Here is an interesting and informative article about social justice dogma and the criminal justice system. It is long on reason and facts, and short on appeals to emotion. Here is a TL:DR summary.

1. Progressive Left policies on crime (such as those embraced by Black Lives Matter and most all Democrats) are based on a social justice hypothesis that crime is a result of income disparity and racism.
2. There is no real-world evidence to support this hypothesis; it is based entirely on social justice dogma.
3. There is ample real-world evidence the criminals are defined by a predatory pathology. That they are driven by a desire to self-gratify (often through violence) and have no regard for their victims. These traits are very often inter-generational.
4. The left’s misguided insistence on treating criminal behavior as an issue of racism and social inequality has led to billions of dollars being squandered, and countless lives destroyed through the violence of criminals who should have been locked up (or put down) but weren’t because progressives believe that putting criminals in jail is mean and unfair.

According to CNN, their correspondent Drew Griffin helped rescue a man from a truck yesterday in Houston (Hurricane Harvey). Actual quote from Griffin (in the video at presently at the preceding link): “There was no time to call 9-11”.

But, there was time for Griffin to change his outfit, putting on pants and boots. See this guy’s analysis:

• At 0:34-0:35, he points out that Griffin is in shorts and sandals.
• At 0:50, after an intentional CNN edit with their camera stopped on a Handicapped sign, you can see that Griffin is suddenly in pants and boots.

At time of writing, this is 100% consistent with CNN’s own video (at the link above).

Of course CNN is allowed to do edits to compress the storytelling. And of course costume changes are allowed, and can be done in seconds. By themselves, those things are understandable and not lies.

But still: How can it be that “There was no time to call 9-11”, yet there was time for a costume change? A change in the rain, that was supposedly all unplanned?

CNN had a crew of multiple people on-scene. If there was time for Griffin to do an unplanned costume change, there was time for one of the other crew to call 9-11 immediately. Something’s fishy. At a minimum, Griffin told a lie. At a bare minimum.

Since the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) have misled people so much on this, I thought I would collect President Trump’s statements on Charlottesville for future reference. Emphasis added. (more…)

In response to President Trump’s comments yesterday, Sen. Kaine (D – Hillary) said this:

Charlottesville violence was fueled by one side: white supremacists spreading racism, intolerance & intimidation. Those are the facts.

No, Senator. Your son, Linwood, was arrested and in jail for spreading violence, intolerance and intimidation on behalf of the Left. Then charged with multiple misdemeanors. Those are the facts.

By the way – search “creepy tim kaine” sometime, and view the Images tab. It’s a creepy hoot.

UPDATE – When Marco Rubio condones violence:

The organizers of events which inspired & led to #charlottesvilleterroristattack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons… When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you, it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them.

Rubio loves to go on about his love of America and how our founding principles are important to him; but, evidently, the concept of Free Speech escapes him.

Rubio just said that, if you don’t like somebody’s speech or beliefs or marching permit, you’re “justified” (his concept) in attacking them violently. U.S. criminal law would beg to differ with Senator Rubio.

UPDATE – When McCain joins him:

There’s no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so

Let’s be clear:

• There is definite moral equivalence between U.S. neo-Nazis and Antifa.
• There is definite moral equivalence between the various #WhiteLivesMatter types and #BlackLivesMatter.
• Antifa has been committing crimes of violence against human beings (not just property) for months or years, and #BlackLivesMatter has spread bigotry and incited riots and cop-killings.

If McCain is in denial about that, he does not belong in the Senate.

Just to round out today’s earlier post, we also have new interviews in Breitbart’s Rebels of Google series.

• At Google, minorities and Ivy Leaguers get softball job interviews. An internal study found it out – then was shut down, presumably for having told the truth.
• Google scans your email content and, in the future, there’s no reason they can’t lock you out for political reasons. As they are suspected of having tried to do recently to Jordan B. Peterson, the Canadian conservative professor.
• After all, Google senior management has led the company in #BlackLivesMatter chants. And shed tears onstage, when Trump won.
• And CEO Eric Schmidt has the anti-privacy, Deep State, Big Brother viewpoint about the data you store with Google: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

UPDATE – Everyone we don’t like is Raaaaaaaaaysist: CNN falsely smears the planned March on Google as a “White Nationalist”, “Alt Right” event.

To begin with, the organizers of March on Google are known to be pro-peace, anti-racist and anti-Alt Right. But they also say it pointedly, at this link.

Code of Conduct for March on Google

The March on Google condemns and disavows violence, hatred, and bigotry and all groups that espouse it such as White Nationalists, KKK, Antifa, and NeoNazis.
We will not use messages that are designed to incite anger, hate, or violence.
We will respect the law and the police and cooperate in all matters.
Any violation of these tenets will not be tolerated.
Is this an “Alt-Right” event? The answer is no. This is an event for First Amendment supporters from across the country, from all backgrounds, ethnicity, and walks of life.

CNN could have checked it easily. Instead, CNN published a complete falsehood – once again attempting to smear anyone who challenges them, or Google or the hard Left, as racists.

Hey, lefties: This is why Trump won (be that good or bad). This is why rational, honest people reject and despise the Left.

UPDATE: Peaceful March on Google is postponed, due to Alt Left terrorist threats following the CNN slanders.

The Faustian Bargain of the left is the promise of unlimited sexual license without judgment or consequences in exchange for your complete submission to their social, ideological, political, and economic agenda. And the NY Times pretty much admits that I am totally 100% right about that.

The pogroms, the gulags, the bread lines, the all-powerful police state … yeah, all that mind of sucked. But the sex was fantastic. They prove it by… interviewing a handful of Communist women who claim sex was better under Communism.

The author – a feminist university professor – hails authoritarian Communism for its ability to impose social change without the consent of the governed.

Those comrades’ insistence on government intervention may seem heavy-handed to our postmodern sensibilities, but sometimes necessary social change — which soon comes to be seen as the natural order of things — needs an emancipation proclamation from above.

I mentioned looking forward to Sharyl Atkisson’s new book, The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote.

It came. I’m not far into it, but it seems pretty good. I already knew some of what she has to say, but the organized wealth of details makes the cake.

Chapter 2 is on David Brock and his Soros-funded empire. As you probably know, Soros-Brock have Media Matters and a vast array of other organizations, meant to seem independent (but not), with armies of paid trolls that astro-turf Twitter, the blogosphere, the media pages and employees, etc. in order to plant their favored narratives and terms, crush their enemies (and disfavored narratives/terms), and generally get the Controlled Media to do Hillary’s bidding – oops sorry, their bidding.

I have no doubt that the Soros-Brock armies are a big part of the Trumprussia hysteria. Meanwhile, Atkisson suggests that a lot of terminology is spread by them. She suggests that the Soros-Brock armies established climate change (when Global Warming didn’t work on people anymore), progressive (for liberal), and the over-use of racist, white nationalist, alt-Right, microaggression, body shaming, white privilege, etc.

Many know that David Brock was a rightie in the 1980s-1990s and was the chief agent of smearing Anita Hill. (Who deserved a little of it, at least, in that she had helped smear Clarence Thomas.) In the late 90s, Brock transitioned to extreme Clintonite, and hooked up with Soros for funding.

It’s funny but…the late Nineties / early Naughties are about when I started transitioning to the liberty-loving Right, after noticing that the Left was getting more silly, dishonest and hysteria-prone – which I thought the Right had been too much of, up to that point. And Milo has also expressed the idea that in the 90s, the Right was too much into saying nasty ridiculous things and he would have been anti-Right back then, but today the Left is much worse (so Milo has to be anti-Left).

Could it be that Milo and I each felt – and rejected – the creepy, hateful, dishonest spirit and work of David Brock, as it traveled from Right to Left? Without knowing what it was?

And the current, widespread distrust in the media – is that also about 2 decades of the baleful influence of Soros-Brock, boomeranging?

Scott Adams has dubbed the Trump Jr scandal #NothingGate – There’s nothing there, but it sure is terrible.

We all know the signs. A couple hours ago, MSNBC was quoting campaign finance law about how campaigns are not supposed to take foreign contributions.

FOR REAL. Yes, I Laughed Out Loud. Right in front of everybody at the gym.

The law clearly talks about money and OBJECTS (the ordinary meaning of “things”) of value. Here is what they were quoting:

A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election.

First, the words are written *on the foreign national*. Second: Only in a McCarthy-ite, Salem Witch Hunt world could the words be stretched to cover knowledge (which, in the context of a campaign, is called opposition research). AND…AND…AND…IF the words are indeed to be stretched so very far, then Hillary’s campaign was equally-or-even-more guilty.

Seriously…Are these people thinking at all? Well, we know they’re not. This is “what insanity looks like”. These people aren’t following any rational thought process.

Why would they not? The obvious reason: Deflection. Distraction.

• Let’s not talk about Hillary’s campaign violations.
• Let’s not talk about her campaign’s meetings with officials of a foreign government, in an effort to obtain valuable knowledge (or opposition research) on her opponent from those foreign officials.
• Let’s not talk about all the Saudi money (which would be illegal indeed) in her campaign.
• Let’s not talk about the Hillary campaign’s documented, illegal levels of collusion with the media.
• Let’s not talk about all the Fake News, “Hillary is ahead!” and “Hillary is a lock to win!”, that the media perpetrated to try to depress Republican/Trump voter turnout.
• Let’s not talk about the basic fact that she was a terrible candidate – and she lost.
• Let’s not talk about the massive Clinton Foundation corruption.
• Let’s not talk about Hillary’s collusion in giving Russia 20% of America’s uranium supply, apparently in exchange for hefty speaking fees and other yuge donations.
• Let’s not talk about her campaign chair, John Podesta, and his brother being on Russia’s payroll for years.
• Let’s not talk about Hillary and the Obama administration colluding to obstruct justice, in the Hillary e-mail investigation.
• Let’s not talk about the indictments coming, hopefully, for James “Leaker” Comey.
• Let’s not talk about the unbelievable scandal of the Obama administration spying on domestic political opponents. And the intelligence agencies going along with it.
• Let’s not talk about the fact that the entire “Russia hacking narrative” has been a lie from minute one and, accordingly, the leadership of U.S. intelligence agencies are seriously politicized and compromised, meaning President Trump had better clean house – for America’s good.
• Let’s not talk about the Trump administration’s progress and successes.
• No, no, no. Deflect, deny, distract, handwave, keep screaming “Trump!!!!1!”

Fortunately, none of this needs to matter. The Controlled Media, the Left, and the “political class” have lost a lot of power. What we’re seeing now are the throes of their cognitive dissonance; their refusal to believe it. Having done nothing whatsoever wrong in this matter, Trump – and Trump Jr. – need only stay strong and clear-headed, and they will survive; and survival is victory.

My one, little doubt about this situation would be: Whether they will stay strong? We shall see. I know, I know…their track record argues that they will.

From Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist. On July 4, CNN Politics tweeted this:

Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe. — Abraham Lincoln

As if it endorses CNN’s fake approach to the news. Problem: The quote is fake. It’s not from any of Lincoln’s speeches or letters.

After Lincoln’s death, someone reported a conversation (also known as hearsay) in which Lincoln might have said this:

I have faith in the people. They will not consent to disunion. The danger is, they are misled. Let them know the truth, and the country is safe.

Maybe CNN meant that quote; but note how they got it wrong (or deceptively edited it?). Or there’s another quote which, some years later, a writer attributed to Lincoln:

Let the people know the facts, let them see the danger; but let every effort be made to allay public fears, to inspire the masses with confidence and hope, and, above all, to frown down every attempt to create a panic.

Translation: Lincoln would be against CNN spreading fake, false, phony stories of Trumprussia collusion.

As Hemingway puts it:

Insofar as a hearsay quote should ever be tweeted out or inscribed in walls, at least it should be accurate. Particularly when it’s about “truth” and “facts.”

When I use a quote, I google it first to make sure. It takes two minutes. Except that, if I misremembered it, then I have to submit to reality and re-shape the post. I’m a minor blogger and I do all that. But CNN couldn’t be bothered. They live on a higher plane. (cough)

UPDATE: The New York Times isn’t much better. They recently mistook a parody site as a source of North Korea government quotes. (more…)

It’s worth noting officially. NYT Finally Retracts Russia-gate Canard.

The New York Times has finally admitted that one of the favorite Russia-gate canards – that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred on the assessment of Russian hacking of Democratic emails – is false.

On Thursday, the Times appended a correction to a June 25 article that had repeated the false claim, which has been used by Democrats and the mainstream media for months to brush aside any doubts about the foundation of the Russia-gate scandal and portray President Trump as delusional for doubting…

…on Thursday, the Times…noted in a correction that the relevant intelligence “assessment was made by four intelligence agencies…The assessment was not approved by all 17…

The Times’ grudging correction was vindication for some Russia-gate skeptics who had questioned the claim of a full-scale intelligence assessment, which would usually take the form of a National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE), a product that seeks out the views of the entire Intelligence Community and includes dissents.

The reality of a more narrowly based Russia-gate assessment was admitted in May by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan in sworn congressional testimony.

Clapper testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8 that the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (or ICA) produced by selected analysts…

Clapper further acknowledged that the analysts…were “hand-picked” from [3 agencies,] the CIA, FBI and NSA. [ed: and DNI would count as four]

Emphasis added. Translation: It was politicized “intelligence”. Deep State wanted a pre-determined answer that would help them to dominate President Trump; as opposed to the real answer.

As to what those “hand-picked” analysts worked from: It’s worth remembering that, whereas Watergate began with a real burglary and police reports, Trumprussia began with the DNC actually blocking FBI investigators from the alleged crime scene and forcing everyone to operate off of a shoddy report from CrowdStrike. James “Leaker” Comey didn’t quite admit that in his testimony, but he came close:

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RICHARD BURR: Did you ever have access to the actual hardware that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?

COMEY: In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC [i.e. the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], but I’m sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party…

Via ZH; the article goes on to explain in detail why CrowdStrike’s report was bogus.

Per Breitbart, the Associated Press joined the NYT in withdrawing the fake “17 intelligence agencies” claim.

Yesterday I noted Project Veritas’ video of Van Jones calling Trumprussia a nothingburger. Commentor CrayCrayPatriot kindly pointed us to Jones’ response. It’s the kind of response I’ve seen from lefties many times, over the years. I thought I’d analyze it.

If you read it through, Jones’ response consists of:

1. Name-calling his opponents. (“crazies”, “con artists”, etc. who “trick” people)
2. Asserting that Project Veritas undercover videos are somehow faked. (So: Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes. Don’t believe what is right on the video, for all to see.)
3. Changing the subject to Sarah Huckabee Sanders and President Trump.
4. Deceptively editing his own words, to create a different meaning after-the-fact.
5. Changing the subject to Jones’ own astuteness in declaring that Russia is a nothing-burger and we should be talking about other things.

Here is the relevant exchange from the video:

Undercover journalist: What do you think is going to happen this week with the whole Russia thing?

Van Jones: The Russia thing is just a big nothing burger.

UJ: Really?

VJ: Yeah.

UJ: You don’t think that —

VJ: There’s nothing there you can do.

Note the middle bit – Jones saying YEAH, it’s REALLY a nothing-burger. Also Jones’ last sentence, re-affirming “There’s nothing there,” nothing “you can do” with it as it is destined to stall out.

In Jones’ response piece, he deceptively edits the exchange to this:

Interviewer: “What do you think is going to happen this week with the whole Russian thing?

Van Jones: “The whole Russia thing is a big nothing-burger. There is nothing you can do –“

Aside from the omitted middle section, Jones subtly changes the words (adding or deleting a couple). He makes it better for Jones. He creates an impression that, in an interview, he was only sighing and lamenting people’s powerlessness to do anything about the undeniable Trump-Russia collusion which of course he believes in because it’s so real.

Except that’s not what he said. So once more, a leftie is caught – and his response is to spin and deflect, distort and divert, knowing the yokels will give it credit.

I can see Jones’ appeal to people. He has a certain charisma that comes from being easy on the eyes and “smooth” in his deceptions as, most of the time, he believes what he’s saying. (The smoothest deceivers begin on themselves.)

And yet I’m not impressed. Jones’ spiel leaves a lot of openings. It takes only a little critical thinking, to penetrate him.

• After famously lying to the American people about what happened in Benghazi, and spying on Obama’s domestic opponents, Susan Rice now suggests (while pretending to be above suggesting it) that people criticize her just because they’re racists and sexists.

  OMG!

• Even CNN left-wing kook, Van Jones, will tell you privately that Trumprussia is a “nothingburger”.

  OMG!

• A new study shows that Seattle’s $15 minimum wage is costing jobs.
  

  …boosting pay in low-wage jobs by about 3 percent since 2014 but also resulting in a 9 percent reduction in hours worked in such jobs. That resulted in a 6 percent drop in what employers collectively pay…

  The report also estimated that there are about 5,000 fewer low-wage jobs in the city than there would have been without the law.

  Yet lefties still support these job-destroying, business-destroying, income-destroying laws.

  OMG!

• The Federal Reserve’s chair, Janet Yellen, says that we won’t see another financial crisis in our lifetimes.

  OMG! Famous last words?

On a fun note…Milo had a Coming Out Conservative event in New York.

I’m sure GP readers can relate to idea that nowadays, it is MUCH harder to come out as conservative than as gay.

As Rush, Hannity, etc. have been pointing out lately, eight months of baseless Trump-Russia collusion allegations seem finally to be blowing up in the faces of the Democrats, Controlled Media and Deep State.

In a recent poll, 73% of Americans said the investigations are causing Congress to lose focus, 64% said they’re hurting the country, 56% said it’s time to move on, and 52% said they don’t believe Trump did any collusion.

And the story itself is taking a few turns. First, I’d like to give the background on something called the Trump Dossier.

• It’s a salacious report on candidate Trump that was put together (in 2015 or 16?) by a former British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele.
• His work was sloppy, containing (among other things) provably-false tales of Trump associates meeting Russians in Europe, and probably-false tales of Trump doing bizarre sexual practices. (OK, tame practices by gay standards.)
• Steele was paid to produce the dossier by a company called Fusion GPS.
• Many suspect that Fusion GPS was paid ultimately by Democrats and/or #NeverTrumpers, and was hired precisely to do a hit piece (something shoddy and salacious).
• The dossier was passed to the FBI and other U.S. agencies. Although they knew it was false in its most serious claims (or should have known), they appear to have used it as a basis for investigations on Trump and as a roadmap for questioning witnesses.
• Also, some suspect that the Obama administration may have used the dossier to obtain their secret FISA warrants and/or NSA surveillance on Trump, during and after the 2016 campaign.
• We need to know on that last point because, *if true*, it would be explosive: one would have to “connect the dots” of Hillary or DNC paying a foreigner for a bogus report on Trump, Obama using the report as a bogus reason to spy on candidate Trump, Susan Rice “unmasking” the data and distributing it within the Obama government, and then leakers possibly leaking Trump campaign secrets to media, DNC and/or Hillary. Quite a trick.

It’s backfiring on the Democrats because at long last, the Senate Judiciary committee is investigating Fusion GPS and who was behind the bogus dossier.

Next, I’d like to discuss The Washington Post’s blockbuster article last Friday on Russian election hacking, a game-changer.

WaPo is known for “burying the lede”: putting a title/frame on a story that tries to mask the important revelations within it. This article is titled “Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault”. Thus, WaPo’s frame is: Russian election hacking is real and isn’t Obama a lonely hero for having tried to punish Russia?

But the article’s details tell a different story.

• Everyone agrees, still, that Russia didn’t change a single vote. In that respect, the 2016 election was perfectly fair and un-hacked.
• The CIA did report to Obama in 2016 that Russia was trying to do cyber-crime on various U.S. targets, including both the DNC and RNC.
• For five months, Obama dithered and considered various responses and, in the end, he did…nothing. Until after the election (when he expelled some Russian diplomats, tightened some sanctions, and fanned the flames of protest and questioning Trump’s legitimacy).

“It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend,” said a former senior Obama administration official involved in White House deliberations on Russia [in the months before the election]. “I feel like we sort of choked.”

I want to make clear that I still do not take this “Russia hacking” narrative at face value. My reasons:

• Still no evidence. The WaPo article doesn’t actually provide any.
• After Wikileaks Vault 7 (including revelations that the CIA itself routinely hacks things and leaves Russian fingerprints), there is no reason to take the CIA’s word on anything – without evidence.
• Also, Russia could have tried to hack into stuff – but with little or no effect.
• In regard to the “DNC emails”, at least, it is still very plausible the leaker was Seth Rich, a DNC insider. Because Wikileaks dropped many hints about it. (At this point, yes I trust their hints more than the CIA’s.)
• And it still doesn’t matter who leaked the “DNC emails” because they were 100% true and relevant information that American voters deserved. If it was Russia, they did not attack our nation or our democracy; only our 2 major-party Establishments. (Big difference.)
• It is still exceedingly odd that the DNC denied FBI investigators access to their computers after the leaks. Instead, the DNC spoon-fed the FBI a report on supposed Russian hacking from another shoddy, DNC-paid company, CrowdStrike.

But let’s say it’s all true. Most observers agree that the major countries all try to hack each other (or spy), and to influence each other’s elections. And that Russia and the U.S. have been doing it to each other for 70 years or more. Why should 2016 be an exception? In that case,

1. It is all the more strange and inappropriate that the DNC didn’t let the FBI in to look at their servers and network, after the alleged “DNC email” hack.
2. It is strange and inappropriate that Obama didn’t defend the U.S. constitution (as his oath requires) by telling the American public. Obama was no stranger to stirring up trouble with Russia (see: Ukraine coup, 2014). Why wouldn’t he, here? Some guesses:
   • He’s just ineffectual?
   • The Russian interference was routine (see above); much less of a deal than WaPo is now making of it?
   • Obama didn’t want to draw attention to Hillary’s corrupt Russia dealings?
   • He didn’t want to draw attention to Democrats having serious problems with security; like, you know, Hillary’s e-mail scandal?
   • He didn’t want to draw attention to Hillary’s hypocritical interference in Russian elections?
   • He thought Hillary would win, and didn’t want any Russia messes tainting her presidency in the public’s mind? (This is WaPo’s theory. But then, when Trump won, Obama was suddenly OK with tainting the next President?)
   • Or: Deep down, Obama didn’t want Hillary to win? (This is Rush’s theory.)
3. It is still strange and inappropriate that leading Democrats want to blame Republicans – and the American people – in all this. For example, from Rep. Adam Schiff:
   

   He said many groups inadvertently abetted Russia’s campaign, including Republicans who refused to confront Moscow and media organizations that eagerly mined the troves of hacked emails.

   In other words, damn the American people for opening their eyes and reading those 100% genuine DNC emails!

In short: If WaPo’s story is true, then instead of Trump-Russia collusion, we should be looking at Obama-Russia collusion and Obama-Hillary collusion. This is the game-changer.

Trumprussia was always “mostly bullsh*t”, as we learned Tuesday. The real story would be if the Russian government interfered in U.S. elections – and President Obama let them. Then made a big deal of it later – just to undermine President Trump. Now *that’s* attacking American democracy.

In every plausible version of this mess,

1. Someone in the government spread around the fake Trump dossier (when they should have ignored/discredited it).
2. The DNC hid an alleged crime scene from FBI investigators.
3. Susan Rice wrongly “unmasked” data on domestic political opponents.
4. Obama failed to do a thing about Russian interference; until it was time for him, and various Deep State leakers, to undermine a lawful new President whom they just didn’t like.

This post started as part 3 in my series this month, “How fake is CNN? At least this fake.” (Most recent entry here.) Because of CNN’s fake Trumprussia story that they had to retract. And because of Project Veritas catching that CNN producer who agrees that CNN’s coverage of Trumprussia is “mostly bullsh*t” with “no proof”.

But V spared me the trouble, with his post earlier. So the news here is that Sharyl Attkisson, the wonderful journalist, has a new book out – The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote. Here she discusses it with Tucker Carlson:

Attkisson: Democrats, Republicans and the media Establishment have exempted themselves from the normal journalism rules…because they see Donald Trump as such a big threat. They would say, a Hitler-esque threat. That means they don’t have to follow the normal rules of journalism in this case. I think it’s more of a threat to the system of favors, money and access that has been developed [with] the political establishment.

Carlson: So it’s not just a conventional left-right thing, where they’re liberal, Trump is conservative, they hate him. There’s something different going on.

Attkisson: Washington survives on a system…of access and money where people have spent decades paying in to certain politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, to make sure certain political hearings don’t happen, to make sure certain laws have provisions written in. All of the sudden, overnight, all that access they’ve bought, all the hard work they’ve done as lobbyists and so on, is almost worthless – if Trump’s reality of Washington comes into play. And nobody seems to like that.

…I liken it to the situations that must be in North Korea. If you have a TV and can watch the news, it’s gonna be a version that’s approved and put out by the State. In some respects, we are getting an artificial reality created by people putting out narratives…If you’re like me, there’s very little that I see reported on the news that I instantly believe without doing my own checking because so many formerly-reputable news organizations have been proven to be 180 degress wrong, not just a little bit wrong… reporters doing things that wouldn’t be allowed in journalism school, but doing them now with impunity.

A few weeks back, Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse blog looked at U.S. GDP growth rates for the ten years 1930-1939 and the ten years 2007-2016. I didn’t verify his numbers but they seem plausible (referring to “real” or inflation-adjusted GDP). Snyder says:

1930: -8.5%
1931: -6.4%
1932: -12.9%
1933: -1.3%
1934: 10.8%
1935: 8.9%
1936: 12.9%
1937: 5.1%
1938: -3.3%
1939: 8.0%

When you average all of those years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.

That is really bad, but it is the kind of number that one would expect from “the Great Depression”.

So then I looked up the numbers for the last ten years…

2007: 1.8%
2008: -0.3%
2009: -2.8%
2010: 2.5%
2011: 1.6%
2012: 2.2%
2013: 1.7%
2014: 2.4%
2015: 2.6%
2016: 1.6%

When you average these years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.

The same! But wait, averaging them isn’t quite right. For math-y reasons, it’s better to take a starting index value like 100, then apply the growth rates year by year. I did that, and

• Real GDP grew 10% from 1930-1939.
• Real GDP grew 14% from 2007-2016.

Still not much difference! The point remains that the last 10 years have been super lame. President Obama was perhaps the first in U.S. history to never have a single year of real GDP growth over 3%.

And it’s possible that Obama’s record was yet worse. Remember, in recent years they’ve been padding the GDP numbers. They directly added nonsense to GDP. They also under-estimate inflation, which artificially boosts the growth estimates.

But for now, let’s stick with official numbers (where Obama’s overall record is nearly as bad as a Great Depression), and pivot to look at unemployment.

You may wonder: if we’ve been in a depression, how could the unemployment rate be down at 5%? The difference from the 1930s is that, in our time, the Establishment (or Political-Financial Complex) has been determined to fool people – to boil the frog (us) slowly, so to speak – and to cover for President Lightworker. Thus,

• They let him jack the national debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. Even a monkey could make GDP seem halfway-OK for 8 years, if you gave him a $10 trillion credit card.
• They had the central bank (Federal Reserve) conjure trillions of new money from thin air and inject it into the financial markets. It’s chicanery, but people say “At least my home and 401k are up.”
• And they baked the unemployment statistics. Remember, the official 5% number hides a huge decline in Labor Force Participation, plus full-time jobs being replaced with crappy part-time jobs.
  • If you add back the people who left the labor force in despair these last ten years, real unemployment is 11-12%.
  • And if you add the extra part-timers (assuming they would rather be full-time), it’s even worse.

Depression 2.0 has been with us, all this time. It’s part of why people were so unhappy with Queen Cersei in 2016 (who ran as the Establishment’s poster child).

What does all this bode for President Trump? Probably not well.

• He’s trimmed back some of Obama’s growth-killing regulations. That will help.
• And his infrastructure spending may go to productive works (unlike Obama’s 2009 “Porkulus” package), if he can get it passed. He wants to revive American manufacturing, which would be good.
• BUT, with so much debt on the books and so many Americans expecting handouts, our underlying economic problems are worse than ever.

Trump has inherited a sinking ship. The next recession should be a roller-coaster. If the American Left is krazy and violent now, just you wait.

Then again, maybe our leadership will hit on the solution quickly (a Free Enterprise system with smaller government, Rule of Law, sound money, cutting the Welfare-Warfare State, letting Washington and Wall Street fail, letting Main Street pick up the pieces). And maybe our leadership will use the media skillfully (plus a few well-placed arrests) to transition people’s minds to all that. Don’t tell me I’m dreaming.

OK, I’m dreaming. Time to buy more ammo.

Per The Hill this morning, he has been upgraded from Serious to Fair condition.

I didn’t see this coming: Bono gives Scalise a shout-out. Meaning something positive.

“You’ve been through some troubling days here with the shooting in Alexandria,” Bono says on-stage in the video. “We are so grateful that Congressman Scalise and his comrades made it through. So grateful. We hold them up, as love holds us all up.”

…U2 performed Tuesday night in Hyattsville, Maryland, at FedExField, home of the Washington Redskins. FedExField is located about 19 miles northeast of Alexandria.

But they’re still stuck on a motive for the shooting. ABC’s article is totally silent on it. The Hill’s article touches on it in a way that disguises the truth:

The FBI said Wednesday that the shooter, who died shortly after sustaining injuries in a confrontation with police, worked alone and that the incident had “no nexus to terrorism.”

The agency also confirmed Hodgkinson had a paper list containing six lawmakers’ names, although they said they would not classify it as a “hit list.”

So, the FBI is politically correct? Yikes! Reminder:

• The “six names” were a hit list.
• They were all GOP – and specifically, the (rare) anti-Establishment, pro-liberty type of GOP known as the House Freedom Caucus.
• The failed murderer, James T. Hodgkinson, was a “Bernie bro” who wanted to kill them for political reasons and terrorize conservatives.

From the comments: James reminds us that Bono has kinda-sorta been getting sensible for awhile. Nice to see!

Just to follow up on part 1 about CNN openly staging a fake protest that they’d wanted, here’s a nifty list.

Like all such lists, it suffers from being anecdotal and agenda-driven. And (in this case) badly mis-titled. Some (hi rusty 😉 ) won’t like it that the list comes from Cernovich.

But I’m interested in what’s in it. I have seen most of these instances myself, at one time or another. I think it’s silly to trust CNN. If people ask me why, here are some of the examples I’d point to.

• The time CNN warned that it’s somehow illegal for ordinary citizens to look at the leaked DNC and Podesta emails. (It isn’t. So, look all you want.)
• The time they had a camera man pose as a random guy on the street and broadcast his pro-Hillary rant.
• The time CNN lied that Loretta Lynch had “recused herself” from any decisions on the Clinton e-mail investigation. (She didn’t. She should have.)
• The time(s) CNN spread the fake “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” meme. (Shot of an entire CNN panel doing it.)
• The time CNN, broadcasting from a studio with blue screen and fake wind, pretended it was on-location in the Gulf War.
• The time CNN claimed that Muslim terrorist bombings in Europe are done by “false flag” right-wingers.
• The time Jake Tapper told a Navy Seal he was interviewing, that his all buddies had died for nothing.
• The time CNN let a guest claim that “rogue cops shoot black people for sport”.
• The time a CNN anchor expressed joy at Sarah Palin’s children being assaulted.
• The times that CNN edited #BlackLivesMatter activists, who were calling for rage and violence, to make it appear as if they were somehow peaceful.
• The time a CNN anchor praised a cop-killer as “brave and courageous”.
• The time CNN had 2 reporters in the same parking lot in Phoenix and faked it, split-screen, to pretend they were in different locations.
• The time they did a voter focus group and openly stated the precise words that they wanted a certain voter to say next.
• The many times CNN cut a guest’s satellite feed if they strayed too far from CNN’s preferred narrative.
  • The guy they cut for mentioning Jesus.
  • The time they cut Bernie Sanders after he jokingly referred to CNN as Fake News.
  • The time they cut a guest for mentioning Wikileaks.
  • The time they cut a reporter who started talking about Hillary’s negatives or “vulnerabilities”.
• The way that, when CNN cuts a guest who strayed too far from their preferred narrative, they pretend it’s somehow accidental.

The list is incomplete of course. It didn’t even get around to some stuff like:

• CNN’s Fake War Propaganda, like Bana Alabed.
• Their brazen shifts in tone for partisan reasons.
• Their eagerness to report anti-Trump leaks, even when said leaks are anonymously sourced and, well, WRONG.
• Their frequent reporting of fake/hoaxed hate crimes.
• CNN’s endless Fake News in 2016 about “Hillary is ahead in the polls” and “Hillary is a lock to win the election”.

And more that I could probably find, if I searched GP archives.

On the one year anniversary of the Orlando Pulse Massacre, the Democrat Media Complex went out of its way to avoid the salient facts about the Massacre.

America is in mourning, as we should be, on the year anniversary of the attack, but many in the media are purposely excluding the fact they were killed by a jihadist committed to the Islamic State. Instead, the media prefer calling it a “mass shooting” and “gun violence.” The MSM also prefers listing the victims as “those who died” or “lost their lives,” not those murdered by a terrorist.

One of the worst examples is The Washington Post and its headline, “A year ago, 49 people died at Pulse nightclub. Today, Orlando remembers.” But that’s not so bad, right? Surely, in the article, terrorism will be mentioned. Think again. The words used are “massacre,” “gun violence,” and “deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.” No mention of terrorism. Zero. The article identifies Omar Mateen, but only as the “gunman” who “fired his first bullet” at 2:02 a.m.

These are facts:

• The mass murderer was an Islamic Supremacist named Omar Mateen.
• Omar Mateen was the son of an Afghan refugee who was also an Islamic Supremacist.
• Omar Mateen pledged his fidelity to ISIS shortly before the massacre.
• Omar Mateen had been on the FBI’s terror watchlist three years before the attack, but after interviewing him, the FBI decided he wasn’t a threat and removed him from the list.
• Omar Mateen was a registered Democrat.
• Omar Mateen’s father attended a Hillary for President rally a few weeks after the attack.

Once again, these are facts.

This, on the other hand, is misinformation and propaganda.

For the last 100 years – and, especially for the last 8 years under President Obama – more and more Americans have become feckless dependents of government.

They may be rich, middle class or poor. They may depend on government benefits, or on special favors written into our laws and regulations. Or they may be politicians and bureaucrats and government workers, deciding the fates of other people and taking paychecks a good deal larger than what most of them could get in the private sector. They may be journalists taking cash payments from the CIA, or billionaires with extensive government contracts.

And they are indeed feckless. They gladly believe and spread the most ridiculous things on zero evidence. For example, they choose a criminally dishonest politician (Hillary Clinton) to be president. When she doesn’t quite win the election, they gladly believe and spread rumors that the guy who did win is a Russian spy – on zero evidence, again – and chant “F*ck [him]!” at important political conventions.

On the other side are ordinary Americans who more-or-less believe in God, common sense, and supporting themselves through work. Again, they may be rich, middle class or poor. They choose 2 business people in a row to be president. The most recent one might not be a great role model in some ways, but at least he says sensible things in a forthright, unafraid manner. When he wins the election, he sets himself to the task of reviving America’s economy and manufacturing base – only to be undermined by the vast army and bureaucracy of the feckless government dependents, spreading their nonsense.

It’s a mortal conflict. And one side knows it: the feckless government dependents. Because America is fast reaching the point where it can’t afford to support them any longer. They, the cancer, are about to kill the host. They, the cancer, must be controlled and cut back – so that the rest of America can survive, and perhaps revive a little.

They, the feckless government dependents, know it deep-down. And, being out-of-control like any late-stage cancer, they are desperate to deny it and to continue a system – their own system – that promises to extract every last drop of life and treasure that can be extracted from normal Americans.

It’s Producers vs. Looters. Understand that the Producers are people of all classes and walks of life. Likewise, the Looters are people of all classes and walks of life.

And so we arrive at the political struggles of the last seven months. President Trump isn’t perfect. I did not support him. I still don’t support him, whenever and wherever I may disagree with him. But, somehow (and although I never wanted it), he became a leader for the Producers – or at least for the opponents of America’s looting, criminal Establishment. Imperfect Mr. Trump is the president we’ve got. And the vast army and bureaucracy of the feckless government dependents are determined to destroy him.

Thus the endless, utter nonsense they spew each day. I’m not sure what to do about it. I know that supporting Trump blindly will not help. But tolerating nonsense will also not help.

The only thing I know how to do, that might help in some tiny way, is to keep telling the truth as I see it unfolding around me.

Or posting links.

• Kurt Schlichter rightly calls the last several months of nonsense a ‘coup’ attempt against the People’s lawfully elected President.
• As does William A. Jacobson.
• Stephen Kruiser on the media’s new lows in the Age of Trump.

Schlichter sums it up well: “Someone came to Washington who wasn’t part of the club, and that’s intolerable. So they are desperate to expel him, and by extension, us. Every day will be a crisis, every action he takes will be the worst thing that has ever happened, and every step towards keeping his promises a crime.”

Each day, let us dedicate ourselves anew to rejecting the nonsense. And to offering truth, in its place.

Former FBI Director James Comey once served the Bush administration and is supposed to be a “registered Republican”. But some gay guys marry women and are supposed to be straight. Sometimes, the declaration doesn’t matter – or is there for cover.

I’ll provide some highlights of Comey’s career, then details. First, the highlights. Or should I say lowlights? As I realized everything that Comey has been into and how political he is, my jaw dropped.

• Comey helped the Clintons to escape justice over Bill’s pardon of Marc Rich.
• Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Valerie Plame affair. (A bizarre mess that ended in the prosecution of Scooter Libby, and the political tar-and-feathering of the Bush administration.)
• Comey prosecuted Martha Stewart. (This may be OK; but I will show that it sets up the irony/hypocrisy of his later saving Hillary from prosecution.)
• Comey helped the Clintons in the Sandy Berger investigation, by limiting its scope.
• Comey limited the government’s actions to punish a corrupt auditor, KPMG.
• Comey obstructed the Bush administration’s post-9/11 efforts to do warrantless surveillance. That could be a great thing; except that
  1. his actions were surrounded by allegations of lying and usurpation of power; and
  2. he went on to happily serve an Obama presidency that did far worse things than Bush, in terms of warrantless surveillance.
• Comey served as General Counsel of a scandal-ridden defense contractor, then a Director of a scandal-ridden bank. (I don’t have anything strong here; mentioned for completeness.)
• And then as FBI Director, of course, Comey knew Hillary was guilty but usurped authority and blocked her prosecution, turning the statutes on their head in the process.

If I missed anything, please let us know in the comments. For example, did Comey play any part in Hillary’s Uranium One fiasco? (UPDATE: Yes, indirectly. It involved Clinton Foundation corruption. Charles Ortel points out that Comey has repeatedly been on-point to investigate that corruption and has refused to do so, giving it a pass.)

Some of Comey’s actions might be defensible. But looking at the overall pattern: I personally conclude that Comey is a longtime Democrat operative, as well as a liar-when-it-suits-him.

Now for details. (more…)