Holding Thoughts

Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA) is facing then-candidate and now President Donald Trump-Russia collusion transcript revelations—many of which show that Schiff knew that witnesses in closed-door/sworn testimony before House committee hearings to which he was party said unequivocally that they knew of no such collusion—that show how thoroughly and blatantly he lied in his public remarks about his hard evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia.

Now Schiff is claiming that the revelations are just Republican efforts to distract us all from the Wuhan Virus situation and Trump’s supposed mishandling of it.

Schiff has begun claiming, instead, that us ordinary Americans are incapable of holding two thoughts in our minds at the same time, we’re incapable of concentrating on two problems simultaneously, we can’t do two things at once.

Schiff is projecting, again. Or, Schiff is lying, again.

The Ugliness of the Progressive-Democrat Patriarchy

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden has spoken. That’s the end of the story. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) has patted Tara Reade on her pretty little head, said “There, there,” and announced that

Now I’ve heard Joe Biden’s explanation. I think it’s sufficient[.]

The grande dame of the Progressive-Democratic Party, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, is on board, too.

I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She [Tara Reade] came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.

Biden was Vice President; therefore he could do no wrong. Where has Reade been all these years? Where had Christine Blasey Ford been all those years, before Feinstein dragged her out into the open and viciously went after Brett Kavanaugh? Oh, wait—that’s different: Kavanaugh was never Vice President. Or a Progressive-Democrat.

This is the true color of Progressive-Democrats and of their Party. Women aren’t human beings; they’re just tools to be slapped down on the work bench to produce talking points and votes whenever those tools become useful.

Believe women only when it’s convenient to the Left’s patriarchy.

It isn’t #MeToo; it’s #YouTooMaybe.

It’s disgusting.

Credibility

As the journalism guild’s complicity in the General Michael Flynn travesty becomes steadily more apparent, some questions arise—again—about what an honest journalism industry (not guild—that’s beyond redemption) needs to do to have any credibility.

  1. identify at least some the sources, rather than hanging an article’s thesis exclusively on the claims of anonymous sources
  2. if an anonymous source refuses to be identified, show with concrete, measurable evidence the following:
    1. the source actually exists
    2. if the source exists, then
      1. why the source should be believed, given that by speaking publicly, even if anonymously, he’s likely violating his terms of employment if not his oath of office
      2. why the source should be believed, given that by hiding behind anonymity, he’s displaying his cowardice—and cowards will always and only say what they believe will be personally beneficial
  3. if representing the anonymous source as a whistleblower, provide concrete, measurable evidence that the source has used up all of his employer’s internal whistleblowing channels before he decided to leak

All of this is best done in the opening paragraph(s) of an article, ahead even of the Who, What, Where, When that used to form the lede of quality journalism. That unavoidably will make for a clumsy opening to what’s being represented as a factual news article (rather than an opinion piece), but that’s the cost incurred of a guild’s prolonged, insistent dishonesty.

Even more importantly, though, the press used to have a standard that required two on-the-record sources to corroborate the claims of a journalist’s anonymous sources. The industry’s Editors-in-Chief—every single one of them—must explain:

  1. why they have chosen to walk away from that standard of integrity
  2. what standard of integrity they’re using in its stead

Federal Aid to States

Dead equine pounding time.

Brian Blase, ex- of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, had a thought on this. While generally skeptical of expanding Federal aid to the States qua States during the present Wuhan Virus situation, he did suggest guidelines within which Congress should act in the event it does decide to provide any Federal dollars to the States.

If it must incur additional debt to help states, Congress should abide by four principles. usw.

No, there’s only one principle by which Congress should abide here.

The States don’t need help; it’s the many (even most in the present Wuhan Virus situation) citizens of, and businesses in, those States who need help. Any Federal dollars should go directly to those citizens and businesses, bypassing the States’ governments entirely.

The only State government involvement that might be useful here would be to make available to the Federal government the State unemployment insurance data bases and the identification of those small businesses applying for loans under the Feds’ various Wuhan Virus situation relief programs.

One bonus principle: once the current situation is reasonably under control, the Feds’ copies of those data should be certifiably and verifiably destroyed.

Personal Responsibility and Black Americans

Surgeon General Jerome Adams, among too few others, has pointed out that part of the reason the Wuhan Virus is hitting minorities so much harder than others—with blacks getting the bulk of the ink on this—is because of their inaction on factors under their control.  Leave aside factors like the pre-existence of health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, medical conditions that are generally beyond their control. Leave aside, further, that individual life-style choices can nevertheless significantly affect, if not eliminate, those conditions.

In addition to suggesting that blacks should put more of their personal attention toward those medical conditions, Adams was so rude as to suggest that blacks should exercise an additional measure of personal responsibility and do better about complying with CDC guidelines regarding preemptive measures: frequent hand washing, shelter in place except for essential tasks, and use face coverings/keep safe distances from others when in public (especially the former when the latter isn’t possible).

Of course, the Left, with its race-baiters at the fore, objected, vehemently and in their own racist way.

To assert that blacks have the power to affect their own destiny was deemed racist, heartless, and outrageous.

Well, of course it was. No less a light than that icon of the Progressive movement, Woodrow Wilson, insisted to blacks that they should be grateful for the protections of segregation.

Blacks, in the eyes of the Left, simply aren’t capable of personal responsibility.