Taylor Swift, having wrecked country music, now wrecks politics

Being a liberal is so easy, with no downside; being a conservative can be dangerous these days and takes guts. TD

Taylor Lewis  . . . "By endorsing Democrats, Swift joins the long and stupid tradition of celebrities opining on political affairs.  It was, at least for her, a risk-less move.  Few if any Swift fans will refuse to buy her songs off iTunes because she isn't a Donald Trump fan.  Meanwhile, liberal listeners have been begging for Swift to denounce the president for some time.  The Bredesen-Cooper nod will placate them temporarily, until, that is, another injustice requires a Swiftian reproof.

"The whole business is as uninspiring as the canned melodies and prosy romantic themes that constitute the "Shake It Off" singer's radio-friendly oeuvre.  Swift is a political naïf.  Her first foray into advocacy is as unimaginative as you can get.  It's chock-full of the platitudinous pap that once filled Hillary Clinton's website.  Trite phrases like "the fight for LGBTQ rights" and "systemic racism" fill the sanctimonious jeremiad, which, most unsurprisingly, reads like a college freshman essay composed after a blithe browsing of a Jacques Derrida Tumblr fan page.

"It's silly to expect any better.  The entertainment industry as a whole is cursed with a simplistic view of politics.  For singers, songwriters, musicians, actors, comedians, showrunners, producers, directors, models, reality TV stars, social media personalities, agents, and other Hollywood Hills notables, politics is a daft struggle between good and evil; in more Swiftian pop-culture patois, it is the liberal, caring "love wins" wizards and witches versus the reactionary, intolerant followers of Lord Voldemort.

"This moral assuredness leads to many horribly trite opinions and the occasional combustion of righteous pretense."  . . .  Read more...

If the word "mob" offends the left, how about "ProgMob"?

Well, if our country is so racist, why is it that the Left has to reach so far to find examples of racism? People didn’t have to do any reaching to find examples of racism in the fifties and sixties, did they? So, if racism is such an all powerful force in America today, how is it that liberals have gotten so desperate to see race in every issue that they've had to latch on to pitiful issues like these to support their claims?  Jonah Goldberg.

Rich Terrell

From 2015: 15 Moronic Things Liberals Call Racism Since Obama Was Elected
"Bizarrely, racism in America is no longer mainly about race. Sure, race is involved in a peripheral manner, but racism has mainly become an excuse, a dodge, a way to escape responsibility. 
"When a black liberal is criticized, he cries racism. When liberalism fails, liberals cry racism. When the Democrat Party gets in trouble, liberals cry racism. It has become the ever present background noise of politics, like birds chirping in the forest. 
"Racism does still exist and always will, but once the Democrat Party joined the GOP in being opposed to racist policies, appealing to racism became a dead dog political loser in this country. The very fact that we've become so hypersensitive about it as a country is evidence of how far it has been pushed to the fringes." . . . 

Trump's New Medicare Rule To Reduce Prescription Drug Prices Through Competition

Forbes  "Earlier today, the Trump administration announced a new rule that will help reduce prescription drug prices for many seniors enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program. How does it work? By reforming a long-standing quirk in Medicare that prevented drugmakers from competing with each other.

How competition lowers drug prices

"When U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced the Trump administration’s detailed plan to reduce high prescription drug prices, much of the press yawned because many journalists assume that the only thing that can reduce drug prices is government-administered price controls.

"In contrast to that conventional wisdom, the plan contains a number of elegant and subtle solutions that will enhance the role of competition in bringing drug prices down.

"A surprising fact that few people know is that America leads the world in encouraging doctors and patients to use low-cost, high-value generic drugs. More than four-fifths of all prescriptions in the U.S. are for unbranded, off-patent generic drugs that cost less than your typical bottle of mineral water. For people with run-of-the-mill medical issues like high blood pressure, early-stage diabetes, and high cholesterol, these inexpensive drugs are a tremendous boon to public health." . . .

Full article...

Civility and the Hillarycrats

Townhall Cartoons

And from Rich Terrell at AfterMath

Confirmation bias: Brett Kavanaugh and the major media's worst moment

Washington Examiner  "For all the recent talk about facts versus “fake news,” telling the truth, and recapturing the public's trust in the era of President Trump, some of our most important newsrooms blew it when it mattered most. Worse still, some demonstrated an immediate willingness to trade this industry's already badly battered reputation for a political victory.

Ian Macfarlane

"We are now at the unsuccessful conclusion of a four-week-long effort by certain media organizations to prove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a violent sexual predator and a lying alcoholic. The reckless and grossly irresponsible scramble by the New Yorker, NBC News, the New York Times, and others to make Kavanaugh into a monster produced some of the worst journalism of the Trump era to date – and that's a pretty high bar.

"There were plenty of minor fouls, including when the Times assigned a news story on Kavanaugh to a magazine opinion writer who openly opposed his nomination. Others were much greater, including when NBC published an anonymously written letter alleging (with zero corroboration) that Kavanaugh was observed by an anonymous woman in 1998 to have pushed another anonymous woman.

"Journalists make mistakes, of course. But had all of the sloppy and often unethical reporting on Kavanaugh been the product of mere negligence or human error, the law of averages suggests that some of the errors would have been in his favor. None of them were. From great to small, they all tried to prove Kavanaugh unfit to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It would be hard to blame a viewer or reader who concluded that these newsrooms acted not as the gatekeepers of truth, but as willing agents in the Democratic Party’s 11th-hour effort to destroy the judge’s good name, along with his chances of becoming the swing vote on the Supreme Court.

"It began on Sept. 12. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim first reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., possessed a confidential letter alleging an “incident” between Kavanaugh and a woman “while they were in high school.” Soon after the publication of the Intercept report, Feinstein referred the secret letter to the FBI." . . . Full article...

Life and death in the fake news business

Personal Liberty

" . . .this president has to go, and your assignment is to keep cutting him, it’s beyond the point where anybody in your business cares who he is and what he’s done and what he’s doing, so pump up the hysteria, shove in the blade wherever you can, THIS is how your success will be measured, you want a light to shine on you, so attack, attack without letup, don’t think, don’t think about what’s going on here, the important thing is:

"The news business is: careers.

"Having a career is life. Losing it is death.

"Your career is on the line." . . .

 Again: Ashley Kavanaugh Should Sue Christine Blasey Ford

. . . "A worryingly large number of people seem to think the War on Brett Kavanaugh is over now that he’s Justice Kavanaugh.

"It’s not.

"Another phase of it is just starting – and going by the continued assaults on Justice Thomas, it is not a phase that will end before Justice Kavanaugh’s death. As the Democrat-aligned POLITICO reports; “Democrats Not Giving Up Kavanaugh War”.

. . . This will stop the moment it becomes clear that Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, Ronan Farrow, Jane Mayer, Kasie Hunt, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Heidi Przybyla, Frank Thorp, Kate Snow, etc. and their editors are faced with the very real prospect of a proper no-holds barred cross-examination in a courtroom.I guarantee that the very same people gleefully issuing dark warnings about House Democrats launching their own “investigation” of the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh will turn on a dime to complain about the Kavanaughs refusing to be “gracious in victory”, and scream that it is time to let bygones be bygonee and “move on.”These are people of bad faith and they deserve nothing but contempt. . . .

Matt Nuskind

If America Goes Socialist, Is Civil War Inevitable?

“In Defense of Rural America”

“In the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States embarked on a new relationship with death, entering into a civil war that proved bloodier than any other conflict in American history, a war that would presage the slaughter of World War 1’s Western Front and the global carnage of the twentieth century.”  —Drew Gilpin Faust, Contemporary historian

"The warning from Mr. Faust should tell us that embarking on a civil war, no matter how wide is the gap between us, should be avoided at all costs. Those that are calling or yearning for a civil war and oiling up their guns have conveniently forgotten our bloody and savage history.  But what is the answer when are differences slowly but surely evolve into animus and rising violence, as they are now?

"Democrats are vehemently opposed to anything conservative and are employing all the dirty tricks they can invent to stop a conservative movement under Trump. Some Democrats are calling for open violence against conservatives, or impeachment of President Trump even though the President has done nothing that would warrant impeachment.

"Republicans take opposition with anything that falls under the Progressive banner.

"Blacks and Latinos take aim at Whites.  Whites aren’t very fond of Black and Latino intransigence, or the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mention the words abortion or gay rights, or gay marriage and the battle lines form quickly.

"Nominate a conservative Supreme Court justice and liberal fear mongers fill the airways.

"Oppose open borders and illegal immigration and you are called a racist. Follow immigration law by the border patrol and ICE, then detain and deport illegal aliens and the human rats come out from behind the garbage dump to protest a legal government policy, not because they care about illegal aliens, but because they want to tear down President Trump.

"Implement a travel ban on immigrants from Muslim countries for national security reasons and Democrats become apoplectic and go straight to U. S. District Court to challenge it, even though the President has constitutional authority to impose such a travel band, no matter who is president." . . .

Democrats want to repeal the Electoral College thereby turning America into mob city rule.  If they are successful the 15 most populated states will rule America from a socialist platform.

For many older Americans, the memory of leftists cheering for the Communists of North Vietnam to defeat America and even for the more recent praising of the murderous dictator of North Korea has left a deep wound. TD

I told you back in 2016 that Trump cannot win!

Bloviating Zeppelin

Ford calls it quits on Kavanaugh: Wants no prosecution, no investigation, no impeachment

"I’m good with that, but I suspect we’ll be hearing very soon that we can’t accept Ford’s decision.  After all, everyone has to believe and support the “survivor” . . . until they say or do something rational, like give up on a lost battle."

Legal Insurrection  "Democrats want to keep going after Kavanaugh, once again disregarding her wishes."

"Christine Blasey Ford’s letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) kicked off what has to be—and will go down in history as being—among the most embarrassing and shameful episodes related to the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice in recent memory. 

"Feinstein chose to sit on the letter and only reveal it after the confirmation hearings had concluded, putting Ford in the unenviable position of having to present her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee under the media spotlight and with all the hopes and dreams of vindication of the radical left on her shoulders.

"She couldn’t deliver.  The persons she claimed were witnesses were unable to substantiate her claims, and it didn’t help that her story didn’t hold up even under the most casual scrutiny.  Where did this assault take place? She didn’t know.  When did it take place?  She didn’t know.  How did she get to the location of the assault or get home from that same location?  She didn’t know.  Who was there?  She claimed that four people were and named them, but none of them substantiated her claim.

"Republicans did everything they could to hear her out, even offering at one point to come to California since she claimed she had a fear of flying (a fear that is debunked by her extensive air travel records).  She had her day in front of the Senate committee, and it didn’t go well for her.

"To her credit, she appears to be done with the entire thing and expresses no interest in making the destruction of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh her life’s work.  Indeed, Ford’s lawyers have publicly stated that she does not wish to see Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh impeached nor does she want further investigation into her claims." . . .  (Emphasis mine, TD)

How must she feel, seeing what her letter has done to this honorable man and his family? TD

We Kavanaugh supporters must - must - condemn the anger and threats toward Dr. Ford.

Ford’s parents raised their children in the same affluent Maryland suburbs as the Kavanaugh family. Her father belongs to the same exclusive all-male golf club as Kavanaugh’s father. And like the Kavanaughs, Paula and Ralph Blasey are registered Republicans. Not only is their party taking Kavanaugh’s side; many of their neighbors are, too.

Kavanaugh Accuser “Should Have Held Her Tongue,” Law Prof Says  . . . “Even if he did it — 17 years old. We now are saying that a man is gonna pay for the rest of his life for a momentary act of, you know, recklessness … which didn’t create any permanent harm except through this manufactured idea that this is such a horrible, traumatic thing,” Wax said. “It’s not a good thing. But honestly, you know, the woman is not gonna recover from that? And his whole now life is ruined.”
Look what she hath wrought:

Rand Paul Reveals Media Hid Key Detail About GOP Baseball Attacker

Daily Wire  "Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul revealed on Wednesday that the media largely ignored a key detail from the attempted mass murder of Republican lawmakers last year at a baseball field in Virginia.

"Appearing on Fox News' "FOX & Friends," Paul condemned the violent rhetoric of the political Left and the Democratic Party and warned that someone is going to end up getting killed if the inflammatory rhetoric doesn't stop.

""I was there at the ball field when Steven Scalise almost died from a very, very angry violent man who was incited really by rhetoric on the left,” Paul said.

" 'And this hasn’t been reported enough, when he came on the field with a semi-automatic weapon firing probably close to 200 shots at us, shooting five people and almost killing Steve Scalise, he was yelling 'this is for healthcare!" Paul said. "He also had a list of conservative legislators, Republicans, in his pocket that he was willing to kill."

" 'So what happens is that when Democrats say 'get up in their face,' they need to realize that there are a lot of unstable people out there," Paul continued. "There are people with anger issues, there are people who are prone to violence.' " . . .

Kentucky Democrat Makes Vile Joke About Assault On Rand Paul  "Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes reportedly joked at a Fancy Farm Picnic in Kentucky on Friday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) "can be beaten,"  . . . "

When did CNN lose it's desire for journalistic integrity?

The Free Dictionary defines "mob":  n 1. a. a riotous or disorderly crowd of people; rabble

b. (as modifier): mob law; mob violence.

2. often derogatory a group or class of people, animals, or things

3. (Agriculture) Austral and NZ a flock (of sheep) or a herd (of cattle, esp when droving)

4. often derogatory the masses

5. slang a gang of criminals

vb (tr) , mobs, mobbing or mobbed

6. to attack in a group resembling a mob

7. to surround, esp in order to acclaim: they mobbed the film star. ' . . .

CNN panel mocks Kanye as Trump’s ‘token negro’; Don Lemon tells guest to ‘shut up’ for saying ‘mob’  "During a debate on “CNN Tonight,” Lemon turned very sour when Lewis said the group of liberals protesting Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and who chased Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his wife out of a restaurant in Washington, D.C., were a “mob.”

"After almost everyone on the panel bizarrely said President Donald Trump and Republicans were to blame for the uptick in hostility in the county, Lewis argued that the Tea Party never chased liberals out of establishments like liberals did with Cruz and several Trump administration officials in recent months.

" 'The Tea Party did hound people. The Tea Party people hounded me when I went out to cover them!” Lemon claimed. “And do you know what I said? It was their right to do it because they’re Americans!”

“ 'Don, if they started following you around a restaurant and running you out of places, that would be wrong,” Lewis replied.

“ 'But that doesn’t mean that people don’t get to object,” Lemon shouted, interrupting Lewis. “That’s your right as an American to object. It’s covered in the First Amendment. It’s like the first one!”

"After Lemon lectured the panel on how harmful it is to label intolerant liberals a “mob,” Lewis refused to back down and stood his ground." . . .

CNN’s Baldwin refuses to call SCOTUS protesters a ‘mob’ – then the two conservative guests join forces  . . . Lewis refused to back down, and even noted how some liberals were so deranged over Kavanaugh that they were clawing and banging on the doors of the Supreme Court during Kavanaugh’s swearing in.

“What about the people who were at the Supreme Court banging on the wall. What do you call that? Civil protest, or is that a mob?” Lewis asked, putting Baldwin on the spot.

“Pretty mobby,” said The Federalist’s Mary Katherine Ham, adding that if the protesters were members of the Tea Party, Baldwin and other liberal hosts would certainly label them as a mob." . . .

Confirmation Bias: Brett Kavanaugh And The Major Media’s Worst Moment
. . . "We are now at the unsuccessful conclusion of a four-week-long effort by certain media organizations to prove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a violent sexual predator and a lying alcoholic. The reckless and grossly irresponsible scramble by the New Yorker, NBC News, the New York Times, and others to make Kavanaugh into a monster produced some of the worst journalism of the Trump era to date – and that’s a pretty high bar." . . .

Ford-Kavanaugh: Con job or hit job?

Scott S. Powell  "Was Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Judge Brett Kavanaugh a total con job?  It had all the earmarks of an 11th-hour ambush, facilitated by the dismissal of the lack of corroborating evidence, a predictable presumption of guilt ginned up by a media that feeds sensationalism and mob rule, and the calculated protection of the impenetrable shield of the #MeToo movement.  It almost worked.

"There are also fingerprints of a Deep State political hit job. The Steele Dossier and Kavanaugh accusation have a lot in common, each being based on uncorroborated charges involving sex -- tailor-made to foment a media circus, which is now the tail that wags the political dog in America.

"To better understand these destructive forces, we need to follow the lawyers just like we need to follow the money.  Flanked on each side of Ford at her October 4 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee were attorneys Debra Katz and Michael Bromwich.

"Michael Bromwich’s selection to Ford’s legal team may be specifically related to his long-standing ties with the FBI and DOJ.  Interestingly, he happens to be an attorney for Andrew McCabe, the former FBI director fired for lying to investigators from his own agency.  Out of all the lawyers in the most lawyered city in America, why would Ford choose him?  Maybe Bromwich was chosen for Ford as the one attorney uniquely positioned to influence a final anticipated FBI investigation through McCabe’s remaining supporters within the FBI.

"Debra Katz, introduced to Ford by Senator Diane Feinstein, is more than just a lawyer. An early major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, Katz is also a left-wing street activist involved with various resist Trump efforts. She serves as vice-chair of the Project on Government Oversight, a “core grantee” of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which also funded some 20 of the largest groups that led the anti-Kavanaugh protests.

"Ford visited and probably sought counsel from her Best Friend Forever and lawyer Monica McLean in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for four days in late July.  There Ford drafted and sent the fateful July 30 letter accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.  It turns out that friend Monica was a former FBI special agent, having joined the DOJ in 1992 as a lawyer for the FBI, where she worked for 24 years, retiring after Trump was elected." . . . 

Senator Graham said what Democrats have done to Kavanaugh in recent weeks is pure crap.

Aside from tearing into leftists, Graham is correct that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for hardly accomplishing anything of importance. And he’s absolutely correct, many would argue, that some liberals would jump out of building to show their #Resistance if Trump were to ever receive the prize.

Obama Nobel Peace Prize Political Cartoons

The Media Equalizer  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has become a favorite amongst many conservatives lately, dominating headlines for his witty responses to far-left protesters and delivering a fiery rebuke of Democrats for smearing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process.

"While walking to his car, Graham was asked by a reporter with TMZ about a slew of topics. In typical Graham fashion, he not only savaged former President Barack Obama, he also cracked a brutal joke about what liberals would do if President Donald Trump ever won the Nobel Peace Prize.

"The reporter began by asking Graham if he believes Trump deserved to win the prize for his historic work in getting North Korea to the negotiating table and getting the regime to stop all rocket and missile testing.

"Graham said Trump has made great progress with North Korea, but added that if the president can get the regime to completely destroy its nuclear weapons, he thinks Trump would definitely deserve the award.

"Graham also praised Trump for getting tough with Iran, and vastly eliminating the Islamic State terror group while taking back much of the territory it controlled when Obama was in office.

“ 'If Donald Trump gets the Nobel Peace prize, liberals all over the world will jump out of buildings,” Graham said." . . .