Contempt

Posted on 12 November 2019 by eehines

Here is the plain, palpable contempt the Progressive-Democrats have for Republicans and for us average Americans. This excerpt is from the transcript of LtCol Alexander Vindman’s “testimony” during House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D, CA) closed door…hearing (excuse the differing image sizes):Aside from blocking legitimate questioning, this lawyer for Schiff’s witness (while Republican witnesses are routinely denied the presence of their or of State or White House counsel) openly called the Republican Congressman a liar. Without objection or correction by Schiff.

And we average Americans are supposed to be stupid enough not to understand either the naked stonewalling or the slur.

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Free Speech vs No Free Speech

Posted on 9 November 2019 by eehines

The Progressive-Democratic Party vs the Republican Party.

Progressive-Democratic Party icon—and proud progressive—Hillary Clinton wants to ban free speech, and the first step is Twitter’s Jack Dorsey’s ban on the free speech of political advertising, done with her wholehearted and full throated support.

Twitter made the right decision to say, “Look, we don’t want to get into the judging game.” I think that should be the decision that Facebook makes as well.

Never mind that banning political ads—a form of the speech explicitly protected under the 1^st Amendment—is a most fundamental bit of judging speech. Note that Clinton desire to extend the ban to Facebook:

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How Terrible Is That?

Posted on 8 November 2019 by eehines

Jeremy Corbyn, British Labour Party’s MFWIC, has “accused” British PM Boris Johnson of pushing for US-style deregulation of health care. The horror.

As the UK election campaigns got underway, Corbyn said his rival wanted to “unleash Thatcherism on steroids” once the country was no longer bound by EU trading treaties and regulations.

Channeling our own Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT), Corbyn thinks “capitalism” is a dirty word.

He went further:

Corbyn also said…that Johnson wants to strike a trade deal with US President Donald Trump to sell off parts of the UK’s National Health Service, or make it easier for US pharmaceutical firms and medical companies to sell into the UK healthcare market.

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Separating Blue and Red America

Posted on 6 November 2019 by eehines

A growing number of local television stations across the country are reviving an older practice of broadcasting our national anthem once a day, pairing it with all-American imagery that further celebrates our nation.

Gray and Nexstar executives [two of the companies whose stations have revived broadcasting our anthem] said the reason to bring back the anthem was simple: encouraging national unity at a time of deep division in the country[.]

The stations broadcast our anthem in the wee hours of the morning, reminiscent of how our stations used to sign off for the night around midnight, broadcasting our anthem and showing imagery as part of the sign-off.

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Love Me that Censorship

Posted on 5 November 2019 by eehines

That’s what that icon of the Left, Juan Williams, says.

The reality is that [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to understand, from my perspective, that he’s undermining his brand by allowing political lies to be put on his platform. That, to me, lessens the trust that the consumer has.

Because censoring speech—especially politically speech—is the way to win the hearts and minds and trust of the consumer.

Certainly, controlling speech and allowing only that which the Left approves—what Juan Williams personally approves—can be a tool for winning controlling the hearts and minds of citizens, but trust? No. Censorship destroys trust.

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Typical

Posted on 3 November 2019 by eehines

Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, has struck again. Now he’s banning “all political advertising on Twitter globally.” He’s justifying this move with this bit of fantastical rationalization:

We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.

I suppose, then, he believes television, radio, print media—along with his competitors, Facebook, Alphabet, et al.—also should ban political advertising on their platforms. After all, political message reach should be earned, not bought.

A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people.

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That Was No Gaffe

Posted on 2 November 2019 by eehines

Donald Trump, Jr, says The Washington Post is destroying its credibility with its gaffes. Young Trump is correct on the first part (except, perhaps, for the tense), but he’s being generous with the last part.

This newspaper headlined its article purporting to be an obituary about Daesh’s head, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, styling the…person…an austere religious scholar. Earlier, the newspaper smeared a high school student, saying he’d mistreated in some way a Native American who had, in fact, accosted the boy, banging a drum in the boy’s face.

Trump said,

They don’t even pretend to be objective[.]

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Fiscally Sound Socialism

Posted on 30 October 2019 by eehines

Richard Rubin posited, in his Wall Street Journal article, some hypotheticals for how Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) might pay for her Medicare-for-All plan. He suggested that one of the ways toward this goal of Medicare-for-All that all the Progressive-Democrats running for President need to do was to

find[] ways to reduce health-care costs

Were Progressive-Democrat candidates serious about this, though, they’d stop conflating health care costs with health care coverage costs, get government out of the way of both industries, and put them both (back) into competitive, free market environments.

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The Doings of a Star Chamber

Posted on 27 October 2019 by eehines

Here are some, from the House Intelligence Committee’s canonical Star Chamber, chaired by Congressman and Intell Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D, CA):

a single, printed transcript of every interview…of its impeachment inquiry. Only members of the three committees…allowed to view that printout, and only in the presence of a Democratic staffer

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R, NY) has the right of this one:

Ms Stefanik—an elected member of Congress who sits on the Intelligence Committee—will be babysat while reading by an unelected employee of the Democrats.
“It’s outrageous, and it’s an abuse of power,” Ms Stefanik said in an interview. “Every constituent across this country deserves to have their members have access to all the facts.”

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Secular Authority and Morals

Posted on 24 October 2019 by eehines

A letter writer in a recent Wall Street Journal‘s Letters to the Editor section, demurred from Attorney General William Barr’s remarks on secularism and religion at the University of Notre Dame’s Law School and de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. The letter’s author wrote,

Our society can teach morality, ethics, civility, self-reliance, and humility without reference to religion or any particular faith. Children can be taught….

Certainly, such principles can be taught. But how to enforce them? Relying on Government for enforcement means relying on the men who are in Government from time to time, men with views on the legitimacy of those principles and the means of their enforcement that are as variable as those men. And each man’s views will vary over time.

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