Sunday, September 22, 2019

Trump’s Total Culture War


Trump has so enraged his Democratic adversaries that the candidates to replace him have moved farther to the left than any primary field in memory. They loathe Trump, but in their abject hatred he has goaded the various Democratic candidates into revealing their support for the crazy Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, relaxed immigration policies, and trillions of dollars in new free stuff.


Victor Davis Hanson
The real source of Trump derangement syndrome is his desire to wage a multi-front pushback against an elite, postmodern progressive world.

"Donald Trump is waging a nonstop, all-encompassing war against progressive culture, in magnitude analogous to what 19th-century Germans once called a Kulturkampf.

"As a result, not even former president George W. Bush has incurred the degree of hatred from the left that is now directed at Trump. For most of his time in office, Trump, his family, his friends, and his businesses have been investigated, probed, dissected, and constantly attacked.

"In 2016 and early 2017, Barack Obama appointees in the FBI, CIA, and Department of Justice tried to subvert the Trump campaign, interfere with his transition, and, ultimately, abort his presidency. Now, congressional Democrats promise impeachment before the 2020 election.

"The usual reason for such hatred is said to be Trump’s unorthodox and combative take-no-prisoners style. Critics detest his crude and unfettered assertions, his lack of prior military or political experience, his attacks on the so-called bipartisan administrative state, and his intent to roll back the entire Obama-era effort of “fundamentally transforming” the country leftward.

"Certainly, Trump’s agenda of closing the border, using tariffs to overturn a half-century of Chinese mercantilism, and pulling back from optional overseas military interventions variously offends both Democrats and establishment Republicans." . . .

https://grrrgraphics.com/

As Democrats Thrash, Trump Rises Above It All

The failure of the New York Times is so complete and so inexcusable—no effort whatever to verify this grievous allegation and concealment of the doubtfulness of it—that it has started to fray the Democratic media’s solid wall.

Conrad Black 
From fresh calls to impeach Brett Kavanaugh to far-fetched socialistic schemes, Democrats are handing the president the keys to a second term.

"Just when it seems that the quality of the Democratic candidates and the ethical standards of the Democratic media might start to rebound to normal civilized levels (not a high bar since the days of JFK, LBJ, and Hubert Humphrey), they excavate new depths of inanity and unprofessionalism.
"I believe that the latest outburst against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh will be seen as a significant milestone in the slide to perdition of the Democratic presidential nominating process and of that party’s lock-step media accomplices.

The New York Times produced an allegation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted a woman 30 years ago, and Senators Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and, even more predictably, the almost-brain-dead former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), called for Kavanaugh’s immediate impeachment and removal.
There was not the slightest question of waiting for the justice’s response or for any independent corroboration. The mere fact that the Times published a story alleging Kavanaugh had drunkenly assaulted someone 30 years ago, without any substantive details beyond hearsay, was enough to prompt three prominent Democrats to demand that Kavanaugh be ousted from the high court. Three candidates, bear in mind, who among them appear to have the combined support of 30 percent of their party’s base.
"The story immediately collapsed; the Times acknowledged that the alleged victim didn’t want the matter raised, and her friends reported that she did not recall any such incident. The editors of the Times took no precautions to assure that there actually was a real source for the story. Yet that was still enough to prompt Senator Warren, now charging toward the lead among Democratic presidential aspirants, and Senator Harris, the former attorney general of California, and O’Rourke, who got 48.3 percent of the vote running against Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate in Texas last year, to demand the removal in disgrace of a U.S. Supreme Court justice. It is inconceivable that any serious person could wish the presidency of the United States in the hands of such people." . . .


UFOs and the Laughter of Faith

Therefore, God rules the farthest reaches of the universe. He rules them as Judge. And he rules them as Redeemer. Jesus Christ died and rose again. He sits at the right hand of God as Redeemer-Ruler. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). The reach of his rule and redemption extends “far as the curse is found.” No galaxy, no star, no planet, no UFO escapes his design in the plan of redemption.


John Piper "Since the Internet is abuzz over UFOs, I thought I would take the opportunity to join the woman of Proverbs 31:25 who “laughs at the time to come.” I just wrote a book on Providence, and can hardly contain myself when I get a chance to celebrate God’s purposeful, all-embracing, all-pervasive, invincible sovereignty.

"Last night I received an email from a friend asking about the recent UFO dustup. He had read an article that threw him for a loop. He was wondering how a UFO, if it proved to be true, could fit with the biblical vision of reality.
"Here’s the gist of what I wrote back, with a few comments and Bible passages added.
No Cracks in Complete Sovereignty

"One of the great joys of believing in the absolute sovereignty of God over all things is knowing that he is in control of every falling bird (Matthew 10:29) and all the movements of the farthest galaxies (Isaiah 40:26). Nothing anywhere in the universe happens apart from his plan. Whatever he causes directly, or whatever he permits less directly — everything happens in accord with his all-wise, all-just, all-merciful plan. He “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).
"So no UFOs are showing up except by the plan of God. If they are fake, he rules over fake. If they are real, he rules over real. There are no cracks in complete sovereignty. Nothing squeaks through. God governs illusions. God governs atmospheric conundrums. God governs all the reaches of space and everything in it." . . .


John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Why I Love the Apostle Paul: 30 Reasons

Democrats may grow to regret the Hunter Biden story

Silvio Canto, Jr.  "What do you do when unemployment is under 4% and the economy is doing well?  Well, the answer is that you desperately look for this or that to distract a population happily employed.

"The latest Ukraine scandal is such a distraction but one that Democrats may grow to regret.  In other words, this may not be the story Mr. Biden wants to be explaining over the next few months.

"The Hunter Biden story has been around for a while, as we see in this report from Politico:" . . . 
Joe Biden and Ukraine is “Hillary’s Emails” all over again

The more the media and Democrats attack Trump while trying to protect Biden from scrutiny of his family dealings abroad, the more the media focuses attention on Biden and raises the same sort of questions that turned Hillary Clinton’s campaign into a campaign about her emails.

. . . "The initial claim was that Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if it didn’t investigate the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, while Joe was Vice President. Then the story changed, and maybe there wasn’t a quid pro quo, and maybe the whistleblower never actually heard the conversation. And so on and so on, a classic case of how the media tries and convicts Trump based on anonymous, shifting, and usually misinformed leaks.
"The foreign minister of Ukraine is now on record that there was no pressure put on the Ukrainian president in the conversation.
"We’ve been here, done that, dozens of times. Is this time different? Will they “get” Trump
on this? As with the Russia Collusion claims, I’ll take it seriously when there is actual evidence. Until then, it’s just politically driven mischief masquerading as news.
"As an aside, there is a pernicious effect to leaking conversations a U.S. president has with the leaders of foreign countries, something that has plagued Trump since the start of his administration. But that’s a post for another time.
"There is an important story here that may take down a candidate. That candidate isn’t Donald Trump, it’s Joe Biden.
"The Ukraine reports of possible influence peddling, along with a similar report regarding the Bidens’ dealings in China, have been reported in the past. It’s not new, but it never took hold in any media narrative because it’s not helpful in bringing down Trump, which is the measure of news value in the mainstream media these days." . . .

The more the media and Democrats attack Trump while trying to protect Biden from scrutiny of his family dealings abroad, the more the media focuses attention on Biden and raises the same sort of questions that turned Hillary Clinton’s campaign into a campaign about her emails.

NeverTrump's Collusion In the Trump-Russia #Spygate Scandal

Julie Kelly  "As the history of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax is being written, one group deserves a vaunted perch atop the proverbial Hall of Shame: NeverTrump “conservatives.”
"For nearly three years, these Trump-hating propagandists on the Right have aided the most mendacious forces on the Left in a grievous attempt to take down the Republican president of the United States. While they preened, prattled, and proselytized about how much better they are than deplorable Trumpists, NeverTrumpers en masse abandoned their so-called traditional conservative principles in order to aid a Hillary Clinton-DNC-Obama Administration scheme to destroy the political pariah who won the presidency over their collective objection.

"In the process, they tried to rewrite the fundamental tenets of American conservatism. Behavior that once would’ve sparked outrage in conservative quarters has been normalized, even justified, by self-proclaimed conservatives.
"Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to present fictional opposition research as legitimate evidence to the most powerful law enforcement officials in the world. Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to violate the privacy rights of a U.S. citizen who made the mistake of volunteering for the wrong campaign. Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to frame a three-star general and cheer as he loses his reputation and his life savings over a manufactured process crime.
"Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to defend the weaponization of our most trusted institutions—from the FBI to a secret court created to protect the country from foreign criminals—and disguise those actions as “the right thing to do.” Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to promote an untethered investigation run by revenge-seeking partisans and justify their manipulation of every lever of federal authority.
"Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to appear on left-leaning cable news shows and editorial pages to suggest the president—without evidence—is a Russian shill, agent, stooge, and worse, a traitor, whose days are numbered. Because Trump is president, now it is “conservative” to attack Republican lawmakers attempting to expose how unelected bureaucrats abused their power to target innocent Americans.
Functionally Left-Wing. . . 
. . . "Kristol’s Trump-Russia collusion fixation has been shared by his pals Jonah Goldberg and David French at National Review. Although Goldberg has publicly insisted he is a “collusion skeptic,” he has promoted several collusion plotlines, including the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russian lobbyists and Trump’s campaign team, including the president’s oldest son." . . . 
. . . "There are other lesser-known NeverTrumpers who have peddled the collusion hoax over the past two years: Tom Nichols, Jennifer Rubin, Evan McMullin, and Rick Wilson to name a few. None of them appears to be backing down or owning up to their own participation in this seditious plot. " . . .

Media Trying to Turn a Biden Scandal into a Trump Scandal

Ben Garrison
The Democrats are desperate for any anti-Trump negativity. They’ll take anything and blow it up into a full-fledged scandal.


"The latest Fake News springs from an anonymous US intelligence operative in Ukraine. His ‘whistle blowing’ amounted to nothing and it has already been discredited. The individual apparently doesn’t like the President. Trump called him a partisan. His whistle blowing has already been determined to be a baseless accusation. It’s not actionable under the law.
"Trump did nothing wrong, but the Democrats are in a frenzy. They’re now drumming up a new witch-hunt based on the hollow whistle blowing. It will be used to expedite impeach proceedings against the president.
"Some Democrats immediately launched into hysterics. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi want the whistleblower’s complaint brought before Congress. Cory Booker hyped up the accusation as ’stunning’ and called Trump’s administration the ‘most corrupt’ of his lifetime. Hillary Clinton stated Trump “asked a foreign power to help him win an election. Again.” An ironic statement from her and drenched in hypocrisy, considering she paid for a Russian dossier filled with anti-Trump lies in an attempt to remove him from office.
"Clinton has no problem engaging in treason and getting help from foreign powers—including communist China. The shrill Elizabeth Warren urged Congress to Impeach Trump, calling it their Constitutional duty while claiming Trump isn’t above the law. Well, we all know Hillary certainly is—she remains protected by the Deep State.
"It has become clear the Democrats will not let the president do his job without their endless harassment. They can’t come up with legitimate reasons to impeach him, so they invent reasons.
"They don’t need facts or the law on their side. They’re leaving a lot of broken whistles in their wake. —Ben Garrison

REVEALED: Whistleblower who claims Trump repeatedly pressured Ukraine president to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter for corruption during phone call 'DID NOT actually listen to the communication between the leaders'  . . . "A source told CNN that the official 'did not have direct knowledge of the communications' instead relying on 'learning information that was not obtained during the course of their work'." . . . 


Peter Schweizer on Whistleblower: Media Trying to Turn a Biden Scandal into a Trump Scandal   . . . "Schweizer maintained, “It needs to be investigated. They need to be held to account, and by the way, I think that if you change the name from Hunter Biden to Don Jr. or Eric Trump, I think you would have an entirely different tone by the media and by the Congress, and that’s a shame, [because] it should be consistent with whoever’s doing it. They’re trying to turn what was a Biden scandal into a Trump scandal, and I think what we need to do is focus on the larger issue here that the Biden family was getting millions of dollars from these overseas connected people going to Joe Biden’s son to allegedly do work that he had no qualifications to do.' ” . . .

Biden Accuses Trump of Abusing Power by Highlighting Son’s Ties to Ukraine

Joe Biden and his son Hunter can’t keep their Ukraine story straight  . . . "There’s nothing quite like a public lie to signal to the public that they are being deceived. As the purported whistleblower scandal plays out in the days ahead, all of the media hysteria over alleged Trump improprieties will blow back onto Biden, now exposed as covering up something." . . .
Not if Adam Schiff has anything to do with it.