Having been busy with Stuff and Things, Dwight beat me to the punch on the last news on the upcoming corruption trial against State Democratic Representative Dawnna Dukes. But the latest revelation is a doozy:
As they prepare for state Rep. Dawnna Dukes’ corruption trial next month, Travis County prosecutors are prepared to present evidence that she showed up to work at the Capitol impaired, hid a cellphone from investigators and spent more than $51,000 on an online psychic.
At least with regular graft, you can understand how the corrupt pol benefits. Blowing $51 grand of taxpayer money on Miss Cleao just adds insult to idiocy.
More of Dukes’ Greatest Hits:
In other “extraneous acts” listed in the filing, prosecutors say Dukes:
Was absent for roll call 65 percent of the time during the 2017 legislative regular session, and 36 percent of the time in the special session.
Responded to a search warrant for her cellphone by providing investigators a phone that did not match the identification number on the phone they had requested
Was noticeably impaired while trying to perform legislative duties at the Capitol and showed up late to a House Appropriations Committee hearing on March 29, stating, “I know I’m talking a lot. I’m full of morphine and will be headed out of here soon.”
Agreed to a contract with the Austin school district for her company, DM Dukes and Associates, to provide business evaluations but subcontracted the work to a consulting firm. The district paid Dukes $514,224 from May 2015 to March 2016.
Arrived late to court settings on June 30 and Aug. 21. Judge Brad Urrutia threatened to hold Dukes in contempt if she does it again.
Failed to submit in a timely fashion both a campaign finance report before the 2016 election and a 2017 personal financial statement. She was fined $1,000.
It’s a veritable buffet of bad behavior, and I look forward to Dukes appearing on Most Shocking: Legislators Out of Control.
Today Hollywood groups announced that they were unveiling an award dedicated to ridiculing President Donald Trump and all his supporters.
“Sure, there was a fair amount of ridicule of the Bloated Orange Buffoon and his deplorable voters at the Emmys this year,” said Screen Actor’s Guild spokesman Amy Schumer. “But it showed there’s a real thirst for Hollywood celebrities to reward withering contempt aimed at both Drumpf and his ignorant, uncouth supporters, as well as to parade and celebrate our moral superiority to them.”
The new award show, The First Annual Smarmies, underwritten by SAG and the Writers Guild of America West, will debut in late October with Chelsea Handler as the host. Categories include:
Best Anti-Trump Storyline in a TV Drama
Best Anti-Trump Skit
Best Anti-Trump Monologue
Best Anti-Trump Song
Best Anti-Trump Tweet
Best Essay By A Former Republican Lamenting The Rise Of Trump And Confessing Their Sins
Best Mock Trump Assassination
Best Skit Expressing The Nobel Nature of Hillary Clinton OMG We Love Her So Much
Best Storyline Illustrating Why Enforcing Immigration Laws Is Evil
Best Performance Ridiculing Christians For Their Crazy Beliefs
Best Performance Celebrating Muslims
Best Performance Ridiculing Guns, Hunting or NASCAR
Best Monologue Explaining To Ignorant Trump Supporters In The Heartland How Very Wrong They Are And How They Need To Mend Their Ways And Abandon Trump If They Want To Win Back Hollywood’s Respect
Lena Dunham, Keith Olbermann, Kathy Griffin and Cher are among the announced celebrities who will be presenting awards.
“We want to make sure the award ceremony is broadcast in prime time,” said Schumer “especially in states like Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, so we can let those inbred redneck freaks of JesusLand feel the naked contempt their intellectual betters hold them in.
“That was the problem in 2016: We just didn’t let middle America feel our disdain for them enough. This time we’re going to fix that. Once middle America finally realizes how much Hollywood celebrities hate them, I’m sure they’ll stop voting for the candidates we oppose!”
Here’s a Prager University video demolishing the myth of the “Southern Strategy,” the idea that the party of Bull Conner and George Wallace magically became the party of civil rights and the Republican Party took their place as the party of racism.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Cleanup from Harvey and Irma continues apace, and there was another London jihad terror attack.
Bomb attack on a London tube train injuries 20, but no reported deaths. “Officers believe that the blast on the train at Parsons Green, southwest London, was caused by an improvised explosive device and hundreds of detectives are now investigating with the assistance of MI5.” More west than southwest, I would say, since it’s north of the Themes and south of Earl’s Court.
Houston City Councilman Dave Martin, who represents hard-hit Kingwood, had a message for the public about the American Red Cross.
“I beg you not to send them a penny,” he said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “They are the most inept unorganized organization I’ve ever experienced.”
In part of a broader rant that also roped in a perceived lack of assistance from his native New Orleans (“Send me your darn trucks, Mitch,” he said, a plea for the Big Easy’s mayor, Mitch Landrieu, to send waste trucks westward to haul off storm debris), Martin said local folks opened shelters and gathered water and supplies to help his northeastern suburb’s evacuees.
“Don’t waste your money,” said Martin. “Give it to another cause.”
How many times must a gay Democratic mayor be accused of child sexual abuse before resigning? Judging by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, the answer is evidently “five.” Edited to add: Forgot to mention (as Dwight does in the comments below) that Murray was a member of Illegal Mayors Against Gun Owners.
Speaking of prominent Democratic office holders who are sex offenders, Anthony Weiner is arguing he doesn’t deserve to go to prison because it’s not his fault that those darn sexy 15-year-olds keep attracting his attention and taking advantage of his sickness. See Anthony, the thing is, when normal men receive a message like “High! I’m nubile jailbait!”, we ignore it because we’re: A.) Not perverts, and B.) Not complete morons. But only the dimmest, stupidest, sickest pervert would fall for that crap when he lives under a media microscope and after it’s already ruined his life.
The Awan family Democratic House member data breach gets murkier:
On April 6, at midnight, in a small room once used as a phone booth on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, a Capitol Hill Police Officer doing his security rounds discovered evidence that will possibly reveal one of the the biggest security breaches involving House Democrats by the Awan family, a group of entrusted IT staffers, according to court records, police reports and news reports.
In the small room, the U.S. Capitol Police found a laptop computer registered to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida Democrat and former DNC chairwoman. Wasserman-Schultz had been fighting authorities for months to return the laptop, that she once claimed was not hers.
What’s more concerning, say senior House officials who spoke to Circa, is that Imran Awan was also allegedly transferring files – including documents and emails – of House Democrats to a secret server connected to the less secure House Democratic Caucus. The organization was then chaired by Rep. Xavier Becerra, who left Congress in January after being sworn in as the Attorney General of California.
The Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak was the first to break the story and last week Rosiak reported Wasserman Schultz’s IT staffer, now indicted Awan, is believed to have planted her laptop in the Rayburn office room, along with his Pakistani ID card, copies of his driver’s license and his congressional ID badge. Awan also left behind letters to the U.S. attorney.
Awan apparently wanted the evidence discovered, according to a Capitol Hill police report on the matter.
Officials are now asking the question of why the computer was left but the answers remain elusive.
“There is no reason to accommodate all the members data on one server and one that was apparently hidden,” said the Senior House official. “Why didn’t Xavier Becerra know this because it happened on his watch? Each member had their own server to protect against this and Awan intentionally tried to hide what he had done from investigators.”
Becerra’s office did not return phone calls for comment.
The House official told Circa that Awan was also allegedly uploading “terabits of information to dropbox so he was possibly able to access the information even after he was banned from the network.” The official said there is a need for a full congressional investigation on the matter.
“I think this may lead to information as to who really accessed the DNC server – everybody talks about Russia – but look at the access (Awan) had and potentially those emails could have been sold,” the House official added.
“The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that will provide $1.2 trillion to fund the government past Sept. 30, and will allocate $1.6 billion towards President Donald Trump’s border wall.” This is why I don’t freak out over all the reports of President Trump’s reported amnesty deal with Democrats. It’s not that I trust Trump, it’s that I have no interest in watching the magician make flourishes with his left hand. If such an amnesty actually approaches the voting stage, then I’ll worry. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Still, President Trump would do well to heed Kurt Schlicter’s advice and not let Chuck Schumer play him for a fool. “What we saw isn’t the art of the deal. This is the art of being suckered.”
Democrats are intellectually lazy. Decades of demonizing conservatives failed to win the last election. Name-calling won’t win votes. Racist, sexist, even Nazi, no longer have any meaning thanks to overuse.
If Democrats want to win again, then they will have to sell their ideas, not their skin color, their sex, or any other superficiality.
It should be apparent, but evidently is not to antifa members and leaders, that the United States, despite Donald Trump being president, is not in a comparable situation to that of Weimar Germany on the eve of Hitler’s ascension to power…Leftist violence in the 1930s in Germany led many to support the Nazis in the hope they would put an end to the continuing street brawls and violence. Today, the antifa left may even help to get Donald Trump reelected in 2020.
In a poll of possible Democratic candidates for 2020, Bernie Sanders has a commanding lead over— [At this point a lynch mob broke into the writer’s house to wreck terrible vengeance upon him for mentioning the 2020 presidential election more than three years out.]
Camille Paglia says that transgender activists are committing child abuse by advocating “sex change” surgery for children.
In sex-reassignment surgery, even today, with all of its advances, cannot, in fact, change anyone’s sex. You can define yourself as a trans man or a trans woman or one of these new gradations along the scale, but ultimately every single cell in the human body, the DNA in that cell remains coded for your biological birth.
Russian company develops anti-riot truck that’s like a moving battlement. Looks like it would be adept at crushing pro-democracy protestors and Antifa equally.
With Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book on why she lost the 2016 President election, How I F*ck*ed UpDeplorables 1 Me 0Who Knew Wisconsin Was a State?What Happened (Amazon link provided for those who have a crying professional need to buy the book or an unquenchable thirst for schadenfreude, because let’s face it: that thing has “massive stacks of remainder copies” written all over it) in the news, I guess it’s high time to do another Clinton Corruption update. Once again we ask the eternal question: How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
Though there is this: “Clinton: ‘I Am Done With Being a Candidate.” From your lips to God’s ear…
Looking for a handy primer on Clinton’s EmailGate scandal? Judicial Watch has produced this 28 page primer based on a recent panel discussion featuring Tom Fitton and Michael Bekesha of Judicial Watch, former U.S. attorney Joe diGenova and reporter Jason Leopold. Some excerpts:
We found out that as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had not gone through the classified email training that was required by presidential executive order, and by federal law We asked for the records of the training. The State Department gave us a “no records” response. So, that’s yet another area of the law where Mrs. Clinton didn’t have to follow the rules.
But let’s get back to the emails themselves. We found a nearly five-month total gap in Mrs. Clinton’s emails. And keep in mind: these are in the emails she decided to turn over. We also found that one key State Department official did not want a written record of issues about the Clinton emails. There’s an email talking about keeping this Clinton email discussion “offline” because this Freedom of Information Act official knew that the emails would be subject to disclosure under the Act.
And now, let’s talk about the so-called personal emails versus government emails: If Mrs. Clinton had been at the State Department and was doing things right, she could have set up a lunch date with her daughter and then deleted the email. But, once she decided to leave government, she could not take any of those existing emails with her. Yet, that is what she did. All of those emails are the government’s property. And, that’s the issue right now.
Snip.
The purpose of the private email server was to destroy history. Hillary Clinton wanted to hide, delete, evade, and prevent the disclosure of official government activity. The way she did it and the people who did it with her, who lied to federal courts about whether or not they had information, is a crime. There were crimes committed in front of Judge Sullivan in the form of false statements, and, ultimately, that will be part of the criminal case that the Justice Department has to review.
If you still want to know the EmailGate skinny, it’s worth reading the whole thing.
Former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin used her personal email account to transmit classified documents and coordinate favors for Clinton donors, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch Wednesday.
Judicial Watch obtained the documents as part of a lawsuit filed after the State Department failed to respond to a March 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The newly-obtained documents include 91 Clinton email exchanges that were not turned over to the State Department, contradicting Clinton’s claim that, “as far as she knew,” she had turned over all of her government emails.
The emails reveal multiple instances in which Abedin used her personal account to send and receive classified documents as well as arrange personal favors for Clinton donors and political allies on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s behalf.
Snip.
In one particularly blatant example of nefarious activity, Miguel Lausell, a Puerto Rican Telecom executive and donor of over $1 million to the Clinton Library, requested through Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band that a specific candidate be considered for the U.S. ambassadorship to the Dominican Republic. The following day in April 2009, a Clinton aide passed Lausell’s message to Clinton’s special assistants and instructed them to “make sure there is a response.” It remains unclear whether the person in question received the ambassadorship as the name is redacted.
In a similar example of preferential treatment toward Clinton donors, the managing director of left wing fundraising organization Democracy Alliance, Kelly Craighead, emailed Abedin asking her to “reach out” to an “extremely loyal supporter” who was awaiting a response regarding an application for a senior position at the Department of State.
Excerpts suggest Clinton spends a good bit of her new book bashing Bernie Sanders for have the unmitigated gall to attempt to derail her coronation. The thing is, when Clinton attacks Sanders’ pie-in-the-sky promises as completely unrealistic, she’s correct. The problem is, she and pretty much every other Democrats (and many Republicans) make impossible big government promises that differ only in degree. Plus, it may be unwise to keep bashing the guy you were caught rigging the primary against…
“Former Clinton Fundraiser Says Hillary Should ‘Shut The F*** Up And Go Away.'” Is there anyone actually looking forward to her book other than conservative pundits and possibly Peter Daou?
Speaking of which: “The strange life of Peter Daou,” which sheds some light on Hillary’s #1 Super Sycophant. Not only was he a conscript to a Lebanese Christian militia, he’s the nephew of Fear of Flying author Erica Jong!
As long as we’re here, let’s talk about Verrit, a Daou site boosted by Hillary that was billed as a “left-wing Twitter,” but it’s not even in the same universe. It’s a serious of quotes, with comments. Imagine the cutting edge graphic design of Hypercard, but without all those annoying hyperlinks. Imagine a blog as designed by someone who wanted it to look like a PowerPoint slide, but more boring. The problem isn’t that it’s left-wing, but that it’s absolutely nothing interesting at all.
There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the debt deal President Donald Trump made with congressional Democratic leaders that pushes U.S. debt over the $20 trillion mark.
Is it a bad deal? From my perspective, almost certainly. Debt is an existential threat to the Republic, and I believe that we should reduce spending by eliminating vast swathes of federal government programs (Federal housing sibsidies? End them. Department of Education? Eliminate it. Agribusiness subsides? End them all. Etc.) until the budget is balanced. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the debt limit at all.
Sadly, my position seems to be a decidedly minority one in D.C. Since politics is the art of the possible, it’s better to ask: How bad is President Trump’s deal among the constellation of actual debt limit deal possibilities?
The answer seems to be: Still not great, but maybe not as bad as first impressions.
It’s possible that President Trump went for the deal because he had no choice, as Republican congressional leadership was woefully unprepared on the issue:
With much of the Washington Republican establishment still grumbling about President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this week to strike a deal with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, one prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus took to the Sunday Talk Shows to deliver what sounded like the faction’s official response to the week’s events.
In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan struck a delicate balance: criticizing the consequences of the president’s decision without impugning the man himself.
Jordan explained that while the Trump-Schumer-Pelosi deal wouldn’t be “good for the American taxpayer” the president can be excused for agreeing to it because Republicans in Congress failed to provide him with a suitable alternative.
And just like that, a member of the House’s most intransigent, conservative faction – the group that almost singlehandedly crushed the Trump administration’s health-care ambitions – turning the blame for Trump’s debt-ceiling can-kicking, and the powerful leverage that Democrats gained because of it, back on the president’s favorite opponents: Congressional Republicans.
Here’s Jordan:
I don’t think this was a good deal for the American taxpayer. We didn’t go anything to address the underlying $20 trillion debt but frankly what options did the president have in front of him? The first time the Republican conference talked about the debt ceiling was Sunday morning. And the Freedom Caucus had called for, nine and a half weeks ago, we said ‘don’t leave town until you have a plan on the debt ceiling’ and instead we went home for the longest August recess in a decade, longer even than in elections years.
Trump on Wednesday agreed to the proposal of House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to increase the national-debt limit for three months, and attach that to emergency aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey. But just days earlier, conservatives had been wringing their hands in fear that Schumer would turn the debt ceiling into the Democrats’ newest set of brass knuckles.
If not for the high-profile urgency of, in essence, stapling the debt limit to Harvey assistance, the pressing need to re-charge Uncle Sam’s credit card would have given Schumer a fresh way to beat up Republicans. Absent Harvey, Schumer and his band of toughs would have kidnapped the debt limit in exchange for something else, perhaps “DACA or death!” Instead, the debt-limit increase slid through, behind Harvey’s shield, with no last-minute hostage drama.
Trump rejected the offer of House speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to extend the debt limit for 18 months, past the 2018 mid-term elections. This would have removed federal borrowing from the list of issues on which the GOP could have run next year. Obama hiked the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion — a staggering 87.8 percent. That mess, and how to escape it, would have been a worthy GOP issue. Ryan and McConnell largely would have obviated that opportunity.
Ryan and McConnell’s 18-month proposal also would have deprived Republicans of a priceless “must pass” vehicle to which they could append items that Senate Democrats dislike. The GOP similarly handed Obama multiple long-term debt-limit extensions that prevented Republicans from sending him short-term debt-limit measures that he would have had to sign, notwithstanding amendments that rankled him. Republicans should not deploy the debt limit every month, in order to corner Schumer and Senate Democrats. But mothballing this weapon until spring 2019 smacks of unilateral disarmament.
From all reports, Ryan and McConnell were ready to drop-kick the debt-limit 18 months down the road, in return for . . . nothing. Even worse, as conservatives correctly complain, they did not tie the debt-limit boost to any structural reforms, such as a cap on federal spending as a share of GDP, adoption of the brilliant Penny Plan (which would balance the budget by cutting total spending by 1 percent every year for eight years), a private-sector audit of every federal department and sub-cabinet agency, or even converting Washington’s books from cash-basis to accrual accounting. Ryan and McConnell promised 18 months of borrowing and spending on autopilot. Trump properly rejected such fiscal brain death.
Now, in three months, fiscal conservatives can and should append reformist language to the next debt-limit increase. Ryan/McConnell would have denied them that opportunity until nearly two Easters hence.
If Schumer wanted to demand “DACA or death!” I would have seen how he likes death: no debt limit vote, cut spending until the budget is balanced, and let Schumer explain why it was necessary for welfare recipients to lose their checks so Democrats could amnesty more illegal aliens.
Like I said, mine seems to be a minority viewpoint.
There are also reports that the deal is written in such a way that McConell might get the last laugh:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote in some “extraordinary” provisions to the debt ceiling bill that could mean there won’t be another debt ceiling fight in 2017 after all, he revealed on “The New Washington” podcast Monday.
McConnell insisted, in the face of Democrats’ objections, that the bill be written to preserve the Treasury’s ability to extend federal borrowing power by moving money around within government accounts. In layman’s terms, that means the Republicans can work around the December debt limit deadline and push that issue into 2018.
All this is just rearranging deck chairs on the Debtanic as long as the driving motivation for current congressional leadership is avoiding bad poll numbers rather than actual conservative governance. But short of a debt deal that includes spine replacement surgery for congressional leadership, there seems precious little chance of congress fulfilling any of the myriad conservative promises they made when Obama occupied the White House.
It would be swell if I could stop leading the LinkSwarm off with hurricane-related news, but Irma is now a class five hurricane headed straight at Florida. If you’re in any evacuation zones, heed authorities, as this does not look like a storm you want to ride out in place unless you have to. Hsoi’s preparedness checklist is also a good thing to go over earlier rather than later.
“¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Obama lawyer who worked on DACA admits it’s probably unconstitutional.” And yes, the ASCII Shrugging Emoji is actually in the headline, so it just wouldn’t have felt honest to leave it out…
One of my stores, we had 300 employees; 140 of them were displaced by the flooding. So how do you put your store back together quickly? We asked for volunteers in the rest of the company. We brought over 2,000 partners from Austin, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley. They hopped into cars and they just drove to Houston. They said, we’re here to help. It’s shitty work. For 18 hours a day, they’re going to help us restock and then they’ll go sleep on the couch at somebody’s house.
The bribery trial for New jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez gets under way.
Speaking of Iran, they’re amassing new weaponry. “While all eyes are on North Korea, Iran is advancing its weapons technology. The country recently tested and announced the success of their new Bavar 373 long range, mobile, anti-missile defense system. Everything in the system is manufactured in Iran; it requires no support from outside sources.” However, since Iran has (to my knowledge) no wafer fabrication plants to produce integrated circuits, this statement is almost certainly false, at least as far as electronics goes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Bulgaria is projected to have the fastest-shrinking population in the world.” I suspect this is a combination of communism (and its aftermath) sucking, of it wrecking disproportionately more damage on backward, mostly rural countries, and of the general trend in Europe toward a modern, unchurched, welfare state society, with its attendant population decline.
The American Railway union was founded on segregation. “George Pullman famously hired African Americans to work for him. Eugene Debs infamously did not allow African Americans to join his union striking against Pullman’s company.”
President Donald Trump rolls back costly and cumbersome ‘diversity’ regulations. “Obama’s EEOC called for businesses to provide 3,660 different data points about each employee and their pay structure.” Man, it’s like the Obama crew was upset that businesses were allowed to get any work done at all… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Richard “Oscar Goldman” Anderson, RIP. He also had a role in Forbidden Planet. “Austin’s overseer, Oscar Goldman, was introduced in the first TV movie, played by Darren McGavin.” I had completely forgotten McGavin (another great character actor) originally played Goldman. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
There are dozens of legitimate charities to donate Hurricane Harvey relief dollars to the Red Cross (update: maybe not) and JJ Watt’s YouCaring campaign, to name but two) without having the money diverted into the pockets of leftwing con artists.
To summarize, the indictment is an exercise in omission. No mention of the Awan group’s theft of information from Congress. Not a hint about the astronomical sums the family was paid, much of it for no-show “work.” Not a word about Wasserman Schultz’s keeping Awan on the payroll for six months during which (a) he was known to be under investigation, (b) his wife was known to have fled to Pakistan, and (c) he was not credentialed to do the IT work for which he had been hired. Nothing about Wasserman Schultz’s energetic efforts to prevent investigators from examining Awan’s laptop. A likely currency-transportation offense against Alvi goes uncharged. And, as for the offenses that are charged, prosecutors plead them in a manner that avoids any reference to what should be their best evidence.
The Democratic National Committee just posted its worst July fundraising numbers in a decade, raising questions about why the party machine cannot capitalize on President Trump’s low approval ratings and whether new Chairman Tom Perez is up to the task.
The DNC raised $3.8 million last month, compared to $10.2 million for the Republican National Committee. The tally fit a pattern for the Democrats, who have posted a string of depressed fundraising numbers month after month this year, even after new party boss Perez took charge in February.
Why, it’s almost like Russian conspiracy theories, LARP Nazis and the the imminent threat of Confederate statues doesn’t motivate Democratic donors to open their wallets. Or that Bernie Sanders supporters realize that the DNC is still the the hands of the same corrupt Clinton cronies who rigged the 2016 primaries…
“Ask yourself a few questions: Does the typical ‘swing’ voter who made the difference for Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin consider monuments to Robert E. Lee a major social problem?”
“Arrest warrants are out for three men who skipped their arraignments yesterday after being cuffed following the ‘Free Speech Rally’ on the Boston Common Saturday and massive counterdemonstration.” So if you spot Antifa dumbasses Adan Daroba, Roberto Bonilla or Chad Cruger, contact the police… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Update: Joshua Stuart Cobin, AKA “tear gas in the nads guy” has been arrested for assault, evidently for kicking the tear gas canister back toward police. There are a lot of real crimes numerous Antifa protestors should be arrested for, but this one seems a very dubious charge if that’s all it’s for.
Oh yeah, we’ll repeal Obamacare. Oh yeah, we’ll defend the border. Oh yeah, we’ll defund the baby-butchering cartel. Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah. All lies, but they didn’t care. They had their power and prestige and the promise of a fat paycheck down the road when they moved from Congress to K Street. Actual conservative ideology? Well, that was for the rubes. And we were the rubes. We in the base, who are suffering from the establishment’s incompetent mismanagement of the society it had been foolish to try to micromanage in the first place, tried to warn them. But the Fredocons wouldn’t listen, because they’re smart, not like everyone says, like dumb…
That warning was called ‘the Tea Party,” and the GOP establishment didn’t like it either. Remember how all those activated Republican voters helped recapture Congress, yet most of the establishment types looked at them like they were something nasty that was smeared on their shoes? See, the base isn’t supposed to be activated. It’s supposed to be obedient. It’s supposed to turn out on election day to do volunteer work and write checks. It’s not supposed to try to have input. That’s for our betters, not for us.
But the thing is, now we’re woke, and we’ve realized that our establishment sucks, and that we’re tired of being the suckees. They didn’t listen to us when we gave them the Tea Party, so now we gave them Trump. And they’re very, very upset with us. That’s a key reason they want to undercut Trump. Some people are just always going to want to trash the guy getting the attention and wielding the influence they think rightfully belongs to them. That’s true whether they are some donkey–looking senator from Arizona or Nebraska pimping a book about his agonizing moral struggles, or some tiresome op-ed scribbler serving as the domesticated house conservative on a failing liberal rag, or the invasion-happy beneficiary of his parents’ success who finds he can’t fill the cabins on his brochure’s cruises anymore.
“Chief Obamacare Architect Fired, Forced To Settle Fraudulent Billing Investigation In Vermont.” I know we were all hoping he’d be pushed off the Nakatomi Tower…
You say that White Nationalists believe that everyone who goes to college is an “academic elite.” You then say that Republicans promote “anti-intellectualism.” You offer no proof to support either claim, but it really doesn’t matter – your statements successfully connect two radically different organizations by alleging a shared belief. Thus, White Nationalists and The Republican Party suddenly have something in common – a contempt for higher education. Then, you make it personal. You say that Republicans “love” me because they believe that my initiative and “their” initiative are one and the same. But of course, “their” initiative is now the same initiative as White Nationalists.
Very clever. Without offering a shred of evidence, you’ve implied that Republicans who support mikeroweWORKS do so because they believe I share their disdain for all things “intellectual.” And poof – just like that, Republicans, White Nationalists, and mikeroweWORKS are suddenly conflated, and the next thing you know, I’m off on a press tour to disavow rumors of my troubling association with the Nazis!
Far-fetched? Far from it. That’s how logical fallacies work. A flaw in reasoning or a mistaken belief undermines the logic of a conclusion, often leading to real-world consequences. And right now, logical fallacies are not limited to the warped beliefs of morons with tiki torches, and other morons calling for “more dead cops.” Logical fallacies are everywhere.
“One Statistics Professor Was Just Banned By Google.” Statistics professor Salil Mehta, adjunct professor at Columbia and Georgetown who teaches probability and data science, was banned by Google last Friday. “On Friday afternoon East Coast Time by surprise, I was completely shut down in all my Google accounts (all of my gmail accounts, blog, all of my university pages that were on google sites, etc.) for no reason and no warning.” His blog isn’t political and his Twitter account follows several prominent Democrats. (Update: restored.)
“For many Republicans, what matters most about Donald Trump is that he’s demonstrated resolve against the enemy — not the Islamic State or the Taliban, but the media.”
The Village Voice to end print publication. “Under its current ownership, the paper eliminated sex advertising.” Given that’s the only way “alternative” weeklies make money, I bet that was the final nail in the coffin. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
