The left lie through their scummy teeth

I have frequently said that if Donald Trump walked on water, the left would complain that he stepped on and injured some fish. If President Trump cured cancer, the left would combitch that he was putting doctors and nurses out of work.

The tweet screen captured to the left — I always screen capture tweets I’m going to use in articles, because this way they aren’t lost if someone deletes them, and they make great illustrations without having to worry about copyright violations — was just one of many which claimed that the evil, reich-wing President Trump was responsible for the deaths due to an overnight tornado strike in London, Kentucky, because he’s cutting some National Weather Service personnel. The disappointed Democrat and “I am further left, I am more progressive, than anyone in the state of Kentucky,” twice-defeated candidate Amy McGrath Henderson chimed in with her own attack, without bothering with the actual facts.

What my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal, the staffers of which absotively, posilutely hate Mr Trump, was forced to admit the truth: Continue reading

Will Bunch: #TrumpDerangementSyndrome much?

Will Bunch is The Philadelphia Inquirer’s furthest left, and by that I mean far left, bat guano nuts #woke,[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading falling for every bit of insane madness woke, #TrumpDerangementSyndrome woke, and he’s agitated again this morning.

So, what is piques his ire this fine Saturday morning? It seems that the President’s daughter, Ivanka Trump Kushner, visited the Philadelphia Eagles training center. Heaven forfend!

Ivanka Trump hits the NovaCare Complex, leaves a note for Eagles defender Eli Ricks

Ivanka Trump toured the NovaCare Complex Friday at the invitation of general manager Howie Roseman and Big Dom, the team’s head of security.

Continue reading

References

References
1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues. By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! Nothing quite exposes some people's stupidity like social media!

Sometimes I’m just shaking my head in stunned amazement. How, I have to ask, could a public school teacher call for the assassination of President Trump, in public, on Facebook, and still have a job?

Well, maybe she doesn’t, as Superintendent Peter Hallen notified the public that he and “appropriate authorities” are actively investigating the “incident.”

Hat tip to Carol Marks of The Victory Girls! The copy of the post at the right is a screen capture, before Facebook takes it down or the lovely Miss St Germain takes it down.

At the moment, she’s doubling down. Continue reading

I check Bluesky so you don’t have to! Will Bunch would rather see more killing than Donald Trump win a Nobel Peace Prize

I will admit it: I have spent far too much of the past couple of days in schadenfreude over the apoplexy of the left that Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States at noon on Monday. Most of the stuff was by people as no named as me, and a lot of it was simply silly beyond belief. Mr Trump moved the inauguration indoors due to the bitterly cold weather forecast for Washington DC, about 20º F, with wind chills in the single digits, so the left have been claiming that it wasn’t the weather, but that the President was afraid, afraid that the number of protesters would outnumber supporters, and that he just wasn’t tough enough, as Presidents John F Kennedy and Barack Hussein Obama had inaugurations outdoors in similarly cold weather.

We might as well face it: the very bitter left will say anything to insult Mr Trump.

More interesting to me was this skeet — a skeet is what a tweet on Bluesky is called — from Will Bunch, the far-left columnist of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr Bunch wrote that he literally felt sick to his stomach over the idea that our incoming President was “already Nobel Peace Prize shopping, peering down the aisles of conflict and crisis to gauge the easiest route to capturing the coveted award to adorn the lobby of Mar-a-Lago,” and that The Washington Post’s new contributing columnist, Rahm Emanuel, argued that “even Trump’s fiercest opponents ought to encourage this yen — and even root him on.” Continue reading

I subscribe to The Philadelphia Inquirer so that you don’t have to The newspaper wants to protect democracy, but was so very upset when people had a democratic choice

My most frequently read newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, published another of the typical end-of-the-year articles, this headlined “16 opinions that caught your attention in 2024: Looking back on our most-read opinions of the year” I loved this one in particular:

To serve his country, Donald Trump should leave the race | Editorial

Biden had a horrible night Thursday. But the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, June 29, 2024 | 4:30 PM EDT

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

The Editorial Board not only did not get their wish that Mr Trump withdraw from the race, but they really didn’t get their wish when he won.

Their headline was a riff from the one The New York Times used the previous day, “To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race, which had said:

President Biden has repeatedly and rightfully described the stakes in this November’s presidential election as nothing less than the future of American democracy,

hoping the Democrats would nominate another candidate.

The Washington Post editorialized similarly.

But for all of the angst of the editorialists, former President Trump is now future President Trump as well, scheduled to be inaugurated 23 days from now, because the country was given a democratic choice two months ago. Too bad for the various editorial boards that the voters chose differently from what the pundits and columnists and editorialists told them they should.

On Tuesday, November 7, 2028, the American people will be voting for President again, and President Trump will not be on the ballot; His constitutional limit of two terms will have been reached. The editorial boards will be able to fuss and fume and support the Democrats again in four years. That’s you know, democracy!

My local Bishop really, really doesn’t like Donald Trump

The Most Reverend John Stowe, Bishop of Lexington

While I cannot say that I am friends with His Excellency, the Most Reverend John Stowe, O.F.M. Conv., Bishop of Lexington, we are at least acquainted with each other. The Bishop at least recognizes me when he sees me, though I cannot be certain he remembers my name. We have had some pleasant conversations the few times he has visited our small parish.

I have written about him, or at least mentioned him, on this poor site, in 17 previous articles, not always charitably. Bishop Stowe is an excellent homilist, one who can really connect with a congregation, and I have no doubts at all about his faith. But, as a Catholic priest, he chooses the wrong things far too often for me.

Kentucky prelate calls lack of election response from American Church ‘disappointing’

by John Lavenburg | Tuesday, December 3, 2024

NEW YORK – In the month or so since former President Donald Trump was elected to occupy the White House for a second term, the majority of American bishops have either not commented on the election publicly, or issued a generic statement about the importance of civility, unity, and democracy.

That extends to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, where – outside of responses to Trump’s stated plan for mass deportations – not much has been said. Bishop John Stowe, in a recent conversation with Crux, said that reality isn’t surprising considering how American Church leaders have handled the presidency of Joe Biden over the last four years.

“It was not surprising coming from the USCCB. What was surprising was the attitude when Joe Biden was elected, a Catholic president four years ago, and there was such an uproar in the conference about that election, and because of that, I really had no expectation that there would be much said about the Trump election,” said Stowe, the bishop of Lexington in Kentucky.

His Excellency the Bishop does not like former and future President Donald Trump. Speaking in August of 2020, before the 2020 election, the Bishop let us know, let all of his Catholic parishioners know, that he was opposed to President Trump’s re-election. Bishop Stowe was appalled by Mr Trump’s anti-illegal immigration policies, calling them “anti-life.” Continue reading

Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary, and hate!

It is entirely possible that I have been, believe it or not, too charitable to our friends on the left. In my recent article, Will Bunch uses his Freedom of Speech and of the Press to tell us that he hates Freedom of Speech and of the Press, I mocked The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far-left columnist Will Bunch for his tirade against MSNBC’s (supposed) journalists, Joe and Mike Scarborough for having gone to Mar-a-Lago and meeting with former and future President Donald Trump. Mr Bunch told his readers about the brave “journalists left who do plan, in a moment of increased risk, to keep asking the tough questions in this muddled new era,” but trashes two (purported) journalists who have gone to cover a story about the next President of the United States as somehow “supplicants,” showing fealty and making obeisance to him. Uhhh, you can’t “keep asking the tough questions” to Mr Trump if you are unwilling to talk to him in the first place.

I would have thought that a journolist, oops, sorry, journalist like Mr Bunch would appreciate freedom of the press and the willingness of journalists to go into hostile territory, to get their stories, to report the news, even from people who didn’t like or respect them. Continue reading

MSNBC worried that their talking heads’ #TrumpDerangementSyndrome will be exposed even more

MSNBC was widely mocked after they sidestepped their AM show, Morning Joe, on Monday, due to fears that one or more of hosts Joe Scarborough’s and Mika Brzezinski Scarborough’s guests, or perhaps the couple themselves, might say something just boneheadedly crazy following the assassination attempt aimed at former President Donald Trump. That fear was hardly unreasonable, given that Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok has shown us dozens of statements the haters have posted on social media lamenting that the would-be assassin failed. Miss Raichik succeeded in many regards, as some of these #TrumpDerangementSyndrome-addled people have now found themselves unemployed. The bosses at MSNBC knew that Mr and Mrs Scarborough were deeply affected and infected with that disease, as many of their guests are as well. Continue reading

The American left go full neo-con!

I always expect the neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin, none of whom ever met a war in which they did not want American involvement, to be pushing to fight, fight, fight, but I’ll admit to some to surprise in seeing Salon’s Amanda Marcotte going full-neocon!

Zelenskyy visit exposes a GOP rift — between actual fascists and everyone else

Too many Republicans still refuse to stand up for Ukraine — and for democracy — against their MAGA brethren

by Amanda Marcotte | Friday, December 23, 2022 | 6:00 AM EST

It’s perhaps telling that Amanda Marcotte’s Twitter biography photo was taken in a bar.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is widely popular, both in the U.S. and around the world. You’d have to be the most churlish asshole alive not to feel moved by his resolve to protect his nation’s sovereignty against the egomanaical supervillain impulses of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been waging an unprovoked war against Ukraine for nearly a year. Zelenskyy’s Wednesday night speech before a joint session of Congress wasn’t just moving. It was also persuasive on the brass tacks arguments. Military aid to Ukraine is “not charity,” he argued, but “an investment in global security and democracy.”

I’ll admit it: I checked Miss Marcotte’s Salon archive on December 26th to see if she’d written yet another “I hate Christmas” screed. When she wrote, in 2019:

For me, it’s personal. My family is mostly a bunch of Trump voters, sucked up into a vortex of propaganda and lies, unable even to admit basic facts about the world that run contrary to what their tribal politics dictate. That sort of thing is stressful on a normal day, but makes a mockery of the idea of familial love and harmony.

I just shook my head, because the idea that I’d simply give up my family over politics is simply beyond my understanding.

Oh, well, back to the original:

As Fred Kaplan at Slate argued, the speech “was a resounding success” that circumvented Republicans who previously had made noises about cutting aid to Ukraine. The Senate approved $44.9 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine on Thursday afternoon, as part of a $1.7 trillion government spending bill that passed 68-29, and is expected to pass the House as well.

Zelenskyy’s argument that Ukraine’s victory is necessary to protect global democracy is hard to argue against. Especially in recent years, Putin has not hidden his contempt for Western-style democracy or desire to see it collapse around the globe. Even with all the caveats and nuances one could possibly inject into this, the “bad guys” and “good guys” are crystal clear in this scenario.

Winston Churchill famously said, “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” But perhaps, just perhaps, a ‘favourable’ reference is all the difference.

Except, that is, to some Republicans in Congress and a number right-wing pundits. That world is not just anti-Zelenskyy, but imbued with such vicious sentiments that even the most jaded political watchers were shocked. This isn’t just about arguments over whether aid to Ukraine is being well spent, or about whether Ukraine is strategically crucial to U.S. interests. This was about full-on vitriol, to the point where even Republicans who are open to cutting aid to Ukraine were made uncomfortable.

There’s one major reason things got so ugly so fast. The debate over Ukraine, at least among Republicans, is a stand-in for the largely unspoken but very real debate that’s roiling the party: Do they still believe in democracy? A faction in the GOP has decided that they don’t, and now supports authoritarianism, or the F-word. Many other Republicans feel uneasy about this direction, but don’t seem able to stand up to the fascist faction.

It has to be remembered: Mr Zelenskyy is President of Ukraine only because legitimately-elected President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed in the so-called Революція гідності, “Revolution of Dignity,” in 2014, in large part because he opposed joining the European Union and NATO. But, for Miss Marcotte, it’s the evil reich-wing Republicans who don’t believe in democracy, and who now support authoritarianism.

There follows another several paragraphs of mixed and questionable assertions, which you can read for yourself; I cannot simply quote every one of Miss Marcotte’s 1,370 words.

Most Americans support Ukraine, with 65% agreeing that the U.S. should send arms to Ukraine and 75% supporting sanctions against Russia, even as those have driven up oil prices around the world. This onslaught of pro-Putin propaganda on the right has softened conservative support for Ukraine, but even so 55% of Republican voters are in favor of military aid.

This tension between America’s overwhelming pro-Ukraine sentiment and the far right’s caustic hatred was reflected in the behavior of congressional Republicans at Zelenskyy’s speech Wednesday night. Most Republicans, even those who have expressed doubt about more funding, at least showed moral support for Zelenskyy, standing to applaud his speech and telling reporters they believe in his cause.

There has been a whole lot of World War II thinking applied to the Russo-Ukraine War — or perhaps I should call it Russo-Ukraine War 2.0, considering Russia’s seizure and annexation of part of Ukraine in 2014 — with the logic that pushed the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Nazi Germany two days after the Wehrmacht rolled into Poland, but that is such superficial thinking that I am amazed no one has realized it. In that event, the UK and France could not and did not actually do anything to liberate Poland; the liberation of Poland came in 1944, when the Red Army pushed out the Germans, and ‘liberation’ by the Soviet Union hardly freed the Poles.

And there’s that biggest of differences: no one in Europe, or anywhere in the world, had in 1939 what Russia has now: a strategic and tactical nuclear arsenal. As he was losing the war, Adolf Hitler tried everything he could, used every weapon he had, but, other than the V-1 and V-2 terror rockets, had no power to strike at his enemies. We do not and cannot know what Vladimir Putin will do if, in the end, he sees Russia really losing RUW 2.0, but we do know that he could cross that nuclear threshold, and use tactical nukes against Ukrainian troop concentrations and other targets. And once that nuclear threshold is crossed, who can know when things will stop? And if the United States and NATO nations are supplying Ukraine from bases in Poland, how are those bases not legitimate targets if Russia has the weapons to reach them . . . and Russia does.

We have had proxy wars with the Communists since the 1950s, in Korea, in Vietnam, and in Afghanistan, but in none of those wars were we fighting Russian troops, nor was there any danger of strikes into the USSR itself; Ukraine has already struck inside Russia during this war. The New York Times reported, “The United States and Ukraine have agreed that Kyiv will not strike targets in Russia with American-provided weapons,” but that does not mean that Vladimir Putin will care about that distinction. If Ukraine can strike targets inside Russia, than Russia can strike targets outside Ukraine which are supplying the Ukrainians. War and escalation have their own logic.

Skipping to the end of Miss Marcotte’s article, we find:

One could quibble over whether supporting Ukraine and believing in democracy are the same thing, although Putin’s behavior tends to override any effort at nuanced debate. But within Republican ranks, there’s no doubt that the issue of Ukraine’s independence and self-determination has become is a proxy for the party’s internal debate over American democracy. Even the most stalwart authoritarians in the GOP know better than to come right out and say they’re against democracy and it’s time to do away with it. So they gaslight the nation instead, clumsily repackaging Donald Trump’s desire to be installed as a dictator as a narrative about a “stolen” or “rigged” election, and concerted efforts to undermine democracy as measures to ensure “election security.” Rooting against Ukraine is a way to advance the anti-democracy agenda, without quite openly embracing it.

Ironically, all the Republican game-playing on Ukraine only ends up reinforcing the argument Zelenskyy made in his speech on Wednesday: Protecting his country against Russian tyranny is ultimately about protecting democracy. Whatever criticisms could be made of his leadership or his imperfect nation, Zelenskyy’s biggest opponents in Congress hate him because they hate democracy.

Philadelphia’s transplanted Texan is honest enough to tell us her real message: the left must attack Republicans, and RUW 2.0 is just a vehicle with which to do that. Honestly, I expect no wider-range thinking from her. But in doing so, she has made arguments pretty much indistinguishable from those of Mr Boot.[1]Mr Boot, whose parents fled a strongly antisemitic regime in the USSR under Leonid Brezhnev, once said, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump,” even though the … Continue reading Mr Boot, who dearly loves having American troops all over the globe and has been a student of military history and strategic studies but has never served in the military himself, fretted that it would be a disaster for the United States to pull out of Afghanistan, though what more could be accomplished in that fetid and festering sewer that we hadn’t been able to accomplish in the 19½ years we had already been there he could not articulate.

Even the Editorial Board of The Washington Post went full neo-con on Ukraine. But, as is the case with Miss Marcotte, all I see is a tremendous desire to be anti-Trump in all of this. President Trump raised the legitimate question of European participation in NATO, and how the European nations were not paying their fair share of the burden of maintaining the alliance. I went further, and asked if Americans really like the idea that the North Atlantic Treaty would require us to go to war with Russia if Russia sent the tanks rolling into Riga. Just how many American cities are worth defending the Baltic States? And Ukraine isn’t even a NATO member.

Miss Marcotte was very much opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though we were actually attacked by al Qaeda, which was hiding in Afghanistan. Those wars, of course, were started under George W Bush, a Republican President, so there’s that. But today, she’s conflating an attack by Russia, on a non-NATO nation, with Republicans in the United States, and telling us we have to fight, fight, fight Vladimir Putin and Russia, to preserve democracy in the United States. #TrumpDerangementSyndrome has managed turn so much of the American left into the new neo-cons.

References

References
1 Mr Boot, whose parents fled a strongly antisemitic regime in the USSR under Leonid Brezhnev, once said, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump,” even though the USSR under Comrade Stalin might well have sent Mr Boot and his family to a concentration camp; the Soviet leaders really didn’t like Jews very much.