Biden The "Palmist"

 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/11/joe_palmtificates_on_thanksgiving.html

A "devout" Catholic that doesn't know the "P" in "Psalms" is silent. Why, I'm "certain" that this will create a covfefe  type media frenzy! Important coverage from the Atlantic of the terror of that misspelling of "coverage". Why, how are we even to know that he is sentient? He may be so delusional to think he is a legitimately "elected" el presidente of the banana republic of BOistan!

This must be covered! It sounds like as many as ONE thousand people may have seen his crucial Thanksgiving address. 

Perhaps he needs to contact a palmist? 

Influencing Elections, MSM vs Russian Style

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/11/theres-more-than-one-way-to-steal-an-election.php

From the day Trump won in 2016, to April 18 of 2019 when the public saw the Mueller report, we were told by the MSM, Democrat / Deep State complex that the 2016 election was invalid because it was "influenced" by Trump / Russia "collusion". 

What was that "collusion" supposed to consist of? A very few false Facebook posts! 

Even though as far left a media source as the Washington Post now admits that for all the MASSIVE media coverage, there was no "there there". It really was a massive hoax perpetrated by the MSM/Democrat/Deep State, and they got caught -- without consequence. 

However, that fact is largely unknown to Americans. All the while though, there  really is MASSIVE misinformation influence in American elections. The media once at least claimed, and to a minimal degree attempted to be "unbiased". No longer. The MSM/Democrat/Deep State complex is a coordinated apparatus to advance the power of their collective  and suppress any who have differing opinions. 

While the MSM/Democrat/Deep State complex railed against the supposed but fake "Russian interference" that was never asserted to be anything more than some FB posts for years, they were and continue to be engaged in the most massive political influence campaign in history right before the eyes of what has to rank as the most complacent and ill informed populace in history! 

The link provides some documentation of how this works. 

Covid Denial Fake News

https://www.wired.com/story/are-covid-patients-gasping-it-isnt-real-as-they-die/

One of the MANY things I find disconcerting about our time is the tendency to turn every disagreement into a strawman argument. 

Statement: "I think the response to Covid is excessive and damaging". 

Response:  "Oh, you are a crazy Covid DENIER!

As tribalism increases, this sort of strawman is more common, especially for Covid. 

The summary of the linked is that a nurse dealt with many patients gasping for breath and saying "it isn't real", "I thought this was a hoax" sort of things as they die. The MSM has widely spread this as part of the "tragedy" of Covid denial -- even Slate, not "right wing" in any sense, observes that this sort of thing is why media trust becoming non existent. 

I can imagine it is somewhat common for dying patients to say all sorts of things similar to this -- "I never believed this would happen to me", "I was so certain I'd beat this cancer", "I had faith the Lord would cure me", etc, etc, and often not very coherent for reasons I would think all would understand -- drugs, pain, extreme weakness ... I've never died and only have a sample of two that went peacefully under plenty of medication without gasping for breath. 

The best we can hope for is fairly quick with minimal pain and panic -- trying to make it worse than it is has very little benefit. If the news spent half the time on the tragedy of a young person dying in a car accident, maybe their screams as responders tried to cut their broken body from a mangled vehicle, interviewing the bereaved family, etc, hopefully we would just shut off the news, steel our level of denial, etc. No matter how careful you are, it CAN happen to you, just like Covid. 

I doubt there are any lung damaging conditions that make dying from essentially slow asphyxiation much fun -- lung cancer, pneumonia, tuberculosis, CPD ...

Why can't we get along? One reason is tribalism. It is prevalent in our time and pretty much all of us are guilty because "tit for tat" is a natural tendency. Pro-lifers often say "you must want to kill babies", which is equivalent to saying to a smoker "you must want to get cancer", or someone overweight "you must want to die of a heart attack". All have elements of truth, but such a statement is not going to help anything. 

We are not going to fix human nature, but understanding it and tribalism may help us be a tiny bit more civil. 

Fascism In Action, The Power Line Case

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/11/media-access-in-one-state-finale.php

The short story is that Scott Johnson of Power Line was excluded from the MDH press briefings on and after April 27 of this year because he asked tough questions and posted blog entries critical of the "circle of love" cozy reporting with local MSM (Star Trib, MPR, etc). He filed suit and was eventually ... with lots of effort, expense, and judicial involvement, they grudgingly relented. 

So much for "free" speech. 

Here we have proof of the media / government cabal. "The Press" was once considered to be a vital "Fourth Estate", described in Wikipedia as follows:

Due to the massive increase in centralized political powers, emerges a need for the fourth estate of democracy, where transparency is maintained regarding information, news and the public sphere.[26] This fourth estate, being the news media, contributes greatly and is used as a tool for the unbiased dispersion of news.[27] Addressing important information that may often showcase the dark side of political parties or corporations.

I assert that it is completely obvious to a reasonable observer that there is no longer a vital "Fourth Estate" -- the Media, Government, and large corporations are effectively a single entity. I assert:

1. Media and the "State/Deep State" are now a single voice espousing one view of increasingly centralized anti Christian bureaucracy.
2. Large corporations,  like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter , Microsoft, etc are effectively government extensions. They force their employees to celebrate things like gay "marriage", transgender, abortion, etc and actively discourage their even speaking about opposing views on any "rightish" political views -- mask mandates, less government, less regulation, no suppression of religion, etc
3. This means that what was formerly "America" is now an increasingly oppressive fascist state. 

We desperately need a return to the once great Constitutional Republic that was America, or, failing that, a creation of a separate "Free Republic of North America Under God". 

Hunter's Magical Mystery Laptop

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/10/how-do-we-know-the-hunter-joe-biden-documents-are-real.php

After 4 years of reporting every negative rumor, alleging MANY times that "the smoking gun" on Russia rigging the election for Trump in 2016, etc. the media are singularly uninterested in Hunter's laptop!    

Witness out in the open making statements ? Who cares! ... unlike Christine Blasey Ford whose words were GOSPEL, or a myriad of "whistle blowers" or "unnamed sources" who made many pieces of dirt "credible"! 

For one example ... 

Why, Trump called dead veterans "losers"! 

How do we know that?

Several observers told me that Trump is deeply anxious about dying or being disfigured, and this worry manifests itself as disgust for those who have suffered.

Will any of them go on record? Well no. 

However John Bolton, no friend of Trump, did say that the Atlantic story is false. 

There are number of others on record as well ... not that it matters to the Trump haters. 

HOWEVER. there MUST be absolute metaphysical PROOF before the MSM or apparently the Deep State "Justice" Department will look at the laptop! 

The Russia Hoax Books

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/10/the-plot-against-the-president-my-rejected-amazon-review.php

This post contains links to a couple of books on the Russia Hoax. There is no question the Russia Hoax makes Watergate look like a grade school prank. The Democratic Party and the Media colluded to try to prevent Trump being elected, and then continued their collusion to attempt to overturn his election, and THEN, most amazing of all, THEY GOT CAUCHT and because of ??? changing the subject? continued media DNC collusion? the American people being so disinterested????? 

It's like the magician making the rabbit disappear, only for many (a majority?) of Americans, the two years of hoax never happened. They not only don't admit a trick was pulled on them, they don't admit they were present for the show! 

Sadly, as we have now all too requently seen, Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc are also part of the magic show. "We have decided to not allow any more posts exposing the Russia Hoax! 

This is a documentary based on one of the best books written about the Russia hoax. It does a good job telling the story and giving it dramatic shape. It may be the closest we come to the administration of justice in the biggest scandal in American political history by far. Unlike just about everything that comes out of Hollywood, including documentaries, the story it tells is true.

When I sought to post my review, it was rejected with the following notice: “We apologize but Amazon is not accepting reviews on this product from this account.” I have written Amazon to ask why.

Peace Deals And Media

 http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2016/09/boistan-insulting-tribute.html

Hey, Trump has negotiated a peace deal in the Mideast! Who knew? The link at the top points to an old blog entry about the Obama "deal" with Iran, which the press fawned over. It was indeed a "deal" ..; for Iran ... who can forget pallets of cash! 

I'm so old I remember the REALLY heavy duty breathless joy in the media over the Jimmuh Carter "Camp David Accords" which was much noise signifying nothing. Carter's "Desert Classic" ... 8 soldiers killed, bunch of expensive equipment abandoned/destroyed, "nothing" accomplished except for a devastating loss of respect for US. "Priceless" for the hate the US crowd at home and abroad. 

The media did actually "report it" to maintain the fiction that they are not TOTALY biased! 

Censorship Google Style, Lysenkoism

 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/09/20/google_pushes_conservative_news_sites_far_down_search_lists_144246.html

News to nobody -- social media, the big info companies (Google, Microsoft, etc) subtly and not so subtly censor views that do not comply with the current "Deep State, Global Davos Elite, Mass Media, etc" approved thought. 

As "Scientific" American -- an endorser of "200 million Americans will die before I finish this speech" Biden would say, "You MUST follow the "science" "! 

Both Breitbart and the Daily Caller have confirmed that their Google traffic fell dramatically as their search rankings fell.

Internal Google files have hinted at such action. In 2018, the Daily Caller reported on a leaked exchange the day after President Trump's 2016 election win. In it, employees debated whether Breitbart and the Daily Caller should be buried.

“This was an election of false equivalencies, and Google, sadly, had a hand in it,” Google engineer Scott Byer wrote, according to the documents obtained by the Daily Caller.

Those who believe that truth is something that is best decided by the mass population (the "Proletariat") vs "The Party", the media, the elite, etc, need to review Lysenkoism. 

Mask Effectiveness, Statistical Manipulation, Covid Hype

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/covid-confusion-is-largely-intentional.php

Go read it ... short answer: 

•  Lots of evidence that masks don't work, but we are being manipulated. by statistical malpractice to think they do.
• You are being lied to! Intentionally, at all levels if government / media. 

Why? Because government at all levels screwed up massively, and ALL the "elite" worldwide want you to be biased in favor of "trust in me"! The Deep State is "universal" ... the "One True State (religion).

Following the news on a daily basis, it is hard to escape the conclusion that governments at all levels, along with more or less the entire journalism industry, are intentionally trying to convey an inflated impression of the impact of the Wuhan virus. Further, there is a growing body of empirical evidence, both nationally and internationally, that strongly suggests the cataclysmic shutdowns that have been imposed by governments both here and abroad have been more or less useless. Our governments have made mistakes that have resulted in the devastation of many millions of lives, and our reporters and editors want to keep that fact quiet. This isn’t surprising, of course: we all know what side they are on.

A Major Milestone In Media Malfeasance

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004/09/007699.php

Back in the days of "Uncle Walter", "the truth" was whatever he said it was. "And that's the way it is".

That started to sound sketchy to me about the time that Jimmuh Carter started telling us that the world was flat out of oil.

My "trust in media" dial hit empty when Gungda Dan Rather was exposed as a total fraud and Democrat partisan tool by Power Line in the linked. 

It turns out that "Uncle Walter" was not nearly as trustworthy as we thought he was, however the fact that a "big majority" of the country believed him helped unite the country in the same way as most people being practicing Christians with values like "God, family, community, work ethic, etc" being shared by like 80% of the population, was much less dividing than "you have to follow your own truth". 

Corona, Swine, Time

Before you get turned off by the fact I look at history, take a look at current WHO actual tracking for perspective.

Having lived through the Swine Flu panic of the 1970's, I'm thankful to it for for being a heavy contributor to my skepticism of the "brilliance" of government, media, and "experts" in general.

More than 500 people are thought to have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after receiving the vaccine; 25 died. No one completely understands the causes of Guillain-Barre, but the condition can develop after a bout with infection or following surgery or vaccination. The federal government paid millions in damages to people or their families.

However, the pandemic, which some experts estimated at the time could infect 50 million to 60 million Americans, never unfolded. Only about 200 cases of swine flu and one death were ultimately reported in the U.S., the CDC said.

So government screws up, vaccine kills 25, flu kills 1 ... and we won't even talk about economic cost. Oh, and some of us don't actually believe everything the government tells us -- making us "deniers",

Most of our media and government minders are "progressive" ... history is bunk, best forgotten, and we are MUCH smarter now! So no reason to bring up the past mistakes. (unless it is McCarthyism, Watergate, or a few other select cases, but I digress )

Naturally, this one COULD be different -- that is how predicting the future ALWAYS is. As for me, I remain a student of history -- which after all is all that science is based on -- the assumption that the next time an experiment that has produced "X" results in the past is done, it will with produce "X" results again! Induction, the Thanksgiving turkey problem  -- "humans are benevolent creatures that care for turkeys, "proven" anew each day of its life until Thanksgiving."

We all live by faith the question is "In what?"

Fast forward to H1N1 in 2009.

Working with admittedly sparse data, a research team led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated the global death toll from the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic at more than 284,000, about 15 times the number of laboratory-confirmed cases.

The team estimated that 80% of those who died were younger than 65, which is in accord with previous observations that the pandemic H1N1 burden fell heavily on younger people, unlike the pattern for seasonal flu.

CDC estimates there were 60 million h1n1 cases ... the REPORTED cases will always be far less, because thankfully, the vast majority of people that get the flu just get it, deal with it, and life goes on. The GOOD NEWS of Corona is that the vast majority of people who get Corona will not know they had it.

Stranger still is the fact that testing for H1N1 in the US was stopped in July of 2009 because "it had already been declared an epidemic"!

Here in the present day, AS OF TODAY we have 168k confirmed cases and 6600 deaths due to Corona.

Unlike H1N1 the evidence so far is strong that Corona kills the old vs the young.

Overall, China CDC found, 2.3% of confirmed cases died. But the fatality rate was 14.8% in people 80 or older, likely reflecting the presence of other diseases, a weaker immune system, or simply worse overall health. By contrast, the fatality rate was 1.3% in 50-somethings, 0.4% in 40-somethings, and 0.2% in people 10 to 39.

Add into this, people with compromised immune systems, smokers, and those living in areas with heavy air pollution are more at risk.

At the end of January, lots of media was complaining that Trump was overreacting to Corona ... not so much now. I believe that we can be very certain the media will remain anti-Trump, so at least something is certain!

We also know we are in an insane tribal time ... a council woman in Denver suggests it is a is a good idea to spread Corona to Trump supporters. It isn't hard to find people hoping that Corona "ends Trump". I'm not a huge media follower ... I think we all know that we are tribally divided and that fact affects how we see global happenings. For ALL of us ... me included.

Based on what I see, these are my thoughts:

• It seems likely that the reaction in the US erring on the side of unreasonable caution as it did in the 1970's Swine Flu -- hopefully with less negative affect.
• In hindsight, it appears that there was an under-reaction to H1N1  ... 280K deaths skewed to the young vs the old seems more frightening ... yet, it wasn't, and the deaths may be higher since testing was stopped in the US. 
• It is pretty clear that Corona is not well understood, so perhaps that is the reason for what appears to be an overabundance of caution -- "fear of the unknown".  (did we not have that in 2009?) 
• OTOH, the evidence we DO have ... hitting mostly the elderly, many cases so mild they are not reported, etc would "normally" lead to an indication that things like the NCAA tournament would not need to be cancelled. Advising elderly to stay home and watch on TV would seem to be sufficient caution in "normal times". 

My firm bias is that like most issues in our time, the response to Corona has become tribal -- if you are of the "Progressive Tribe", you MUST believe in what the "general global authority" says, so you do. To doubt that authority is to doubt your secular faith in science and progress.

I fervently pray that God will provide us with another golden opportunity to shift our faith and become "Post Secular". 

Here's hoping we will look back on Corona as the point where the tide of unreason and wishful thinking turned. (yes, I know that is unlikely -- hope is good)

However, even if Corona  "fizzles", the "powers that be" will have their ready explanations for why they were still right. In the early '80s when crazy "Ronnie Raygun" made the claim that we would consign the USSR to "the ash heap of history", the MSM and the intelligentsia called him a dangerous madman. When the USSR fell, those powers gave Gorbachev all the credit.

In any case, I fervently pray we LEARN ... as we didn't from the 70's, 80's and many other cases were our "expert powers that be" plainly showed their feet of clay.

Fear of God remains our only hope to maintain a bit of humility, which is required for learning! 

Voter ID

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/jun/21/facebook-posts/no-only-reason-oppose-voter-id-laws-isnt-because-y/?fbclid=IwAR2ng4lf35b92hFv2JipDkv0U56Ohs_dRSuTHrasq-iXxt52h5lgnNF-0I8

First, "Politifact" is definitely biased -- so we have Fake News calling other news fake.

Second, what is NOT reported is often at least as important as what is.

Canada requires voter ID, 

Mexico has very stringent Voter ID.

Thirdly, while the "fact check" honestly reports that 2/3 of americans support voter id, it's main justification for opposing ID is because "studies show it is rare". Hmmm

"Studies have shown" LOTS of things that have turned out to be false, and "proving", or even postulating the rarity of something hard to observe is next to impossible. eg, You may believe that you have no mice (or few) in your home "because you have not seen one". Would you be willing to bet big money that someone could not find a goodly number? If you see ONE, are you willing to bet that is the ONLY ONE, or at least that there are "very few"?

Without voter ID, how do you find fraud?

So far, this is all typical bickering, but FB is claiming that "The only valid reason to oppose voter ID is because you plan to cheat" is "mostly false", and are flagging it thusly so they hope people will be led to not consider that claim, and look into it themselves.

 EVERYONE, is biased. Our best approach is ALWAYS to at least look at "both", or often "many" sides ... get a balanced media diet, because often the MSM will not even mention stories that disprove their narrative ... nor will Fox, or other even more biased media on the right or left.

If you are too busy for a balanced media diet, I recommend All Sides.

I quibble with the "ONLY reason" in the meme. 

Being misinformed, having limited mental faculties, being so ideologically committed that you blindly support "your side", etc are also at least "reasons", of various levels of validity for opposing voter ID.

However, we have pretty ample evidence that Democrats are extremely willing (certainly much more willing than Canada and Mexico for example) to insure that "voters" of very limited capability or veracity as citizens get to vote! This would seem to fly completely in the face of their commonly stated view that anyone that votes Republican is "stupid, uneducated, backward, etc".

The "fact check" has this "support":

In 2006, the Brennan Center commissioned a survey that found that an estimated 21 million voting-age U.S. citizens didn’t have government-issued photo IDs. Of those 21 million, 15% of citizens who earned less than $35,000 a year, 18% age 65 or older, and 25% of African Americans didn’t have a current government-issued photo ID.

"Survey says" is certainly good enough for "Family Feud", but what kind of person actually finds it sufficient for supporting argument on the integrity of voting?  If you don't have the capability to realize that you are absolutely required to have photo ID in order to live in this country (drive, buy on credit, cash a check, ship a package, get a room at a hotel, fly, etc, etc) do you REALLY want such a person to vote?

Certainly Democrats do ... they actively canvas nursing homes, shut-ins, etc. I've often visited such and love them dearly, however I KNOW that if someone knocks on their door and "helps them" with a ballot, they are certain to "vote" however the "helpful person" indicates!

There is some excellent information on voter fraud in this post, including a pointer to a great book that covers the "how it is done" very well. This is another good thread to follow.

The bottom line here is that the MAIN reason to oppose voter ID is because you benefit from it ... which Democrats clearly do, and have for ages.

AND, you definitely can't trust the media! They will consistently lie to you (both knowingly and unknowingly) and maybe even of more importance, do all they can to fail to report and even suppress (as in this case, labeling it "fake") information that does not support their narrative!

DON'T BE AN MSM / DEEP STATE SHEEP!

Epimenides, Absolute Thinking, Schiff

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/a-postmodern-impeachment.php

As Pilate observed, "what is truth"?

Is very hard question for mere humans to arrive an answer to this question -- although our media marketing complex is ready and willing to give us easy (but false) answers. 

Accepting that Christ is "The Way, The Truth and The Life", would be an excellent start. This would quickly lead to the realization that we can at most , "discern" with a lot of his Grace, that we can never judge, because "Judgement is the Lords". 

The linked gets into the Epimenides paradox -- "All Cretans are liars" ... however, Epimenides is a Cretan, so ... 

Sentient beings tend to get out of this paradox pretty easily, since the idea of "absolutes" is more applicable in the domain of mathematics and metaphysics than reality. Primarily, because they inherently realize that such thought games are just that -- games. They don't put food on the table!  If they choose to waste a little time, they know that just because Epimenides and Cretins may be "in most cases"  liars, does not infer ALL cases, 

For flesh and blood people who do actual work and live in the real world outside of the echo chamber of Washington and the MSM, and sometimes, (with increasing difficulty) even outside the "Matrix-lite" world of  media and marketing (but I repeat myself), most of what the "Media-Marketing-Matrix sells and tells is simply nonsense. 

The "Media-Marketing-Matrix" (MMM) deals mostly in absolues, and absolutes need to have the classic lost in space warning -- "Danger Will Robinson" on their "package" (like cigarettes). 

... but of course they do not. The Deep/Administrative State are increasingly one in the same with the MMM -- it is very lucrative to sell snake oil.

One of the many losses as our nation as lost God, is that Satan has led many of us into the ditches of "Liberals bad, Conservatives good" ... or vice-versa, the general case of "Our side good, other side evil". We are lost lambs without Christ, easily led to the easy (and false) comfort of earthly absolutes. Satan is a VERY absolute guy -- my guess is that the true Absolute of Gods Love and willingness to forgive is what really burned his biscuits. How could God love such clearly flawed, ugly,  and unloveable creatures as humans! Satan simply could not accept the "injustice" of it! 

Someone with basic exposure to psychology understands how dangerous such thinking is to our lives and relationships. However we are daily bombarded with media that is increasingly targeted to support each of our narrow views as "ultimate justice", and the alternative POV as the "essence of evil",  thus relationships, family, and eventually our country are destroyed. 

Trump is Satan, Adam Schiff is truth and light! ... or vice versa. Call me skeptical. 

We are in grave peril. 

Ditches Are Female Dogs

https://ricochet.com/podcast/three-martini-lunch/suleimanis-airport-surprise-what-comes-next-williamson-wont-quit/

In the heavily leftist dominated world of today, it is easy to forget that there are ALWAYS at least two ditches ... and frequently many more. Action has risks, and so does INaction. Churchill groupies like the idiot moose point to the runup to WWII, and how the appeasers created Hitler -- when he invaded the Rhineland, if a single French soldier would have challenged the move, his own generals were itching to assassinate him! But that of course is HISTORY, and the left doesn't like to look at history or they would not be the left! (gravity has often worked in the past, and the left wants us ignore and even better, not be aware of that!)

They are burdened with the hard task of being blind to even the present -- it is REALLY hard to be aware of the USSR, N Korea, China, Venezuela, Cuba, etc and say "leftism works"!

When you don't act, you embolden the bad guys to act. They are much more likely to attack Pee Wee Herman than Godzilla!

Of course "likely" and "certain" are different things ... SOMEONE does win the lottery after all, so there are "risks" (and there always are) ... our current problem with the leftist dominated media is that the risks are shown through the Hubble telescope and the rewards are shown through an electron microscope.

The linked does a better job of covering these apparently complex concepts.

Nothing Is Written In Stone -- Fake News

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/attacks-on-the-babylon-bee-are-attacks-on-free-expression/?fbclid=IwAR2FEsXp9YBJrmKIcLM-nLxcoNcDsSzOmn5FiKoeJxcKaJtkNDxsqsLSaGY

There a book on categories titled "Women, Fire, And Dangerous Things" that I have mostly read ... the title refers to Aborigines having only three categories to assign things to. Lots of languages give words and things gender ... we all do, a ship is commonly a "she". The author of that book, wrote a book on "frames" (a form of categorization) titled "Don't Even Think Of An Elephant".

Categories are really important -- we are VERY finite beings living in an effectively infinite universe, getting more infinite by the second -- this post is certainly adding to "information" (so is the stream of bits coming out of the Hubble telescope), but how to categorize it may be hard. For example, 735229327 is data, 735-22-3327 may or may not be a Social Security Number. I don't know, it isn't mine -- if it was, it would be a more specific sort of information.

We can most often only comprehend the universe intellectually through categories, so it is important that the categories we pick have some relation to reality.

The linked article discusses the increasing horror on the left that some people are getting confused by categorizing some things on the Babylon Bee site as fact/truth rather than satire. Specifically, that Democrats are calling for flags to be flown at half mast because of the death of Iranian terrorist leader Soleimani in a drone strike, and some people think it is truth rather than satire. The post discusses the obvious difference between this and the treatment of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert being treated as "major news sources" -- as those of minimal classical education have known for eons, it always depends for all of us on "whose ox is getting gored" ... "whose interests are harmed".

My studies continually show me that I'm an idiot. I'm reading "American Ulysses" now and discover that Grant (not known as particularly educated) and his beloved wife Julia often communicate with references to classic literature and history that I'm barely aware of  -- that Alexander the Great accompanied his father into battle at age 11 for example. Much of our current "reporting" shows that our supposed "elite" doesn't understand the critical importance of at least the existence of epistemology ... if for no reason beyond getting just a whiff of humility.

I began to realize the depths of my stupidity back in the '80s when I discovered National Review and started to scratch the surface of my ignorance ... "The Closing Of The American Mind" was one that scraped many scales from my eyes to the fact I had (and have) much to be humble about!

Is "Nothing is written in stone" a lie, a great truth, a useful metaphor/saying, "Fake News" ??? All of them depending on who is using the phrase/conext?

How might we decide? Especially since we "moderns" are so blinded by the constant bombardment of media, "entertainment" and general distraction of our material based existence and generally unaware of the rich history that allowed our vacuous culture of consumption/entertainment to exist -- well covered in "Amusing Ourselves To Death"".

Resistance At All Costs

https://www.amazon.com/Resistance-At-All-Costs-Breaking/dp/1538701774/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=resistance+at+all+costs&qid=1575906076&sr=8-1

Goodreads link.

For any readers that are wondering why I post this on this blog as opposed to Radio Free Moose, my answer is that this is a BOOK REVIEW, and it is a review of a book by a respected WSJ editor, not some partisan hack. It more about governance than politics. RFM is more from rants, brain farts, etc.

As always, there is a bias in this book - to be human is to be biased. The difference is that in this book, sources are generally named -- not "anonymous White House sources close to Trump". As this book clearly documents, a huge amount of our "news" is totally fake, and the cost of that is our nation being destroyed -- by the very powers claiming that Trump is the "destructive force".

The summary of what has happened is pretty clear, and it didn't start with Trump ... Obama weaponized the Administrative/Deep State with Lois Lerner being an obvious example, long before he decided to use/allow the FBI/NSA/CIA/State Department etc to attack Trump prior to him even  being the nominee.

The story is pretty simple and this book documents it.

• The Clinton campaign funded opposition research by Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. 
• Fusion colluded with Russians on this task
• Comey ... who was on record as hating Trump, used the Fusion information ("The Steele Document") as a pretext to initiate an intelligence op against Trump as "insurance". 
• The FBI/NSA/etc fed information to Democrats which began operations to nullify the 2016 election prior to Trump even taking office. 
• The Administrative/Deep State worked hard to entrap Trump and anyone working for him to create a "case" for removal from office. 
• This operation continues -- with Deep State tools being used to surveil Devin Nunes and probably anyone else they see fit in hopes of finding something, ANYTHING!  embarrassing / questionable / "illegal" ( like "lying" because you got a date wrong in testimony, or have "violated" some "law" that has never been prosecuted prior to Trump ...) 

The assumption of all this (like Harry Reid taking the nuclear option) is that the combined power of the Administrative / Deep State, MSM, and the mostly left Judiciary is going to prevent any power ever being vested in parties/groups that want to maintain some semblance of a republic again. They may well be right. 

As I have been saying since at least Obama, we are most likely in a non-recoverable situation already --- it is gratifying to see such an emminent organization as the WSJ lay out our peril so clearly. I pray it is not too late. 

It is a book that sorely needs to be read by any who are even beginning to wonder if they are being hoodwinked by the elite establishment! A little quote ... 

"One particularly huge mistake helped drive all the rest: The press became willing advocates for government officials and agencies (at least the ones they liked). This is the reverse of the role the press is supposed to play. The media exists to be a watchdog:the public depends on it ..." 

"It’s hard to explain just how big a dereliction of duty this is. Reporters learn on day one that government officials exist to spin and lie, and that they do so with impunity. And the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation fell so clearly into the government-abuse-of-power stories that the press usually exists to expose—spying on a presidential campaign, wiretapping U.S. citizens ..." 

 This is unfortunately a much too old a story ... we have continued to build a massive unaccountable bureaucracy that is increasingly running the country in collusion with most of the elected officials from BOTH parties (see "Never Trump"). A vast majority of us apparently like the illusion that we can have everything we want and "someone else" will pay for it.

Trump is far from the "perfect vehicle" ... the sad situation is that he is the ONLY vehicle, and unless he and a majority of both houses win in 2020, what is described in this book will only get worse.