When Character ASSASSINATION is the Name of the GAME

Socio-Political Commentary...

"Adm. Ronny Jackson, President Trump’s choice to head the Veteran’s Administration, learned last week that in today’s Washington, character assassination is the name of the game. Republican senators looked the other way as Democrats, led by Montana Sen. Jon Tester, leaked unsubstantiated charges from unnamed accusers claiming the decorated veteran as an incompetent pill pusher, bully and uncontrollable drunk. By week’s end the admiral, knowing that he was never going to be confirmed anyway, removed himself from consideration.

"The allegations had never been vetted, but Mr. Tester leaked them anyway in an ultimately successful effort to derail yet another Trump appointee. Senate Democrats are waging all-out war against Trump nominees and seem to have no qualms about inventing allegations the president might dismiss as “fake news” to achieve their goals. In this instance, Mr. Tester was the chosen assassin by virtue of his ranking position on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and his constant posturing as the guardian of veteran’s rights. He took to the task with real enthusiasm, ensuring that a floundering agency will continue leaderless for the foreseeable future.

"They knocked the admiral out, but as the dust was settling it became clear that Mr. Tester’s charges were pure bunkum, made up and circulated to destroy the admiral’s reputation simply because Mr. Trump nominated him.

"Adm. Jackson is a veteran of the war on terror and has served three presidents as White House physician. None of them noticed the behavior that so concerned Mr. Tester, and former President Barack Obama was impressed by Adm. Jackson’s intelligence, diligence and competence, writing that “Ronny has earned my confidence and the gratitude of my family for his diligence and knowledge.' ” . . .

The Silence of the Republican Lambs on Ronny Jackson, the Roaring Economy, and More  . . . "The midterms are a few months away.  Will Republicans run with Trump or against him?  Any guesses as to which option has the higher probability of getting them re-elected?  Will Republicans engage and dance or stand in the corner as wallflowers?  If they play this wrong, it may be their last dance."

Are NBC and CNN Paying Off Top Spies Who Leaked Info With On-Air Jobs?

The Tablet  . . . Guess what? Comey’s briefing was the news hook.

"Proof of the set-up is found in the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s 253-page-long Report on Russian Active Measures that was published last week. According to the report, James Clapper acknowledged “discussing the dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper.” Their discussion “took place in early January 2017, around the time [intelligence community] leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect Trump on ‘the Christopher Steele information.’ ”

"So here’s how it worked: Clapper told Comey to brief Trump on the dossier. Clapper then told Tapper that Comey had briefed Trump on the dossier. In other words, the reporting on the Steele dossier for which CNN won its award was an operation coordinated between spies and the press whose purpose was to report the existence of “compromising information” on the president-elect—information that consisted of unverified politically-funded opposition research produced by one of the CNN journalist’s former colleagues. Buzzfeed then published the dossier in its entirety—a document that prior to the briefing no press organization had been able to verify and hence had refrained from making public.

"Since then, thousands of articles on the Trump-Russia collusion story have taken CNN’s original story as the model for a new kind of American journalism, spoon-fed to a pliant digital press by cabals of political operatives and ex-spooks. Lies, innuendo, wild conspiracy theorizing, and the insistent assumption of guilt have replaced old-fashioned rules of sourcing, objectivity, and basic plausibility. While the social cost of this radical departure from these century-old norms is likely to be high, it has acquired two main forms of justification, the twin pillars of the new press." . . .

Tony Branco

The linked article to this cartoon demonstrates how the WaPo chose to discredit it along with the cartoonist.

The Short And Ugly History Of The Disastrous Iran Deal

David Harsanyi; The Federalist

From beginning to end, the deal has been a disaster for the United States.

. . . "It’s also worth remembering what we’ve given up for this deal. From the start there was almost nothing Obama wouldn’t do to save it. To pass it, the administration created (then bragged about) a media echo chamber that smeared the opposition at home. Obama accused those who opposed the accord of being in “common cause” with Islamists, offering the ludicrous false choice: his way or war. Some of the nastiest attacks were reserved for fellow Democrats like Chuck Schumer, whose tepid pushback triggered Obama flunkies to accuse of him of harboring dual loyalty.

"Then there was the constant subjugation of American interests to placate the Iranians. First, Obama made “common cause” with Russia and Syria. It seems increasingly plausible, in fact, that the president was hamstrung in Syria because he wanted to avoid upsetting the Iranians and Russians. Vladimir Putin, the man who helped Iran create its nuclear program, was a fan of the deal. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was also an admirer, confident that Iran would continue its “just causes” after the deal was wrapped up. What could he possibly mean?" . . .

It's been said since back in 2017: Barack Obama Was a Foreign-Policy Failure
"The 44th president of the United States promised to bring change but mostly drove the country deeper into a ditch."

Update:   

Orlando Martinez‎atThe Libnorants

The Fault Line

The American Spectator

The Nerd Prom: what more needs be said?

...But we'll say it anyway. 

Fallout: The Hill Drops Out of White House Correspondents’ Dinner
“The Hill, which has participated in the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner for many years, does not plan at this time to participate in the event moving forward,” he wrote. “In short, there’s simply no reason for us to participate in something that casts our profession in a poor light.” . . .
That's one for The Hill  . . . "A hand of applause for James Finkelstein and The Hill, class acts, whatever else they may be.  As for the rest of the national media...  "Anybody...?"

NBC Excuses Offensive Correspondents’ Dinner  . . . "Even as people across the political spectrum, including many in the media, are denouncing Wolf for her vile attacks on the White House staff, NBC still found it necessary to use the controversy as a chance to bash Trump." . . .

What's ahead for the White House Correspondents' Association dinner? Greg Gutfeld?  . . . "Margaret Talev, the president of the WHCA, said her "only regret is that, to some extent, those 15 minutes are now defining four hours of what was a really wonderful, unifying night."  Speaking to CNN's Brian Stelter (who defended Wolf's performance) on Reliable Sources Sunday morning, Talev said:

"Comedy is meant to be provocative" but "my interest overwhelmingly was in unifying the country, and I understand that we may have fallen a little bit short on that goal."

The Selective Outrage over Michelle Wolf & Kanye West  . . . "Many liberals reacted with unbridled moral horror and a seething sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, many avowed conservatives — particularly those who are most ostentatiously in the Trump coalition, and who had spent years ridiculing West — suddenly embraced him as a free-thinking hero.

"On one level, this is just another example of the hypocrisy and opportunism that saturates so much of our politics today. But hypocrisy can be an underappreciated sin, because it illuminates a principle: Without a standard to violate, there’s no hypocrisy." . . .

Michelle Wolf’s liberal defenders, who’d never accept the comedian’s vitriol if it were aimed at one of their own, ludicrously celebrate her courage for speaking [nonsense] to power.

In other words, Kanye may be a mentally unbalanced flake, but at this moment he's our mentally unbalanced flake

Michelle Wolf Has 'Em Howling (With Rage)  . . . "During the Bush administration, the "Nerd Prom" was an excuse for Stephen Colbert to bomb in the Washington Hilton ballroom harder than George W. Bush ever bombed in Iraq. During the Obama administration, the WHCD became just another platform for Dems to lash out at their critics, with the eager help of Obama's enablers in entertainment and the media.* The only time the WHCD has ever really mattered was in 2011, when Obama and host Seth Meyers took turns bashing private citizen Donald Trump for the "birth certificate" stuff. As Trump sat there absorbing their abuse, that was the moment he decided to make a serious run for president and get revenge." . . . 

I don't remember a WHCD host calling out anybody in the Obama administration for lying to us. Or at least not in such deeply personal terms. It would've meant the end of their careers as comedians. After all, who wants to hire a racist?

 Michelle Wolf wasn’t the first to shock a media dinner. Stephen Colbert and Wanda Sykes, anyone?  . . . "Folks, we’ve clutched these very same pearls before. Several other comedians in the not-so-distant past have scandalized the well-dressed folks gathered in Washington to hear them. Serious Washington meets Comedy, and things don’t go so well? Hey, we’ve seen that show before! Here’s a brief look at some of the other meant-to-be-funny monologues that didn’t leave all of the Beltway crowd laughing." . . .

VDH: Revolution and Worse to Come

Call me a never-Democratist. The party of Maxine Waters-Obama-Biden-Harry Reid-Kamala Harris-pro BLM, anti Israel-Pelosi-Celebrities-Bernie must never be allowed to govern this nation. Given the state of academia and media one has to fear that very thing. The Tunnel Dweller

Victor Davis Hanson

When legal bloodhounds and baying critics fail to take out Trump, what’s next? The Resistance wants Trump’s head — on the chopping block.

"On the domestic and foreign fronts, the Trump administration has prompted economic growth and restored U.S. deterrence. Polls show increased consumer confidence, and in some, Trump himself has gained ground. Yet good news is bad news to the Resistance and its strange continued efforts to stop an elected president in a way it failed to do in the 2016 election.

"Indeed, the aim of the so-called Resistance to Donald J. Trump is ending Trump’s presidency by any means necessary before the 2020 election. Or, barring that, it seeks to so delegitimize him that he becomes presidentially impotent. It has been only 16 months since Trump took office and, in the spirit of revolutionary fervor, almost everything has been tried to derail him. Now we are entering uncharted territory — at a time when otherwise the country is improving and the legal exposure of Trump’s opponents increases daily.

"Indeed, the aim of the so-called Resistance to Donald J. Trump is ending Trump’s presidency by any means necessary before the 2020 election. Or, barring that, it seeks to so delegitimize him that he becomes presidentially impotent. It has been only 16 months since Trump took office and, in the spirit of revolutionary fervor, almost everything has been tried to derail him. Now we are entering uncharted territory — at a time when otherwise the country is improving and the legal exposure of Trump’s opponents increases daily. First came the failed lawsuits after the election alleging voting-machine tampering. Then there was the doomed celebrity effort to convince some state electors not to follow their constitutional duty and to deny Trump the presidency — a gambit that, had it worked, would have wrecked the Constitution. Then came the pathetic congressional boycott of the inauguration and the shrill nationwide protests against the president. " . . .

Kanye reveals Obama's history of being a selfish jerk

Sick of the Kardashians? Let's change the subject to Kanye

Monica Showalter  "Kanye West, the rap superstar who stunned the left by declaring President Trump "his brother," has better reasons than might be imagined for defying Hollywood and going over to the redside: He dealt with President Obama up close.

"And what he found - and has now revealed - is that Obama was an incredibly selfish jerk.

"According to Pajamas Media's Megan Fox, who ventured into the depths of the rap music press, Kanye told an interviewer known as 'Charlemagne':

"You see, Obama came to me before he ran for office and he met with me and my mother to let me know he was going to run for office because I was his favorite artist of all time," he said. West detailed that Obama asked him for his support and he agreed.

But after West interrupted Taylor Swift on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 — which he apologized for immediately – Obama cut off support and was even caught on film calling West a "jackass."

"He never called me to apologize," said West. "The same person that sat down with me and my mom I think should have communicated to me directly."

"Seems Kanye has the normal human reaction of wanting to be treated like a human being by someone who introduced himself to him, asked for his help, and then got it. Apparently to Obama, the public persona was all that mattered, and when Kanye messed up at some awards ceremony, Obama he seized the political advantage by cutting Kanye down and cutting him dead, never caring that Kanye was embarrassed anyway about his overreaction and was attempting to make amends.

Photo added. TD

"Arguably, some may say that Kanye's a grown man and ought to take it on the chin, but he should be given some space for political inexperience and the fact that he's an artist (a pop culture one, but still an artist) with an artist's sensitivity. He did something nice for Obama, Obama kicked him when he was down, and Kanye took it in a rather human way, which is to say, personally.

"Sounds like Obama lied about Kanye being his favorite artist of all time, too.

"Obama found other ways to stay classy, as well. . . ."

Obama's a pol, and it's very interesting that Kanye also noticed that Obama did nothing, absolutely nothing, for violence-ridden Chicago, his hometown political base. Kanye isn't stupid and his bad experience with Obama has got him noticing things. Already, he's apologizing to President Bush for his famous 2005 Katrina remark that Bush didn't care about black people - read that here. Wait till he reads about the history of the Democratic Party and its affiliation with slavery, segregation, fascism, and the Klan... This guy could get very woke indeed.

. . .
 Kanye Unleashes on Obama, Spills Details of Personal Insults and Snubs
. . . "President Trump made big promises on the campaign trail about bringing prosperity to the inner cities. The fact that Kanye West—another unconventional, self-made billionaire—is not only echoing those ideas but meeting with the man himself and hinting about building factories and innovating new technology for housing should get most of us up out of our seats to cheer on this next phase of Making America Great Again." . . .

Oh, Say Kanye Sees
. . . "Now, none of this means that West should suddenly be considered for leadership of The Heritage Foundation. But it does mark a break in the solid leftist wall of Hollywood and the music industry, and in the intersectional coalition. The entertainment industry can't tolerate conservatives -- when I wrote a book on political bias in Hollywood, several Hollywood insiders told me openly that they refuse to hire those on the right. Shania Twain learned just a few weeks ago that signaling support for President Trump in any way means taking your career into your hands." . . .

Comedian Argus Hamilton said:

Kanye West stood by his statement of love for President Trump Thursday. It caused Democrats to fear that Kanye could lead an exodus of black rap stars from the Democratic Party and into the Republican camp. It could be only a matter of time before Ice T changes his name to Arnold Palmer.

Michelle Wolf: In her own words; an interesting take from this conservative

Peter Barry Chowka at American Thinker  "My first take on seeing the live broadcast of Michelle Wolf's comic speech at this year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Washington Hilton last Saturday was revulsion and disgust.  Like many conservatives, I felt as though this was the intolerable last straw of an elitist left-wing mainstream media gone bonkers."
. . . 

"One reason I was initially repulsed by Wolf was her delivery: her voice has that quality of fingernails on a blackboard.  (She referenced and made fun of that during her speech.)  It's the same reason I have a hard time actually watching Rachel Maddow: her off-putting affect.  Reading the Wolf transcript as I listened to her again, I got a different impression.  Yes, her routine was raw and crude.  But working with the transcript, I saw parts that were funny and original.  Disclosure: I am not a fan of 99% of modern comedy and never watch Comedy Central or the late-night shows on broadcast television.  My touchstones of comedy are classic comedians like George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, and most recently Seinfeld.

"Wolf did make fun of CNN, MSNBC, Megyn Kelly, and others on the left – although probably two thirds of her jokes were aimed at the right.  And the latter were more cutting.

"Even so, I am thinking now that we may be making too much of this episode.  Speech is supposed to be free, after all, and if we can't take a joke – even a questionable, bad joke – well, what then?

"I'm interested to know if people who read the transcript think I might have a point here or agree with my cats that I've lost my mind.

"[Editor's note: Be warned that the following transcript contains uncensored profanity and other crude language.]" . . .

Our safety was in the hands of the Obama- Kerry-Maxine Waters-Kathy Griffin Democrat Party

Devastating: Netanyahu's Extraordinary Intel Presentation Proves the Basis of the Iran Deal Was Always a Sham  . . . "One of the very first things that came to mind as I watched this video was how catastrophically Iran's nuclear program has evidently been penetrated by the Mossad, Israel's famed foreign intelligence agency.  If Israel was able to obtain and exfiltrateIran's original nuclear files, there is zero chance they could have pulled off a job of that magnitude without significant help on the inside.  Perhaps those Iranian officials who collaborated with the Mossad have already been whisked to safety.  Perhaps they remain embedded somewhere inside the upper echelons of Iran's government. Or maybe the most vulnerable have been spirited away, with others remaining in place to carry out additional operations." . . .  

. . . 

Sorry, Obama Apologists -- Israel's Revelations on Iranian Nuclear Lies Are Both New and Important

. . . Mollie Hemingway is right to note that Trump's authority to simply abandon the Obama administration's commitments under the accord is a direct result of Obama's unilateral action that bypassed Congress." . . .

Iran lied (still does), people died, Obama hides  . . . "Is this information true?  Obtained by Israel intelligence in one of its "greatest achievements," according to Netanyahu, it has been verified as authentic by U.S. intelligence." . . .

Apparently, Iran Deal Defenders Already Knew Iran Wasn’t to Be Trusted
"Making the click-through worthwhile: Iran deal defenders insist they always knew Tehran was lying all along; some overheated arguments about masculinity and books for kids; how most of the people making the loudest arguments in public discourse didn’t bother to do the homework; and a really strange and implausible accusation against Mitch McConnell.

"Wait, Why Did We Ever Trust the Iranians Again?

"Fans of the Iran deal scoff at Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu’s presentation about the long and sordid history of Iran’s secret nuclear program: “There was nothing we didn’t already know.” “Everything he said was already known.” “There is nothing new in Bibi’s presentation.”

"I don’t quite get how “hey, everybody always knew the Iranian regime lies all the time” is such a sterling defense of the Iran deal. I mean, is that we’re so confident in the limited inspections that we don’t think Iran would cheat by doing things at military sites? You can’t argue, “Oh, we never trusted their word” and “That’s why we have to keep trusting them” in the same breath.

"Our new secretary of State:

“I know there are people talking about these documents not being authentic,” Pompeo added. “I can confirm for you that these documents are real; they’re authentic.” . . .

 

Here are the Questions Robert Mueller Wants to Ask Trump

The Stream  "Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted a list of 48 questions to President Donald Trump’s legal team he hopes to have answered in a prospective interview as part of the investigation into possible obstruction of justice and campaign collusion with Russia.
"The New York Times obtained the list of questions, which are moistly related to a potential obstruction of justice case against Trump.
"Five questions relate to Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who was forced to resign on Feb. 13, 2017. Eighteen questions focus on James Comey, who Trump fired as FBI director on May 9, 2017. Eight questions center on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and 13 regard possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
"Perhaps the most intriguing question regarding possible collusion is about Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman.
" 'What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including by Paul Manafort, to Russia about potential assistance to the campaign?” One question reads.
“ 'It is not clear whether Mr. Mueller knows something new, but there is no publicly available information linking Mr. Manafort, the former campaign chairman, to such outreach,” The Times noted." . . .

What the United States Can Learn from Yugoslavia's Breakup

Balkanization:  

Division of a place or country into several small political units, often unfriendly to one another. The term balkan-ization comes from the name of the Balkan Peninsula, which was divided into several small nations in the early twentieth century.

Thomas O'Malley  . . . "It is highly likely that the United States will break up sometime in the near future.  Since the 1960s, the United States has become more racially heterogeneous and more politically polarized.  The right and left have grown increasingly farther apart and see each other not as fellow Americans, but enemies.  This polarization has accelerated since the presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016.  Americans used to mostly have the same religion, Christianity, and now they don't.  Many are irreligious or are members of other religions.  The immigration of large numbers of people from Latin America and Asia since the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 has transformed the United States.  As a result of this mass immigration, white people are projected to become a minority in the United States in 2042.  No other country has undergone such a rapid demographic transformation in such a short period of time.

"Many racial nationalists want a piece of the United States for themselves.  Some Mexican nationalists want the Southwest to become a part of Mexico again or to become an independent country called Aztlán. " . . .

. . . "A country without a common sense of nationhood won't last.  If the United States were racially diverse but politically united, it could survive.  If the United States were politically divided but racially homogeneous, it could survive.  But if the United States is both racially diverse and politically divided, it will not survive."

Racism, 'White Violence,' and the Left

Kayne West, you must undergo progressive re-education. The party of tolerance will only tolerate a couple of things...

Kanye West's Politics 101: It's OK to support Trump, even if you're black or famous  . . . "We saw that recently when country singer Shania Twain commented that she could understand why people voted for Trump, only to be forced by a Twitter mob to recant and apologize shortly thereafter.

"And we saw it even more strongly when rapper Kanye West tweeted support for Trump a few days later. A bigger star than Shania Twain, Kanye has refused to back down, and even garnered public support from his normally non-political wife, Kim Kardashian West, and from Chance The Rapper (who noted that "Black people don’t have to be Democrats,”), though Chance, like Shania Twain, later chickened out and apologized.

"Kanye tweeted: “You don't have to agree with trump but the mob can't make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don't agree with everything anyone does. That's what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.”

"And when fellow musician John Legend chided him for these statements and said he was letting down his fans, Kanye responded: “I love you John and I appreciate your thoughts. You bringing up my fans is a tactic based on fear used to manipulate my free thought.” West's new song on the subject points out that “Lot of people agree with me, but they're too scared to speak up."  Which is the whole point of preference falsification." . . .

"Maxine Screams At Kanye ‘You Need Help’ . .  ."
. . . "The outcome of that meeting caused Auntie Maxine to lose her mind. West immediately took to Twitter and started tweeting a conversation he was having with African-American scholar Thomas Sowell, who is an economist, social theorist, and conservative political philosopher. Sowell is brilliant and crushes all leftist lies with fact-based arguments." . . .

If 2% of the African-American vote swings to the GOP, no Democrat would win another presidential election. It’s why the Democrats are hellbent on open borders as they see those illegal aliens are their new constituents.

Emphasis mine, TD