.”
I agree.
I’m double posting this:
It’s moral luck because it changes nothing. It was a random occurrence. If no one with a gun was there, it wouldn’t change the fact that an armed citizen might have helped. If an armed citizen shot and missed, or shot and killed the wrong person, that wouldn’t change what happened or the validity of the Second Amendment either.
Moral luck is when people read significance into the fact that an unpredictable event occurred when it just as easily might not have occurred, changing how people frame conduct and the event itself.
Is it really unpredictable, though, that armed citizens can stop mass shooters? It may be rare and unlikely, but not unpredictable.
Moral luck isn’t unpredictable, it’s just uncontrollable.
He fullest fired from the outside through the walls. Unless every church, school, grocery store, etc. puts up a guard tower, you’re still going to have dozens of deaths even if there are many “good guys with guns.” And certainly this wouldn’t have made a difference in Las Vegas.
First.
Then that is exactly what is needed.
We need to fortify.
They should bring back those “like a rock” commercials with Chuck Todd driving the trucks.
It is literally the number one example of an “obscene gesture” on the wikipedia. (Learned a few new ones, too.)
But not obscenity, as legally defined. If you are going to fire someone, you should use the legal definition.
To deal with violence in America, we should do the following, except all across the whole country, not just Brooklyn.
Community Poll:
Which will occur First within the next two millenia:
A) Me getting this line of dust into the dustpan.
B) Michael Ejercito ever elucidating a clear, concise and consistent worldview that originates these posts every time the topic of gun violence arises.
?
A: There will eventually be a freak gust of wind in the right direction.
I do not know if any of you remember reading stories about inner city violence during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, but I do. I remember reading stories about kids getting killed for the shoes on their feet, about children having to sleep in bathtubs for fear of getting hit by stray gunfire.
When I read those stories, I knew civil authority has failed. I knew then that only the military could keep us safe, only if we unleashed them, only if we let them take control and impose order and discipline upon society.
When the Cold War ended, I thought we had an opportunity, an opportunity to deploy our troops onto our streets so that they can defend us from our domestic enemies. And yet, our weak, feckless leadership at the time could not put two and two together and make this happen. And the killing continued.
How many more people have to die before we get our heads together, and treat this as the war that it is?
”Ooh, janitoring!”
Mercy me! How could I have let THAT dog-whistle-coded/loaded reference pass by?
“Janitoring” & race have been inextricably tethered to each-other not too awful long ago, am I right?
So, shouldn’t this have been tagged with your 10/26/2017 Morning Warm-Up treatment about the Kellogg’s raaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist brown-tinted-janitor-cereal-pop-thingey?
https://ethicsalarms.com/2017/10/26/morning-ethics-warm-up-10262017-witch-hunts-a-missing-witch-message-a-too-gleeful-dodger-racially-offensive-breakfast-cereal/
HILLARY CALLED DONNA A SUGAR POP!!!!!!
Evidently Hillary makes Dick Nixon’s vocabulary look like that of an altar boy.
And how about “buffalo?” Weren’t the black cavalry troopers in the Indian Wars called “Buffalo Soldiers” because the trail dust on their heads made them resemble buffaloes? Analogous to Hillary calling Ms. Brazile a pick-a-ninny or some such she’s a beaut. Good thing there weren’t any lamps at hand.
”Good thing there weren’t any lamps at hand.”
Lights??? Wouldn’t she have be back in her coffin by then…
Mickey Morrissey (Jack Warden in “The Verdict) would’ve called her “The Princess of Fuckin’ Darkness!”
I think she’s pretty famously been reported to have thrown a lamp at William Jefferson Clinton when he informed her he, in Steve-O’s words, had in fact used Ms. Lewinsky as a humidor.
I’d heard that, I was just riffin’ & needed the set-up for my Jack Warden quote.
I laughed, and now I feel guilty, and it’s your fault.
The buffalo/janitor thing sounds a bit too much like the wishful thinking of an unprincipled opponent.
The whole thing does raise the question of what a Clinton “get in line” session is really like? What leaps to mind is the Phily gangster who beat the hell out of a subordinate who happened to be wearing a wire. At trial, he explained it had all been a big mistake. He had merely been yelling – and slapping a leather sofa for emphasis.
Not only that, but the indefatigable Ms. Brazile is undeterred by the ~ 100 HRC career Lefty campaign staffers’ efforts to…um…bring her to heel.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/358801-nearly-100-clinton-campaign-staffers-hit-back-at-brazile
Say what you’s want about Brazile, hats off that she ain’t backing down.
Am I the only person who thinks “Hacks” is a funny name for a book about the people who ran a Democratic party campaign effort?
100% intentional double meaning, I’m sure.
“Say what you’s want about Brazile, hats off that she ain’t backing down.”
I don’t think she can at this point. She’s torched her career in politics; there is no doubt about that. Her goal seems to be to springboard off of this mess with a newly-fabricated reputation as a strong-willed person who’s standing up to corruption. Never mind that she spent the last few decades furthering that corruption, this is the NEW Donna Brazile. Backing down now sinks that already-rickety ship before it leaves the dock, so she’s pretty much got no choice but to charge forward. Seems less like courage and more like desperation, with a little revenge thrown in there for spice.
Color me cynical. This is a David Brock move. Adriana Huffington. Dennis Miller. Pat Caddell. David Gergen. Megyn Kelly! Bruce Jenner! I should make a complete list of those who have tried to recharge a flagging career by making a shocking U turn and giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and grabbing headlines. Surely sometimes it is sincere, but damned if I can tell when.
”I don’t think she can at this point.”
She’s passed though the equivalent of one of them there one way valves; no backing up, down, or sideways.
“Seems less like courage and more like desperation, with a little revenge thrown in there for spice.”
Toss in some concerns for one’s self-preservation after having crossed the Clintonistas.
“(Brazile) wrote that (Seth) Rich’s murder haunted her and that she’d installed surveillance cameras at her home and would keep the blinds in her office window closed so she could not be seen by snipers.”
http://www.newsweek.com/donna-brazile-book-seth-rich-dnc-murder-conspiracy-702838
My theory is still there is an attempt to push the Clintons off the Democratic party stage. The media won’t cover it because they’re too involved in pushing, I mean covering, the alleged story the Republicans are in total disarray. I think Bernie and Liz are getting funds from somewhere to attack the Clintons and the McAullifes and Wasserman Schultzes of the world and finally depose them. I think it’s essentially a civil war in the party between the Clinton old guard, which is extensive, and the Bernie Warren insurgency. Bernie and Warren want to take the party fully Commie, along with the twenty and thirty somethings and BLM et al. Which will make McGovern’s vote totals look like a landslide.
“My theory is still there is an attempt to push the Clintons off the Democratic party stage.”
Let’s call it: “When Good Things Happen To Bad People”
“Bernie and Warren want to take the party fully Commie, along with the twenty and thirty somethings and BLM et al.”
It won’t be much of a slog. According to some reports, Millennials have an attention span a tad shorter than your garden variety gold-fish.
Cannon fodder for EVIL White Y-Chromosomal Units at the ready to over-feed them at every opportunity.
Like, you know, The Donald.
It gets worse.
(bolds mine throughout)
“According to the latest survey from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a D.C.-based nonprofit, one in two U.S. millennials say they would rather live in a socialist or communist country than a capitalist democracy.
”What’s more, 22% of them have a favorable view of Karl Marx and a surprising number see Joseph Stalin and Kim Jong Un as ‘heroes.’ ”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millennials-communism-sounds-pretty-chill-2017-11-01
What could possibly got wrong?
SpeakIng of media bias, did you catch the deceptive video CNN posted over Trump feeding the koi in Japan? I espically like there use of the word “appears” when referring to the Japanese prime minister.
I just HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE that over feeding Koi is somewhere in the Constitution so we can finally impeach Trump.
This will be smoking gun proof that the media has been doing it’s job in investigating EVERYTHING Trump does and justify ALL of the times the media got things completely wrong — because it will be worth the outcome.
Can someone check the Constitution for me?
Funny thing is that if you actually watch the clip, Abe dumps his box first. It’s fake news, but Trump can’t even feed fucking fish without some keyboard warrior deciding, without knowledge, that he’s done it wrong and blowing their ignorance all over the internet.
I know. It’s abject ridiculousness.
I just hope Koi-gate can be tied to Russia.
I heard that Russia financed the fish food.
I have had to wrestle myself to the ground to not post on this from the “Stop making me defend Donald Trump” files. Just when I thought the ultimate, trivial, stupid and unfair obsessive hate-gotcha has been obtained, this comes along.
But Chris would write an angry “Here we are with proof of treasonous collusion on the verge of breaking, and you obsess about this” comment.
Seriously, no President has ever put up with this kind of crap, and I am beginning, God help me, to admire Trump for soldiering on with more or less good cheer.
The first I heard about the koi story was NPR informing me that it was misreported and that the President did nothing wrong.
How nice. That didn’t really help all the people who believed the fake story on CNN. Even a deceptively edited video….all picked up by lots of eager social media jerks and resistance blogs. It’s attempted coup by character assassination, and nothing is beneath these people, no slur too far fetched or unfair.
But NPR got it right, so its all OK.
Here’s a CNBC reporter: “Trump and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe were scheduled to feed koi spoonfuls of food. Until Trump poured his entire box of fish food into the pond,” CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie wrote on Twitter.
But NPR got it right, so its all OK.
I can’t help it if people follow crappy news sources. I’m not sure why you’re directing sarcasm my way. I made my comment so more people would take note that there are better networks.
I apologize for making it sound like I was focusing on you. My point is that journalism is dysfunctional and useless if everyone has to pick and choose, depending on a subject of the story, who is believable. (NPR, you may recall, was caught deceptively editing an interview with Ted Cruz to completely change the meaning of what he was saying.) CNN is an immensely influential and supposedly legitimate and trustworthy news service. Just shrugging it off as “crappy” ducks the problem, which is lot bigger than CNN.
I believed it, laughed at it, shared it, and joined in the mockery.
I should go back and delete those tweets.
You’re right; this was a dishonest and unfair attack.
But Chris would write an angry “Here we are with proof of treasonous collusion on the verge of breaking, and you obsess about this” comment.
Be fair. When did I ever say there was “proof?”
Bam.
Quid pro quo.
You ain’t seen nothing, yet. HuffPuffPo/AOL carried…briefly…a story in which they noted that Trump had NOT BOWED to the Japanese Emperor, thus disrupting a long chain of traditional Presidential actions…going all the way back to Obama, who apparently started this “tradition”.
When I heard Trump had shaken the Emperor’s hand I thought, “Good for him.” I guess if you’re woke, you’re supposed to consider the Emperor of Japan a God. Ain’t diversity great!
Tom Perez, how low can you go? This ad is akin to George H W Bush’s Willie Horton ad and earlier the LBJ Goldwater Daisy Picking Girl ad.
But not QUITE as bad as “Taliban Dan”, still the gold standard of shockingly dirty campaign ads. So there’s still something for Perez to strive for.
Have you ever listened to Perez? I’m sure his low point is somewhere under at least a couple of miles of muck.
”I’m sure his low point is somewhere under at least a couple of miles of muck.”
Oliver Rose (Michael Douglas in “War Of The Roses”) puts a finer point on it:
“You have sunk below the deepest layer of prehistoric frog shit at the bottom of a New Jersey scum swamp.”
Rampant, knee-jerk “do-something-ism” seems to have become the final refuge of the anti-firearms advocates. To quote Mark Glaze, former director of Bloomberg’s astroturf organization, Everytown for Gun Safety: “Is it a messaging problem when a mass shooting happens and nothing that we have to offer would have stopped that mass shooting? Sure it’s a challenge in this issue.”
Re: #6. In Texas, the “Middle Finger Salute” is defined as assault, a felony to be precise. Don’t know what class. But it is prosecutable.
In New York City, it means “Hello!”
I hear ‘ya. Happily, I’ve never been there and have no desire to go.
Doesn’t that standard only apply if the bird is flipped to a police officer?
Or is it assault for any citizen towards another?
Any citizen. I have a now-friend who just had to pay off a $350 fine with community service for thatvery thing.
Yeesh.
Thanks for the correction!