RALEIGH, NC—Local 7-year-old Jayden Perdue was instructed to go to bed this evening, but the boy wasn't about to let the bedtime proceedings go through without a fight.
Perdue quickly formulated a complex strategy in which he would employ a series of clever delay tactics in order to postpone bedtime indefinitely.
"But I have to go to the bathroom," he began, and his parents allowed him to do so. Several minutes later, after they thought he was fast asleep, Perdue emerged once again from his bedroom and declared, "I'm scared. Can you check my closet for monsters, ghosts, and politicians?"
Annoyed but still gracious, Perdue's parents entered the room and assured him there were no monsters of any kind. Satisfied, Perdue wished them good night and pretended to go to sleep.
But moments later, he came out yet again, asking if he could have a drink of water. He continued to get up every few minutes like clockwork, making increasingly grandiose requests, such as asking his parents for a tray of Bagel Bites and a read through of The Silmarillion.
"These delay tactics are unacceptable," his parents told reporters. "It is obvious now that he's simply stretching out the process to its breaking point."
*.*
Kim Jong Un said he wants to open a McDonald’s in North Korea, which will most likely offer “Happy to be alive” meals.
Keira Knightly received the OBE award from Queen Elizabeth II. Doesn’t knighting a Knightly seem redundant?
Starbucks is raising the price of its coffee by 10 to 20 cents. I’m considering it a, “Well, I guess we have to be nice to all of you” tax.
Uber says it can detect drunk passengers by the way they hold their phone. I've learned to dial mine with my toes, just to mess with them.
President Trump has said that he has the power to pardon himself, but he will never forgive the producers of "The Emoji Movie" for that they did.
Eunice Gayson, who appeared in the movie, "Dr. No" and was the very first Bond Girl, has died at the age of 90. That was back in the days when someone named Eunice could become a Bond Girl.
*.*
So I went to the doctor and he said, "Don eat anything fatty."
And I asked, "You mean like burgers and fries?" and he responded, "No, don't eat anything, Fatty!"
*.*
A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley, when he spotted a world-famous heart surgeon in his shop. The heart surgeon was waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his bike. The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey Doc can I ask you a question?"
The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle.
The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I also can open hearts, take valves out, fix'em, put in new parts and when I finish this will work just like a new one. So how come I get a pittance and you get the really big money, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"
The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic...
..."Try doing it with the engine running!"
*.*
A Philadelphia teacher is being accused of taking bribes for good grades.
Who knew they taught politics in elementary school?
Issue of the Times;
The Ranger School Conspiracy by Ray Starmann
The lies from Fort Benning just keep on comin’…
In 2015, former Secretary of Defense Ash and Trash Carter desperately needed some proof; real or fraudulent, that women could hack it in the combat arms. The $36 million dollar, Marine Corps study couldn’t do that. It clearly showed in minute detail how all female and coed units were slaughtered by all male units in simulated combat.
Enter Captain Griest and First Lieutenant Haver, who, along with several other females, were attending Ranger School down at Fort Benning, Georgia. The word quickly went out. There would be one or two Lady Rangers presented to the world, in order to give Carter the ‘proof’ he needed to authorize women to serve in the combat arms and special operations forces of the US military.
As Griest and Haver went through the grueling course and then ‘graduated’, rumors began to seep out that they were being given special treatment in the form of dieticians, endless chances to repeat the school, multiple opportunities to pass patrols, showers every three days and pink curtained cat holes for privacy. Fueling the fire was their plump appearance at graduation. Normally, Ranger School males look like Japanese POW camp survivors on graduation day, strangely, the ladies looked well fed.
People Magazine reporter, Susan Keating seemed to confirm the rumors in her September, 2015 in article titled, ‘Was It Fixed? Army General Told Subordinates: ‘A Woman Will Graduate Ranger School,’ Sources Say.
Keating’s story was quickly lambasted by former Ranger Training Brigade Commander, Colonel David Fivecoat and former Fort Benning Maneuver Center commander, General Scott Miller, who both adamantly claimed that there was no special treatment given to Griest and Haver.
Meanwhile, US Defense Watch was given documents that showed Haver had been one of 50 women at Fort Carson, who spent 90 straight days preparing for Ranger School, in a sort of mad cap pre-pre Ranger School. In fact, Haver flunked land navigation repeatedly at Carson and should never have been sent to Benning in the first place. Even in the days of GPS, a Ranger who can’t use a map and compass is as worthless as a golfer who can’t putt.
Miller was promoted to four star general and is currently serving as commander of all US-led forces in Afghanistan. Fivecoat retired with a full pension and Tricare benefits.
While Keating’s article hit the Internet, Congressman Steve Russell, a former army officer and Ranger School graduate demanded to see the Ranger School records for Griest and Haver. His attempts to obtain the records were repeatedly thwarted by Secretary of Army John McHugh.
Russell was then informed that both Griest and Haver’s records had been destroyed, in violation of army policy. Russell’s requests to view the Green Cards, or Ranger School transcripts for the two women were also denied. To date, Russell has received nothing from the army.
Two months later, Major Lisa Jaster, a 37 year old mother of two ‘graduated’ from Ranger School, in what can only be described as a Diversity Bridge too Far, in the army’s attempts to prove that women can successfully graduate from the course. A 37 year old man graduating from the school is miraculous, a 37 year old mommy of two graduating is a fraud.
After Mommy Ranger’s graduation, another baker’s dozen of female graduated from the school in the last three years.
It was hoped that Secretary of Defense James Mattis would eradicate the PC madness infecting the military, but to date, Mattis has shown himself to be just as worthless as Ash Carter.
Since 2015, the army believed it was doing a successful job of covering up what was really going on at Benning, a conspiracy to defraud the American people and our national security, in order to placate Pentagon diversity crusaders and idiots like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
But, two stories have recently shed light on Ranger School once again.
In June, this year, a source at the Mountain Ranger Camp at Dahlonega had informed USDW that a female Ranger School student was indeed pregnant. Apparently, this student and her boyfriend were in the same Ranger School class. Both students were recycled during the Benning phase. While in the ‘Gulag’ awaiting the beginning of the Benning phase recycle, she got pregnant.
The female was eventually taken out of the course while in the Mountain Phase, and has reportedly been offered a chance to recycle after her maternity leave ends.
Last week, another story from Ranger School broke and it sounded a lot like what was happening at Benning in 2015. Popular Military reported that ‘the first female enlisted soldier to graduate Ranger School allegedly quit during the first phase of training and was given more opportunities to restart phases of the course, according to sources within the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade.’
According to the article, “several sources -including Ranger Instructors (RIs) whose names have been withheld- say that the NCO quit during the first phase of training, but was allowed to come back and even recycle several times, something that has never happened in a course that is supposed to automatically disqualify those who tap out.”
“She was given more recycles and even quit during the first phase,” an RI source said, speaking on conditions of anonymity.
Down the road from the first phase of Ranger school at Fort Benning, at Sand Hill, Infantry recruits claimed that a clear double-standard existed for their female counterparts, including lighter rucks and lower expectations.
“No way,” one soldier told Popular Military last year, after being asked if women were held to the same standards. “Lighter rucks, things like that.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
There’s an old saying, where there’s smoke, there’s fire and there’s a lot of smoke down at Benning, and there has been for three years.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that since 2015, a conspiracy to pass women at Ranger School has continued under the guise of the senior leadership in the Ranger Training Brigade and in the army.
In order to placate fools in Congress and their superiors, in order to pad their pensions, promotions and future defense contractor jobs, Pentagon perfumed princes have demanded female graduates from Ranger School, national security be damned.
What’s happening at Fort Benning is a disgrace to the brave Rangers who went before in Sicily, at Pointe du Hoc, on Omaha Beach, in Burma, in the Philippines, in Vietnam, Mogadishu, Iraq and Afghanistan.
What’s happening at Fort Benning is a fraud and a conspiracy that goes all the way to the desk of Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
Quote of the Times;
According to Martha Stout, the author of “The Sociopath Next Door”, the most reliable sign of a sociopath is their appeal to a normal persons sympathy, despite their abusive, destructive, manipulative, and mendacious behavior.
“If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath.”
Link of the Times;
http://planecrashinfo.com/lastwords.htm
Ranger?
Snopes?
Dear God, my prayer for 2019 is for a fat bank account and a thin body.
Please don’t mix them up like you did last year. AMEN !
*.*
Darqueeze played high school football in Detroit. He was a great running back, but a really poor student. At graduation, he didn't have enough credits. But he was a great football star and the students held a rally and demanded the principal give him a diploma anyway. They were so insistent that the principal agreed that if Darqueeze could answer one question correctly he would give him a diploma. The one question test was held in the auditorium and all the students packed the place. It was standing room only. The principal was on the stage and told him to come up. Diploma in hand, the principal said: "Darqueeze, if you can answer this one question correctly I'll give you your diploma."
"Darqueeze, how much is three times seven?" Darqueeze looked up at the ceiling and then down at his shoes, pondering the question. The other students began chanting, "Graduate him anyway! Graduate him anyway!"
Then Darqueez held up his hand and the auditorium became silent. He said, "I think I know the answer. Three times seven is twenty-one."
A hush fell over the auditorium and then all the other students began to chant:
"Give him another chance! Give him another chance!"
*.*
If you visit the medical center and hear my doctor yelling, "Tetanus! Measles! Flu!" just ignore him.
He likes calling the shots.
*.*
Trump is doing so much winning that it's hard to keep track. From blasting reporters with his cunning wit to his finely crafted tweets, he's not just the POTUS—he's the GOATUS, are we right or are we right?
Well, Trump's done it again: in his latest winning move, Trump has forced Canada to take back Jim Carrey as part of the two countries' new trade deal.
Wow! Did Barack Obama ever get Canada to take back any actors or singers? We didn't think so! The terms of the deal force Carrey to move back to the Great White North within the month, or the U.S. is allowed to invade and beat Canada again, just like we did in 1812. Carrey must take his paintings with him too, but the U.S. is allowed to keep all of his good movies. Canada has to take back all copies of the Dumb and Dumber sequel and Batman Forever, in the most brutal terms of the deal.
Better get to steppin', socialist Jim Carrey! We liked Dumb and Dumber and all, but your time here is up! Time to trade in your US dollars for narwhal tusks or whatever they use as trade currency in your primitive land. Hang up the Dunkin' Donuts and start getting used to the bitter taste of Tim Horton coffee, milk in a bag, and the failure of socialism!
*.*
Q: How do you turn a fox into an elephant?
A: Marry her.
Issue of the Times;
8 Times Amateur “Fact Checking” Site SNOPES Blatantly Lied by Cathlene Lott
The ‘fact checking’ site Snopes is notoriously sloppy, amateur and biased. So why does Facebook continue doing business with them?
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, in defiance of all expectation, and despite the breathless and unremitting cheerleading of the mainstream media and press, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, a narrative began to be pushed that Trump had won the election largely on the strength of the Russians pushing “fake news” on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Desperate to ensure that such an abomination in the eyes of the regressive Left never occurred again, these tech giants took immediate action.
Twitter began purging Conservative accounts, both high profile and low, and implementing Terms of Service specifically designed to marginalize and target users of a right-leaning bent. It was successful, as has been extensively documented by various outlets. As a result, many prominent Conservatives have been banned outright, their presence on Twitter expunged altogether, in the blink of an eye.
Facebook took another direction. They decided to “crack down on fake news,” with the assistance of third party “fact checkers.”
Enter the formerly reputable Snopes. Launched in 1994 as the “Urban Legends Reference Pages,” Snopes once concentrated its efforts on debunking myths, rumors and urban legends. If you wanted the straight dope on whether or not alligators flushed down city toilets as babies had turned into behemoths of prehistoric proportions secretly lurking in the New York City sewer system, you could turn to Snopes for the truth. They had you covered.
In mid-December 2016, Facebook contracted with Snopes, (as well as fact checkers from ABC News, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press and Politifact), to “evaluate” the truthfulness of stories posted and shared by users on their platform. The process works as follows: Random Facebook users can “flag” a story as “false” or “misleading,” and it gets sent to a group of hired fact checkers for evaluation. If those fact checkers agree that a story is misleading, it gets tagged as “disputed,” and a link to an article explaining why it is “disputed” is included. The “fake” story then gets pushed down the Facebook News Feed and anyone clicking, liking or sharing it will receive a warning that the article they’re about to click, like or share is “fake news.” Sites that publish numerous stories deemed by these fact checkers to be “fake news” are suppressed, their content outright hidden from Facebook users, and oftentimes are thrown off the platform altogether. See Alex Jones and InfoWars, as an example.
That’s a lot of power concentrated in the hands of few. Ignoring the fact that, as adults, and particularly here in the U.S. where the First Amendment protects our right not only to speak freely, but to listen to whomever, and whatever we please, people should be free to do just that. The fact that social media giants feel beholden to control not only what we post, but what we see, is emerging as a serious question as to whether or not this is a violation of the First Amendment. As the “public platform” Facebook, for example, claims to be, and under protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Facebook is supposed to be a “neutral platform.”
But another problem arises. What happens when those “fact checkers” are biased in their opinions, and do not base their rulings on actual facts, but on a complicated system of mental gymnastics designed to say Well, what you’re reading here is actually true, but we’re going to rate it ‘false’, because we prefer to look at the facts from a nuanced position which is more in line with an emotional response, rather than a factual evaluation.
In other words: Who’s fact checking the fact checkers? In the case of Snopes, it would appear that many have found it necessary to begin to verify what the oldest “fact checking” website on the Internet is holding forth as “fact,” and whether they exhibit a political bias in their evaluations. So what are the findings?
HILLARY DEFENDS RAPIST
RATING: SNOPES LIED
In August 2016, Snopes was tagged for outright lying in defense of Hillary Clinton, in an attempt to “debunk” the story that Clinton had, as a young defense attorney, successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case. Snopes rated the story as “mostly false”, even though the story is 100% factual. The basis for the Snopes rating? Apparently they object to the way the facts are characterized, offering the justification that Clinton was “just doing her job.” Right. But that doesn’t change the FACT that she successfully defended an accused child rapist, and later laughed about the case. Because she did. Fact Check: True. Snopes LIED.
FLAGGATE
RATING: SNOPES LIED
Then there is “FlagGate.” Numerous Conservative media outlets noted the obvious absence of the American flag displayed on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Snopes went into attack mode, vehemently denying the claim, calling it “False”, and posting photos as “proof” that the flag was, in fact, in evidence on the first day of the Convention. Only, the photos they included were either screen caps from videos of flags on the premises during the Pledge of Allegiance, after which they were promptly removed, or not from day one at all, but from day two. They were caught red-handed by the Daily Caller. Finding? Snopes LIED.
OFFICER JAY STALIEN
RATING: SNOPES WENT FULL CNN
And don’t forget the time Snopes went after a private citizen’s Facebook post. In what was a clear case of political meddling in the national dialogue, Snopes went out of their way to critique a Facebook post authored by a black police officer in defense of law enforcement. The post had been under constant attack by the hate group Black Lives Matter. Officer Jay Stalien had offered a fact-based rebuttal to several complaints leveled by BLM against law enforcement. Why Snopes felt entitled to jump in the fray is unclear. Snopes’s response? Well, they didn’t find his Facebook comment “false”, but they did attempt to discredit him, because they weren’t able to verify his identity and because they felt his post was nothing more than his opinion, based on his personal experiences. Well, yeah! It’s a Facebook post. But why was Snopes “fact checking” a Facebook post in the first place?
SANDERS’S INTERNS
RATING: SNOPES CRIED
When it was reported Bernie Sanders, Senator “$15 an hour minimum wage,” pays his interns only $12 an hour, Snopes deemed the story’s accuracy a “Mixture” because Sanders pays his staffers more. Ok, the story was about interns, not staffers. Snopes admitted Sanders only pays his interns $12 but refused to label the reports credible.
COMMON CORE
RATING: SNOPES MOSTLY LIED
On their attack on FreedomProject for their story on a South Florida charter school and its resounding success in teaching young children to read using classical methods, rather than the Progressive “Common Core” curriculum, Snopes deemed the story “mostly false” because the school didn’t use common core in the first place. Reluctantly, Snopes was still forced to admit students at the school did “outstandingly” better in English scores than comparable schools that used Common Core, even if occasionally the charter school’s math scores didn’t do as well.
IRANIAN HOSTAGES
RATING: SNOPES BABBLED INCOHERENTLY
In their defense of Obama and Hillary Clinton for their $400 Million ransom payment to Iran for American prisoners, Snopes reverted to its usual trick when backed into a corner: rehashing details that no one disputes then magically coming up with a “False” label. As the Federalist Papers noted, “The point is that Snopes is conveniently glossing over the most salient and important news item to come out of the initial story: that Iran demanded the money in exchange for the hostages and that Iranian officials call the money a ‘ransom payment.’”
PEDOPHILE POLITICIAN
RATING: SNOPES SHRUGGED
Snopes’s sloppiness was on unapologetic display in their defense of a pedophile-supporting Democrat politician. When a Michigan State Senator allegedly wrote on Facebook that is was “normal” for adult men to marry and have sex with pre-pubescent girls, Snopes labeled the report “Unproven.” As evidence for this claim, Snopes offered up a truly rigorous bit of intrepid fact-finding: the politician claims his page was hacked. So, there you have it.
Real Clear Politics, in analyzing the performance of Snopes as a fact checking site, offered both praise and criticism. Their praise was limited to one aspect: the fact that Snopes mainly refrains from fact checking matters of opinion. Of the six fact checking sites analyzed by RCP, Snopes was found to have chosen these types of articles to analyze fewer times than other fact checking sites. Their criticism of Snopes is far more telling. RCP found that Snopes habitually editorializes their pieces, injecting opinion and offering commentary and “charged language” with a decidedly liberal bias. RCP offers as examples of such biased commentary, an unverified piece on the knife attacks in London, which Snopes called “heavy on Islam-blaming but light on evidence.” RCP also noted that, in debunking a false claim about Parkland High School student and activist David Hogg, Snopes injected “extraneous commentary” about how Hogg had been the target of “smear campaigns” by “far-right wing blogs.” Snopes labeled a questionable article on supposed “animal brothels” in Germany a “transparent attempt to spark fear and hatred.” And, in “fact checking” the story of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s ejection from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA, RCP notes that Snopes “offered a subjective — and speculative — interpretation of events and the one most favorable to the owner of the Red Hen.”
An excellent analysis of the dishonest tactics employed by Snopes can be found onMedium, which exposes how these dishonest malcontents employ a combination of lies by omission, strawman arguments, deflection and false narrative to push a particular political agenda. As stated in the Medium article, even the most casual examination of the majority Snopes articles will expose them for what they are: shamelessly dishonest, frequently blatantly lying partisan hacks. Or, as Medium describes them “Snopes is a bad, dangerous, deceptive site. They use a very conscious, malicious form of misinformation to mislead and manipulate their readers by selective application of facts and omission of context.”
Indeed.
Finally there is the Snopes hit on this site for our exclusive report on the false public perception, and possible perjury, of Christine Blasey Ford, who identified herself, under oath, as a “research psychologist,” before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Kavanaugh Supreme Court Confirmation hearings. As reported by Editor-in-Chief Chadwick Moore, Ford is neither a licensed nor a credentialed psychologist and so, according to California’s Business and Professional Code, Section 2910 (c), may not publicly use any variation of the title “psychologist” in identifying herself. In doing so, she possibly violate the law and may, as our report stated, have perjured herself. Snopes deemed the article “False” by ignoring one central claim of the article, and tacitly admitted the second biggest claim was probably true.
Despite these clear and irrefutable facts, Snopes had decided to double down, continuing to willfully ignore the facts, instead constructing strawmen and engaging in sleight of hand tactics to distract and deflect attention from the fact that they are utterly dishonest in labeling our report “False.” In a follow up piece, we profiled the ways in which this is detrimental to our publication as Snopes, as a “fact checker” for Facebook, has the power to suppress our reach and influence on social media.
This is a serious abrogation of responsibility and a breach of trust which is unacceptable. Snopes is clearly compromised, and is in no position to stand in judgment of what is “true” and what is “false”, when they are demonstrably unable to stick to the facts in their own “fact checking.”
Under criticism recently for the political bent of its “fact-checkers,” Facebook did announce it was bringing on a right-leaning news organization, The Weekly Standard, to also conduct fact-checking. Facebook should continue down this path and sever ties with Snopes because, above all others, Snopes has demonstrated it is incapable of performing in good faith the task for which it has been contracted. It hurts Facebook’s credibility. At the very lest, Snopes should be removed from duties of fact-checking any story of a political nature and revert to its original mission: debunking myths about Bigfoot and educating the public on the origins of Play-Doh. When it comes to complex political issues and reporting, Snopes belongs in the pee wee league. Until Snopes can be trusted with anything more substantial than a photoshopped Loch Ness monster, the American public deserves better.
Aside from Snopes’s intellectual integrity, there’s also the issue of its moral nature. As the Daily Mail reported in 2016, founder David Mikkelson’s ex-wife has accused him of embezzlement in the company. Mikkelson also remarried a woman name Elyssa Young who works for the company as an administrator and worked as a prostitute and porn star in the past. The Mail also reported the main “fact checker” is “Kimberly LaCapria, whose blog ‘ViceVixen’ says she is in touch with her ‘domme side’ and has posted on Snopes.com while smoking pot.”
Quote of the Times;
With good humor and pessimism it is not possible to be either wrong or bored. - Davila
Link of the Times;
https://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DBS_LrTlfVm0
Please don’t mix them up like you did last year. AMEN !
*.*
Darqueeze played high school football in Detroit. He was a great running back, but a really poor student. At graduation, he didn't have enough credits. But he was a great football star and the students held a rally and demanded the principal give him a diploma anyway. They were so insistent that the principal agreed that if Darqueeze could answer one question correctly he would give him a diploma. The one question test was held in the auditorium and all the students packed the place. It was standing room only. The principal was on the stage and told him to come up. Diploma in hand, the principal said: "Darqueeze, if you can answer this one question correctly I'll give you your diploma."
"Darqueeze, how much is three times seven?" Darqueeze looked up at the ceiling and then down at his shoes, pondering the question. The other students began chanting, "Graduate him anyway! Graduate him anyway!"
Then Darqueez held up his hand and the auditorium became silent. He said, "I think I know the answer. Three times seven is twenty-one."
A hush fell over the auditorium and then all the other students began to chant:
"Give him another chance! Give him another chance!"
*.*
If you visit the medical center and hear my doctor yelling, "Tetanus! Measles! Flu!" just ignore him.
He likes calling the shots.
*.*
Trump is doing so much winning that it's hard to keep track. From blasting reporters with his cunning wit to his finely crafted tweets, he's not just the POTUS—he's the GOATUS, are we right or are we right?
Well, Trump's done it again: in his latest winning move, Trump has forced Canada to take back Jim Carrey as part of the two countries' new trade deal.
Wow! Did Barack Obama ever get Canada to take back any actors or singers? We didn't think so! The terms of the deal force Carrey to move back to the Great White North within the month, or the U.S. is allowed to invade and beat Canada again, just like we did in 1812. Carrey must take his paintings with him too, but the U.S. is allowed to keep all of his good movies. Canada has to take back all copies of the Dumb and Dumber sequel and Batman Forever, in the most brutal terms of the deal.
Better get to steppin', socialist Jim Carrey! We liked Dumb and Dumber and all, but your time here is up! Time to trade in your US dollars for narwhal tusks or whatever they use as trade currency in your primitive land. Hang up the Dunkin' Donuts and start getting used to the bitter taste of Tim Horton coffee, milk in a bag, and the failure of socialism!
*.*
Q: How do you turn a fox into an elephant?
A: Marry her.
Issue of the Times;
8 Times Amateur “Fact Checking” Site SNOPES Blatantly Lied by Cathlene Lott
The ‘fact checking’ site Snopes is notoriously sloppy, amateur and biased. So why does Facebook continue doing business with them?
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, in defiance of all expectation, and despite the breathless and unremitting cheerleading of the mainstream media and press, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, a narrative began to be pushed that Trump had won the election largely on the strength of the Russians pushing “fake news” on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Desperate to ensure that such an abomination in the eyes of the regressive Left never occurred again, these tech giants took immediate action.
Twitter began purging Conservative accounts, both high profile and low, and implementing Terms of Service specifically designed to marginalize and target users of a right-leaning bent. It was successful, as has been extensively documented by various outlets. As a result, many prominent Conservatives have been banned outright, their presence on Twitter expunged altogether, in the blink of an eye.
Facebook took another direction. They decided to “crack down on fake news,” with the assistance of third party “fact checkers.”
Enter the formerly reputable Snopes. Launched in 1994 as the “Urban Legends Reference Pages,” Snopes once concentrated its efforts on debunking myths, rumors and urban legends. If you wanted the straight dope on whether or not alligators flushed down city toilets as babies had turned into behemoths of prehistoric proportions secretly lurking in the New York City sewer system, you could turn to Snopes for the truth. They had you covered.
In mid-December 2016, Facebook contracted with Snopes, (as well as fact checkers from ABC News, FactCheck.org, the Associated Press and Politifact), to “evaluate” the truthfulness of stories posted and shared by users on their platform. The process works as follows: Random Facebook users can “flag” a story as “false” or “misleading,” and it gets sent to a group of hired fact checkers for evaluation. If those fact checkers agree that a story is misleading, it gets tagged as “disputed,” and a link to an article explaining why it is “disputed” is included. The “fake” story then gets pushed down the Facebook News Feed and anyone clicking, liking or sharing it will receive a warning that the article they’re about to click, like or share is “fake news.” Sites that publish numerous stories deemed by these fact checkers to be “fake news” are suppressed, their content outright hidden from Facebook users, and oftentimes are thrown off the platform altogether. See Alex Jones and InfoWars, as an example.
That’s a lot of power concentrated in the hands of few. Ignoring the fact that, as adults, and particularly here in the U.S. where the First Amendment protects our right not only to speak freely, but to listen to whomever, and whatever we please, people should be free to do just that. The fact that social media giants feel beholden to control not only what we post, but what we see, is emerging as a serious question as to whether or not this is a violation of the First Amendment. As the “public platform” Facebook, for example, claims to be, and under protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Facebook is supposed to be a “neutral platform.”
But another problem arises. What happens when those “fact checkers” are biased in their opinions, and do not base their rulings on actual facts, but on a complicated system of mental gymnastics designed to say Well, what you’re reading here is actually true, but we’re going to rate it ‘false’, because we prefer to look at the facts from a nuanced position which is more in line with an emotional response, rather than a factual evaluation.
In other words: Who’s fact checking the fact checkers? In the case of Snopes, it would appear that many have found it necessary to begin to verify what the oldest “fact checking” website on the Internet is holding forth as “fact,” and whether they exhibit a political bias in their evaluations. So what are the findings?
HILLARY DEFENDS RAPIST
RATING: SNOPES LIED
In August 2016, Snopes was tagged for outright lying in defense of Hillary Clinton, in an attempt to “debunk” the story that Clinton had, as a young defense attorney, successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case. Snopes rated the story as “mostly false”, even though the story is 100% factual. The basis for the Snopes rating? Apparently they object to the way the facts are characterized, offering the justification that Clinton was “just doing her job.” Right. But that doesn’t change the FACT that she successfully defended an accused child rapist, and later laughed about the case. Because she did. Fact Check: True. Snopes LIED.
FLAGGATE
RATING: SNOPES LIED
Then there is “FlagGate.” Numerous Conservative media outlets noted the obvious absence of the American flag displayed on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Snopes went into attack mode, vehemently denying the claim, calling it “False”, and posting photos as “proof” that the flag was, in fact, in evidence on the first day of the Convention. Only, the photos they included were either screen caps from videos of flags on the premises during the Pledge of Allegiance, after which they were promptly removed, or not from day one at all, but from day two. They were caught red-handed by the Daily Caller. Finding? Snopes LIED.
OFFICER JAY STALIEN
RATING: SNOPES WENT FULL CNN
And don’t forget the time Snopes went after a private citizen’s Facebook post. In what was a clear case of political meddling in the national dialogue, Snopes went out of their way to critique a Facebook post authored by a black police officer in defense of law enforcement. The post had been under constant attack by the hate group Black Lives Matter. Officer Jay Stalien had offered a fact-based rebuttal to several complaints leveled by BLM against law enforcement. Why Snopes felt entitled to jump in the fray is unclear. Snopes’s response? Well, they didn’t find his Facebook comment “false”, but they did attempt to discredit him, because they weren’t able to verify his identity and because they felt his post was nothing more than his opinion, based on his personal experiences. Well, yeah! It’s a Facebook post. But why was Snopes “fact checking” a Facebook post in the first place?
SANDERS’S INTERNS
RATING: SNOPES CRIED
When it was reported Bernie Sanders, Senator “$15 an hour minimum wage,” pays his interns only $12 an hour, Snopes deemed the story’s accuracy a “Mixture” because Sanders pays his staffers more. Ok, the story was about interns, not staffers. Snopes admitted Sanders only pays his interns $12 but refused to label the reports credible.
COMMON CORE
RATING: SNOPES MOSTLY LIED
On their attack on FreedomProject for their story on a South Florida charter school and its resounding success in teaching young children to read using classical methods, rather than the Progressive “Common Core” curriculum, Snopes deemed the story “mostly false” because the school didn’t use common core in the first place. Reluctantly, Snopes was still forced to admit students at the school did “outstandingly” better in English scores than comparable schools that used Common Core, even if occasionally the charter school’s math scores didn’t do as well.
IRANIAN HOSTAGES
RATING: SNOPES BABBLED INCOHERENTLY
In their defense of Obama and Hillary Clinton for their $400 Million ransom payment to Iran for American prisoners, Snopes reverted to its usual trick when backed into a corner: rehashing details that no one disputes then magically coming up with a “False” label. As the Federalist Papers noted, “The point is that Snopes is conveniently glossing over the most salient and important news item to come out of the initial story: that Iran demanded the money in exchange for the hostages and that Iranian officials call the money a ‘ransom payment.’”
PEDOPHILE POLITICIAN
RATING: SNOPES SHRUGGED
Snopes’s sloppiness was on unapologetic display in their defense of a pedophile-supporting Democrat politician. When a Michigan State Senator allegedly wrote on Facebook that is was “normal” for adult men to marry and have sex with pre-pubescent girls, Snopes labeled the report “Unproven.” As evidence for this claim, Snopes offered up a truly rigorous bit of intrepid fact-finding: the politician claims his page was hacked. So, there you have it.
Real Clear Politics, in analyzing the performance of Snopes as a fact checking site, offered both praise and criticism. Their praise was limited to one aspect: the fact that Snopes mainly refrains from fact checking matters of opinion. Of the six fact checking sites analyzed by RCP, Snopes was found to have chosen these types of articles to analyze fewer times than other fact checking sites. Their criticism of Snopes is far more telling. RCP found that Snopes habitually editorializes their pieces, injecting opinion and offering commentary and “charged language” with a decidedly liberal bias. RCP offers as examples of such biased commentary, an unverified piece on the knife attacks in London, which Snopes called “heavy on Islam-blaming but light on evidence.” RCP also noted that, in debunking a false claim about Parkland High School student and activist David Hogg, Snopes injected “extraneous commentary” about how Hogg had been the target of “smear campaigns” by “far-right wing blogs.” Snopes labeled a questionable article on supposed “animal brothels” in Germany a “transparent attempt to spark fear and hatred.” And, in “fact checking” the story of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s ejection from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA, RCP notes that Snopes “offered a subjective — and speculative — interpretation of events and the one most favorable to the owner of the Red Hen.”
An excellent analysis of the dishonest tactics employed by Snopes can be found onMedium, which exposes how these dishonest malcontents employ a combination of lies by omission, strawman arguments, deflection and false narrative to push a particular political agenda. As stated in the Medium article, even the most casual examination of the majority Snopes articles will expose them for what they are: shamelessly dishonest, frequently blatantly lying partisan hacks. Or, as Medium describes them “Snopes is a bad, dangerous, deceptive site. They use a very conscious, malicious form of misinformation to mislead and manipulate their readers by selective application of facts and omission of context.”
Indeed.
Finally there is the Snopes hit on this site for our exclusive report on the false public perception, and possible perjury, of Christine Blasey Ford, who identified herself, under oath, as a “research psychologist,” before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Kavanaugh Supreme Court Confirmation hearings. As reported by Editor-in-Chief Chadwick Moore, Ford is neither a licensed nor a credentialed psychologist and so, according to California’s Business and Professional Code, Section 2910 (c), may not publicly use any variation of the title “psychologist” in identifying herself. In doing so, she possibly violate the law and may, as our report stated, have perjured herself. Snopes deemed the article “False” by ignoring one central claim of the article, and tacitly admitted the second biggest claim was probably true.
Despite these clear and irrefutable facts, Snopes had decided to double down, continuing to willfully ignore the facts, instead constructing strawmen and engaging in sleight of hand tactics to distract and deflect attention from the fact that they are utterly dishonest in labeling our report “False.” In a follow up piece, we profiled the ways in which this is detrimental to our publication as Snopes, as a “fact checker” for Facebook, has the power to suppress our reach and influence on social media.
This is a serious abrogation of responsibility and a breach of trust which is unacceptable. Snopes is clearly compromised, and is in no position to stand in judgment of what is “true” and what is “false”, when they are demonstrably unable to stick to the facts in their own “fact checking.”
Under criticism recently for the political bent of its “fact-checkers,” Facebook did announce it was bringing on a right-leaning news organization, The Weekly Standard, to also conduct fact-checking. Facebook should continue down this path and sever ties with Snopes because, above all others, Snopes has demonstrated it is incapable of performing in good faith the task for which it has been contracted. It hurts Facebook’s credibility. At the very lest, Snopes should be removed from duties of fact-checking any story of a political nature and revert to its original mission: debunking myths about Bigfoot and educating the public on the origins of Play-Doh. When it comes to complex political issues and reporting, Snopes belongs in the pee wee league. Until Snopes can be trusted with anything more substantial than a photoshopped Loch Ness monster, the American public deserves better.
Aside from Snopes’s intellectual integrity, there’s also the issue of its moral nature. As the Daily Mail reported in 2016, founder David Mikkelson’s ex-wife has accused him of embezzlement in the company. Mikkelson also remarried a woman name Elyssa Young who works for the company as an administrator and worked as a prostitute and porn star in the past. The Mail also reported the main “fact checker” is “Kimberly LaCapria, whose blog ‘ViceVixen’ says she is in touch with her ‘domme side’ and has posted on Snopes.com while smoking pot.”
Quote of the Times;
With good humor and pessimism it is not possible to be either wrong or bored. - Davila
Link of the Times;
https://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DBS_LrTlfVm0
Deplorables?
Women are attracted to men who are shrouded in mystery, so make offhand comments that imply there's much more to you than meets the eye.
For example, a softly whispered "You smell like whale" will have her pondering all night the circumstances under which you became qualified to make that assessment.
*.*
After internet mobs began relentlessly attacking Matt Redman for his "racially insensitive" last name, the singer has come forward to announce that he will be changing his name to "Matt Native American" to avoid the negative stereotypes associated with his previous surname.
"I apologize for anyone who has been offended by my name," he told reporters. "I realize now that it was inappropriate to use the name 'Redman' for so long, without thinking how it might make indigenous peoples in North America feel."
"These brave internet warriors have given me 10,000 reasons to change my name, and so I went ahead and did it," he added. "I only pray that we can all heal from this and move forward."
*.*
Oneliners:
Meghan Markle has launched a charity cookbook because, I don't know about you, but when I think of members of the royal family, I think of them working away in the kitchen.
Up in Canada, John Turmel has set an all-time record for having run for office 96 times... and losing every single time. Who I feel bad for is the guy who had the record-now he's lost that, too!
A report says the Orioles expect to replace manager Buck Showalter at the end of the season. Thank you for that sports update, Captain Obvious!
Starbucks says that leadership shifts and organizational changes are underway and yes, some layoffs are brewing. Hopefully, they'll get the names right.
The older I get, the more I realize... .something.
Dunkin' Donuts is dropping the word "Donuts" from its name. Now, if we could just get people to quit saying, "Cod fish."
O.J. Simpson says that Bill Cosby should be in protective custody. Never have I ever cared less about both sides of a sentence.
*.*
JACKSON, Mo. — After more than 17 years inside a retired Special Forces soldier’s colon, the first Meals Ready-to-Eat consumed during the war in Afghanistan was pooped out this week, sources confirmed today.
1st Sgt. Jeff Donegan (Ret.) says he ate the beef ravioli MRE during the initial invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. A hot, dusty afternoon on the outskirts of Kandahar. Not a rock or something in sight to lean my heater on,” Donegan said. “I cracked open that wheat snack bread knowing we’d be in it for the long haul, but I never could have imagined it would be this long.”
Donegan went on to serve three more tours in Afghanistan and two in Iraq before retiring in 2011. He said his battle to push the MRE through his intestines is an analogy for the invisible battles thousands of troops fight once they leave the service.
“I thought that once I retired, my days thinking about the war were over, and I could move on with my life,” he said. “But the years went by, and I could still feel the cheese spread inside me, gnawing at my guts. It cut down deep into my core, an obsession that I just couldn’t shake out.”
Donegan finally sought professional help to assist him in passing the MRE through his bowels. He says help is out there for the many soldiers who still struggle to defecate after eating them.
“I finally talked to a therapist and she said that it’s all about acceptance,” he added. “I needed to accept it before I could let it go, to face my demons head on. Yeah, it hurt. I think pooping out MREs hurts us all in its own way, but I got through it.”
At press the time, the most recent plate of goat meat and rice served to American troops by their Afghan partners had already been sprayed all over a local Port-a-John.
*.*
I finally discovered the secret to invisibility.
Simply drink 12 beers in under two hours, and then, when your urine is transparent, you know you're free to ogle and grope any woman in the bar completely undetected!
Things get a little foggy after that, but I do know that when you can see your skin again, it's kinda purplish and sore.
Issue of the Times;
We Are All Deplorables Now by Patrick Buchanan
Four days after he described Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as a “very credible witness,” President Donald Trump could no longer contain his feelings or constrain his instincts.
With the fate of his Supreme Court nominee in the balance, Trump let his “Make America Great Again” rally attendees in Mississippi know what he really thought of Ford’s testimony.
“‘Thirty-six years ago this happened. I had one beer.’ ‘Right?’ ‘I had one beer.’ ‘Well, you think it was (one beer)?’ ‘Nope, it was one beer.’ ‘Oh, good. How did you get home?'”
‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How did you get there?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Where is the place?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How many years ago was it?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.'”
By now the Mississippi MAGA crowd was cheering and laughing.
Trump went on:
“‘What neighborhood was it in?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where’s the house?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs, downstairs, where was it?’ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.'”
Since that day three years ago when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower to talk of “rapists” crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, few Trump remarks have ignited greater outrage.
Commentators have declared themselves horrified and sickened that a president would so mock the testimony of a victim of sexual assault.
Yet, in tossing out the “Catechism of Political Correctness” and treating the character assassination of Kavanaugh as what it was, a rotten conspiracy to destroy and defeat his nominee, Trump’s instincts were correct, even if they were politically incorrect.
This was not a “job interview” for Kavanaugh.
In a job interview, half the members of the hiring committee are not so instantly hostile to an applicant that they will conspire to criminalize and crush him to the point of wounding his family and ruining his reputation.
When Sen. Lindsey Graham charged the Democratic minority with such collusion, he was dead on. This was a neo-Bolshevik show trial where the defendant was presumed guilty and due process meant digging up dirt from his school days to smear and break him.
Our cultural elites have declared Trump a poltroon for daring to mock Ford’s story of what happened 36 years ago. Yet, these same elites reacted with delight at Matt Damon’s “SNL” depiction of Kavanaugh’s angry and agonized appearance, just 48 hours before.
Is it not hypocritical to laugh uproariously at a comedic depiction of Kavanaugh’s anguish, while demanding quiet respect for the highly suspect and uncorroborated story of Ford?
Ford was handled by the judiciary committee with the delicacy of a Faberge egg, said Kellyanne Conway, while Kavanaugh was subjected to a hostile interrogation by Senate Democrats.
In our widening and deepening cultural-civil war, the Kavanaugh nomination will be seen as a landmark battle. And Trump’s instincts, to treat his Democratic assailants as ideological enemies, with whom he is in mortal struggle, will be seen as correct.
Consider. In the last half-century, which Supreme Court nominees were the most maligned and savaged?
Were they not Nixon nominee Clement Haynsworth, chief judge of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Reagan nominee Robert Bork, Bush 1 nominee Clarence Thomas, and Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the last three all judges on the nation’s second-highest court, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals?
Is it a coincidence that all four were Republican appointees, all four were judicial conservatives, and all four were gutted on the grounds of philosophy or character?
Is it a coincidence that Nixon in Watergate, Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair, and now Trump in Russiagate, were all targets of partisan campaigns to impeach and remove them from office?
Consider what happened to decent Gerald Ford who came into the oval office in 1974, preaching “the politics of compromise and consensus.”
To bring the country together after Watergate, Ford pardoned President Nixon. For that act of magnanimity, he was torn to pieces by a Beltway elite that had been denied its anticipated pleasure of seeing Nixon prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to prison.
Trump is president because he gets it. He understands what this Beltway elite are all about — the discrediting of his victory as a product of criminal collusion with Russia and his resignation or removal in disgrace. And the “base” that comes to these rallies to cheer him on, they get it, too.
Since Reagan’s time, there are few conservatives who have not been called one or more of the names in Hillary Clinton’s litany of devils, her “basket of deplorables” — racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, bigoted, irredeemable.
The battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the disparagement of the Republicans who have stood strongest by the judge, seems to have awakened even the most congenial to the new political reality.
We are all deplorables now.
Quote of the Times;
“An educated man has been defined as one who can entertain himself, one who can entertain another, and one who can entertain a new idea.”
Link of the Times;
https://preparednessadvice.com/
For example, a softly whispered "You smell like whale" will have her pondering all night the circumstances under which you became qualified to make that assessment.
*.*
After internet mobs began relentlessly attacking Matt Redman for his "racially insensitive" last name, the singer has come forward to announce that he will be changing his name to "Matt Native American" to avoid the negative stereotypes associated with his previous surname.
"I apologize for anyone who has been offended by my name," he told reporters. "I realize now that it was inappropriate to use the name 'Redman' for so long, without thinking how it might make indigenous peoples in North America feel."
"These brave internet warriors have given me 10,000 reasons to change my name, and so I went ahead and did it," he added. "I only pray that we can all heal from this and move forward."
*.*
Oneliners:
Meghan Markle has launched a charity cookbook because, I don't know about you, but when I think of members of the royal family, I think of them working away in the kitchen.
Up in Canada, John Turmel has set an all-time record for having run for office 96 times... and losing every single time. Who I feel bad for is the guy who had the record-now he's lost that, too!
A report says the Orioles expect to replace manager Buck Showalter at the end of the season. Thank you for that sports update, Captain Obvious!
Starbucks says that leadership shifts and organizational changes are underway and yes, some layoffs are brewing. Hopefully, they'll get the names right.
The older I get, the more I realize... .something.
Dunkin' Donuts is dropping the word "Donuts" from its name. Now, if we could just get people to quit saying, "Cod fish."
O.J. Simpson says that Bill Cosby should be in protective custody. Never have I ever cared less about both sides of a sentence.
*.*
JACKSON, Mo. — After more than 17 years inside a retired Special Forces soldier’s colon, the first Meals Ready-to-Eat consumed during the war in Afghanistan was pooped out this week, sources confirmed today.
1st Sgt. Jeff Donegan (Ret.) says he ate the beef ravioli MRE during the initial invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. A hot, dusty afternoon on the outskirts of Kandahar. Not a rock or something in sight to lean my heater on,” Donegan said. “I cracked open that wheat snack bread knowing we’d be in it for the long haul, but I never could have imagined it would be this long.”
Donegan went on to serve three more tours in Afghanistan and two in Iraq before retiring in 2011. He said his battle to push the MRE through his intestines is an analogy for the invisible battles thousands of troops fight once they leave the service.
“I thought that once I retired, my days thinking about the war were over, and I could move on with my life,” he said. “But the years went by, and I could still feel the cheese spread inside me, gnawing at my guts. It cut down deep into my core, an obsession that I just couldn’t shake out.”
Donegan finally sought professional help to assist him in passing the MRE through his bowels. He says help is out there for the many soldiers who still struggle to defecate after eating them.
“I finally talked to a therapist and she said that it’s all about acceptance,” he added. “I needed to accept it before I could let it go, to face my demons head on. Yeah, it hurt. I think pooping out MREs hurts us all in its own way, but I got through it.”
At press the time, the most recent plate of goat meat and rice served to American troops by their Afghan partners had already been sprayed all over a local Port-a-John.
*.*
I finally discovered the secret to invisibility.
Simply drink 12 beers in under two hours, and then, when your urine is transparent, you know you're free to ogle and grope any woman in the bar completely undetected!
Things get a little foggy after that, but I do know that when you can see your skin again, it's kinda purplish and sore.
Issue of the Times;
We Are All Deplorables Now by Patrick Buchanan
Four days after he described Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, as a “very credible witness,” President Donald Trump could no longer contain his feelings or constrain his instincts.
With the fate of his Supreme Court nominee in the balance, Trump let his “Make America Great Again” rally attendees in Mississippi know what he really thought of Ford’s testimony.
“‘Thirty-six years ago this happened. I had one beer.’ ‘Right?’ ‘I had one beer.’ ‘Well, you think it was (one beer)?’ ‘Nope, it was one beer.’ ‘Oh, good. How did you get home?'”
‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How did you get there?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Where is the place?’ ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘How many years ago was it?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.'”
By now the Mississippi MAGA crowd was cheering and laughing.
Trump went on:
“‘What neighborhood was it in?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Where’s the house?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs, downstairs, where was it?’ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.'”
Since that day three years ago when he came down the escalator at Trump Tower to talk of “rapists” crossing the U.S. border from Mexico, few Trump remarks have ignited greater outrage.
Commentators have declared themselves horrified and sickened that a president would so mock the testimony of a victim of sexual assault.
Yet, in tossing out the “Catechism of Political Correctness” and treating the character assassination of Kavanaugh as what it was, a rotten conspiracy to destroy and defeat his nominee, Trump’s instincts were correct, even if they were politically incorrect.
This was not a “job interview” for Kavanaugh.
In a job interview, half the members of the hiring committee are not so instantly hostile to an applicant that they will conspire to criminalize and crush him to the point of wounding his family and ruining his reputation.
When Sen. Lindsey Graham charged the Democratic minority with such collusion, he was dead on. This was a neo-Bolshevik show trial where the defendant was presumed guilty and due process meant digging up dirt from his school days to smear and break him.
Our cultural elites have declared Trump a poltroon for daring to mock Ford’s story of what happened 36 years ago. Yet, these same elites reacted with delight at Matt Damon’s “SNL” depiction of Kavanaugh’s angry and agonized appearance, just 48 hours before.
Is it not hypocritical to laugh uproariously at a comedic depiction of Kavanaugh’s anguish, while demanding quiet respect for the highly suspect and uncorroborated story of Ford?
Ford was handled by the judiciary committee with the delicacy of a Faberge egg, said Kellyanne Conway, while Kavanaugh was subjected to a hostile interrogation by Senate Democrats.
In our widening and deepening cultural-civil war, the Kavanaugh nomination will be seen as a landmark battle. And Trump’s instincts, to treat his Democratic assailants as ideological enemies, with whom he is in mortal struggle, will be seen as correct.
Consider. In the last half-century, which Supreme Court nominees were the most maligned and savaged?
Were they not Nixon nominee Clement Haynsworth, chief judge of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Reagan nominee Robert Bork, Bush 1 nominee Clarence Thomas, and Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the last three all judges on the nation’s second-highest court, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals?
Is it a coincidence that all four were Republican appointees, all four were judicial conservatives, and all four were gutted on the grounds of philosophy or character?
Is it a coincidence that Nixon in Watergate, Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair, and now Trump in Russiagate, were all targets of partisan campaigns to impeach and remove them from office?
Consider what happened to decent Gerald Ford who came into the oval office in 1974, preaching “the politics of compromise and consensus.”
To bring the country together after Watergate, Ford pardoned President Nixon. For that act of magnanimity, he was torn to pieces by a Beltway elite that had been denied its anticipated pleasure of seeing Nixon prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to prison.
Trump is president because he gets it. He understands what this Beltway elite are all about — the discrediting of his victory as a product of criminal collusion with Russia and his resignation or removal in disgrace. And the “base” that comes to these rallies to cheer him on, they get it, too.
Since Reagan’s time, there are few conservatives who have not been called one or more of the names in Hillary Clinton’s litany of devils, her “basket of deplorables” — racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, bigoted, irredeemable.
The battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the disparagement of the Republicans who have stood strongest by the judge, seems to have awakened even the most congenial to the new political reality.
We are all deplorables now.
Quote of the Times;
“An educated man has been defined as one who can entertain himself, one who can entertain another, and one who can entertain a new idea.”
Link of the Times;
https://preparednessadvice.com/
Columbus?
A Irishman wants a job, but the boss won't hire him until he passes a little math test.
Here is your first question, the boss said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."
"Without numbers?" the man says, "Dats easy."
And proceeds to draw three trees.
"What's this?" the boss asks.
"Tree and tree, plus tree makes 9" says the man.
"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."
The man stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree... "Ere ye go."
The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"
"Each of them trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, plus dirty tree. Dat makes 99."
The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire the guy, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."
The man stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere ye go. One hundred."
The boss looks at the attempt and says, "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"
The man leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and whispers, "A little dog came along and pooped by each tree...so now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes one hundred!"
*.*
I used to work as an origami teacher but hated it.
Too much paperwork.
*.*
In the wake of their failure to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the George Soros-funded Council of Unhinged Leftist Knuckleheads (or CUK) gathered last night to discuss whether they should come up with some new tactics.
CUK President Dieter Fascist addressed the gathering, saying, "I sometimes wonder if we should stop bullying people by surrounding them with angry mobs shrieking nonsensical slogans ... but if we abandon that technique, we’d have to support our ideas with logical arguments — so never mind."
Feminist Leader Shrilly Harridan did a post-mortem on the failed anti-Kavanaugh protests, saying, "Speaking as a totally irrational woman, I thought we could appeal to that feminine energy that disregards facts in favor of hysteria and self-righteous entitlement and thereby bring all feminist women together into one huge screaming fifty-foot shrew raging completely out of control. When that technique failed, we were left with a bunch of girls acting like lunatics and hoping someone would do whatever we wanted just to get us to shut up. That always worked with Daddy but somehow it didn’t do the trick this time."
Other counsel members suggested changing some of their slogans and chants to make them more realistic. For instance, the chant: "The people united will never be defeated," might be rewritten to say, "A small number of excitable adolescents shouting triumphant-sounding hogwash really has no effect on anything."
During the Q&A period, one visitor to the CUK conference suggested, "Maybe it's just too arrogant and dishonest to claim we're speaking for large identity groups that we essentially invented for our own purposes. Maybe women, minorities and homosexuals are really large collections of individuals with differing interests and opinions who can't always be formed into a useful mob willing to mindlessly do our bidding in the name of a grievance panic that we created in the first place."
The leftist council took this suggestion under advisement then beat the visitor to death, while chanting slogans and shrieking.
*.*
TOP FIVE SPORTS TEAMS THAT NEED TO CHANGE THEIR NAMES BECAUSE I FIND THEM OFFENSIVE
The Oakland A's -- Non-inclusive to the 25 other letters in the alphabet
Kansas City Royals -- Too elitist. Insulting to the riff raff.
New York Jets -- We shouldn't honor something that's polluting our atmosphere
St. Louis Cardinals -- That's half of "Cardinal Sin", which is very wrong
Los Angeles Dodgers -- Reminds me of the Draft Dodgers back in the 1960s
*.*
They say the further along you get in life, the more you focus on matters of the self.
I must agree: In high school, my big dream was to get in the pants of each and every cheerleader.
Now my big dream is to get back in the pants I wore in high school.
Issue of the Times;
Ignored History: Columbus Sought to End Islamic Tyranny by Andrew Boston
Benjamin Harrison issued his “Proclamation 335 - 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America by Columbus,” on July 21, 1892, he emphasized how the great discoverer pioneered “progress and enlightenment,” reflected four centuries later in America’s system of universal education:
Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day's demonstration.
President Harrison also highlighted the patriotic motivations for the holiday, and the shared “devout faith” -- Christianity -- of Columbus and the American people, so abundantly blessed by “Divine Providence”:
Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship. In the churches and in the other places of assembly of the people let there be expressions of gratitude to Divine Providence for the devout faith of the discoverer and for the divine care and guidance which has directed our history and so abundantly blessed our people.
As we celebrate Columbus Day -- for those of us still inoculated enough against cultural relativist depravity to do so -- it is also worth recapturing concretely the specific late 15th century religious motivations for Columbus’ voyage. Simply put, Columbus sought “eastern (even far eastern) alliances” to end a millennium of Islam’s jihad-imposed tyranny against Christendom. Louis Bertrand’s scholarly 1934 tome, The History of Spain, elegantly -- and unapologetically -- characterized the now well-nigh forgotten, or ignored, historical context.
When the Spanish Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella recaptured Granada on January 2, 1492, they ended almost eight centuries of jihad ravages (described by Bertrand in 1934, and in 2016 here) -- massacres, pillage, mass enslavement, and deportation -- and the grinding imposition of Sharia by Spain’s various pious Muslim conquerors, and rulers. Bertrand’s unsparing narrative describes the bitter, chronic fate of Spain’s Christians under Islam, both those fully subjugated and the populations never entirely subdued in the semi-autonomous northern regions:
The Christians of the interior were mastered. They had lost their leaders and their principal centers of resistance. The armies of the Caliph, the Arab and Berber chieftains, had massacred them, burned them out and pillaged them to the best of their ability. Thus decimated and humiliated, they nevertheless continued to exist, in a furtive and more or less precarious way of life …
The Christians of the North scarcely knew the meaning of repose, security, or any of the amenities of life. They were continually at war with their Musulman [Muslim] neighbors. It was the fatality of that Arab conquest, a superficial and hasty conquest, never carried through to the end, that it had divided the country into two irreducible camps: that of the replete, and that of the hungry; those who held the best soil, and those who were relegated to the mountains or to desert plains…[The Muslims] interposed a desert between themselves and the Christians, and made a waste of the region which lay on the left bank of the latter [Duero] river. This was what they called “the Great Desert.” …
To keep the Christians in their place it did not suffice to surround them with a zone of famine and devastation. It was necessary also to go and sew terror and massacre among them. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, an army sallied forth from Cordova to go and raid the Christians, destroy their villages, their fortified posts, their monasteries and their churches, except when it was a question of expeditions of larger scope, involving sieges and pitched battles. In cases of simply punitive expeditions, the soldiers of the Caliph confined themselves to destroying harvests and cutting down trees. Most of the time they took the field to win booty. A district was allowed to re-people itself and be brought under cultivation; then it was suddenly fallen upon. Workers, harvesters, fruits and cattle were seized.
The religious Islamic jihad motivations for this devastation, and related “pious,” sadistic savagery of their triumphal execution, were underscored by Bertrand:
If one bears in mind that this brigandage was almost continual, and that this fury of destruction and extermination was regarded as a work of piety -- it was a holy war against the infidels -- it is not surprising that whole regions of Spain should have been made irremediably sterile. This was one of the capital causes of the deforestation from which the [Iberian] Peninsula still suffers. With what savage satisfaction and in what pious accents do the Arab annalists tell us of those at least bi-annual raids!
A typical phrase for praising the devotion of a Caliph is this: “he penetrated into Christian territory, where he wrought devastation, devoted himself to pillage, and took prisoners. After that he brought the Musulmans back to Cordova safe and sound and laden with booty.” Abd er Rhaman [r. 912-961 A.D.], in the course of a campaign in Navarre, “did not fail, whenever a Christian retreat was to be found in the neighborhood, to carry destruction there and deliver the surrounding countryside to incendiarism, so that the Christian territory was ravaged by the flames to an extent often square miles.”
The same Caliph, when he laid siege to Toledo, began by destroying everything in the rich plain which surrounded the town. “He commenced by doing the rebels unimaginable harm. He remained there for thirty-seven days without ceasing his devastation cutting down the trees, pillaging and ruining the villages, destroying all the crops.” And again: “the strongholds of this region were reduced to ruins. Not one stone was left upon another…, The suburbs were surrendered to the flames, the harvests and all the property in the neighborhood were utterly ravaged and laid waste.”
Bertrand also chronicled the 11th and 12th century North African Berber Muslim Almoravid and Almohad invasions of Spain. These renewed jihad campaigns wrought not only further ravages and persecutions of Spain’s Christians, but massive population transfers:
From the outset of the Almoravid invasion the destruction of Christian churches had begun. … The faquis [Muslim clerics] commenced to persecute the Christian Mozarabs [dhimmis] so intolerably that they begged the King of Aragon, Alfonso the Warrior, to come and deliver them. The Aragonese did not succeed in taking Granada. When they retreated, the faquis avenged themselves on the Mozarabs in the most merciless fashion. Already ten thousand of them had been compelled to emigrate into the territory of Alfonso to escape their enemies' repression. The remainder were deprived of their property, imprisoned, or put to death. Many of them were deported to Africa. They were established in the neighborhood of Sale and Meknes, where oppression of all kinds compelled them to embrace Islam.
Ten years later there was a fresh expulsion. The Christians were again deported to Morocco en masse. Here, then, were cities and whole districts depopulated by massacres and proscriptions. This corresponded with a plan drawn upon in advance, a systematic course of action. “Sultan Yousouf,” writes [Muslim historian] Marrakeshi, “never failed to repeat at every one of his audiences: ‘To rid the [Iberian] Peninsula of the Christians that is our sole purpose … ’” Accordingly, after having expelled the Christians, he replaced them by Berbers. "To combat our enemies," said Yousouf himself, “I shall fill Spain with horsemen and footmen who think nothing of repose, who do not know what it is to live softly, whose sole thought is to groom and train their horses, take care of their arms, and hasten to obey their orders.” The Almohads devoted themselves no less ardently to repopulating the South of Spain by filling it with Africans and Arabs.
Not surprisingly, as Bertrand notes, following “so many massacres and expulsions,” accompanied by a “new flood of barbarous and fanatical [Muslim] invaders,” Christians and Muslim “religious passions and hatreds acquired intensified vigor and virulence.” As a result, he concluded:
Once more the fatal dilemma which had hung over Spain for more than four centuries [i.e., since the 8th Century Arab invasion, through the 12th Century Almohad invasion] presented itself to the Spaniards: expel the foreigner, or be expelled by him!
But as the rationale for Columbus’ voyage demonstrates, even Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest of Granada three centuries later did not solve the broader “dilemma” of Islam’s global jihad. Shortly after Granada was reconquered, Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to fund and provision Christopher Columbus’ voyage. His expedition, which serendipitously ended in the discovery of the Americas, had for its original objective, as Bertrand documents:
... to reach the East Indies, so as to take Islam in the rear, and to effect an alliance with the Great Khan -- a mythical personage who was believed to be the sovereign of all that region, and favorable to the Christian religion -- and finally, after the sectaries of Mahomet had been reduced to impotence, to diffuse Christianity throughout that unknown continent and trade with the traditional source of gold and spices.
Bertrand argued Columbus himself “left no room for doubt” about this religious motivation in his Journal (see Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus, Wisconsin Historical Society):
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Christian, the most high, the most excellent and most powerful princes, King and Queen of the Spains … In this present year 1492, after Your Highnesses had brought to an end the war against the Moors who reigned in Europe, and after Your Highnesses had terminated this war in the very great city of Granada, where, in this present year, on the 2nd of the month of January, I saw, by force of arms, the royal banners of Your Highnesses planted on the towers of the Alhambra, the citadel of the said city, and where I saw the Moorish king come out of his gates and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses; And immediately afterwards, in this same month, in consequence of information which I had given Your Highnesses on the subject of India, and of the Prince who is called the "Great Khan/ which, in our Roman, means 'the King of Kings' namely, that many times he and his predecessors had sent ambassadors to Rome to seek doctors of our holy faith, to the end that they should teach it in India, and that never has the Holy Father been able so to do, so that accordingly so many peoples were being lost, through falling into idolatry and receiving sects of perdition among them; "Your Highnesses, as good Christian and Catholic princes, devout and propagators of the Christian faith, as well as enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies, conceived the plan of sending me, Christopher Columbus, to this country of the Indies, there to see the princes, the peoples, the territory, their disposition and all things else, and the way in which one might proceed to convert these regions to our holy faith. And Your Highnesses have ordered that I should go, not by land, towards the East, which is the accustomed route, but by the way of the West, whereby hitherto nobody to our knowledge has ever been.
Indeed several decades before Columbus appealed to Ferdinand and Isabella, the so-called “Plan of the Indies,” of Portuguese clerical origin, had been hatched-- allying with an ostensible “Great Khan of India,” and perhaps East African Christians, “to take Islam in the rear and begin … by ruining its commerce in the Red Sea.”
What Bertrand identified appropriately as “the Ottoman menace” illustrates the era’s ongoing jihad threat which made Columbus’ appeal so compelling to Ferdinand and Isabella:
To understand this properly we must bear in mind the terror which the Turks had inspired throughout Europe since they had set foot there, and especially since die taking of Constantinople. As early as 1442, Pope Eugene IV issued an encyclical calling the Christians to arms against the Infidels, who were increasingly threatening the Entire and Italy. In 1459 Pius II, the learned Sylvius Aeneas Piccolomim, convoked an assembly of the Christian nations, at Mantua to concert means of combating the new barbarians. In the following year he proclaimed a holy war against the Turks. But the Christian nations, at war with one another, made no response to the appeal of the Sovereign Pontiff. He refused to be discouraged. In November 1463, Pius II set himself at the head of a crusade against the Turks, and once more conjured the Christian world to unite against the common enemy. It was a fruitless effort. Europe took no interest in what was happening on the banks of the Danube.
In 1477, Mahomet II penetrated into Carniola, Styria, and Carinthia, and invaded Salzburg and Friuli. In the following year he occupied Albania. There he was at the gates of Italy. In 1480 he launched a fleet of a hundred sail against the town of Otranto and seized it. Now he was at the gates of Naples and of Rome. The startled Pope addressed the most pressing adjurations to Christendom. “The conquerors,” said Sixtus IV, "spread themselves with insatiable avidity over the towns and the neighboring countrysides. Nardi, Lecci, Castro, Brindisi, Bari are exposed to their outrages or have already fallen into their power. Soon they will be masters of Sicily, of the Neapolitan kingdom, of the whole Peninsula, if we remain plunged in the same inertia, if the princes and the peoples do not rise incontinent, hasten to arms, and lend one another mutual support, to defend their fields and their homes, their children and their wives, their religion and their liberty. Let them not think that they are protected against invasion, those who are at a distance from the theatre of war! They, too, will bow the neck beneath the yoke, and be mowed down by the sword, unless they come forward to meet the invader. The Turks have sworn the extinction of Christianity.
A truce to sophistries! It is the moment not to talk, but to act and to fight!” This, no doubt, was why this same Sixtus IV encouraged the Spanish crusade against Granada and sent the Catholic Sovereigns, by way of a standard, the famous massive Cross of silver which was finally planted on the Watch Tower of the Alhambra. To fight Islam in Andalusia was equivalent to depriving the Turks of ports of disembarkation and lessening the chances of invasion … The danger seemed so menacing that, in the very year which preceded the capitulation of Granada, Innocent VIII organized, once more, a Crusade to attack the Turks by land and sea. This time it was to be an operation of great scope, in which a dozen states were to take part. This ambitious project failed like all the others, and for the same reason: the indifference or the selfishness of the European peoples and potentates.
In the end, Bertrand maintains, it was “Columbus’ shrewdness” that prevailed:
… dazzling the eyes of Isabel with the possibilities of a last Crusade, which, after all, would not be very costly and would definitely reduce Islam to impotence. The very terms of the text [from Columbus’ Journal, quoted above] proved conclusively that the Genoese had conceived his discovery as a pious enterprise of mass conversion. So it was that the discovery of America was the last Crusade against Islam…In short, it was the Crusade against the Moors which was to be continued by a new and surer route. It was by way of the Indies that Islam was to be dealt a mortal blow.
Bertrand’s concluding discussion reveals how Columbus’ westward voyage, motivated by anti-jihadism, “chimerical ideas,” and his own persevering genius, begot “immense discovery”:
Columbus' great idea was that of reaching there by the route of the West. The Genoese was merely synthesizing all the more or less chimerical ideas, which had been in the air for the last half century at least, adding to them his own peculiar genius. It was to realize the dream so long cherished by pious imaginations—the dream of a final and definite Crusade against Islam by way of the Indies—that he asked the Catholic Sovereigns for the three poor little caravels which were to lead to the immense discovery.
Quote of the Times;
“Somehow I just can’t find myself getting worked up into a real fear of the party of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and p*ssy hats. It’s what comes after, when you ‘useful idiots’ are the first to be sent to the gulags that’s frightening. There’s a reason why you and your ‘allies’ fly into a hysterical fit whenever you’re presented with a hard look at facts and it’s because at the core, you have to deny reality. No matter what happens in the short term, in the long run, Leftism always fails, even when it’s run by steel-toed men with a spine. It would be nice if we as a nation could recognize what a colossal failure it always winds up being; 100 million deaths and many more suffering through starvation, terror and impoverishment across the 20th Century- it probably kinda sucked to be living under it. But I guess there will always be fools who like to shoot holes in the bottom of the boat they’re in, so we all get to suffer from your stupidity. So thanks for that. It may take a village to raise a child but it takes resentment, naivety, and willful delusion for him to become a leftist after the 20th Century.”
Link of the Times;
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36835/watch-shapiro-gives-fiery-unprecedented-assault-daily-wire
Here is your first question, the boss said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."
"Without numbers?" the man says, "Dats easy."
And proceeds to draw three trees.
"What's this?" the boss asks.
"Tree and tree, plus tree makes 9" says the man.
"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."
The man stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree... "Ere ye go."
The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"
"Each of them trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, plus dirty tree. Dat makes 99."
The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire the guy, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."
The man stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere ye go. One hundred."
The boss looks at the attempt and says, "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"
The man leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and whispers, "A little dog came along and pooped by each tree...so now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes one hundred!"
*.*
I used to work as an origami teacher but hated it.
Too much paperwork.
*.*
In the wake of their failure to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the George Soros-funded Council of Unhinged Leftist Knuckleheads (or CUK) gathered last night to discuss whether they should come up with some new tactics.
CUK President Dieter Fascist addressed the gathering, saying, "I sometimes wonder if we should stop bullying people by surrounding them with angry mobs shrieking nonsensical slogans ... but if we abandon that technique, we’d have to support our ideas with logical arguments — so never mind."
Feminist Leader Shrilly Harridan did a post-mortem on the failed anti-Kavanaugh protests, saying, "Speaking as a totally irrational woman, I thought we could appeal to that feminine energy that disregards facts in favor of hysteria and self-righteous entitlement and thereby bring all feminist women together into one huge screaming fifty-foot shrew raging completely out of control. When that technique failed, we were left with a bunch of girls acting like lunatics and hoping someone would do whatever we wanted just to get us to shut up. That always worked with Daddy but somehow it didn’t do the trick this time."
Other counsel members suggested changing some of their slogans and chants to make them more realistic. For instance, the chant: "The people united will never be defeated," might be rewritten to say, "A small number of excitable adolescents shouting triumphant-sounding hogwash really has no effect on anything."
During the Q&A period, one visitor to the CUK conference suggested, "Maybe it's just too arrogant and dishonest to claim we're speaking for large identity groups that we essentially invented for our own purposes. Maybe women, minorities and homosexuals are really large collections of individuals with differing interests and opinions who can't always be formed into a useful mob willing to mindlessly do our bidding in the name of a grievance panic that we created in the first place."
The leftist council took this suggestion under advisement then beat the visitor to death, while chanting slogans and shrieking.
*.*
TOP FIVE SPORTS TEAMS THAT NEED TO CHANGE THEIR NAMES BECAUSE I FIND THEM OFFENSIVE
The Oakland A's -- Non-inclusive to the 25 other letters in the alphabet
Kansas City Royals -- Too elitist. Insulting to the riff raff.
New York Jets -- We shouldn't honor something that's polluting our atmosphere
St. Louis Cardinals -- That's half of "Cardinal Sin", which is very wrong
Los Angeles Dodgers -- Reminds me of the Draft Dodgers back in the 1960s
*.*
They say the further along you get in life, the more you focus on matters of the self.
I must agree: In high school, my big dream was to get in the pants of each and every cheerleader.
Now my big dream is to get back in the pants I wore in high school.
Issue of the Times;
Ignored History: Columbus Sought to End Islamic Tyranny by Andrew Boston
Benjamin Harrison issued his “Proclamation 335 - 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America by Columbus,” on July 21, 1892, he emphasized how the great discoverer pioneered “progress and enlightenment,” reflected four centuries later in America’s system of universal education:
Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day's demonstration.
President Harrison also highlighted the patriotic motivations for the holiday, and the shared “devout faith” -- Christianity -- of Columbus and the American people, so abundantly blessed by “Divine Providence”:
Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship. In the churches and in the other places of assembly of the people let there be expressions of gratitude to Divine Providence for the devout faith of the discoverer and for the divine care and guidance which has directed our history and so abundantly blessed our people.
As we celebrate Columbus Day -- for those of us still inoculated enough against cultural relativist depravity to do so -- it is also worth recapturing concretely the specific late 15th century religious motivations for Columbus’ voyage. Simply put, Columbus sought “eastern (even far eastern) alliances” to end a millennium of Islam’s jihad-imposed tyranny against Christendom. Louis Bertrand’s scholarly 1934 tome, The History of Spain, elegantly -- and unapologetically -- characterized the now well-nigh forgotten, or ignored, historical context.
When the Spanish Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella recaptured Granada on January 2, 1492, they ended almost eight centuries of jihad ravages (described by Bertrand in 1934, and in 2016 here) -- massacres, pillage, mass enslavement, and deportation -- and the grinding imposition of Sharia by Spain’s various pious Muslim conquerors, and rulers. Bertrand’s unsparing narrative describes the bitter, chronic fate of Spain’s Christians under Islam, both those fully subjugated and the populations never entirely subdued in the semi-autonomous northern regions:
The Christians of the interior were mastered. They had lost their leaders and their principal centers of resistance. The armies of the Caliph, the Arab and Berber chieftains, had massacred them, burned them out and pillaged them to the best of their ability. Thus decimated and humiliated, they nevertheless continued to exist, in a furtive and more or less precarious way of life …
The Christians of the North scarcely knew the meaning of repose, security, or any of the amenities of life. They were continually at war with their Musulman [Muslim] neighbors. It was the fatality of that Arab conquest, a superficial and hasty conquest, never carried through to the end, that it had divided the country into two irreducible camps: that of the replete, and that of the hungry; those who held the best soil, and those who were relegated to the mountains or to desert plains…[The Muslims] interposed a desert between themselves and the Christians, and made a waste of the region which lay on the left bank of the latter [Duero] river. This was what they called “the Great Desert.” …
To keep the Christians in their place it did not suffice to surround them with a zone of famine and devastation. It was necessary also to go and sew terror and massacre among them. Twice a year, in spring and autumn, an army sallied forth from Cordova to go and raid the Christians, destroy their villages, their fortified posts, their monasteries and their churches, except when it was a question of expeditions of larger scope, involving sieges and pitched battles. In cases of simply punitive expeditions, the soldiers of the Caliph confined themselves to destroying harvests and cutting down trees. Most of the time they took the field to win booty. A district was allowed to re-people itself and be brought under cultivation; then it was suddenly fallen upon. Workers, harvesters, fruits and cattle were seized.
The religious Islamic jihad motivations for this devastation, and related “pious,” sadistic savagery of their triumphal execution, were underscored by Bertrand:
If one bears in mind that this brigandage was almost continual, and that this fury of destruction and extermination was regarded as a work of piety -- it was a holy war against the infidels -- it is not surprising that whole regions of Spain should have been made irremediably sterile. This was one of the capital causes of the deforestation from which the [Iberian] Peninsula still suffers. With what savage satisfaction and in what pious accents do the Arab annalists tell us of those at least bi-annual raids!
A typical phrase for praising the devotion of a Caliph is this: “he penetrated into Christian territory, where he wrought devastation, devoted himself to pillage, and took prisoners. After that he brought the Musulmans back to Cordova safe and sound and laden with booty.” Abd er Rhaman [r. 912-961 A.D.], in the course of a campaign in Navarre, “did not fail, whenever a Christian retreat was to be found in the neighborhood, to carry destruction there and deliver the surrounding countryside to incendiarism, so that the Christian territory was ravaged by the flames to an extent often square miles.”
The same Caliph, when he laid siege to Toledo, began by destroying everything in the rich plain which surrounded the town. “He commenced by doing the rebels unimaginable harm. He remained there for thirty-seven days without ceasing his devastation cutting down the trees, pillaging and ruining the villages, destroying all the crops.” And again: “the strongholds of this region were reduced to ruins. Not one stone was left upon another…, The suburbs were surrendered to the flames, the harvests and all the property in the neighborhood were utterly ravaged and laid waste.”
Bertrand also chronicled the 11th and 12th century North African Berber Muslim Almoravid and Almohad invasions of Spain. These renewed jihad campaigns wrought not only further ravages and persecutions of Spain’s Christians, but massive population transfers:
From the outset of the Almoravid invasion the destruction of Christian churches had begun. … The faquis [Muslim clerics] commenced to persecute the Christian Mozarabs [dhimmis] so intolerably that they begged the King of Aragon, Alfonso the Warrior, to come and deliver them. The Aragonese did not succeed in taking Granada. When they retreated, the faquis avenged themselves on the Mozarabs in the most merciless fashion. Already ten thousand of them had been compelled to emigrate into the territory of Alfonso to escape their enemies' repression. The remainder were deprived of their property, imprisoned, or put to death. Many of them were deported to Africa. They were established in the neighborhood of Sale and Meknes, where oppression of all kinds compelled them to embrace Islam.
Ten years later there was a fresh expulsion. The Christians were again deported to Morocco en masse. Here, then, were cities and whole districts depopulated by massacres and proscriptions. This corresponded with a plan drawn upon in advance, a systematic course of action. “Sultan Yousouf,” writes [Muslim historian] Marrakeshi, “never failed to repeat at every one of his audiences: ‘To rid the [Iberian] Peninsula of the Christians that is our sole purpose … ’” Accordingly, after having expelled the Christians, he replaced them by Berbers. "To combat our enemies," said Yousouf himself, “I shall fill Spain with horsemen and footmen who think nothing of repose, who do not know what it is to live softly, whose sole thought is to groom and train their horses, take care of their arms, and hasten to obey their orders.” The Almohads devoted themselves no less ardently to repopulating the South of Spain by filling it with Africans and Arabs.
Not surprisingly, as Bertrand notes, following “so many massacres and expulsions,” accompanied by a “new flood of barbarous and fanatical [Muslim] invaders,” Christians and Muslim “religious passions and hatreds acquired intensified vigor and virulence.” As a result, he concluded:
Once more the fatal dilemma which had hung over Spain for more than four centuries [i.e., since the 8th Century Arab invasion, through the 12th Century Almohad invasion] presented itself to the Spaniards: expel the foreigner, or be expelled by him!
But as the rationale for Columbus’ voyage demonstrates, even Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest of Granada three centuries later did not solve the broader “dilemma” of Islam’s global jihad. Shortly after Granada was reconquered, Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to fund and provision Christopher Columbus’ voyage. His expedition, which serendipitously ended in the discovery of the Americas, had for its original objective, as Bertrand documents:
... to reach the East Indies, so as to take Islam in the rear, and to effect an alliance with the Great Khan -- a mythical personage who was believed to be the sovereign of all that region, and favorable to the Christian religion -- and finally, after the sectaries of Mahomet had been reduced to impotence, to diffuse Christianity throughout that unknown continent and trade with the traditional source of gold and spices.
Bertrand argued Columbus himself “left no room for doubt” about this religious motivation in his Journal (see Journal of the First Voyage of Columbus, Wisconsin Historical Society):
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Christian, the most high, the most excellent and most powerful princes, King and Queen of the Spains … In this present year 1492, after Your Highnesses had brought to an end the war against the Moors who reigned in Europe, and after Your Highnesses had terminated this war in the very great city of Granada, where, in this present year, on the 2nd of the month of January, I saw, by force of arms, the royal banners of Your Highnesses planted on the towers of the Alhambra, the citadel of the said city, and where I saw the Moorish king come out of his gates and kiss the royal hands of Your Highnesses; And immediately afterwards, in this same month, in consequence of information which I had given Your Highnesses on the subject of India, and of the Prince who is called the "Great Khan/ which, in our Roman, means 'the King of Kings' namely, that many times he and his predecessors had sent ambassadors to Rome to seek doctors of our holy faith, to the end that they should teach it in India, and that never has the Holy Father been able so to do, so that accordingly so many peoples were being lost, through falling into idolatry and receiving sects of perdition among them; "Your Highnesses, as good Christian and Catholic princes, devout and propagators of the Christian faith, as well as enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies, conceived the plan of sending me, Christopher Columbus, to this country of the Indies, there to see the princes, the peoples, the territory, their disposition and all things else, and the way in which one might proceed to convert these regions to our holy faith. And Your Highnesses have ordered that I should go, not by land, towards the East, which is the accustomed route, but by the way of the West, whereby hitherto nobody to our knowledge has ever been.
Indeed several decades before Columbus appealed to Ferdinand and Isabella, the so-called “Plan of the Indies,” of Portuguese clerical origin, had been hatched-- allying with an ostensible “Great Khan of India,” and perhaps East African Christians, “to take Islam in the rear and begin … by ruining its commerce in the Red Sea.”
What Bertrand identified appropriately as “the Ottoman menace” illustrates the era’s ongoing jihad threat which made Columbus’ appeal so compelling to Ferdinand and Isabella:
To understand this properly we must bear in mind the terror which the Turks had inspired throughout Europe since they had set foot there, and especially since die taking of Constantinople. As early as 1442, Pope Eugene IV issued an encyclical calling the Christians to arms against the Infidels, who were increasingly threatening the Entire and Italy. In 1459 Pius II, the learned Sylvius Aeneas Piccolomim, convoked an assembly of the Christian nations, at Mantua to concert means of combating the new barbarians. In the following year he proclaimed a holy war against the Turks. But the Christian nations, at war with one another, made no response to the appeal of the Sovereign Pontiff. He refused to be discouraged. In November 1463, Pius II set himself at the head of a crusade against the Turks, and once more conjured the Christian world to unite against the common enemy. It was a fruitless effort. Europe took no interest in what was happening on the banks of the Danube.
In 1477, Mahomet II penetrated into Carniola, Styria, and Carinthia, and invaded Salzburg and Friuli. In the following year he occupied Albania. There he was at the gates of Italy. In 1480 he launched a fleet of a hundred sail against the town of Otranto and seized it. Now he was at the gates of Naples and of Rome. The startled Pope addressed the most pressing adjurations to Christendom. “The conquerors,” said Sixtus IV, "spread themselves with insatiable avidity over the towns and the neighboring countrysides. Nardi, Lecci, Castro, Brindisi, Bari are exposed to their outrages or have already fallen into their power. Soon they will be masters of Sicily, of the Neapolitan kingdom, of the whole Peninsula, if we remain plunged in the same inertia, if the princes and the peoples do not rise incontinent, hasten to arms, and lend one another mutual support, to defend their fields and their homes, their children and their wives, their religion and their liberty. Let them not think that they are protected against invasion, those who are at a distance from the theatre of war! They, too, will bow the neck beneath the yoke, and be mowed down by the sword, unless they come forward to meet the invader. The Turks have sworn the extinction of Christianity.
A truce to sophistries! It is the moment not to talk, but to act and to fight!” This, no doubt, was why this same Sixtus IV encouraged the Spanish crusade against Granada and sent the Catholic Sovereigns, by way of a standard, the famous massive Cross of silver which was finally planted on the Watch Tower of the Alhambra. To fight Islam in Andalusia was equivalent to depriving the Turks of ports of disembarkation and lessening the chances of invasion … The danger seemed so menacing that, in the very year which preceded the capitulation of Granada, Innocent VIII organized, once more, a Crusade to attack the Turks by land and sea. This time it was to be an operation of great scope, in which a dozen states were to take part. This ambitious project failed like all the others, and for the same reason: the indifference or the selfishness of the European peoples and potentates.
In the end, Bertrand maintains, it was “Columbus’ shrewdness” that prevailed:
… dazzling the eyes of Isabel with the possibilities of a last Crusade, which, after all, would not be very costly and would definitely reduce Islam to impotence. The very terms of the text [from Columbus’ Journal, quoted above] proved conclusively that the Genoese had conceived his discovery as a pious enterprise of mass conversion. So it was that the discovery of America was the last Crusade against Islam…In short, it was the Crusade against the Moors which was to be continued by a new and surer route. It was by way of the Indies that Islam was to be dealt a mortal blow.
Bertrand’s concluding discussion reveals how Columbus’ westward voyage, motivated by anti-jihadism, “chimerical ideas,” and his own persevering genius, begot “immense discovery”:
Columbus' great idea was that of reaching there by the route of the West. The Genoese was merely synthesizing all the more or less chimerical ideas, which had been in the air for the last half century at least, adding to them his own peculiar genius. It was to realize the dream so long cherished by pious imaginations—the dream of a final and definite Crusade against Islam by way of the Indies—that he asked the Catholic Sovereigns for the three poor little caravels which were to lead to the immense discovery.
Quote of the Times;
“Somehow I just can’t find myself getting worked up into a real fear of the party of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and p*ssy hats. It’s what comes after, when you ‘useful idiots’ are the first to be sent to the gulags that’s frightening. There’s a reason why you and your ‘allies’ fly into a hysterical fit whenever you’re presented with a hard look at facts and it’s because at the core, you have to deny reality. No matter what happens in the short term, in the long run, Leftism always fails, even when it’s run by steel-toed men with a spine. It would be nice if we as a nation could recognize what a colossal failure it always winds up being; 100 million deaths and many more suffering through starvation, terror and impoverishment across the 20th Century- it probably kinda sucked to be living under it. But I guess there will always be fools who like to shoot holes in the bottom of the boat they’re in, so we all get to suffer from your stupidity. So thanks for that. It may take a village to raise a child but it takes resentment, naivety, and willful delusion for him to become a leftist after the 20th Century.”
Link of the Times;
https://www.dailywire.com/news/36835/watch-shapiro-gives-fiery-unprecedented-assault-daily-wire
Rome?
And now, a quick moment of silence for all that candy we've lost over the past few weeks, not even close to Halloween.
*.*
I don't mind that my grandson is earning more than I did on my first job.
What disturbs me is he's just seven, and it's his allowance!
*.*
WASHINGTON — Space Force Recruiting and Retention Command announced today that it is seeking applications from current active-duty Army 11-series MOS and Marine 03xx-series MOS personnel for lateral transfer into the Mobile Infantry, the service’s direct-action combat arms branch.
The “Cross Into the Black” initiative seeks to recruit current infantry soldiers and Marines to take their ground combat skills to the interstellar battle space.
“Our goal is to be able to rapidly field an initial corps of trained warfighters who will then be able to train the next generation of mobile infantry,” said Space Force Lt. Col. John Rico. “Our troopers will be prepared to deal with anything, from the gritty hell of face-to-face combat, to the potentially awkward moral dilemmas that may arise from railing out your smoking-hot redhead platoon mate while you’ve still sort of got a thing for this pilot chick.”
Mobile infantry warfighting doctrine calls for rapidly deployable units that can counter not only Earth-based threats, but also potential attack from non-Earth based enemy forces. Insertion by orbital dropship is the primary assault tactic employed, as it enables rapid massing of friendly forces on the enemy objective and the establishment of a secure lodgment for follow-on operations or beer-and-bang parties.
Mobile infantry units will deploy aboard heavy fleet cruisers such as the USS Rodger Young, the first Space Force cruiser to be commissioned. The cruisers can deploy 32 Viking-class dropships, each capable of carrying one fully combat-equipped rifle platoon as well as four Conestoga-class support dropships stocked with mission-critical supplies including spare munitions, rations, hair-styling products, beer kegs, electric violins, and footballs.
Units are gender-integrated, which eases logistical and supply-chain burdens for field shower units, portable tents, personal prophylactic kits, and other sustainment provisions.
The Space Force is offering transfer bonuses of up to $20,000 for service experience of eight years or more, or the equivalent qualifying time and unlocked achievements in a candidate’s online gamer profile, as an incentive to lure experienced mid-career infantrymen away from sister services.
Applicants should have a GT score of 110 or greater on the ASVAB. Scores down to 50 are waiverable if the applicant has less than 12% body fat and flexible sexual standards.
Would you like to know more? Space Force Recruiting and Retention Command says interested parties should visit its website for more information.
*.*
A Toronto fisherman was trying to persuade his northern Ontario guide to visit him in the big city, but the guide said he was afraid the city people would laugh at him.
“Why?” asked the fisherman.
“Why not?” said the guide. “I sure laugh at your friends when they come up here.”
*.*
Depressing Things About Your Class Reunion?
Your old crush just crushed a chair
Your school Bulldog mascot has fewer wrinkles than you do
Librarian demands your late fees, with interest
No one recognized you, not even your ex-wife
Issue of the Times;
5 Troubling Lessons For America From Ancient Rome by John Hawkins
The Romans spent almost 500 years as a republic before Julius Caesar’s adopted son Augustus became the first Roman emperor. The Romans moved on from having kings to becoming the first republic, to sliding backward into monarchy and tyranny and it’s not impossible that America will follow a similar trajectory. In fact, if you study Roman history, it’s not hard to see the parallels.
1) It’s Extremely Dangerous To Introduce Violence Into The Political Process: Tiberius Gracchus was an arrogant Roman Populist who cared little for the niceties of tradition and even less for the opinions of his opponents. He proposed confiscating land from the rich to give to soldiers and poor Romans. This was a terrible policy which helped lead to the fall of the Roman Republic, but unsurprisingly it was quite popular. However, there was quite a bit of resistance to the policy in the Senate and passing legislation of this sort without the approval of the Senate simply wasn’t done in ancient Rome. That is until Tiberius Gracchus found a loophole and did it anyway, earning him the outright hatred of the Senate. Later, a misunderstanding made the members of the Senate believe that their hated enemy was going to overthrow the government and make himself king. They responded to this misunderstanding by surrounding him, ripping the legs off benches and beating him to death. This was the start of a long, violent, slippery slope in Rome as political violence became ever more common. In time, politicians had their own gangs that fought in the street. Senators were knifed on the floor of the Senate and eventually, the leadership of the nation was determined by who could bring the biggest army to Rome. Here in America, we are now starting to see politically-motivated violence. Riots at Berkeley to keep conservatives from speaking. A white supremacist driving his car into the crowd. A Bernie Sanders supporter shooting up a Republican softball game. Protests where the protesters and counter-protesters bring weapons. This goes nowhere good and we would be wise to clamp down hard on this sort of violence before it gets out of hand.
2) When Governance Becomes A Means Of Personal Enrichment First, Good Governance Comes Last: As the Roman Empire declined, something called the Crisis of the Third Century occurred. For the most part, it followed a pattern like so: the current emperor would be assassinated, usually by his own troops. Then, the strongest governors for the outer provinces of the Roman Empire would marshal their forces and march on Rome. After a bloody struggle, one of them would become the Roman emperor. Unfortunately, while the troops who manned the edges of the empire were fighting in Rome, barbarians would storm across the borders to pillage, loot and rape everything in their path. Soon thereafter, perhaps frustrated by the incompetence that allowed this to occur, some of the soldiers who put the emperor in power would then murder him and the cycle would start again. This led to Rome having something like 20 emperors during a 50 year period as the Empire fell into further disrepair. Thank God that John McCain and Dianne Feinstein don’t have their own personal armies, but are they – and the rest of the members of Congress – really putting the country first anymore? Is good governance a bigger concern than pleasing special interest groups and getting TV time? Do our leaders make anything more than a grandstanding surface attempt to tackle the tough issues that confront America? Are our politicians the best among us? Are they men like Washington, Jefferson and Adams who were determined to make this a better country for future generations or just top-of-the-line con artists smart enough to think bigger than bilking old ladies out of their pension checks? Good governance doesn’t just happen. It takes the right kind of people in office to make it happen and for the most part, those are no longer the sort of men and women we have in charge.
3) If You Stop Doing What Makes You Successful, The Success Won’t Continue Forever: In the early days of the Roman Republic, the soldiers tended to be the WEALTHIER people in society. That was because they needed a certain amount of money to buy the equipment needed to fight. Back then, being a Roman citizen meant something. No politician dared mistreat a citizen of the empire for fear of retaliation from Rome. For most of the Roman Republic, there was no welfare and people were expected to take care of themselves. The republic was certainly challenged during these years, but it stayed free and strong and it was the driving force of the civilized world. Eventually, things changed for the worse as the Roman elite became more interested in using the government to become rich and powerful instead of using it for the good of the people. Later on, the rich seldom fought unless it was at the head of an army, which was a money-making venture in those days. Roman emperors had citizens put to death solely because they wanted to repossess their lands and money to give to their supporters. Free grain along with extravagant games in the Colosseum were given to the mob, which became increasingly demanding, irrational and violent. As many of the traditions, practices and character traits that made Rome successful disappeared, Rome became weaker. It moved toward decadence, weakness and tyranny. Eventually the Western half of the Empire fell in 476 A.D. If you had to pick a period of Roman history that today’s post-constitutional America is reminiscent of, it would be that last stage of the Roman Republic when freedom was slowly, but surely slipping away from the Romans while corrupt men fought to control the spoils that running the government could bring. Don’t take the freedom we have for granted because we could lose it one day just as easily as the Romans did.
4) When People Can’t Get Justice Under The Law, They Will Go Outside The Law: Many people have heard of Julius Caesar’s famous decision to “cross the Rubicon” and begin a Roman civil war, but the devil is in the details. You see at this point in Roman history, the Republic was hanging on by a thread. Appearances were largely kept up, but Caesar and his former partner-turned-rival Pompey were the two most powerful men in the country and each feared the other intended to take over. Yet and still, Caesar had not committed to that course of action. So when Caesar returned from Gaul, he made a simple offer. He would be willing to disband his armies before crossing the Rubicon and entering Rome if Pompey did the same thing. Although the Senate voted in favor of this proposal, a number of prominent senators undermined it and encouraged Pompey not to disarm. Had Caesar returned to Rome while his rival had an army at his back, he likely would have been killed. So instead, he crossed the Rubicon with his own troops and that was the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic. As we have become ever more tribal in America, we have started to simply not care about being fair to our political adversaries. The “free press” is hopelessly hostile and biased toward conservatives. The IRS and FBI have been used for political purposes. The EPA has put draconian restrictions on what people can do with their own land. Liberals openly advocate using the court system to implement laws that can’t make it through Congress. The federal government has become ever more powerful and its reach has become ever longer and more restricting. As we saw with Hillary Clinton and with illegal aliens, if you are politically powerful enough or part of a catered-to group, the laws don’t apply to you. This is all extremely dangerous because it undercuts the rule of law, respect for law and the compassionate and fair application of the law. When people conclude that only outlaws can get justice, people will become outlaws.
5) Immigration Only Works As Long As There Is Assimilation: Like the United States, the Romans were great believers in bringing other people under the banners. Instead of subjugating and enslaving the foreign nations they captured, the Romans usually made them part of their alliance. In some cases they gave them full citizenship, but even a lesser form of citizenship was no small thing given the power of the Romans and how they could have behaved given their strength. This was a big part of why the Romans became so successful. However, as time went on, things began to change. The Romans had at times allowed conquered tribes to enter their territory, but they always split them up so they’d have no choice other than to live surrounded by Romans and learn their ways. As the Empire became more decadent, they allowed tribes of barbarians to move into Roman territory as a group under their old rulers. Under those circumstances, the barbarians kept their old culture. Eventually, the Romans started bringing these foreigners into their military. The Western half of the Roman Empire was especially guilty of this. In time, the foot soldiers in the military were largely German Goths who ironically were primarily needed to fight other German Goths who surged across the borders. This was problematic for a number of reasons, but just to name one, it sometimes led to Roman cities being besieged and sacked by their own unassimilated German troops. Eventually, the Western half of the Roman Empire fell as the foreign troops decided they’d rather be ruled by a barbarian king named Odoacer. Here in America, not only do we have surging immigration, we no longer encourage immigrants to assimilate to our culture. It has gotten so bad that we’d rather tell people to press 2 for Spanish instead of insisting that they learn English. Immigration has gotten so out-of-control that even suggesting that we should limit immigration or only allowing immigrants who obey our laws to come here is called “racist.” The Romans eventually lost their nation over that sort of attitude and one day, the same thing may happen to us if we’re not careful.
Quote of the Times;
“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
Link of the Times;
http://gunslingersjournal.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-president-trump-has-done-so-far.html
*.*
I don't mind that my grandson is earning more than I did on my first job.
What disturbs me is he's just seven, and it's his allowance!
*.*
WASHINGTON — Space Force Recruiting and Retention Command announced today that it is seeking applications from current active-duty Army 11-series MOS and Marine 03xx-series MOS personnel for lateral transfer into the Mobile Infantry, the service’s direct-action combat arms branch.
The “Cross Into the Black” initiative seeks to recruit current infantry soldiers and Marines to take their ground combat skills to the interstellar battle space.
“Our goal is to be able to rapidly field an initial corps of trained warfighters who will then be able to train the next generation of mobile infantry,” said Space Force Lt. Col. John Rico. “Our troopers will be prepared to deal with anything, from the gritty hell of face-to-face combat, to the potentially awkward moral dilemmas that may arise from railing out your smoking-hot redhead platoon mate while you’ve still sort of got a thing for this pilot chick.”
Mobile infantry warfighting doctrine calls for rapidly deployable units that can counter not only Earth-based threats, but also potential attack from non-Earth based enemy forces. Insertion by orbital dropship is the primary assault tactic employed, as it enables rapid massing of friendly forces on the enemy objective and the establishment of a secure lodgment for follow-on operations or beer-and-bang parties.
Mobile infantry units will deploy aboard heavy fleet cruisers such as the USS Rodger Young, the first Space Force cruiser to be commissioned. The cruisers can deploy 32 Viking-class dropships, each capable of carrying one fully combat-equipped rifle platoon as well as four Conestoga-class support dropships stocked with mission-critical supplies including spare munitions, rations, hair-styling products, beer kegs, electric violins, and footballs.
Units are gender-integrated, which eases logistical and supply-chain burdens for field shower units, portable tents, personal prophylactic kits, and other sustainment provisions.
The Space Force is offering transfer bonuses of up to $20,000 for service experience of eight years or more, or the equivalent qualifying time and unlocked achievements in a candidate’s online gamer profile, as an incentive to lure experienced mid-career infantrymen away from sister services.
Applicants should have a GT score of 110 or greater on the ASVAB. Scores down to 50 are waiverable if the applicant has less than 12% body fat and flexible sexual standards.
Would you like to know more? Space Force Recruiting and Retention Command says interested parties should visit its website for more information.
*.*
A Toronto fisherman was trying to persuade his northern Ontario guide to visit him in the big city, but the guide said he was afraid the city people would laugh at him.
“Why?” asked the fisherman.
“Why not?” said the guide. “I sure laugh at your friends when they come up here.”
*.*
Depressing Things About Your Class Reunion?
Your old crush just crushed a chair
Your school Bulldog mascot has fewer wrinkles than you do
Librarian demands your late fees, with interest
No one recognized you, not even your ex-wife
Issue of the Times;
5 Troubling Lessons For America From Ancient Rome by John Hawkins
The Romans spent almost 500 years as a republic before Julius Caesar’s adopted son Augustus became the first Roman emperor. The Romans moved on from having kings to becoming the first republic, to sliding backward into monarchy and tyranny and it’s not impossible that America will follow a similar trajectory. In fact, if you study Roman history, it’s not hard to see the parallels.
1) It’s Extremely Dangerous To Introduce Violence Into The Political Process: Tiberius Gracchus was an arrogant Roman Populist who cared little for the niceties of tradition and even less for the opinions of his opponents. He proposed confiscating land from the rich to give to soldiers and poor Romans. This was a terrible policy which helped lead to the fall of the Roman Republic, but unsurprisingly it was quite popular. However, there was quite a bit of resistance to the policy in the Senate and passing legislation of this sort without the approval of the Senate simply wasn’t done in ancient Rome. That is until Tiberius Gracchus found a loophole and did it anyway, earning him the outright hatred of the Senate. Later, a misunderstanding made the members of the Senate believe that their hated enemy was going to overthrow the government and make himself king. They responded to this misunderstanding by surrounding him, ripping the legs off benches and beating him to death. This was the start of a long, violent, slippery slope in Rome as political violence became ever more common. In time, politicians had their own gangs that fought in the street. Senators were knifed on the floor of the Senate and eventually, the leadership of the nation was determined by who could bring the biggest army to Rome. Here in America, we are now starting to see politically-motivated violence. Riots at Berkeley to keep conservatives from speaking. A white supremacist driving his car into the crowd. A Bernie Sanders supporter shooting up a Republican softball game. Protests where the protesters and counter-protesters bring weapons. This goes nowhere good and we would be wise to clamp down hard on this sort of violence before it gets out of hand.
2) When Governance Becomes A Means Of Personal Enrichment First, Good Governance Comes Last: As the Roman Empire declined, something called the Crisis of the Third Century occurred. For the most part, it followed a pattern like so: the current emperor would be assassinated, usually by his own troops. Then, the strongest governors for the outer provinces of the Roman Empire would marshal their forces and march on Rome. After a bloody struggle, one of them would become the Roman emperor. Unfortunately, while the troops who manned the edges of the empire were fighting in Rome, barbarians would storm across the borders to pillage, loot and rape everything in their path. Soon thereafter, perhaps frustrated by the incompetence that allowed this to occur, some of the soldiers who put the emperor in power would then murder him and the cycle would start again. This led to Rome having something like 20 emperors during a 50 year period as the Empire fell into further disrepair. Thank God that John McCain and Dianne Feinstein don’t have their own personal armies, but are they – and the rest of the members of Congress – really putting the country first anymore? Is good governance a bigger concern than pleasing special interest groups and getting TV time? Do our leaders make anything more than a grandstanding surface attempt to tackle the tough issues that confront America? Are our politicians the best among us? Are they men like Washington, Jefferson and Adams who were determined to make this a better country for future generations or just top-of-the-line con artists smart enough to think bigger than bilking old ladies out of their pension checks? Good governance doesn’t just happen. It takes the right kind of people in office to make it happen and for the most part, those are no longer the sort of men and women we have in charge.
3) If You Stop Doing What Makes You Successful, The Success Won’t Continue Forever: In the early days of the Roman Republic, the soldiers tended to be the WEALTHIER people in society. That was because they needed a certain amount of money to buy the equipment needed to fight. Back then, being a Roman citizen meant something. No politician dared mistreat a citizen of the empire for fear of retaliation from Rome. For most of the Roman Republic, there was no welfare and people were expected to take care of themselves. The republic was certainly challenged during these years, but it stayed free and strong and it was the driving force of the civilized world. Eventually, things changed for the worse as the Roman elite became more interested in using the government to become rich and powerful instead of using it for the good of the people. Later on, the rich seldom fought unless it was at the head of an army, which was a money-making venture in those days. Roman emperors had citizens put to death solely because they wanted to repossess their lands and money to give to their supporters. Free grain along with extravagant games in the Colosseum were given to the mob, which became increasingly demanding, irrational and violent. As many of the traditions, practices and character traits that made Rome successful disappeared, Rome became weaker. It moved toward decadence, weakness and tyranny. Eventually the Western half of the Empire fell in 476 A.D. If you had to pick a period of Roman history that today’s post-constitutional America is reminiscent of, it would be that last stage of the Roman Republic when freedom was slowly, but surely slipping away from the Romans while corrupt men fought to control the spoils that running the government could bring. Don’t take the freedom we have for granted because we could lose it one day just as easily as the Romans did.
4) When People Can’t Get Justice Under The Law, They Will Go Outside The Law: Many people have heard of Julius Caesar’s famous decision to “cross the Rubicon” and begin a Roman civil war, but the devil is in the details. You see at this point in Roman history, the Republic was hanging on by a thread. Appearances were largely kept up, but Caesar and his former partner-turned-rival Pompey were the two most powerful men in the country and each feared the other intended to take over. Yet and still, Caesar had not committed to that course of action. So when Caesar returned from Gaul, he made a simple offer. He would be willing to disband his armies before crossing the Rubicon and entering Rome if Pompey did the same thing. Although the Senate voted in favor of this proposal, a number of prominent senators undermined it and encouraged Pompey not to disarm. Had Caesar returned to Rome while his rival had an army at his back, he likely would have been killed. So instead, he crossed the Rubicon with his own troops and that was the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic. As we have become ever more tribal in America, we have started to simply not care about being fair to our political adversaries. The “free press” is hopelessly hostile and biased toward conservatives. The IRS and FBI have been used for political purposes. The EPA has put draconian restrictions on what people can do with their own land. Liberals openly advocate using the court system to implement laws that can’t make it through Congress. The federal government has become ever more powerful and its reach has become ever longer and more restricting. As we saw with Hillary Clinton and with illegal aliens, if you are politically powerful enough or part of a catered-to group, the laws don’t apply to you. This is all extremely dangerous because it undercuts the rule of law, respect for law and the compassionate and fair application of the law. When people conclude that only outlaws can get justice, people will become outlaws.
5) Immigration Only Works As Long As There Is Assimilation: Like the United States, the Romans were great believers in bringing other people under the banners. Instead of subjugating and enslaving the foreign nations they captured, the Romans usually made them part of their alliance. In some cases they gave them full citizenship, but even a lesser form of citizenship was no small thing given the power of the Romans and how they could have behaved given their strength. This was a big part of why the Romans became so successful. However, as time went on, things began to change. The Romans had at times allowed conquered tribes to enter their territory, but they always split them up so they’d have no choice other than to live surrounded by Romans and learn their ways. As the Empire became more decadent, they allowed tribes of barbarians to move into Roman territory as a group under their old rulers. Under those circumstances, the barbarians kept their old culture. Eventually, the Romans started bringing these foreigners into their military. The Western half of the Roman Empire was especially guilty of this. In time, the foot soldiers in the military were largely German Goths who ironically were primarily needed to fight other German Goths who surged across the borders. This was problematic for a number of reasons, but just to name one, it sometimes led to Roman cities being besieged and sacked by their own unassimilated German troops. Eventually, the Western half of the Roman Empire fell as the foreign troops decided they’d rather be ruled by a barbarian king named Odoacer. Here in America, not only do we have surging immigration, we no longer encourage immigrants to assimilate to our culture. It has gotten so bad that we’d rather tell people to press 2 for Spanish instead of insisting that they learn English. Immigration has gotten so out-of-control that even suggesting that we should limit immigration or only allowing immigrants who obey our laws to come here is called “racist.” The Romans eventually lost their nation over that sort of attitude and one day, the same thing may happen to us if we’re not careful.
Quote of the Times;
“If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
Link of the Times;
http://gunslingersjournal.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-president-trump-has-done-so-far.html
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.