Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Martin Luther King, Jr and the Dead Man’s Rule


Whether King’s detractors are eventually proven correct, they do not diminish the gift of peaceful transformation King gave our nation. Unlike President Obama, King did not strive to alter the underlying core of America but to improve her.
Lynne Lechter  "Roughly half of the states in America have enacted a version of the Dead Man’s Rule. Generically, they are various permutations of laws enacted to prevent one party to a litigation in providing live testimony against another party to the litigation who has died during the pendency of the litigation. These laws are predicated in a basic belief in fairness where dead persons are no longer able to deny adverse testimony or defend themselves with their own statements.



"The laws do not prevent a litigant from prevailing in a legitimate dispute, but they narrow the manner in which the litigation may proceed. At least half of the States have determined that it is unfair to ascribe words to a dead person who is not alive to refute them.
"This body of jurisprudence comes to mind when reviewing the current controversy regarding the late Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK) and his alleged lurid sexual predilections that have been recently “revealed.”
. . . 

What an Honest Commencement Speech Would Sound Like

Ruth S. King  "It is graduation season. I have been going to high school, college and law school commencements since 1977 for my children and grandchildren. I’ve been to eighteen including for two grandchildren this month.
"I have heard speeches that are wonderful, boring, inspiring, amusing and pedestrian from graduates and invited speakers alike. Frankly, this is what I think most students need to hear:
Good morning and congratulations!  I sincerely believe that most of you came to college with a desire to learn and be prepared for your future. But many of your teachers have skills and ideas that are proscribed by coercive politically correct bureaucrats.
However, you are all victims of a colossal scam for which your parents have anted up colossal sums of money.
You have been ensconced in an academic gulag where you have been programmed and robbed of the intellectual dexterity it takes to listen to, consider and debate opinions that are contrary to those into which you are being indoctrinated.
You abjure capitalism without understanding that everything you own, buy, wear, ride and text on -- and that includes your Che Guevara t-shirts -- are available to you because capitalism provides the funds for research, development and production.
Even the organic vegetables you consume so virtuously, not to mention those windmills and solar panels, depend on capital investment.
 You mock religious Creationists, but many of you are worshippers in the cult of global warming without even being aware of the vast scientific research that debunks it.
Many of you call yourselves “woke” and “alert to injustice in society, especially racism” but sanction the racist hypocrisy of organizations that promote libel, boycott and divestment from a freewheeling democracy like Israel, while giving Ilhan Omar and Tlaib a " freedom of speech" pass.
You raise your fists in solidarity with “Black Lives Matter” but have no interest in the genocides and famines that are perpetrated on hapless millions of black people in Africa.
There is no calamity, no atrocity, no failure of a system, no tyranny that you have not been taught to trace to a “root cause” in American greed or complicity. Patriotism and nationalism are evil, but you give socialism a wide berth ignoring its documented failures.
Almost everything you learn to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree is indexed to gender and race. Oh, and by the way, “Bachelor” is a male noun. Will that word also be scrubbed from your diplomas?
You wish to make simple pronouns “gender fluid” while ignoring the barbarism inflicted on millions of women by Shariah laws. Will it really ameliorate their suffering if you call them “hirs?”
You have lost the fun of flirting without p.c. opprobrium and ridiculous accusations that trivialize real abuse. And, you reduce all expressions of gratitude, admiration or even condolence to illiterate texts.
 You are coddled and babied in the most cynical and self-indulgent way with “safe spaces” to avoid any words, images, or persons that “trigger” your vapors.
In conclusion, my advice to you is simple.  The word commencement means a start. Go forth and free your mind from the cant to which it has been hostage for four years. And grow up!

Author Ruth S. King:  As seen in: The GuardianAmerican ThinkerMarket RealistFamily Security
Matters,Contracting BusinessSNIPS Magazinereevesjournal.com

CNN now the 'hate Trump' network, ex-contributors say: Network 'openly despises conservatives'


Fox News  . . . “ 'Who are the Republicans, John Kasich? He hates Trump!” Moore said, referring to the former Republican governor of Ohio, whom CNN recently hired. "CNN is the 'hate Trump' network. They just trash Trump every single hour of every single day. All they’ve talked about for two years is the Mueller report and how bad does it make them look now that it proved nothing.' " . . .
. . . Former Trump campaign deputy communications director Bryan Lanza left the network, claiming CNN's only identity is "anti-Trump," not "conservative versus liberal.”
 . . .
“ 'If you hate Trump, you tune to CNN to validate your hatred,” Lanza told Mediaite. “Not sure it’s a winning formula -- and I’m validated by their last-place performance against other outlets.' ” . . .

Man, you're a CNN Republican through and through!
PowerLine Blog

Liberals Turn To Tried And True Strategy Of Boycotting Delicious Fast Food

Babylon Bee



"U.S.—Democrats are turning to a sound strategy that’s worked wonders for them in the past: declaring boycotts of beloved restaurants serving delicious food.

" 'This has always worked wonders for us in the past,” Bauman said. “There’s nothing that makes our cause look more appealing than declaring beloved American pastimes like tasty burgers and fries as problematic the instant we catch a whiff of a restaurant not being on board with the platform of the Party.”

"Millions of Americans rallied to the cause right away, proving that the move was a savvy political maneuver and definitely not a case of petty virtue-signalling.

"Liberals just decided to perform their quarterly duty of boycotting Chick-fil-A. "You know it's effective because of how many people go eat there in the weeks after we announce the boycott," said one liberal Twitter activist. "That just shows we're really starting a conversation.

"While liberal activists have previously called for boycotts of Chick-fil-A, a move that proved to endear Americans to their cause, Eric Bauman, the chair of California’s Democratic Party, last year decided to take things one step further and boycott In-N-Out, a maneuver that’s sure to win over the hearts and minds of the American people.

"At publishing time, Democrats had called for a boycott of Chevrolet, baseball, and apple pie."

Is anyone not aware that the Babylon Bee is a satire site of some prominence? People tend to send it's articles to fact-check sites like Snopes, such as this one.  

They should have fun with this one from the BB:
"Joseph Stalin Posthumously Identifies As Strong Woman Of Color To Deflect Criticism Of Socialist Policies"
Hey, it could happen. TD


Tuesday, May 28, 2019

When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense

Frederica Mathewes-Green



 " . . . I was home from grad school, flipping through my dad’s copy, and came across an article titled “What I Saw at the Abortion.”
. . . 
"The doctor performing the procedure inserted a syringe into the woman’s abdomen and injected her womb with a prostaglandin solution, which would bring on contractions and cause a miscarriage. (This method isn’t used anymore, because too often the baby survived the procedure — chemically burned and disfigured, but clinging to life. Newer methods, including those called “partial birth abortion” and “dismemberment abortion,” more reliably ensure death.) 

"After injecting the hormone into the patient’s womb, the doctor left the syringe standing upright on her belly. Then, Selzer wrote, “I see something other than what I expected here. . . . It is the hub of the needle that is in the woman’s belly that has jerked. First to one side. Then to the other side. Once more it wobbles, is tugged, like a fishing line nibbled by a sunfish.” 

"He realized he was seeing the fetus’s desperate fight for life. And as he watched, he saw the movement of the syringe slow down and then stop. The child was dead. Whatever else an unborn child does not have, he has one thing: a will to live. He will fight to defend his life. The last words in Selzer’s essay are, “Whatever else is said in abortion’s defense, the vision of that other defense [i.e., of the child defending its life] will not vanish from my eyes. And it has happened that you cannot reason with me now. For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?' ” . . .


Trump’s High-Wire Act of Reestablishing Deterrence without War

The more Obama appeased Putin — dismantled missile defense in Eastern Europe, blamed the Bush administration for the tensions that were to be relieved by the reset, and in a hot-mic exchange offered to become more malleable with Putin if Putin would behave while Obama was up for reelection — the more Putin detested Obama.
Victor Davis Hanson
"Trump’s opponents at home and abroad would love to see him get the U.S. into a messy intervention right before the election."



"Donald Trump inherited a superficially stable world from Barack Obama that, in fact, was quite volatile. There had been no tense standoffs with North Korea, but also apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles with possible nuclear warheads now pointed at the United States. Obama more or less punted on North Korea, by declaring it a problem — and hoping that Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear testing did not get too out of hand before 2017.

"Then there was the “Iran deal.” It was an appeasing agreement that almost surely guaranteed that Iran would soon have nuclear weapons, along with a revived economy liberated from sanctions and empowered with American cash. Iran’s terrorist surrogates were the greatest beneficiaries of U.S. naïveté. At best, Obama assumed that when Iran went nuclear, it would be on someone else’s presidential watch and therefore not his fault. At worst, Obama, in delusional fashion, believed that empowering Iran would balance Sunni states and bring justice to historically oppressed Shiite and Persian minorities who would take their rightful place in the Islamic world." . . .

Obama took lying to new heights with the Iran deal

Washington Post  "When it comes to the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration increasingly appears to have been a bottomless pit of deception.
"First, President Barack Obama failed to disclose to Congress the existence of secret side deals on inspections when he transmitted the nuclear accord to Capitol Hill. (They were only uncovered by chance when then-Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) learned about them during a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna.) Then, we learned that the Obama administration had secretly sent a plane to Tehranloaded with $400 million in Swiss francs, euros and other currencies on the same day Iran released four American hostages, which was followed by two more secret flights carrying another $1.3 billion in cash.
"Now, in a bombshell revelation, Republicans on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), have revealed in a new report that the Obama administration secretly tried to help Iran use U.S. banks to convert $5.7 billion in Iranian assets, after promising Congress that Iran would not get access to the U.S. financial system — and then lied to Congress about what it had done. (Full disclosure: My wife works for Portman).
"In July 2015, Obama Treasury Secretary Jack Lew assured the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that, under the nuclear accord, Iran “will continue to be denied access to the [U.S.] financial and commercial market” and that “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.” A few weeks later, one of Lew’s top deputies, Adam Szubin, used the exact same words in testimony to the Senate banking committee.
"But Senate investigators found that on Feb. 24, 2016, the Obama Treasury Department “granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system” — exactly what Lew and Szubin said would not happen — including unlimited future Iranian deposits at Bank Muscat in Oman until the license expired." . . .


Obama's war on his opponents, well, actually...his enemies

When Barack Obama declared war on Donald Trump  . . . "President Obama's actions were neither humorous nor malicious but were an egregious abuse of power of the Executive.  To say that what happened to President Trump was a coup d'état, an overthrow or a type of revolution, or an illegal and overt seizure by the military or other elites within the state apparatus, isn't adequate, either.
"President Trump's enemies declared war on him for one reason and one reason only: vindictiveness.  Vengeance.  Who dares question the mighty O? " . . .
"Obama's army were the heads of the intelligence and law enforcement communities at the CIA, FBI, and DOJ.  Their weapon was counterfeit papers that cut as sharply and deeply as any executioner's knife.  The Clappers, Comeys, and Brennans knew exactly how to have secondary and tertiary sources plant stories in the media. 
"This is exactly what enemies of the nation can expect when the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies are on them.  Destroy your reputation; ruin your life by leaking a story to the media.  And once a story is in the media, then law enforcement can "do their job" and investigate.  By the book." . . .
Joe DiGenova blows the lid off the real scandal: The Russia hoax was a cover-up effort for Obama's political spying since 2012  "Hold on to your hats.  At last, we are on the verge of getting to the bottom of the weaponization of the nation's top law enforcement and spy agencies to spy on political opponents, and it is far bigger than obtaining bogus FISA Court warrants to spy on Carter Page.  Barack Obama's minions have been spying on his political opponents since before his 2012 re-election, and the entire Russiagate hoax was an effort to cover up that ongoing spying." . . .

This is your FBI under Obama.  "[Eric Felten at RealClearInvestigations] wrote, "There are a growing number of indicators that the leading players in the 2016 election drama are turning on one another, making a mad dash for the lifeboats to escape being dragged under with the political Titanic that is Christopher Steele and his dossier. These are many of the same people who had been eager to exploit the dossier, that collection of memos paid for by the Clinton campaign and supposedly sourced from Russia. Once treated like the Rosetta stone of collusion, the Steele documents now seem even to Trump antagonists more like the Howard Hughes diaries.' "

Think Obama Democrats would not engage in acts like these? Let's look at Joe The Plumber.
An Obama-supporting IRS official researched this citizen:
Ohio IG Report: Joe the Plumber's Records Were Improperly Searched   "The director of an Ohio human services agency has been suspended for a month without pay and faces review by a county prosecutor for using confidential state databases to find personal information on "Joe the Plumber." She will also face review for using her state e-mail address to help Barack Obama's fundraising by identifying potential contributors and offering her own $2,500 donation." . . .
Plundering the Plumber's Records "If Joe the Plumber were Jawad the Suspected Terrorist, civil liberties activists would stampede the halls of Congress on his behalf. Liberal columnists would hyperventilate over the outrageous invasions of his privacy by Ohio state and local employees. The ACLU would demand the Big Brother snoopers' heads. And Democratic leaders would convene immediate hearings and parade him around the Beltway as the new poster boy/victim of unlawful domestic spying." . . .
"But . . ."
The press serves the Deep State



. . . "The Washington Post said, "President Trump's new executive order giving the attorney general broad authority to declassify government secrets threatens to expose U.S. intelligence sources.""That is from the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers. The story won a Pulitzer." . . .

Ex-CNN Contributors: Network 'Openly Despises Conservatives,' Has Become The 'Hate Trump' Network

Daily Wire



"According to several former contributors to the cable news network, CNN has increasingly become the anti-conservative, "hate Trump" network that allows only Republicans critical of the president on their airwaves and has systematically "squeezed out" conservative voices.
. . . 
" 'CNN used to pretend it accepted right wing voices for balance, but now it openly despises conservatives who are pro-Trump," Sexton told Mediaite. "Today the entire enterprise clings to a fundamental dishonesty: that it has no political agenda. Taking down Trump is obviously the agenda. And in this regard, some of CNN’s ‘hard news’ anchors are the biggest journalistic frauds of all.' " . . .

One of my all-time favorites of CNN reporting:

2011; CNN Reporter Dan Lothian asks Obama this challenging, insightful question: 

O Bernie, Where Art Thou?

So...all Democrats wear that permanent frown, do they not? That angry scowl; so troubled! 


Truthfeed
The American Spectator
                                            Bernie Sanders’ magic has gone pfft! 

"Bernie Sanders wears a permanent frown. It’s the kind of face an individual pulls after stepping in canine excrement. Now, the Vermont native has a genuine reason to look unhappy. The self-described Democratic socialist continues to drop in the polls. According to the latest Fox News survey, Sanders has dropped 6 percentage points since March. He now stands at 17 percent.

"Furthermore, according to the the latest Quinnipiac poll, in a little over a year, Bernie’s favorability has dropped significantly, from 48% in January 2018 to 41% in 2019. Even among Democrats, according to the poll, Sanders has a 20% unfavorable rating.
Photo added by TD

"Oh, how times changed. Just a few years ago Sanders was a darling of the left. The old dog was breathing new fire into a party overly reliant on the “wisdom” of Hilary Clinton.

"Bernie was an evangelical progressive at a time when this was still somewhat of a novelty. This was his Unique Selling Point.

"Free healthcare. Free education. You name it, Bernie was giving it away. However, in the space of just three years, everything has changed. Bernie is no longer the only progressive.  . . ."

NBC polling data shows Bernie Sanders with a lock on 'low information voters'

Monday, May 27, 2019

The Joe Bidenest of all the Joe Bidens

Richard A. Rail  "An article in the New Yorker appears to go to extreme pains to explain why Barack Obama hasn't endorsed Joe Biden yet.  Tradition.  Respect for the other candidates.  Waiting a bit longer to see what happens.

"The real reason, which will go unsaid, is that Obama doesn't want Biden popping off with some stupid comment that will embarrass not only Obama, but all of Demworld.  That sort of thing was manageable back in the halcyon days when Barack was in the saddle and thinking he was soaking up all the attention so that nobody would even notice old Joe.  Joe wasn't interesting then, and he's not interesting now, the thinking went, but now there's nobody running interference.
. . . 
"Back to old Joe.  He's been lying low recently to get a feel for which way the winds are blowing.  For a while there, they were blowing chaotically for the Left, with Joe saying something stupid and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying something impossible and Nancy saying something ludicrous and Tlaib saying something racist and Maxine saying something all tough guy and, and, and...  It's not easy playing elder statesman when you're surrounded by nincompoops whose nincompoopery might rub off on you.  No wonder Barack's keeping quiet.
"Joe at least used to be the Joe Bidenest of all the Joe Bidens.  Now he's got fierce competition for that."

From the Babylon Bee: Joe Biden Sneaks Up Behind Nation's Women To Whisper In Their Ears How He's Going To Be More Respectful


. . . "Other women have come forward to share their stories of getting apologized at, too. “I was standing in line to buy a latte,” said Maria Aguilar, a nurse, “and then Biden was just on me, telling me he will try harder in the future to treat women appropriately. And I didn’t know what to do; it was very heartfelt.”
"When asked why Biden is sneaking up behind women to apologize for his behavior, he explained that if women see him coming, they tend to run away."

Flanders Field: Remembering Their Sacrifice

Smithsonian  . . . "But why poppies? The answer is half biology, half history. The common or “corn” poppy, also known as Papaver rhoeas, grows throughout the United States, Asia, Africa and Europe and is native to the Mediterranean region. Its seeds need light to grow, so when they're buried in the earth, they can lay dormant for 80 years or even longer by some accounts, without blooming. Once soil is disturbed and the seeds come to light, poppies nobody knew existed can then bloom. 
"During World War I, this beautiful phenomenon took place in a Europe decimated by the first truly modern war. In Belgium, which was home to part of the Western Front in its Flanders provinces, the soil was torn up by miles of trenches and pocked by bombs and artillery fire. The Battles of Ypres, which took part in a portion of Flanders known as Flanders Fields, were particularly deadly and took a toll on the physical environment, too. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many of them British, breathed their last on soil laid bare and churned up by the mechanics of war." . . . Read more.