Where does the false history and cultural rot lead? Columbus did it!This is another case where a racial subgroup of the population is distinguished by unpleasant statistics and trying to shift blame. That results in greater social discord as problems are not addressed and solutions are distanced from reality.

“Douglas is an indigenous American artist, activist and registered member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe. For her, the dance is more than a performance. She created it to process her experience of sexual abuse as well as the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW), which she says began with European colonization and has more recently been gaining attention through social media campaigns and hashtags such as #MMIW and #NoMoreStolenSisters.

Tabitha Mueller et al: Nevada officials, native community members grapple with high rate of missing and murdered indigenous women – “Legislation and other governing bodies have allocated more resources toward addressing MMIW, but those efforts are hampered by incomplete data and a tangled web of jurisdictions between federal, state and tribal law enforcement and prosecuting authorities.”

Terry Jones: Time To End Coronavirus Hysteria And Focus On Saving Some Lives – “is the hysteria warranted? What do we really know about this virus?” What we do know at this moment doesn’t warrant the hyperbole. 560,000 hospitalizations last year from the flu and there is uber-angst about a pandemic overloading the medical system with a current total, after three months, sick census of only 20% of that? For example of the FUD mongering see “No State Is Prepared” – Mapping Where Hospitals Will Run Out Of Beds First If Virus Cases Spike – “A USA Today analysis of American Hospital Association (AHA) hospital bed data shows that if confirmed Covid-19 cases and deaths follow similar growth curves as in China, Italy, and Iran, there could be six patients for every existing hospital bed.” What’s wrong with this picture?

More of where this came from by Tyler Durden: A 70-Year War On “Propaganda” Built By The CIA – “The CIA really does not have the best track record for their role in “managing” foreign wars and counter-insurgency activities. In fact, they have been caught rather red handed in fueling such crisis situations. And these are the people who are deciding what information is fit for the American public, and western public in general, and what is not fit for their ears.” Therefore the ‘cold war’ is all America’s fault and the USSR is the model of truth and justice in its methods of keeping the public informed.

Tyler Durden: The S**t Might Actually Be Hitting The Fan But Somehow It Doesn’t Feel Real – “I’m sharing this because I bet a lot of people are feeling the same way. Second-guessing themselves. Doubting themselves. Feeling like they aren’t good preppers. You aren’t alone and I’ll bet a whole lot of folks who won’t admit it feel this way too.” i.e. I am feeding the panic to comfort myself with ‘vox populi’ logical fallacies.

“We don’t believe it because we don’t want to believe it. We never actually wanted to be right when we stockpiled and learned skills and bought more supplies that we actually had room to house.

But the thing that puts us ahead in this situation is that we prepared anyway. We learned anyway. And when we see the more obvious signs of a societal breakdown we will be able to accept it a lot faster than those who never even considered it.

Rational people don’t believe it because the numbers aren’t there and the FUD Mongerers, like Durden today, are cherry picking worst case scenarios and using logical fallacies for their views. Rational people are stepping all over themselves to explain that this isn’t a binary issue (calling out another common logical fallacy),that prudence isn’t a chicken little thing, and that the panic and hysteria are destructive rather than constructive.

Katherine Rodriguez: Judge Cites Coronavirus as Reason for Blocking Trump Admin Food Stamp Work Requirements – “a preliminary injunction blocking the recent Trump administration rule on food stamps, which the USDA estimates would have reduced federal spending by $7.9 billion over five years and gradually weaned 755,000 people off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the government program in charge of food stamps.” The Left worries about Trump being a dictator, facist, etc. but cannot find where he doesn’t follow the law. Here’s a judge using a current social panic to dictate national policy rather than the law. Hysteria should be no replacement for facts but here it is and it does support Durden’s broader fear about societal breakdown but from the judiciary and not the executive.

Victoria Taft: The Media Succumb to Raging Case of Katrina Virus in Hopes of Infecting Trump. Trump Isn’t Having It – “As you may be aware, “Katrina moment” is to disasters is what Watergate is to corruption.” … “Trump’s fighting back, but will it be enough to give him immunity to the media virus?”

The “Katrina moment” never quite stuck to any number of President Obama’s missteps from Benghazi to the H1N1 outbreak. That’s what a fawning press will do for a president.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19), the media has been waiting for President Trump to do or say something in order to pin the Hurricane Katrina label on him.
…
The only thing the Katrina virus-infected mob hasn’t pulled at this point is arranging for a coronavirus whistleblower, leaking to Adam Schiff and calling for a special prosecutor.

There’s still time.

David Catron: Politicizing Coronavirus Will Cost Dems the House – “Their rhetoric concerning COVID-19 has been both irresponsible and politically inept.”

“Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, for example, issued a joint press release Sunday that included the following fiction: “President Trump continues to manufacture needless chaos within his administration and it is hampering the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.” Predictably, Pelosi and Schumer fail to provide any objective facts to support this claim.
…
These Democrats are particularly vulnerable after the impeachment debacle because they explicitly promised their constituents during their 2018 midterm campaigns that they would eschew hyper-partisan politics and work with Republicans on issues that mattered to real people. Predictably, most of these “moderate” Democrats forgot that pledge immediately after they migrated to the swamp.
…
President Trump is right when he accuses the Democrats of working “to inflame the coronavirus situation.” They regard the outbreak as an opportunity for scoring political points. Moreover, they have behaved so irresponsibly during the past three years that what little credibility they enjoyed has evaporated.

Neo citing A doctor [who] counsels calm – “But mostly, I’m scared about what message we are telling our kids when faced with a threat. Instead of reason, rationality, openmindedness and altruism, we are telling them to panic, be fearful, suspicious, reactionary and self-interested.”

Brett T. Fake news: Daily Mail reports that President Trump stormed out of coronavirus briefing (very slowly) – “Daily Mail US goes on tirade of TDS Magnitude Level 9 threatening total implosion!!!!”

Anna Gaddy, MD: What COVID-19 taught me about autonomy – “When I self-reported my symptoms to the health department and my institution’s infection prevention department, things moved impressively quickly.” For those who worry about treating the disease seriously but not with panic, here’s a story of one experience.

Elizabeth Vaughn: Here’s How Eric Holder Helped the Obama Administration Transform the Democratic Party into a Party of Thugs – “It was during the Bush Administration that Democrats, overcome by Bush Derangement Syndrome, stopped trying to maintain the traditional veneer of civility. That turned out to be child’s play compared to what came next.”

Walter Olson: Trump campaign files round of defamation suits – illustrating assumptions indicating ‘professional’ TDS – “Given the broad protections for writing about public figures enunciated by the Supreme Court in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan, few if any of these suits are likely to prevail at final judgment. Still, a suit like this serves “to drag people into court and imposes the time, burden, distraction, and cost of having to defend themselves, with the added benefit that it may make people and the press less willing to criticize these people. ” [Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg] Time for state legislators to consider enacting stronger protections against unfounded suits?” Olson shows absolutely no consideration for issues of libel in major media and appropriate responsibility in publication of libelous stories or ‘opinions’ for broad audiences.

Daryl McCann: The Trump Doctrine and the Return of Pax Americana – “What informs Donald Trump’s decision-making, according to most narratives, is nothing more than an incongruous compendium of braggadocio, narcissism, opportunism and impulsiveness.”

“to talk earnestly of a Trump Doctrine is to suggest a degree of lucidity in Donald Trump’s actions where none exists. As a consequence, the targeted killing on January 3 of Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Forces, foreign legion division of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, can make no strategic sense in the eyes of the experts, though it could—and still might—trigger general war in the region. Maybe it is the anti-Trump narrative that lacks credibility.

Scepticism about President Trump’s judgment in foreign affairs runs very deep.
…
If even those close to him—or, at least, those who were close to him—have no confidence in President Trump, then why should anybody else make the case for a cogent Trump Doctrine? Haley’s disclosure gives credence to this sentiment, expressed in the aftermath of the Qasem Soleimani killing by the reliably anti-Trump journalist Joel McNally: “The most dangerous day of his presidency is always tomorrow.”

The fact remains that the Third World War has not erupted on the provocateur-in-chief’s watch.
…
Trump’s America First framework borrows from the best of the two preceding foreign policy doctrines and omits many of their delusions.
…
One of the secrets of the Trump Doctrine is that it eschews the pie-in-the-sky “new world order” fantasies of both the Bush Dynasty and the Obama Doctrine. The world is what it is.

Jacob Solis et al: Like the coronavirus itself, much remains unknown about its effect on health care system, tourism sector – “no one knows how widespread the coronavirus will emerge in Nevada or how long it will last, making public health and economic predictions difficult, if not, impossible.”

“My biggest concern is hospitals really both north and south that are already operating at capacity,” said Packham, who also chairs the Patient Protection Commission. “They already have disruption with just seasonal influenza, much less trying to think about how they’re going to deal with or isolate patients that have tested positive and so forth in their current operations.”
…
“I think I’ve had a flu-like illness once in the last three to five years and all I do is see sick patients,” Carrison added. “I’m certainly not superman.”
…
The proceed-as-normal mindset appears to be prevailing in the sports world as well — at least for now.

Then there’s ZeroHedge: All Hospital Beds In The US Will Be Filled With Patients ‘By About May 8th’ Due To Coronavirus: Analysis – How To Avoid Getting Infected By The Coronavirus – ‘Grand Princess’ Passenger Who Died Of Covid-19 Probably Caught The Virus In California, Carnival Says – Elon Musk Says Panic About Coronavirus, Which Has Killed Over 3,400, Is “Dumb” – Forget Covid-19, San Diego Faces Critical Quake Danger From Long-Inactive Faultline – Amtrak Suspends Some Non-Stop Acela Service Due To Virus – “It’s Like Scenes From A Mad Max Movie” – Americans Continue Epic Run On Costco – “We Are In An Adverse Feedback Loop”: How To Track The Coronavirus Hit To US Consumer Spending

Remember anything like this with H1N1? Swine Flu? Legionaire’s Disease? 

Leslie Eastman: Maybe it’s time to dial back the coronavirus drama – “Let’s begin by starting with some perspective. The current flu season has hit 32 million Americans, resulting in 18,000 deaths, and the vaccine that was selected for the flu season was limited in its effectiveness. Yet, we are not doing a daily flu death countdown.”

“The press is currently ginning up fear about the lack test kits. However, Pence noted that all the state labs that had requested test kits have received them. And because of the changes in the regulations implemented by the Trump administration last week, the state labs can actually run the tests.

Scott Johnson: Walton’s Whack – “The Journal editorial concludes with the understated observation Judge Walton’s “decision to add his political broadside [to his opinion] raises more questions about the judge than about the Attorney General.” More broadly, however, Judge Walton’s opinions seems to me yet another episode in the sorry saga of Trumplaw.”

Robert Kraychik: Tom Cotton: Sonia Sotomayor Falsely Accused GOP-Appointed Justices of Doing What Democrat-Appointed Judges Do – “I’ve read [Sonia Sotomayor’s] dissent, and this is a classic example of the president’s critics and opponents projecting onto him exactly what they and the other critics are doing.”

Ed Morrissey: 70 Former Senators: Form A “Bipartisan Caucus” To Return The Senate To Its Constitutional Vision – “Right idea, wrong solution. Or, better yet, right idea and no solution.”

“It’s both craven and hypocritical to demand a return to the framers’ vision of the upper chamber while refusing to address how the 17th Amendment destroyed it. Unfortunately, that’s par for the course in Washington too, just as is the futility of bipartisan gangs, and the tiresomeness of occasional calls for reform from those getting their own ox gored at the moment.

Getting a lot of these ‘voice of many experts’ logical fallacy based propaganda efforts substituting for reasoned arguments these days … will it register? Will the voter be suckered?

Tyler Durden: Lady Justice Spurns Her Blinders For Trump Associates – “It appears that Jackson, like so many Trump-haters in the Beltway, still clings to the fantasy that the collusion hoax is legitimate.”

“Jackson’s grandstanding might have been met with shrugs (or ignored altogether) in any other political climate but her dire warnings about the necessary consequences for committing perjury and obstructing justice and covering up for political pals demonstrate an astonishing level of hypocrisy if not flat-out complicity in the selective application of the law.

The president and his supporters can hardly tolerate lectures about fairness when Trump foes such as Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, and others continue to escape justice for far worse crimes.

Further, unlike Stone, those offenders held positions of power and influence—and abused both in service of achieving their mutual goal that Jackson so dramatically endorsed today: The sabotage of Donald Trump and anyone associated with him.

The people, like Jackson, who claim to hold the greatest devotion to our institutions, who purport to cherish the rule of law above all else, are the ones responsible for systematically demolishing it all.

Debra Heine: K.T. McFarland Says Mueller Interrogators Put Her Through ‘Hell’ and Left Her ‘Traumatized’ – “McFarland told the hosts that she just wanted the ordeal—which cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees—to be over with.”

“They’re a certain group of people who have gotten used to governing and they think it is their divine right,” she explained. “And even if the American voter votes for someone who wants to get rid of them or change their policies, they feel they have the patriotic duty to overrule election results.”
…
McFarland said her new book, Revolution: Trump, Washington and “We the People” describes her ordeal in greater detail. It’s set to be released on February 25.

used to just be speed traps on the highway ….

Thomas McArdle: The Democrats’ Strategy Against The Trump Economy? Schizophrenia – “There are two tacks from which to choose in confronting this politically. Democrats can argue that our prosperity is grossly exaggerated. Or they can claim they deserve the credit for the Trump economy.”

“Which of these strategies, both decidedly dubious in their chances of success, have the Democrats picked?

Both.
…
It’s quite remarkable that Obama is brandishing his so-called Recovery Act today, over a decade after he signed it. That’s because two and a half years after its enactment it was so clear to him and everyone else that it was a failure – a stimulus that wasn’t stimulating – he requested an emergency address before a Joint Session of Congress in September, 2011 to call for action. Democrats were in a state of panic because of how obvious it was that their stewardship of the economy was failing.
…
Democrats are going to have to decide which side of their split personality they think gives them any chance of ousting President Trump in November. Unfortunately for them, as we’ve seen, both Clyburn’s claims that the jobs boom is a slave economy, and Obama’s assertion that the policies he admitted were failing two and a half years after their implementation are now succeeding under Trump, are equally absurd.

Theme of the day starts with Susan Jones: Day After Dem Debate, Headlines Warn, ‘Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump’ – “Here we go again with Russian meddling.”

Jim Hoft: Here We Go… Fake News Media Says Putin Is Looking to Help Trump Win in 2020 – “Their media had only one thing to do — launch a new Russia conspiracy.”

Sister Toldjah: Donna Brazile Gets Reminded of Some Inconvenient 2016 History After Saying Trump Will ‘Cheat’ in 2020 – “Though predictable, one of the most frustrating things about how Democrats have behaved since 2016 is their penchant for undermining election results simply because they don’t like the outcome.”

Trent Baker: John Kerry: Trump’s logan act accusation a ‘presidential lie’ – “In a tweet earlier in the day, Trump said the two “grossly violated the Logan Act,” noting there would be “very serious ramifications” if it had been done by Republicans.” interesting calling this a lie after the meeting with the Iranians. Then Kerry went after a duly appointed representative along with rationalizations and character assassination. Loaded labels and diversion do not an argument make.

“If [Trump] knew anything about the law, he’d know I didn’t negotiate with anybody. I did what every senator and secretaries of state in history have done, which is continue to go to conferences abroad or have meetings in order to be well-informed. We engaged in no negotiation.”

Ben Weingarten: Why Richard Grenell As Director Of National Intelligence Is A Loss For The Deep State – “Richard Grenell has doggedly pursued the president’s agenda in the face of unrelenting defiance from the European Union’s most consequential power.”

“President Donald Trump’s pick of U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell for acting director of national intelligence (DNI) is an inspired one of great symbolic and substantive significance.

In staffing another crucial position in the executive branch with someone who genuinely shares his worldview, instincts, and tenacity, President Trump is signaling to the Trump-haters of the administrative state, and its Deep State apotheosis, that those who reject or actively seek to undermine his America First agenda will no longer be welcome in meaningful positions.
…
The level of hatred is commensurate with the merit of the pick. It is a feather in Grenell’s cap, and only further validates the wisdom of the president’s decision.

J.B. Shurk: How Trump Made the Federal Courts Blink – “rather than cowering in intimidation, President Trump took the opportunity of an “emergency meeting” of the federal judges to publicly ask that they look into the well documented FISA Court fraud and the Judiciary’s role in perpetrating the greatest political scandal in our nation’s history”

“The judges have postponed their planned “emergency meeting” indefinitely. Like most things the president says that cause alarm for the D.C. establishment, it is not the recklessness of his words, but their truthfulness that rattles them, and the more truth he slings their way, the more rattled they become. The judges realized they were about to make a consequential mistake by taking on directly the one person in the country not afraid to put the Judicial Branch in its place.
…
Curses, like chickens, come home to roost. When federal judges decided long ago to become lawmakers with lifetime tenure, rather than impartial adjudicators adhering to the Constitution, they cursed themselves. This country’s first act was to expel the most powerful king in the world. When the federal courts chose to become kings, they daringly did so without a navy. Hiding behind the sanctity of priestly robes was going to protect them for only so long; eventually, Americans would realize that tyranny with a gavel is not at all different from tyranny with a crown.

With President Trump unafraid of standing up to a coequal branch of the federal government, the Judiciary may finally receive the comeuppance it deserves. One thing is certain: if he is ever to receive justice of any kind, President Trump must first take on the justice system.

Justice transparency and awareness.

Andrea Widburg: President Trump’s list of pardons and grants of clemency make a lot of sense – “Trump was making a point about government overreach in prosecutions, as well as reminding people about his First Step Act, which brings reformed (mostly minority) prisoners home.” Then compare and contrast to Eric Boehm’s item Trump Uses Clemency To Help Drug War Victims, Reward GOP Donors, and Spite James Comey at reason.com.

GianCarlo Canaparo: Time to End the Tyranny of District Court Judges’ Nationwide Injunctions – “they undermine public confidence in the judiciary by giving activists judges near limitless power to undo the laws and policies of the democratically accountable branches of government.”

neo: Judge Amy Brennan Jackson plans to go full steam ahead with sentencing Stone – “I think the authors of that sentence/paragraph from the Hill piece should get an award from the American Association of Subtle Propaganda Writers.” The reporting is awful … and predictable.

Todd Gregory and Erik Gregory: Has the Deep State beaten Bill Barr? – “Prhaps even more disturbing, Barr’s prosecution (and declination) decisions have been scarcely different from those of Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, or even Jeff Sessions (namely, prosecute Republicans or their affiliates on any charge, no matter how spurious, and look the other way when Democrats engage in incidentals like illegal spying or entrapment).” The deplorables are not happy about inequality in justice.

J. Christian Adams: President Trump Starts to Drain the Swamp, Yanks Liu – “Justice is no longer blind. Investigations, charges, and even prison terms depend on the ideological views of the targets.”

Victor Davis Hanson: The Once and Future Scandal – “Soon the worm may turn. The real scandal is back on the horizon, and at last, we may learn that no one is above the law—most certainly not a group of smug and mediocre apparatchiks who assumed they had the moral right to destroy a presidential candidate and later an elected president.”

“So, we are now back to the existential issue of the entire Trump phenomenon: to what degree did the Hillary Clinton campaign collude with high-ranking Obama officials, and the top echelons of the FBI, CIA, and the national intelligence apparatus, to surveil, defame, and hope to derail Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by unlawful means?
…
The litany of these systematic abuses constitutes the greatest scandal in American history.

Jay Latimer: It’s time for Trump to fight fire with fire – “So another coup attempt has failed.”

“these plotters used scorched-earth tactics; surprising Trump supporters with unannounced interviews to create perjury traps, threatening their children with jail time, sending SWAT teams to kick in their doors at 3 a.m., raiding his lawyers’ offices to search for dirt, and placing a defendant for a nonviolent white-collar crime in solitary confinement.

How could this happen in the Land of the Free?
…
So my instinct, and that of many other observers, is to fight partisanship with a strict adherence to the rule of law, and a determination to keep politics out of the legal equation.

However, I now feel that this may be a misguided as well as naïve view.

Who are we kidding? No one will give Trump or Barr credit for an impartial investigation. The Democrats and the media will automatically label any attempt by Trump to punish these wrongdoers as partisan and illegitimate. No matter how even-handed Trump tries to be, any such actions will be treated by the dishonest media as mere political payback or (more likely) proof that Trump has become an authoritarian dictator hell-bent on revenge.

Sally Zelikovsky: Trump’s Supporters Are Not Cult Members. We’re Americans. – “Taking the high road is admirable, but if you continue to come up short, you are going to have to find another path if you want to win.”

“Democrats are experts at fake outrage, fake sincerity, and transferring all of their insincerity and provocation to the Republicans. …

Democrats don’t want unity or collaboration. …

… Like a kid throwing a tantrum knowing eventually he will get his way as long as he doesn’t stop screaming, Democrats will keep it up as long as they think we will cave after enough of us have been broken, bankrupted, and canceled.

Being pushed and bullied gets old after a while.

Patricia McCarthy: Media puffery can’t hide the Democrats’ impeachment face plant – “Maybe someone at Politico thought better of heralding the continued fawning over the two men who made the biggest fools of themselves over the past week.” …

“Schiff cannot utter a sentence that doesn’t contain a lie. Jeffries’ most hilarious assertion was that the Steele dossier, the entirety of which has been proven to be all lies, was just fine because it was “purchased”! They are trying to impeach the President for allegedly asking the new President of Ukraine to look into the known corruption of the Biden family and the proven interference by some in Ukraine in our 2016 election to help Hillary, and Jeffries is dismissing the Clinton campaign’s actual solicitation of dirt from a foreign source because she paid for it! You can’t make this stuff up.
…
But they all got up to repetitively drone on and on and on, charging him will all manner of crimes not even mentioned in their articles. And these men and women are lawyers?
…
Beginning with Pelosi’s unconstitutional inquiry without getting a vote from the full House, thus invalidating all their subpoenas, to demanding more witnesses after they claimed their case was proven,

George Parry: How Not to Impeach a President – “Arrogance and incompetence were all the spiteful Dems had to offer.” With that he lays out, the real question is why the Democrat Party block remained so unified in deceit and falsehoods.

neo: The Democrats’ race to the left: Warren, Pelosi, and company – “And yes, these people understand full well that they are distorting and misrepresenting what Dershowitz said.”

neo: No witnesses – “However, I’m under no illusion that the drive to impeach Trump, and the attacks on him – as well as clandestine operations against him by the self-styled “Resistance” – are over. They will continue, probably unabated and perhaps even with increased vigor (if such a thing be possible). The Democrats and the “deep state” are desperate to be rid of him, their hatred is a thing of great force, and they believe that the ends justify the means.”

New York Post: The Flynn prosecution now stands exposed as massive FBI and DOJ abuse of power – “Here’s another black eye for the Justice Department’s Obama-era leadership: The case against Gen. Michael Flynn is in full collapse.”

But there is inspiration and the story of an American Hero — 

Emily Jashinsky: Director Of Powerful New Clarence Thomas Documentary Opens Up: ‘He Just Got Tired Of Having His Story Distorted’ – “It’s a classic story of going from dire poverty in the segregated South to the highest court of the land, including many spiritual and intellectual twists and turns.” … “The corporate media’s one-dimensional rendering of Thomas is deeply unfair, and that’s where director Michael Pack steps in.”

John Hinderaker: A Blow For Liberation From Left-Wing Judges – “This issue is under the radar, but it is critical for Americans to be liberated from the tyranny of shopped political judges.”

John Hinderaker: Liberalism Causes Achievement Gaps – “The Brightbeam study does not attempt to explain the causation that its numbers clearly reveal, but calls on those who run progressive school districts to rethink their assumptions.” … like about agency, discipline, and standards flexing.

William A. Jacobson: Democrats ‘Kavanaughing’ Impeachment Trial As Predicted – John Bolton Leak Came as House Case Was Collapsing – “We have seen this show before, it’s all designed to pressure a small number of weak Republican Senators to allow Democrats to turn the Senate into a circus in which the process becomes the punishment.”

Jazz Shaw: Virginia State Supreme Court Rules On Governor’s Gun Ban For Rally – “What these rulings do is codify the idea that any Democratic governor, mayor or other officials can suspend the Second Amendment any time they feel like it simply by declaring a state of emergency.”

J. Frank Bullitt: America Is Deeply Divided Because The Left Has Become So Shallow – “the hostility toward Trump, and the inevitable division that it has created, is not based on political differences. It’s based on caricatures of the man, lies that have become accepted truth to many, and, of course, a media whose dishonest reporting drives a false narrative.”

Steven Hayward: Why People Hate the Media, Chapter 12,186 – “there are lots of other daily examples you can point to, such as this pairing of Politico headlines for the same story. Politico clearly changed the headline because the first one made Trump look too good:”

sundance: Whistleblower Provides Attkisson New Details to Name Rod Rosenstein and Shawn Henry (Crowdstrike) as Defendants in Lawsuit… “A very interesting development in the ongoing effort of former CBS investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, to resolve the issue of who spied on her, planted spyware and infiltrated her computer systems for illegal surveillance.”

Gary Gindler: Trump Is Masterfully Using Democrats’ Opposition against Them – “Not a single U.S. president has been exposed to attempts by such outright micromanagement by the Democrats as Trump.”

neo: Susan Hennessey: caught in the crossfire crossfire – “And since the starting point is chosen not because it’s the actual starting point but because it’s the way to blame that side, it’s an almost infinitely flexible way to mount an argument. Or it might seem that way, as long as you don’t stretch it so far that it breaks, as Susan Hennessey did here.” This sort of dishonesty is also quite prominent in climate change arguments. Distorting the meanings of words, selecting the starting point for a series to suit a narrative, and similar tactics are all used for deception.

John Hinderaker: Law and Order? Yes, Please [with comment by Paul] – “Another way to put it is that trying to deny obvious realities isn’t a good electoral strategy.” … “Ardent Democrats may be surprised that voters care about crime and the problems associated with homelessness, but no one else is. And the reference to Spiro Agnew and “demoniz[ing] racial minorities” is the kind of irrelevant cheap shot without which we wouldn’t recognize a liberal opinion piece.”

Roger Kimball: An Antidote to the Iran Hysterics – “Trump has always shown that he prefers diplomacy to military action. At the same time, he understands, as did Ronald Reagan, that diplomacy only works when it is backed up by military strength and a willingness to exercise it.”

Clarice Feldman: Double Exposure: The Dems Coddling of Criminals and Iranian Terrorists – “This week, the Democrats have been revealed as the party that exposes us to (1) criminal mayhem (often anti-Semitic) on the streets of New York and (2) terrorism everywhere as they consistently ignored it, indeed, paid off the perpetrators with pallets of airlifted unmarked bills and praised the worst of its perpetrators.” … “Hocus Pocus — once again Trump gets the Democrats to strip and expose their naked idiocy, hypocrisy, cupidity, and fecklessness.”

James Jeffery: Bushfires and Climate Change: No Link Whatsoever – “Whilst the cataclysmic nature of the inferno is unanimously acknowledged, a chorus of Australians has hastened to the conclusion that global warming is the cause, and CO2 emissions the culprit. Sadly, this is exactly the sort of behaviour to expect in our post-Christian nation.”

“Since we have abandoned God, we are constantly trying to find someone — some thing — to blame for the disasters that naturally and tragically occur. It is almost unbearable that we accept the reality that we live in a broken world in which nature is often hostile, and that this truth is more apparent at particular times in history. …

The truth is that the climate is,— and has always been — changing. Likewise, bushfires have always been part of Australia’s history, and the recent bushfires are not an historical anomaly. Long before the era of modern industrialisation, bushfires occurred sporadically due to factors beyond the control of humans
…
We live in an age when earnest debate is often exchanged for superficial slogans, and the climate change movement is a clear example of this. … let us not sacrifice our brains on the altar of a hysterical political movement. What the victims of these fires really need is not social commentators blaming ‘climate change’ for their suffering, but rather a helping hand to restore their lives.

Frank Watt: Two Possibilities in Trump Wiretapping, and Neither Is Good – “Either scenario should anger and frighten every fair minded citizen who takes the time to read the report and understand its implications. To comprehend the magnitude of the wrongdoing, consider the following”

Richard Fernandez: Death of Privacy and the Curse of Secret Investigations – “The reason why public business should be conducted in the open, according to Cheryl Chumley of the Washington Times, is that abuse and conspiracy thrive in the dark.”

Tyler Durden: House Impeaches Trump For Abuse Of Power & Obstruction Of Congress – “Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins delivered the darkest, most ominous speech of the day.”

“I have descended into the belly of the beast. I have witnessed the terror within, and I rise committed to oppose the insidious forces which threaten our Republic,” Higgins opened.

“America’s being severely injured by this betrayal, by this unjust and weaponized impeachment, brought upon us by the same socialists who threaten unborn life in the womb, who threaten First Amendment rights of Conservatives, who threaten Second Amendment protections of every American patriot, and who have long ago determined that they would organize and conspire to overthrow President Trump.”

“We don’t face this horror because the Democrats have all of a sudden become constitutionalists. We are not being devoured from within because of some surreal assertion of the socialists’ newfound love for the very flag that they trod upon.”

“They are deep established D.C.,” he continued.

“They call this Republican map flyover country. They call us deplorables. They fear our faith. They fear our strength. They fear our unity. They fear our vote, and they fear our president.”

“We will never surrender our nation to career establishment D.C. politicians and bureaucrats,” Higgins closed. “Our republic shall survive this threat from within. American patriots shall prevail.”

Thomas Lifson: Hilarious: Dems’ fake ‘solemnity’ exposed as Pelosi silences applause about impeachment vote with her evil eye and hand gesture – “It was an absolutely perfect crystallization of the phoniness of the Democrats’ impeachment rhetoric when Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to silence the spontaneous applause that started to break out as she announced the results of the vote on the first article of impeachment of President Trump.”

Paul Mirengoff: Impeachment Without A Crime – “The House has voted to impeach President Trump. The historical significance of this event lies mainly in the fact that, until now, no president has been impeached without some allegation in an article of impeachment that he committed a crime. This was also the first impeachment proceeding that had no support in the House from a single member of the president’s party.

“This means that you should learn from your mistakes and not allow people to take advantage of you repeatedly.” [UsingEnglish.com or also see Know Your Phrase] Balance that with “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time” often attributed to Abraham Lincoln.

John Solomon Drops 28 Uncomfortable Facts Crushing The ‘Debunked Conspiracy Theory’ Narrative – “I think all the key elements were false,” Vindman testified. Maligning a reporter with vagueness and innuendo, even if done by a military hero showing the colors, is not a good idea if that reporter is an ‘old school’ type with solid research behind his reports.

“Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make it publicly available. Your testimony did not.

If you don’t have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.

The real problem is the contrast between the ‘witness’ of Vindeman and Solomon. The Left provides innuendo and ad hominem while the Right offers hard evidence and supported inference.

Michael Barone: The Impeachment Pseudo-Event – “Real events involve independent actors and have unpredictable outcomes. Pseudo-events are shows.” … “Yet on the front pages and cable news breaking-news bulletins, this pseudo-event is crowding out two genuine events of potentially world-shaking importance and uncertain outcome.”

“”The executive power,” Article II of the Constitution states, “shall be vested in a president of the United States of America,” and Trump, as the career diplomats testifying have acknowledged, has no obligation to follow “interagency consensus.” It’s hard to avoid concluding that Democrats who detest Trump seized on this weak pretext for impeachment when the charges of Russian collusion they brandished for three years turned out to be baseless.

Pam Key: FNC’s Napolitano: ‘Overwhelming’ Evidence to Justify 3 or 4 Articles of Impeachment Against Trump but his case is underwhelming and highly selective in what is included to support it.

Joel B. Pollak: Peggy Noonan: ‘Trump’s Defenders Have No Defense’ – “Noonan does not discuss the actual evidence presented, or the Constitution’s criteria for impeachment, but dwells on her impressions of the character of the witnesses — all of whom were selected or approved by Democrats.”

Lynne Lechter: Hearsay and the Trump impeachment hearings – “Hearsay is usually inadmissible in a court of law because the person who made the original statement cannot be confronted through cross-examination.” … “The defendant’s right to cross-examine negative testimony or accusations at trial is rooted in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, contained in the Bill of Rights.”

Mollie Hemingway: How Republicans Won Phase One Of Impeachment – “The first phase of impeachment did not go well for Democrats. It needed to be a time when support for the inquiry and impeachment grew. Instead, it shrank.” There are a lot of folks that see things Napolitano and Noonan don’t see.

“Republicans, by contrast, needed to aim for bipartisan opposition to the impeachment proceedings, keep their members in line, make the case that the impeachment proceedings lacked fairness, and that concern about Ukrainian corruption was legitimate. They managed to do all that.

Here’s why things went well for Republicans in phase one of impeachment.

It was completely unclear what crime, much less what high crime, Trump was accused of committing.
…
Reporters kept deleting their tweets because they were getting facts about the hearings wrong.
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Democrats’ witnesses kept making Trump’s case for him. … At no time did any witness make an effective case for anything other than, at best, a trip to the ballot box.

In part because Schiff and his team seemed confused about what case they were prosecuting, questions to witnesses were almost always leading, but never focused on a particular or consistent goal. Conversely, Republicans kept focused during their questions, always pointing out that the witnesses didn’t actually have first-hand information, or were basing their views on their own conjecture, a shaky basis for impeachment.
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GOP members stayed on message about the unfairness of the proceedings.
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The media generally overpromised and underachieved.

Don Surber: Noonan and the vapid response team – “Noonan at the Wall Street Journal is useless as George Will, Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin and the rest of the Washington Post” … “They are relics of 20th century commentary in which newspaper columnists regularly got away with leaving out major portions of story to make their case.” … “In the 21st century, columnists must offer actual proof to make their case because the truth seeps out online.”

neo: Charges against Netanyahu: another coup? – “A fundamental question in any democracy is whether a single individual — in this case an appointed attorney general — should be empowered to make decisions that may thwart the will of the voters.”

Seth Barrett Tillman: What the Democrats have Learned from their Failure in Connection with the Kavanaugh Hearings – “Don’t allege crimes which, if true, would leave physical evidence; rather, allege crimes which only exist in men’s hearts and minds. Should we go down that road, our next destination will be a world where men deny they have hearts and minds, and our final destination may be a world where that denial reflects the actual truth—a world where men have no hearts and minds at all.”

William A. Jacobson: All three Nicholas Sandmann lawsuits to go forward — WaPo, CNN, NBC – “statements that plaintiff ‘blocked’ Phillips or did not allow him to retreat, if false, meet the test of being libelous per se”

The Babylon Bee: Chick-Fil-A Replaces Cow Mascot With Golden Calf – This is about the notorious Christian fast food chain kowtowing to LGBQ activists …

Leslie Eastman: Pope Francis Ponders Adding ‘Sins Against Ecology’ to Catholic Catechism – “Are they mortal or venial sins?” Gaia is a false god and the Bible warns of that temptation …

Thomas McArdleSondland’s Presumptions, And All The Presidents’ Powers – “When these presidential powers, and the obvious threat to them, are understood, the weakness of basing any case for the impeachment of Trump on what was just served up by Sondland and other presidential servants before Schiff’s committee becomes clear.”

“The question of whether this or that private presidential conversation – listened in on at remote locations by a veritable army of bureaucrats – contains untoward assertions or requests is secondary to another question: How can any president possibly act effectively as “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations” not requiring “as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress” if those listening can run to a politically hostile Congress with their accusations of impropriety?

Ed Timperlake Chief Justice Roberts now dragged into Democrat impeachment process – “He and he alone “owns” the FISC court so he must be held accountable for any court actions. However, even if he has acted to clear up the egregious frauds, so far only a few publically reported with probably more to come, he has a significant problem if the Democrat Leaders of the House vote out Articles of Impeachment for a senate trial of our President. … The Chief Justice has just become a fact witness in the Impeachment process because of Fiona Hill’s testimony.” re Walter Scott: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave…when first we practice to deceive.”

John Daniel Davidson The Most Important News Story Right Now Isn’t Impeachment, It’s The Crisis In Mexico – “Cartels in Mexico aren’t just fighting over drugs, they’re fighting over industries, and it might well trigger a new and much bigger migrant crisis on the U.S. border.”

Fletch Daniels The Hate and Anti-Intellectualism of the Modern Democratic Party – “Should President Donald Trump win re-election, everyone believes that this will serve as a triggering event that will result in a serious spasm of violence.” … “A hate-filled moron is always going to be a hate-filled moron. Maher just proves that point in his world-class exercise in projection.”

“Leftists are motivated almost exclusively by hate. It is almost always liberals who sever family relations over politics. It is leftists who hate their country and despise its flag. Almost all political violence is emanating from the Left. Considering the slanderous demonization of all Republicans as racist, misogynist, imperialist, homophobic supremacists, this is not terribly surprising. Hate springs quite naturally from liberals’ noxious, racist, and anti-Christian worldview.

Projectionist Maher and his ilk naturally believe that hate is a conservative phenomenon.

But the anti-intellectual charge is even more laughable, even if it is a statement of faith on the Left. Maher didn’t think he was saying anything particularly controversial. But he has it backwards.

Janice Shaw Crouse After the Impeachment – “There’s rough road ahead no matter which of the opponents wins. The two sides of the deepening conflict are very different in their composition and hot-button issues, but also especially in responses to losing.”

Elliot Hannon Lindsey Graham Is Now Investigating the Bidens Anyway, Cementing Ukraine’s Role as Hapless Fall Guy – A Slate headline illustrates the points made above. The impeachment finality at this media outlet is just as definitive and in denial of reality at this site as Hannon’s headline.

Babylon Bee Impeachment Inquiry Canceled After 5 Episodes Due To Low Ratings

sundance Horowitz Leaks Begin – FBI Official Caught Altering FISA Documents, Now Under Criminal Investigation… “Here we go. Today is the day the inspector general closed the “Principal Review” phase of the upcoming IG report. Now is when the small group of corrupt DOJ and FBI officials -spotlighted by the IG investigation- begin trying to shape the narrative; and the leaks start with a whopper:”

William Walker: Machiavelli, Calumny and Free Speech on Campus – “On Machiavelli’s view, the Romans rightly saw Capitolinus as a “calumniator”. A calumniator is a person who makes serious accusations against other citizens without providing sufficient evidence or witnesses to support those accusations.” This goes with AG Barr’s TLDR must read last week…

“Above all, the Romans understood how destructive calumny can be to the republic: they knew that calumnies not only exasperate those against whom they are made, but also incite them and their allies to hate the calumniators. They understood that if you permit calumniators to go unpunished, that hatred will result in a divided society that will curtail civil liberties and ultimately disintegrate.
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First of all, I think that one of the main features of “discussion” of moral and political issues on campus and beyond is the high incidence of a certain kind of accusation (calling people names, attaching labels to them) as distinct from argumentation (asserting claims, providing evidence for them, reasoning about them and their relations to other claims).
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The main accusations documented in studies such as these, and the ones I have observed over three decades of teaching at universities in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, are accusations of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, imperialism and Eurocentrism.
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So one of the dimensions of campus life and our society at large now is that people are free to make, informally, a certain kind of accusation against fellow students, teachers and others without being obliged to provide good evidence for it.

see also Mike LaChance: FIRE on Binghamton Protest of Art Laffer: “Latest in a Disturbing Trend of Protesters Silencing Others” – “The biggest threat to free speech at Binghamton Monday evening wasn’t the police or Art Laffer — but the vigilante censors” 

J. Frank Bullitt: Sycophants Who Flatter Child Climate ‘Oracles’ Deserve Unrelenting Ridicule – “The Nobel Prize. Australian prime minister. The rapt attention of the United Nations. What has happened to Western civilization? How have we reached a place in which children, so clearly unlearned, are hailed as oracles who must be heeded?” Calumniators take many forms? “obliged to provide good evidence” is the key question.

Tyler Durden: Ukrainian MP Claims $7.4 Billion Obama-Linked Laundering, Puts Biden Group Take At $16.5 Million – “A Ukrainian MP says a document leaked from the Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General contains claims against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky, as well as Hunter Biden and his partners ” – good evidence usually has legs.

Harry S Truman: “All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.”

Scott Johnson: The sound of Sondland – “Sondland’s presumptions gave the Democrats what they wanted in the form of his “presumptions.” Sondland’s presented his presumptions in the form of a quid pro quo. The Democrats of course celebrated Sondland’s presumptions as the facts of the case. What a way to run a railroad (so to speak).” good evidence here ….

Mackubin Owens: President can’t ‘subvert’ foreign policy but not the way the Left proclaims as heroic – “There’s a major problem with this argument. It ignores Article II of the Constitution, which grants to the president, in conjunction with Congress — not unelected bureaucrats — the power to make U.S. foreign policy. Unelected bureaucrats do not have a right to undermine the policy of a duly elected president, simply because they disagree with it. But the denizens of the deep state think they do.”

Jenny Beth Martin: American Bar Association’s evaluation of judicial nominees tarnished by liberal bias – “By engaging in partisan politics rather than providing accurate assessments of conservative-leaning nominees, the ABA raises questions about the need for its rating system. The ABA’s latest political hit job is Lawrence VanDyke” – It’s the case for the ABA as a “calumniator”.

OC: Trump’s Denials Turned into a Ramones Song: “I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NOTHING. I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO.” – “denial”? What a strange use of the term. It is distortion and deceit at OpenCulture. The AP had to squish an item like this because it was a direct quote of policy given to Sondland who had been badgering the president for a simplified expression of Trump’s position. It illustrates just how deep the calumniator ethos goes.

neo: “Shakespeare who?” ask Canadian students – “So instead of learning the pearls of the Western canon, students in these districts are to remain ignorant of those achievements in favor of the study of literature that I think we can safely predict will not stand the test of time but will nevertheless serve the new overriding pedagogical goal of making the majority of students feel guilty about themselves and their culture.”