Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Some intelligent commentary on the Democrat pipe-bomb scare


Andrew C. McCarthy: The Pipe-Bombs Story: Another Example of Why No One Trusts the Media  "The political Left has been known to orchestrate frame-up attacks designed to make it appear that right-leaning opponents are responsible for violent acts and plots.

"If I wrote the paragraph above in the context of reporting or commenting on the pipe bombs that were reportedly sent by an unidentified person or persons to prominent Democrats, many people would react angrily, and rightly so. After all, there is no evidence that the atrocious but thankfully unsuccessful targeting of the Obamas, the Clintons, CNN, George Soros, and Eric Holder (as well as Debbie Wasserman Shultz, whose Florida office was given as the return address on some of the packages) was carried out by political leftists. There is no proof that any Democrat was hoping to cast suspicion on Republican supporters, to suggest to voters, less than two weeks before the midterms, that Trump and GOP rhetoric incites violence. To intimate, in the absence of any proof, that left-wing agitators may be responsible would be a condemnable smear.

"That’s why this paragraph, by the usually sensible Will Rashbaum in the New York Times’s report on the apparent attempted bombings, is so infuriating:
Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Soros and CNN have all figured prominently in conservative political attacks — many of which have been led by President Trump. He has often referred to major news organizations as “the enemy of the people,” and has had a particular animus for CNN.
"The report goes on to say that the CNN bomb package was addressed to former Obama CIA director John Brennan (who is actually a commentator at MSNBC, not CNN). The Times then adds, gratuitously, that Brennan “is a harsh critic of Mr. Trump,” who revoked Brennan’s security clearance “in what was seen as an act of retribution.”  . . .

Schumer, Pelosi: Trump Bomb Condemnation 'Hollow' Until 'He Reverses Statements That Condone Violence'

Pence condemns 'attempted attacks' on Clinton, Obama as 'cowardly,' Trump agrees
"President Donald Trump is echoing his vice president's condemnation of explosives sent to the homes of Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
"Trump retweeted a message from Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday, adding "I agree wholeheartedly!" In his tweet, Pence condemned "attempted attacks against fmr Pres Obama, the Clintons, @CNN & others.' " . . .
Personal Liberty



Experts: Bomber Likely Left Behind Trove of Forensic Clues  'Johnson said it is highly likely that the person or people who built the bombs have been previously flagged by law enforcement. The Secret Service maintains an extensive database of individuals and groups who have made past threats against presidents or other top political leaders, either through letters, emails or on social media.
" 'A good percentage of the time, this is not the first time whoever is responsible for this will have stuck their neck out," Johnson said. "Those looking to do revenge or harm to someone, it doesn't just come to them one day.' " . . .
. . . " 'It's not an insurmountable task," Oxley said. "There's a ton of evidence out there. Unless this is a really, really smart person, they will find out who did this."' 

Schumer And Pelosi Reject Trump’s Call For Unity, Blame Him For Suspicious Devices

Weasel Zippers

"No evidence who is behind the suspicious devices. Lots of evidence of Democratic violence and threats including Pelosi herself saying if Americans who didn’t agree with her became “collateral damage,” “so be it.”  Via Daily Caller:" . . .

This is even more suspect to me, and too convenient, just as Dr. Blasey-Ford's letter to Feinstein was. Democrats may have their reasons to dislike President Trump, but he has simply revealed their character for what it is and has been...and will always be. TD

Crazed zealot Jeff Sessions attempts to enforce law!

Speaking of Jeff Sessions: Texas Restaurant Draws Fire for Serving Sessions
. . . One local resident, Gilma Aguirre, expressed to ABC affiliate KTRK-TV that she viewed El Tiempo Cantina's decision to serve Sessions as an insult to the "community" that "supports" and is employed by the restaurant. . . .  
Support Richmond - El Tiempo Cantina. 
Now, today's column:  
Ann Coulter  "The New York Times recently published a snippy attack on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, portraying him as a single-minded zealot pursuing crackpot ideas that were putting the Trump administration "on track to lose in court and prompting high-level departures."

"The Times' sources were "current and former career department lawyers." In other words, Trump-hating Democratic zealots weeks away from their book contracts.

"One attorney who left the Department of Justice during its descent into madness under Sessions was Stephen J. Buckingham. (Why not "Astor" or "Carnegie"?)

"As at any federal agency, 99 percent of "career" attorneys at DOJ are left-wing. Social activists move effortlessly from the ACLU, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force to government jobs. Thus, one entry on Buckingham's resume is that he "created a program to amend the immigration status of unaccompanied Sudanese refugee minors."

"During Democratic administrations, these selfless career employees sell guns to Mexican drug cartels and run around the country making sure local police forces can't do their jobs. During Republican administrations, they spend their time quietly, relentlessly sabotaging the administration they allegedly serve.

"In addition to being a nonstop source of critical remarks about the Trump administration, "career" DOJ employees also lead mob assaults on Cabinet members, as Allison Hrabar did to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in June.

"Along with a dozen of her friends from the Democratic Socialists of America, DOJ paralegal Hrabar surrounded Nielsen's table at a Washington, D.C., restaurant, shouting: "Kirstjen Nielsen, you're a villain!" "If kids don't eat in peace, you don't eat in peace!" "The f---ing gall!" "Shame on you!" "Shame! Shame! Shame!" "Fascist pig!" -- which Nielsen eventually realized was not the evening's special.

"(And it still didn't occur to Gen. John Kelly's special friend Nielsen why voters wanted a wall.) 

"It took months of complaints about the DOJ not firing Hrabar -- and her own arrogant claim that she couldn't be fired -- for her to finally lose her job. " . . .

The bomb mailers and the anti-Republican forces in our nation

From Breitbart:
• Authorities in New York safely detonated a bomb sent to the home of progressive billionaire activist George Soros on Monday.
• A suspicious package addressed to the Chappaqua home of Bill and Hillary Clinton was intercepted. The Associated Press says that, contrary to early reports, the package was singled out at a nearby facility, not at the Clintons’ home.
• The Secret Service intercepted a suspicious package addressed to Barack Obama’s residence in Washington, DC.
• A mail bomb addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan was opened in the offices of CNN at the Time Warner Center in New York City. The building has been evacuated.
• The return address on the CNN parcel is the Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). One package has reportedly gone to this address after it was sent to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
• Reports suspected similar packages were sent to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) but were false alarms.
• Unconfirmed reports say that a package addressed to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) was intercepted at a Maryland sorting facility.
• The White House has denounced the attempted bombings, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders calling them “cowardly” and “despicable.” President Donald Trump said, “acts and threats of political violence have no place in the United States of America.”
• A CNN report claimed that a pipe bomb was intercepted on its way to the White House, but the story turned out to be false.

The DWS return address shown here is a bit too obvious to be believed, wouldn't you say?


Piers Morgan: In the Toxic States of America it was only a matter of time before some nutcase turned violent rhetoric into actual violence so now is the time to rediscover civility, starting with you, Mr President  . . . "But let’s not pretend this couldn’t just as easily have been a left wing home grown nutcase targeting right-wing political figures.
"As I have regularly said, many liberals have been sent completely bonkers by Trump winning the White House and their behaviour has grown increasingly erratic and threatening.
"Only last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was attacked in a restaurant as he ate dinner with his wife. His shrieking assailant grabbed McConnell’s to-go box from the table and dumped it outside on the sidewalk as other diners cheered." . . .
Blame it all on Mr. Trump as you will, but recall the Democrats say they will next go after the soft-spoken, classy Vice President Mike Pence next. Recall it was the Democrat constituents of Maxine Waters who tried to beat Reginald Denny to death during the LA riots in the streets of Water's district. 
Kamala Harris supports the BLM movement that assassinated numerous police officers in the streets of Dallas; I do not recall any protest from her against the "pigs in a blanket" chants by these same Harris voters.
Democrats as well who did all they could to destroy the reputation and family of Judge Kavanaugh in front of millions of Americans. Their goddess Hillary drug the reputations of women that Bill Clinton assaulted into the mud, giving them veiled threats to ward off publicity. 
Oh, there is so much more to recall on these Democrats...TD

Meet the man behind the migrant caravan headed to US

NY Post  "Meet Bartolo Fuentes, the Honduran ex-lawmaker who helped launch the 7,000-strong caravan marching toward the United States — on a promise he says he never made.
"In September, Fuentes began ­coordinating with groups dispersed throughout Honduras seeking to make the trek north.


"The initial number of people involved was about 200.
“ 'No one expected this human avalanche,” Fuentes told the Daily Beast in an interview published Tuesday.
"What changed everything was a TV report on HCH — a Honduran news channel.
"A woman reportedly part of the caravan told TV anchors of Fuentes’ efforts, and she mentioned “assistance.” The anchors then supposedly said Fuentes would pay migrants’ food and transportation costs — which he denied in an interview.
"Still, thousands took a chance, since a human-smuggling “coyote” charges upwards of $7,000 to take someone across the US border.
“ 'After that news program, I started to get hundreds of calls, then it took on a life of its own,” Fuentes said.
“ 'In Honduras, the government wants to minimize why people are leaving — they know they are going to leave and they want to say they are doing so because of lies and the opposition, not the conditions that they created,” he said.
“ 'This is in line with what the United States is saying — that there are false promises being made. And this pro-government news program played into that messaging, trying to say that there is financing when really people just need to get out.”
"President Trump has claimed that Democratic politicians are behind the caravan — calling it an “assault” on the United States." . . .

Honduras? What about Venezuela? So Venezuela was behind the great Honduras migrant caravan all along?  . . . "The one clue we have starts with the two governments of Guatemala and Honduras, both of which have conservative, anti-Chavista governments.  They also have disgustingly rabid left-wing oppositions, the kind of people who openly admire Hugo Chávez and his utterly failed socialist revolution.  They like Cuba's government, too.  They are rabid left-wingers, and they seek above all to destabilize and topple the countries of their origin in order to see those countries join their heroes.  They can't get elected anymore, so this is what they do." . . .

The Liberal Mob Must Be Stopped in November

Derek Hunter 

"Something has happened to the Democratic Party, something dramatic and awful. It wasn’t that long ago that the Democratic Party liked the United States, and its members weren’t afraid to say it. Now saying positive things about the country will get you run out of the party and possibly attacked by a mob. Their media minions will cheer it all. And, if things go as expected next month, these people could retake the House of Representatives. These people in power should scare everyone.

"There is nothing they won’t do to win, no lie they won’t tell, and no norm they won’t obliterate. The last few days alone provided us with many examples to demonstrate this very thing. 

"This week saw liberals obsessed with the disappearance, and now we know murder, of Jamal Khashoggi. The obsession was not over how he was killed, despotic governments kill their citizens all the time and no one bats an eye, it was a combination of two things – his job and the opportunity to attack President Trump. 

"Khashoggi was billed as a journalist, but he was more of a columnist. Either way, if he had any other job you never would have heard his name. But journalists love stories about journalism the way Hollywood loves movies about the movie business. Add in the ability to blame his murder on the President’s criticism and you’ve got the perfect media storm. And Democrats were more than happy to jump on board. 

"First, let me just say that I don’t care. I know you’re not supposed to say this, but I’m not interested in lying to you. It’s sad that a man was murdered, but it happens all the time. No one’s profession makes them special. He wasn’t an American and it wasn’t in this country, so I don’t care. 

"More importantly, I’m not interested in destroying or even damaging our relationship with Saudi Arabia over this. Our relationship as a nation is much more important than one of their citizens, even if he wrote for the Washington Post.

"Democrats know this, yet they’re out calling for sanctions and worse. Why? Because they see a political advantage in it.

" President Trump has been rightly critical of the media in this country because they’re terrible, biased in every way and have gotten so many stories wrong or simply lied about his administration. His words, however, had nothing to do with what happened to Khashoggi in Turkey. You’d never know that from watching our media." . . .



Liberal Silliness; let us count the ways...

Judge Kavanaugh and his family ran afoul of this culture and was nearly destroyed by it. TD

Sen. Warren: Defining Gender At Birth Makes ‘Discrimination More Available’
. . . “ 'The Trump administration is trying to make discrimination more available all across the country,” Warren told MassLive,  “This is just fundamentally wrong. This is not who we are as a country, it does not reflect our best values, I will fight them on this, I will fight for anti-discrimination provisions.' " . . .


Eden Political Cartoons
College scraps homecoming king, queen for gender-neutral titles . . . "It's a dream come true," Stony Brook "nonbinary" student and homecoming finalist, Allilsa Fernandez told NEWS12.
"It doesn't take away any opportunities from students who would like to be either king or queen," Stony Brook student RJ Samodal told WABC-TV. "You can still apply. It's just the title is different."  ("The scrapping of the homecoming queen and king titles is nothing new on college campuses.") . . . 

School cancels production of 'Aladdin, Jr.' for complaints of stereotyping Arab culture

Drag Queen 'Jessica L'Whor' Visits Middle School; After Backlash, School Issues Partial Apology  . . . "After backlash from the community, a school district in Colorado has apologized to parents for not notifying them in advance that a drag queen, who goes by the name of "Jessica L'Whor," visited the school for career day. The district said it would not apologize, however, for inviting the drag queen to talk to the middle schoolers, a decision the school made in the name of "inclusiveness" and "diversity.' "




Gillum Thinks Hillary Clinton Is a Conservative Democrat . . . "The Republican Governors Association castigated Gillum for thinking that Clinton is a "conservative Democrat," calling him "out-of-touch."
" 'Andrew Gillum is so far to the left, he thinks Hillary Clinton – one of the most liberal Presidential nominees in U.S. history – is a conservative Democrat," said Jon Thompson, RGA communications director. "This out-of-touch admission once again proves that Gillum is too extreme for Florida."
I'd say Gillum is to politics as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is to economics:
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez majored in economics, but she doesn’t seem to have learned much."  "It costs a pretty penny to earn a diploma in stupid."
U.S. Ambassador To Germany Responds To Democrat Socialist Ocasio-Cortez Comparing Nazis To Global Warming
The 28-year-old socialist, who is the Democratic nominee for New York's 14th Congressional District, made national headlines in July after she referred to Israel as the "occupiers" of Palestine in an embarrassing PBS interview that went viral; she later admitted: "I am not the expert on geo-politics on this issue"


Early Voting Is Underway And It's Favoring...Republicans?

Don't worry about the Tunnel Wall posting this. Nobody reads this blog anyway. The Tunnel Dweller


Legal Insurrection
Daily Wire  " 'Early voting" began this week in most states, allowing enthusiastic members of both parties to cast their ballots far ahead of election day. But the practice, which typically favors Democrats, seems this year to indicate excitement on behalf of the GOP, particularly in states that could make the difference between a Democrat-controlled Senate and a Republican-controlled one.
"NBC News reports that Republican early voters are "outpacing" Democrats in key states like "Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Texas," and the difference is significant. In most states mentioned, at least 10% more Republicans have voted early than Democrats.
"NBC's data analytics center did not parse out whether the "early votes" were in-person or by absentee ballot. In-person early voting generally favors Democrats, largely because most "early voting" sites are located in major cities with large populations, where demand to vote is high and lines can get long on Election Day. Absentee ballots — particularly those from older Americans and military personnel stationed away from their home city — generally favor Republicans.
"But as NBC News points out, the numbers look good for Republicans — or, at least, they look tough for Democrats, who had hoped for a "blue wave," ushering in Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Republican enthusiasm is higher than expected, perhaps due in part to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, and its forcing Democrats to recalibrate their electoral expectations." . . .
Well, if NBC reports it, it must be the truth.

No telling how big a turnout Republicans would have had if Democrats hadn't encouraged violence against Republican voters. TD

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Just not the same world anymore

Townhall

Democrats doing what Democrats do...

Rich Terrell
The Dems October Surprise May be on Them . . . "What they tried to do to Kavanaugh in declaring him a rapist with an absolute lack of evidence, has shown Americans that they do not care who gets hurt in their pursuit of power.  How many male voters thought, “That could be me.”  How many women voters thought, “That could be my husband; that could be my son.' ”  . . .
Citizens may look at [Elizabeth Warren] and think, “If this is all the Democrats have, why should I vote for them?”
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate admits burning state flag during demonstration

That weird silence you get from the Democrats on the Honduras caravan
"Democrats appear to be remaining silent on the issue of the caravan of thousands of immigrants on the march from Central America and unwilling to get into a public debate with President Trump since the midterms are just weeks away."

Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s office in California was vandalized Monday . . . "McCarthy, whose local office is in Bakersfield, Calif., posted photos of the suspects and some of the damage. Two young men were caught on surveillance camera outside of the office, which had its window smashed in by a large boulder. “Does anyone know these two guys? They threw a boulder thru our office window and took office equipment,” McCarthy wrote on his Instagram account. McCarthy’s office is not the first GOP office to be vandalized in recent weeks." . . .

New RNC Ad Highlights Disturbing Violence by Democrats  "The RNC has dropped a new ad that rightly frames the Democratic party as the party of mob violence:
Framing the Democratic Party as the party of violent attacks on anyone with whom it disagrees, the Republican National Committee has unveiled a new campaign ad that focuses on Democratic willingness to break boundaries and rules in the name of politics.  And it’s straight from recent headlines.
We cannot have a post about Democrat outrages without mentioning California:
The Left Just Can’t Let Catholic Nuns Decline To Pay For Birth Control  "Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic group of nuns dedicated to caring for elderly people in poverty, are back in court over Obamacare’s mandate that all health insurance pay for contraception, including abortifacients. They have intervened in a case brought by six states, including California, against the Trump administration. These states are seeking to strip away the ability of groups like the Little Sisters to function within the bounds of their consciences, after a lower court ruled that exemptions to the contraceptive mandate didn’t provide the notice that was legally required." . . .
The stakes are high in State of California v. Little Sisters of the Poor. California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra is standing against a group led by women who have voluntarily chosen to join an order with vows of chastity. This move is nonsensical yet chilling, because it’s clear that this case isn’t about getting health care to women who want or might need it. Rather, this is about imposing an agenda and ideology onto religious people, at any cost.
Legal Insurrection

What Can’t Be Debated on Campus

Amy Wax

Pilloried for her politically incorrect views, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax asks if it’s still possible to have substantive arguments about divisive issues.

"There is a lot of abstract talk these days on American college campuses about free speech and the values of free inquiry, with lip service paid to expansive notions of free expression and the marketplace of ideas. What I’ve learned through my recent experience of writing a controversial op-ed is that most of this talk is not worth much. It is only when people are confronted with speech they don’t like that we see whether these abstractions are real to them.
The op-ed, which I co-authored with Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego Law School, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Aug. 9 under the headline, “Paying the Price for the Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture.” It began by listing some of the ills afflicting American society:
Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.
We then discussed the “cultural script”—a list of behavioral norms—that was almost universally endorsed between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s:
Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.
These norms defined a concept of adult responsibility that was, we wrote, “a major contributor to the productivity, educational gains and social coherence of that period.” The fact that the “bourgeois culture” these norms embodied has broken down since the 1960s, we argued, largely explains today’s social pathologies—and re-embracing that culture would go a long way toward addressing those pathologies.
"In what became the most controversial passage, we pointed out that some cultures are less suited to preparing people to be productive citizens in a modern technological society, and we gave examples:
"The culture of the Plains Indians was designed for nomadic hunters, but is not suited to a First World, 21st-century environment. Nor are the single-parent, antisocial habits prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants." . . . More...
Disliking, avoiding and shunning people who don’t share our politics is not good for our country. We live together, and we need to solve our problems together. It is also always possible that people we disagree with have something to offer, something to contribute, something to teach us. We ignore this at our peril. As Heather Mac Donald wrote in National Review about the controversy over our op-ed: “What if the progressive analysis of inequality is wrong…and a cultural analysis is closest to the truth? If confronting the need to change behavior is punishable ‘hate speech,’ then it is hard to see how the country can resolve its social problems.” In other words, we are at risk of being led astray by received opinion.
The American way is to conduct free and open debate in a civil manner. We should return to doing that on our college campuses and in our society at large.

ARMY INVASION: Honduran Caravan Includes Military-Aged Male Migrants From Bangladesh, Haiti and Congo

The Gateway Pundit  


"Thousands of military-aged, virile mostly Honduran males breached the Guatemala border gate over the weekend and stormed the Mexican border bridge; Mexican authorities ultimately let the caravan through.
"A second caravan of 2,000 migrants formed on Sunday and started marching to Guatemala with a plan to reach the U.S. as their final destination.
"According to a Univision correspondent, Bangladeshis joined the migrant caravan before it crossed from Guatemala into Mexico.
"The Daily Caller reported:
A Spanish language reporter who has spent weeks embedded with the migrant caravan said in a Friday report that people from Bangladesh had joined the mass of people trying to cross from Guatemala into Mexico.The Bangladeshis, he said, were detained in an immigration facility, though it’s not clear what happened to them after their detention.
"This is especially troubling because Bangladesh has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world with a very high rate of Islamic terrorism and barbarism.
"Also, according to Judicial Watch, who has a reporter embedded in Guatemala, migrants from Haiti, Congo, Sri Lanka, Angola, Cameroon, and Bangladesh latched onto the caravan." . . .
Sara A. Carter @SaraCarterDC
Mostly men now crossing the border - rehearsed answer “this is not politics - this is about poverty.” There were women and children but they were at the front of the caravan (smaller numbers). None would say who the organizers are but several said it was organized.