Here’s how to hit the Saudis — and still serve US interests

NY Post  "President Trump’s in a tough spot. Saudi Arabia is crucial to his economic and foreign-policy platforms. So, he’s trying to hold the US-Saudi alliance together while Riyadh takes a lashing from Congress. And it’s getting harder now that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin just pulled out of a high-profile investment conference in Saudi Arabia, signaling possible trade turbulence ahead.
"The importance of Saudi-US economic ties cannot be ignored. Riyadh is America’s main weapons buyer. Between 2013-2017, Saudi Arabia made up 18 percent of total US arms sales — about $9 billion worth — and then spent $5.5 billion last year alone.
"There’s more at stake now, even if it’s less than the $110 billion figure Trump touts. The Saudis inked a memorandum of intent to purchase about $100 billion in US arms over the next decade. So far, $14.5 billion has come through, according to the Pentagon. But these are sales American businesses don’t want to lose.
"Then there’s oil. The US imports 800,000 barrels a day of Saudi crude. Admittedly, this is 600,000 barrels below what we imported a decade ago — thanks to increased domestic production.
"But Saudi Arabia still sits on massive oil reserves, which means that in today’s global economy, the Saudis are key to keeping the prices steady and affordable worldwide.
"Oil therefore makes Saudi Arabia a key to Trump’s foreign policy. Trump re-imposed sanctions on Iran after exiting the controversial Iran nuclear deal last May.
"One round of sanctions has already been imposed, with another coming Nov. 4. The second round will include blocking Iranian oil from being sold worldwide, causing a shortfall in global supply. And Saudi Arabia, a bitter foe of Iran, has agreed to Trump’s request to boost production to keep oil prices stable." . . .

Pelosi unveils just how bad a Democrat House would look

Monica Showalter  "Like a witch lifting the lid from the pot of her bubbling brew, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has unveiled her picture of what her Congress would look like if the Democrats retake the House in November.

"Axios has the chart in this tweet here.  The larger chart, complete with green faces for the Latinos, purple faces for the blacks, and orange faces for the Asians, is here:

"Comically, Axios makes the claim that the racial diversity of the group is the story, as if no one might ever notice the lockstep left-wing monolithic extremism of every last one of these probable nominees.  And even more comically, Axios writes that the diversity of skin color translates into diversity of thinking.

"Apparently, they don't know these guys.

Axios has photos and names of these Democrats

"Fact is, this is a real menagerie of the worst elements of left-wingery, people famous for their lockstep adherence to Pelosi's flying monkey commands, and famous only for the diversity of their idiocies.  These are people famous for making stupid and malevolent statements such as Maxine Waters, dolts who make specious, fact-free arguments such as Adam Schiff, lunatic machine pols such as Jerry Nadler, Benghazi liars such as Elijah Cummings, FARC terrorist-coddlers such as Jim McGovern, open borders advocates such as Raul Grijalva, and just garden variety left-wing irritants such as Nita Lowey, Carolyn Maloney, and Nydia Velasquez.  The rest are almost all just as awful.  Only Eliot Engel stands out as a non-extremist.  The rest are really out there.

"What we see here is Pelosi picking out old-line dinosaurs just like herself, people we have heard about for years and know very well, with claims to "diversity" being her smokescreen for concealing the lack of diversity of thought or ideas in this bunch.  Every last one of these people is a crummy little pawn for the Pelosi agenda who will vote in lockstep to it, and no newcomers, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are going to be allowed in.  (Not that she'd be an improvement, but she'd be a new face.)

"This is not a group that will work well with Republicans, either – their long records already tell that.

"It's just the recrudescence of the same-old, same-old, repackaged as "diversity" to draw attention from the real lack of diversity of faces and ideas.

"If these Pelosi names and faces back in the news don't scare the public to vote Republican in November, one can only fear for the republic."

Whatever happens, Pelosi will be in the news:

Pelosi promises to get Trump’s tax returns if Democrats win the House

Democratic candidates vow to dump Pelosi

Americans Now MORE Skeptical Of Women Claiming Sexual Harassment After Year Of #MeToo

We can now add Snow White to the list of victims.

Daily Wire

"The #MeToo movement was supposed to increase awareness of the supposed danger and oppression American women face constantly. Instead, the movement, which demands men be ruined on mere allegations alone and suggests no allegation is false or exaggerated, seems to have made Americans more skeptical of accusations."A survey from YouGov and the Economist shows after a year of the hashtag, Americans are shifting toward those accused without due process.“ 'When it came to questions about the consequences of sexual assault and misconduct, there was a small but clear shift against victims,” the Economist wrote."As always, “victims” stands in for “accusers.”"The numbers are still clearly in accusers’ favor, but have shifted over the past year." . . .

Boy Has Message For Woman Who Falsely Accused Him Of Sexual Assault

The 9-year-old boy who was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a New York woman last week has a message for her: "I don't forgive this woman at all, and she needs help."
Teresa Klein sparked outrage when she claimed that Jeremiah Harvey grabbed her "ass" at a Sahara Deli Market in Brooklyn and proceeded to call the police, or so she claims, and made a huge scene outside the store.
"I want the cops here right now," Klein yelled on witness cell phone video. "I was sexually assaulted by a child!" . . .

Nancy Pelosi shouted out of a restaurant - by Cuban Americans in Miami

Unfortunately named source 
 "NANCY PELOSI TOLD TO GET OUT BY CUBAN AMERICANS IN MIAMI " 

We must NOT give the left the high ground! Condemn what was done to Pelosi and let America see that conservatives condemn actions that have been taken by the left. The tide will NOT have turned when we on the right begin to do these things; the tide turns when leftist media gets sick of Democrats doing this sort of thing.

Do not give Democrats images to use in their election ads!

This is what the left must be defined by, not Republicans:

Professor calls for harassing Republicans at restaurants, sticking 'fingers in their salads'  "The University of Mississippi has condemned a tweet by a faculty member that called on activists to abandon civility and harass Republican senators in public.

“ 'Don’t just interrupt a Senator’s meal, y’all,” James Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology, tweeted from his @Insurgent_Prof account on Oct. 6, the day Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was sworn into the Supreme Court.

“ 'Put your whole damn fingers in their salads,” he wrote. “Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners. Bring boxes and take their food home with you on the way out. They don’t deserve your civility.”

"Without specifically naming Mr. Thomas, Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter issued a statement Sunday condemning a “recent social media post by a UM faculty member,” Campus Reform reported.

“ 'A recent social media post by a UM faculty member did not reflect the values articulated by the university, such as respect for the dignity of each individual and civility and fairness,” Mr. Vitter wrote. “While I passionately support free speech, I condemn statements that encourage acts of aggression. I urge all members of the Ole Miss community to demonstrate civility and respect for others and to honor the ideal of diversity of thought that is a foundational element of the academy.' ” . . .

We're Not Battling Craziness. We're Battling Evil.

Update:  Conservatives, we must condemn what was done to Pelosi. Evil will metastasize into us from the left if we do not stop it. We called this evil when it was done to us and we must not create a backlash against conservatives, The Tunnel Dweller.

. . . What else would you call a cause that deliberately seeks to ruin Christian business-owners because they refuse to bow to the perverse LGBT agenda?  What else would you call a cause that refuses to acknowledge who is a male and who is a female – and makes expensive and oppressive public policy based on such absurdities?

Trevor Thomas  "Ever since the election of Donald Trump as 
president of the United States, the American left has been – as my mother likes to put it – in "rare form."  Such "form" these last two years has resulted in obscene fits by individual leftists and, yes, liberal mobs.  Someone should ask these petulant, angry leftists – as did my mother when she encountered a tantrum (usually from a child): do you get a fever with those fits?

"The answer is no, because – in spite of what many have implied as they've witnessed the rage, violence, and vulgarities so often employed by today's liberals – we're not dealing with sickness or mere lunacy, craziness, stupidity, or even the deranged.  These characterizations are tempting – I've used them myself– and often accurate, but they fail to describe best what we are dealing with.

"As Selwyn Duke alluded to recently, and others noted more directly years ago, modern liberalism – aided and abetted by the Democratic Party – is a dastardly tool of the enemy of all mankind.  It's like a modern-day Mephistopheles luring hordes of Faustian fools with promises of worldly pleasure – especially sex – and perpetual provision from a paternalistic, godless nanny state.  Such dark pursuits consume their personal lives and thus their politics as well.  This is what results when one makes a god of government.

"Speaking of "dark pursuits," it seems that witches now outnumber Presbyterians in the U.S.  Speaking of witches, it seems the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation brought them even more into the mainstream of modern liberalism – so much so that, now that we've entered the Kavanaugh era of the Supreme Court, Vox saw fit to report on how modern-day witches are helping the "faithful" to cope.

"Part of this coping involves placing hexes on Justice Kavanaugh.  New York City witches have an event scheduled this coming Saturday for devoted occultists.  A $10 donation is suggested for those attending.  Half of the proceeds will be split between Planned Parenthood and an LGBT organization.  Justice Kavanaugh is just the latest target of those invoking witchcraft to "magically bind" President Trump and his administration." . . . Full article.

Obama's Operation Choke Point finally unmasked

Ken Blackwell  "James Madison once wrote that “the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which government was instituted.” While in recent years our political leaders have not always lived up to Madison’s vision of government, rarely have they engaged in such blatant disregard for our constitutional rights as they did during Operation Choke Point — a secret program launched under the Obama administration to punish political adversaries.

"Operation Choke Point was a plot by President Obama’s Department of Justice, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other government agencies to cut off banking and financial services for small businesses and industries that they deemed to be political enemies or otherwise undesirable.

"Some of these businesses included gun stores, ammunition shops, fireworks stores, small dollar lenders, and home-based charities.

"Some government officials tried to deny the existence of the program. That includes former CFPB director, Richard Cordray, who dodged questions from Sen. Mike Crapo in 2014 as to the CFPB’s participation in Operation Choke Point. Yet in that same year, Cordray warned banks against doing business with “… unscrupulous lenders and their payment processors.”

"Cordray was not alone in trying to hide the truth about this operation. Officials from the DOJ and FDIC all worked to keep the program’s existence from the public and to bury the truth. Finally, however, the truth is now being unmasked.

"Government documents were just unsealed providing evidence of just how far reaching and destructive Operation Choke Point really was to small businesses." . . .

Just a plain old white guy

The Daily Gouge
. . . "For those interested in further analysis of Warren’s latest effort to convince America she’s a bonafide Indian, we’d recommend the following memes forwarded from George Lawlor…"

The Beatification of [Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke];

But what’s fascinating is how the media looked at O’Rourke’s fairly mundane life and standard-issue national Democratic positions and convinced themselves they had found a transformational political talent…

National Review   "The coverage of the Texas Senate race has been driven by what the media yearned to see."

Between Cruz and O'Rourke, which would you say is the Hispanic?

"The media’s treatment of Texas Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke wasn’t the most egregiously unfair coverage of the past year — that would be the treatment of Brett Kavanaugh — but it ranks among 2018’s most annoying. The endless glowing profiles of O’Rourke in every publication from Vanity Fair to Spin to Rolling Stone to Town & Country represent the national media’s worsening challenge in differentiating between what it wants to see happen and what is actually happening.

"The national media desperately want a Democrat who can win statewide races in the South and someday end up on a presidential ticket. That yearning drove the brief and otherwise unremarkable career of disgraced former senator John Edwards of North Carolina. Democratic statewide winners exist here and there, such as North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and Louisiana governor Jon Bel Edwards. Doug Jones won his Senate race in Alabama, though it helps to run against Roy Moore. 

. . . He genuinely doesn’t consult with pollsters when shaping his positions, which is how you end up with a Texas statewide candidate who is running on banning AR-15s, abolishing ICE, and impeaching President Trump." . . .

The World Keeps Not Ending

Kevin D. Williamson:  National Review

The angry partisan cannot believe that life is good, because he must then ask himself: If life is good, then why am I not enjoying it?

"We were not supposed to have made it this far. 

"George Orwell saw night descending on us in 1984. Orwell was, on paper, a radical, but in his heart he was an old-fashioned English liberal. He dreamed of socialism but feared socialists. He feared them because he knew them. I was in the sixth grade in 1984, but I remember the magazine covers and pundit panels, and the insistence that though we had not arrived at dystopia on "Orwell’s schedule, that eternal jackboot was sure to find our face soon enough. Tom Wolfe joked that “the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe,” which wasn’t quite right: There’s Saudi Arabia, and China, and Burma . . . 

"But not here. And, increasingly, not there, either. As our friends at HumanProgress.Org remind us (to little thanks — nobody is less popular than an optimist) the world has in fact become more democratic and more liberal since 1984, rather than more autocratic and more illiberal. Orwell was the better writer and the more profound thinker, but Aldous Huxley was the better prophet. 

"On the other side of the political spectrum, Willi Schlamm offered a useful proverb: “The problem with socialism is socialism. " . . .

Via The Daily Gouge

Libs Attack Prince Charming for Kissing Snow White Without Permission

Western Journal

"Liberals are once again proving that there is nothing that won’t trigger them by being outraged over the classic Disney movie “Snow White.”"The left is on a mission to destroy every single enjoyable facet of entertainment and media by politicizing them to death."Previously, the left went after a video game placed in medieval Europe for having white characters. (That’s who was in medieval Europe.)"The left also recently attacked a Clint Eastwood film for not portraying an Islamic terrorist in a more sympathetic light."Now, progressives have set their sights on “Snow White.' ” "Hollywood actress Kristen Bell expressed her concern with the Disney movie according to an article by Parents Magazine."Bell said she reads the story to her daughters, then asks a question that must make sense to feminists in 2018.“ 'Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission?” Bell asks, according to the magazine.“ 'Because you can not kiss someone if they’re sleeping!' ” . . .

Kristen Bell Worries Disney Princesses Teach Her Daughters Bad Lessons "When it comes to stranger danger and conversations around consent, Frozen's Anna has a lot of questions for Snow White."

Bobby Fran O'Rourke enters the American Democrat culture

The Embarrassing Spectacle of Betomania

"Attention, journalists of America: Time is running out! You have under three weeks left to publish your last batch of over-the-top pre-election.

"It is here that we must face the difficult truth: Barring a GOP-related disaster of some sort, O’Rourke — he of that ineffable “cool factor” and “special sauce,” at least according to easily impressed columnists at the Washington Post — is likely to lose big. According to the latest polls, Senator Ted Cruz leads him by anywhere between seven and nine points. Tuesday’s debate between the two, meanwhile, was so mismatched that O’Rourke’s best moment might have involved a random deer-in-the-headlights story in which he described how he “got to meet this blind squirrel who is slowly regaining its sight.”
" In summary, this year’s Betomania — a somewhat weird phenomenon, as we’ll explore in a bit — seems set to disappear from view just as quickly as it arrived, at least in the Lone Star State." . . .

One opinion: Cruz "steamrolls" Bobby O'Rourke  "The televised debate on Tuesday between Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke was a massacre.  O'Rourke has been reluctant to debate Cruz from the beginning, and with good reason (ironically, as a rule, an incumbent shuns debate) – Cruz has successfully argued cases before the Supreme Court.

"O'Rourke was occasionally flustered and almost succeeded in hiding it, while Cruz was confident and occasionally laughed at some of his opponent's assertions.  But more than that, Beto relied on vague generalities about specific questions and on a couple of questions tried the politicians' tried and true tactic of avoiding answering a question by going off on a convoluted tangent.  Twice Cruz pounced on that, pointing out that he hadn't answered the panel's questions.  The specific subjects were how to pay for socialized medicine and how to secure the border (O'Rourke is on record on considering abolishing ICE).  Cruz countered with specific numbers.

"This is not to say that it was totally one-sided.  O'Rourke got in a couple of good hits, such as Cruz's absence from Senate affairs, but, again, he was unable to point to any achievement of his own as a congressman." . . .

Silvio Canto, Jr. says time is not on O'Rourk's side  . . . "A friend relayed a recent conversation she had with another friend, a Hispanic woman and social conservative, who was singing the praises of the congressman.  When my friend lamented that O'Rourke was not only pro-choice but held an extreme view on abortion (he voted against a 20-week ban), the response was complete surprise.  "I didn't know he supported abortion.  They never mention it on Spanish radio."

"They never do.  Abortion, Roe v. Wade, reproductive rights, or "it's a woman's body" is never heard south of Austin.  It's as if Democrats give two speeches, one that mentions abortion and another one that avoids the issue like the plague.
"Last night, Senator Cruz hit O'Rourke on "partial-birth abortion."  It was very effective.
"My guess is that it gave conservative women another reason to vote early for Senator Cruz." . . .

America's moral foundation: the pillar of education has rotted

Professor Patrick Deneen at Notre Dame says, "My students are know-nothings. ... Their brains are largely empty. ... They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture." Bruce Deitrick Price

K-12: Why So Little for the Mind?  "Many critics say our public schools are a train wreck.  In Charlotte Iserbyt's memorable phrase, we are all victims of "the deliberate dumbing down of America."  Is there any escape?  Perhaps, but only if we're candid about what has been done to us throughout the past century. 

"Here's how bad things are now.  Camille Paglia, popular professor and author, declares: "What has happened is these young people now getting to college have no sense of history – of any kind!  No sense of history.  No world geography.  No sense of the violence and the barbarities of history.  So, they think that the whole world has always been like this, a kind of nice, comfortable world where you can go to the store and get orange juice and milk, and you can turn on the water and the hot water comes out. ... They know nothing!' " . . .

From 2014: Camille Paglia: The Modern Campus Cannot Comprehend Evil

Current educational codes, tracking liberal-Left, are perpetuating illusions about sex and gender. The basic Leftist premise, descending from Marxism, is that all problems in human life stem from an unjust society and that corrections and fine-tunings of that social mechanism will eventually bring utopia. Progressives have unquestioned faith in the perfectibility of mankind.