August 23-24, 2017
Aug 23 00:36 Progressive paranoia personified Aug 23 02:22 ESPN's jump-the-shark moment? Aug 23 08:25 Trump blessed by his enemies Aug 23 10:26 Jim Clapper, CNN's political hatchet man Aug 24 04:22 The MSM's pomposity exposed Aug 24 05:23 Pipeline turns tables on protesters Aug 24 06:01 Wolgamott is running again Aug 24 12:19 Rebecca Otto, Angie Craig Aug 24 16:46 Franken's blue slip obstructionism
Prior Months: Jan Feb ~ May Jun Jul
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Progressive paranoia personified
As a recovering #NeverTrumper, it isn't difficult to identify President Trump's supporters. This article is written by someone who doesn't have a clue about the Trump movement. First, the article is titled "The Trump ship may finally be sinking." Tuesday night in Phoenix, AZ, ABCNews reported that President Trump's supporters "began standing in line more than seven hours before the speech was to start" to make sure they could listen to President Trump speak for 75 minutes.
Does that sound like someone whose "ship might finally be sinking"?
Sarah Kendzior might be a journalist but she hasn't figured out why President Trump's supporters support him. It isn't for lack of trying. In her article, Kendzior listed the required litany of anti-Trump criticisms, opening her article by saying "Over the past month, President Donald Trump threatened nuclear war with North Korea, flirted with military action in Venezuela, equated neo-Nazis and white supremacists with the anti-racist activists who protest them, thanked foreign adversary Russia for expelling U.S. diplomats, turned a Boy Scout jamboree into something resembling a fascist youth rally, banned transgender military personnel without informing the Pentagon - and more, as these are but a few plots of this four-week disaster miniseries filled with loathsome yet expendable players."
I'd say that Ms. Kendzior is a lefty but that's obvious. Ms. Kendzior closes her article by saying "When Mr. Trump loses protective power brokers such as Carl Icahn, it indicates his ship may truly be sinking. Mr. Trump will continue to pander to his bigoted base, but that base cannot protect him from the consequences of his actions."
The left still hasn't figured President Trump out. During Tuesday night's speech in Phoenix, AZ, President Trump told the appreciative audience that a second coal mine was opening in Pennsylvania thanks to his administration getting rid of Obama administration regulations. The people that powered the Trump revolution haven't stopped supporting him because he's keeping his promises to coal miners, steel workers and other blue collar workers.
At this point, President Trump's support in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania hasn't wavered. In fact, his support hasn't even flickered a little. BTW, does this look like the crowd a man whose ship is sinking would draw?
With all due respect, this is what progressive paranoia looks like. Just remember that a little paranoia goes a long ways.
Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2017 12:36 AM
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ESPN's jump-the-shark moment?
Years ago, I heard a phrase that's become a cliche. It said "There's no sense making something idiot-proof. They'll just build a better idiot." After reading this article , I think we've found the article that's a perfect match for that cliche. The article I'm talking about is about ESPN's decision to pull college football play-by-play announcer Robert Lee from working the University of Virginia-William & Mary game.
ESPN issued a statement to explain why they'd made this decision. ESPN said "We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It's a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue."
In Sports Illustrated's article, they wrote "White nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Va. on Aug. 12 to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee. White nationalist marched on Virginia's campus with torches, chanted racial slurs and intimidated counter-protestors. One woman was killed when a white supremacist drove a car into a group of counter-protestors."
All of which has nothing to do with play-by-play announcer Robert Lee.
David Whitley's article speaks for lots of people when it says "ESPN apparently thinks its audience is full of dopes", adding "In other words, you have to be a complete dope or Al Sharpton to be bothered by the fact a sports announcer in 2017 has a name that sounds like that of a Confederate General in 1863."
This interview by Tucker Carlson is spot on:
Tucker's opening exchange of Tucker's interview with Fox Sports' Clay Travis say everything:
TUCKER CARLSON: There are reports tonight that ESPN has pulled a football announcer from an upcoming game because of his name, which is Robert Lee. The twist: Lee is an Asian man not exactly your vision of an unreconstructed confederate. Clay Travis is a journalist for Fox Sports and he joins us tonight. Clay, thanks a lot for coming on tonight. We saw this floating around the internet right before air time and my instinct was that this has to be a hoax because it's too crazy so we wanted to talk with you directly. What do you know about this?
CLAY TRAVIS: It's 100% true. And, in fact, ESPN has just issued a statement to me.
When you watch the video, watch Tucker's eyebrows when Travis says "it's 100% true." My impression was that Tucker thought this story had to be something from The Onion, that it wasn't a legitimate article.
Towards the end of the interview, Travis supplied a shocking tidbit of information when he said "Tucker, there's always a lot of discussion about how liberal the political media is. Recent studies --you're gonna be blown away by this -- do you know what percentage of people in the sports media voted for Donald Trump in this most recent election? 4%, Tucker, 96% of them voted against Donald Trump. This is how decisions like this get made. You have all these left wing people sitting around saying 'Ohmigod, I'm gonna offend somebody and you don't have a reasonable, rational person saying 'Wait a minute. Are we really making the right decision'?
Carlson finished the segment, saying "Clay, I was telling my producers we can't air this because it can't be real. I'm just grateful to you for confirming it -- I'm serious -- Thanks a lot for coming on."
Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2017 2:22 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 23-Aug-17 09:54 AM
Any Nathan or Bedford Forrests, Albert Pikes, or Jacksons? If there is a Jackson, perhaps he's Stonewall? What about the FOX Sports Network? Purist worry there? Is there any Rachel Maddow in Confederate history
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 23-Aug-17 10:14 AM
Eric, don't you think it's just a bit weird that ESPN is worried that its viewers can't tell the difference between a Civil War general and a sportscaster? It seems to me that ESPN has a pretty low esteem for their viewers' intelligence.
Trump blessed by his enemies
It used to be said that Bill Clinton was blessed politically by his enemies coming unhinged. Just 8 months into his administration, it's apparent that President Trump is blessed by his political enemies. For instance, take a look at Don Lemon's unhinged rant immediately following President Trump's speech at a Phoenix, AZ, political rally.
Lemon's diatribe is a portrait of what progressives look like when they aren't getting their way. Lemon said "Well, what do you say to that? I'm just going to speak from the heart here - what we have witnessed is a total eclipse of the facts. He's unhinged. It's embarrassing." Lemon continued, saying "It was devoid of wisdom. There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there. He was like a child blaming a sibling on something else."
Later in his diatribe, Lemon continued, saying "If you watched that speech as an American, you had to be thinking 'what in the world is going on'? This is the person we elected as president of the United States? This petty? This small? The person who is supposed to pull the country together? It certainly didn't happen there."
I've transcribed many of the words Lemon said but words alone don't tell the whole story. To understand how unhinged Lemon was, you have to watch this video:
Though he didn't roll his eyes during his diatribe, Lemon displayed his disrespect for President Trump with his commentary. Saying that the leader of the free world doesn't have any gravitas is one thing. It's quite another to say that "there was no sanity there."
Republicans should highlight this incident forever. The people hired by CNN and MSNBC to anchor and correspondent positions aren't journalists. They're Democratic activists first. They frequently flash their hatred of conservatives, too. Way down the list of qualities of these disgusting people is the desire to inform the American people.
President Trump understands this, which is part of the reason why he's constantly goading them into acting like 8-year-olds throwing a temper tantrum. Though the media gets away with that with coastal viewers, the media's credibility with the rational people of the Heartland is virtually nonexistent.
Much ink has been spilled on the subject of Trump's qualities. That doesn't mean the MSM is getting a pass. The people have noticed. That's why the MSM is frequently distrusted or rejected outright.
Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2017 8:25 AM
Comment 1 by JerryE9 at 23-Aug-17 09:27 AM
I wonder how long it will take them to notice that the more they rant, the less influence they have? That people will "tune them out"?
Comment 2 by eric z at 23-Aug-17 10:05 AM
Trump has no real enemies, aside from Mike Pence licking his chops, practicing an acceptance speech, researching the wording of Presidential pardons.
Paul Ryan watching that. Hoping for an Agnew moment.
Bannon and the Mercers? Who can say. They keep secrets. And she's busy with the homeschooling and her divorce.
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 23-Aug-17 10:20 AM
Actually, Trump has a number of enemies. Pretty much every anchor at CNN comes unhinged whenever President Trump does anything. Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Jake Tapper (who used to be a decent journalist) take as many cheap shots at President Trump as Paul Begala takes. That takes some effort.
VP Pence isn't an enemy. What I'm enjoying is the unravelling of the Democratic Party. You used to fight for blue collar workers? Now, Democrats have put those workers in their crosshairs. My question is simple. What happened that made Democrats start hating blue collar workers?
Jim Clapper, CNN's political hatchet man
Jim Clapper, the former DNI, aka Director of National Intelligence, has been a political hatchet man for years. Now employed by CNN, all that's changed is that he isn't a hatchet man for the federal government. Instead, he's a political hatchet man for CNN. This article highlights Mr. Clappers propensity for political shenanigans.
After Don Lemon's anti-Trump diatribe, he continued with the theme that Trump wasn't fit to be president, this time getting Clapper to echo Lemon's accusations. During the interview, Dir. Clapper said "I really question his ability, his fitness to be in this office and I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it. Maybe he is looking for a way out. I do wonder, as well about the people that attracted to this, to this rally as others. You know, what are they thinking? Or why am I so far off base? Because I don't understand the adulation. Of course, that's why I think he gravitated to having this rally as ill-timed as it is."
The first obvious question that Clapper needs to be asked is why he thinks President Trump is "looking for a way out." Since the Russia collusion investigation pretty much collapsed, Democrat operatives starting conducting a stealth campaign questioning President Trump's stability. At this year's Netroots Nation gathering, DNC Vice-Chair Keith Ellison didn't mince words. He said that President Trump was less stable than Kim Jung Un. This week, the storyline from Don Lemon and James Clapper has been that President Trump is unhinged.
To fully understand this story, let's understand who Jim Clapper is. This is the opening paragraph of Sen. Wyden's statement after DNI Clapper resigned:
During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance. Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them.
It's worth noting that Sen. Wyden isn't a diehard movement conservative. He's a liberal Democrat from Oregon. There's more from Sen. Wyden's official statement:
After the NSA Director declined to correct these statements, I put the question to the Director of National Intelligence in March 2013. I wouldn't have been doing my job if I hadn't asked that question. My staff and I spent weeks preparing it, and I had my staff send him the question in advance so that he would be prepared to answer it.
Director Clapper famously gave an untrue answer to that question. So I had my intelligence staffer call his office afterward and ask them to correct the record. The Director's office refused to correct the record. Regardless of what was going through the director's head when he testified, failing to correct the record was a deliberate decision to lie to the American people about what their government was doing. And within a few months, of course, the truth came out.
That isn't all that DNI Clapper did, though. Here's more :
Former President Barack Obama's intelligence chief issued revised procedures in 2013 that made it easier for executive branch officials to 'unmask' the names of lawmakers or congressional staffers caught up in intelligence intercepts overseas, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Hill. Procedures issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in March 2013 formally supplanted a 1992 set of rules that made the dissemination of names of intercepted lawmakers or congressional aides an act of last resort.
The new standard allowed for a lawmaker's or staffer's name to be unmasked if 'an executive branch recipient of intelligence' believed that learning 'the identity of the Member of Congress or the Congressional staff is necessary to understand and assess the associated intelligence and further a lawful activity of the recipient agency,' according to a memo released earlier this month by the DNI's office with little public fanfare.
Unmasking these people's identities wasn't done for national security purposes. It was done for political purposes.
UPDATE: During Brian Kilmeade's interview of Lt. Col. Tony Schaffer, Lt. Col. Schaffer highlighted the fact that former DNI Clapper got caught lying under oath. Democrats first tried delegitimizing President Trump's victory by saying Trump colluded with Russia to win the election. When that investigation fell apart, Democrats switched to insinuating that President Trump wasn't fit for office. Who knows what's next?
Here's the video of Schaffer's interview with Kilmeade:
Posted Wednesday, August 23, 2017 4:30 PM
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The MSM's pomposity exposed
The press apparently doesn't understand that they're viewed as mean-spirited, dishonest and undeserving of the nation's trust. Tuesday night, CNN's political anchors and invited pundits jumped the political shark. Their pundits spoke authoritatively about President Trump's mental health. Then they questioned his fitness for office. They spoke the words with total conviction. Still later, Ana Navarro implied that President Trump had an early onset of dementia. Then she denied implying that. In this tweet , Navarro said "Only possible defensible explanation for Trump's disgusting, unpresidential, narcissistic behavior, would be early-on-set dementia. Maybe."
Let's point something important out before going further. Don Lemon, Ana Navarro and Jim Clapper aren't qualified to make statements about anyone's mental health. When they started making statements about President Trump's mental health, everyone in the Heartland questioned their opinions because everyone knows that they aren't qualified to make statements on another person's mental health.
When Alyson Camerota interviewed Ben Ferguson and Ms. Navarro on her show Wednesday, Ms. Navarro denied that she implied that President Trump had dementia. What Ms. Navarro apparently doesn't understand is that she came across as a mean-spirited bitch. The minute Ferguson started challenging her statements, Ms. Navarro got visibly angry. The tone in her voice got angrier. She started interrupting, then denying. In short, she lost it.
Here's a debate tip for Ms. Navarro: the minute you start denying that you said what you said, you've lost. That's what she did Wednesday morning:
Late in the interview (about 8 minutes in), Navarro took another cheapshot at President Trump, saying "When he speaks from the heart or the lack thereof..." It's funny to hear the press criticize President Trump for not being presidential, then acting like spoiled little brats themselves. Why do these people think that they've earned the right to be thought of as professional journalists? Just because they get paid for dispersing their opinions doesn't make them professionals. In this instance, it just means that they're paid gasbags.
Greg Jarrett sums things up beautifully:
They will persist in predicting Trump's imminent demise and assert their own intellectual and moral superiority. In so doing, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Not as a professional endeavor. There will always be journalists.
But America will no longer hold them in respectable regard.
Amen to that last sentence.
Posted Thursday, August 24, 2017 4:22 AM
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Pipeline turns tables on protesters
According to this article , Energy Transfer Partners, the people building the Dakota Access Pipeline, aka the DAPL, "has just filed suit against Greenpeace and two other protest groups that held up the Dakota Access pipeline project for months last year. The Texas pipeline company has invoked federal racketeering laws to seek damages that could reach $1 billion, according to the AP."
According to the article, "The company alleges that the groups' actions interfered with its business, facilitated crimes and acts of terrorism, incited violence, targeted financial institutions that backed the project and violated racketeering and defamation laws. The company seeks a trial and monetary damages, noting that disruptions to construction alone cost it at least $300 million and requesting triple damages."
Greenpeace's attorney issued a statement insisting that ETP is just trying to bully its client, saying that the lawsuit is 'not designed to seek justice, but to silence free speech through expensive, time-consuming litigation." It's rich that Greenpeace is complaining about "expensive, time-consuming litigation" the minute they get sued but doesn't hesitate filing lawsuits to prevent the building of pipelines. Rob Port of Say Anything Blog summed things up perfectly:
I suspect the response from apologists for the protesters will start talking about the potential chilling effect this lawsuit could have on 1st amendment rights. And to be sure, every citizen in America has a right to demonstrate for or against pipelines or anything else their hearts desire. Yet, with the #NoDAPL protests, there was a systemic use of illegal tactics. Blocking roads. Vandalism. Trespass. All towards the goal of blocking a project that was permitted and proceeding legally.
Here's hoping the lawsuit financially decimates Greenpeace for their alleged illegal activities. If Greenpeace wants to peacefully protest against the building of a pipeline, let them. If they're committing acts of sabotage, which hasn't been proven yet, though, they need to be punished. If people commit crimes, they need to be held accountable. Putting people's lives at risk isn't acceptable behavior.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts explains to FBN's Liz Claman what tactics were used to protest the pipeline companies:
Authorities will have to provide evidence that Greenpeace activists used the same tactics that were used on the Keystone XL Pipeline. That shouldn't be difficult.
Posted Thursday, August 24, 2017 5:26 AM
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Wolgamott is running again
If there's anything certain in life, the saying goes, it's death and taxes. In St. Cloud, we can apparently add Dan Wolgamott running for political office as a certainty. According to this article , Wolgamott, who has run for Tama Theis's house seat in HD-14A in 2014, then ran for the open senate seat vacated when John Pederson retired, is now interested in Jim Knoblach's seat.
Wolgamott issued a statement announcing his candidacy, saying "Career politician Jim Knoblach currently represents the district and is serving his eighth term (15th year) in the state House. Under Knoblach's watch, the Legislature has failed to get its work done on time for six of those years, each time resulting in a costly special session."
The perpetual campaigner is denouncing career politicians. That's rich. Here's what you need to know about Wolgamott. First, he's a Democrat first. His constituents come second. He said as much a few years ago when he wrote an op-ed, saying that he'd vote to raise the gas tax if that's what his caucus approved. Next, Wolgamott's talk about bringing people together is just that -- talk. I don't doubt that Wolgamott brings Democrats together. I'm totally skeptical, though, that he'd lift a finger to bring Republicans and Democrats together.
I don't have to speculate whether Jim Knoblach would bring Republicans and Democrats together. I have verifiable proof that he's frequently brought Republicans and Democrats together. The most recent example that I wrote about was in 2015, when he was part of Speaker Daudt's budget team that put together a bipartisan budget agreement with then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk. Of course, Gov. Dayton and other high-profile liberals sabotaged the agreement.
The good news is that Chairman Knoblach persevered, which led to the Daudt-Bakk budget eventually passing during a special session. There's no reason to think that Wolgamott would stand up to the DFL leadership. He's a hardline progressive that would've voted to create MNsure.
Finally, here's another part of Wolgamott's statement getting into yet another race:
Status-quo politicians like Jim Knoblach continue to stack the deck against hard-working, middle-class Minnesotans, prioritizing wealthy donors and corporate special interests instead of working families.
Wolgamott is as cookie-cutter as they come. There's nothing that says he'd be a leader. If you went to the dictionary for the definition of a career politician, here's what you'd find:
Posted Thursday, August 24, 2017 6:01 AM
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Rebecca Otto, Angie Craig
Hearing Angie Craig and Rebecca Otto talked about education should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. First, I have to talk about a statement Ms. Craig made during the event. She said "I'm running for Congress in 2018 and I'm coming back to claim our seat."
Though she wants to focus on education, Ms. Craig apparently isn't interested in history. It's been quite some time since a Democrat represented MN-2 in Congress. According to Wikipedia's history of CD-2 , Republicans have held the seat 66 of the last 74 years. That's a pretty red district. But I digress.
During her presentation, State Auditor Rebecca Otto sounded like a typical far left liberal, saying "A lot of the politics that end up getting passed by the politics of greed end up running over our interests and the common good. The people's interest and our values, 2018 will really be defined by the politics of greed versus the politics of people and the common good. The politics of greed say all taxes are bad and need to be slashed. That all regulation is bad and must be repealed. That all government workers are bad and must be privatized - that's our roads, our airports and our schools. As your governor, no public funds are going to private schools."
Translation: I'm owned by Education Minnesota. The achievement gap will continue or get worse.
I'd describe Ms. Otto's messaging as scorched earth messaging. There isn't a hint of nuance to it. The implied message behind Ms. Otto's words is simple: Republicans are evil. They only look out for themselves. Initially, I thought that this was her messaging to be the DFL gubernatorial candidate. I'm not certain that's the case anymore. I think there's a possibility that that's just who she is as a candidate.
If Republicans get to run against Ms. Otto, it'll be a gift. She's an environmental extremist who voted against mining leases, then tried fundraising off of that vote. She's suing the legislature for limiting the State Auditor's responsibilities. That lawsuit is costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. What's worse is that she's going to lose that case.
Finally, she's a Metrocrat that hates mining. Considering the fact that Donald Trump thumped HRC on the Iron Range last year, that's a significant gift to the Republican candidate.
Minnesota is one of several states in the nation leading in education with one of the worst achievement gaps in the nation. As Alpha News reported in 2016, Minnesota led the nation with the highest achievement gap when it came to science scores between white and black eighth grade students.
Ms. Otto needs to work on her presentation skills:
That's brutal. She won't get another chance to make a first impression with that audience.
Posted Thursday, August 24, 2017 12:19 PM
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Franken's blue slip obstructionism
Scott Johnson's post on Al Franken's obstructionist tactics might get Sen. Franken in trouble. It seems that Sen. Franken's explanation on why he's obstructing David Stras from getting a hearing doesn't add up. Put differently, Sen. Franken might be lying.
According to Scott's post, Sen. Franken's standard reply to why Justice Stras hasn't received a hearing is "Thank you for contacting me regarding the nomination of Justice David Stras to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. I appreciate hearing from you.
On May 8, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras to fill a vacancy on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. As senator and a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have the responsibility to vet and vote on judicial nominees, and this is a responsibility that I take very seriously. I believe the record, experience, and philosophy of all nominees should be carefully scrutinized in order to fully evaluate them.
Justice David Stras is a committed public servant whose tenure as a professor at the University of Minnesota underscores how much he cares about the law. I am concerned, however, by the fact that Judge Stras' nomination is the product of a process that relied heavily on guidance from far-right Washington, DC-based special interest groups-rather than through a committee made up of a cross-section of Minnesota's legal community. As President Trump's nominee to the Eighth Circuit, I am taking a close look at his record and his writings to better understand how he thinks about the important matters before our federal courts today."
It's time for Sen. Franken to tell the truth about this. According to this post , Stras has been a justice since 2010. President Trump nominated Justice Stras to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in early May, which means Justice Stras has, at most, 5-6 years worth of rulings to go through. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it shouldn't take 4 months to read through Justice Stras's rulings and form an opinion on those rulings.
Reading between the lines of Sen. Franken's stock reply, it sounds more like Sen. Franken is holding this nomination up on purely ideological grounds. I'm betting that he isn't willing to admit that in public. The line that tips this off is when Sen. Franken said "I am concerned, however, by the fact that Judge Stras' nomination is the product of a process that relied heavily on guidance from far-right Washington, DC-based special interest groups."
That's BS. As Scott mentioned in his post, Stras is supported isn't limited to conservatives. Stras is supported by people from across Minnesota's political spectrum.
Sen. Franken is being a weasel. Here's hoping Minnesota voters remember this when he's up for re-election in 2020.
Originally posted Thursday, August 24, 2017, revised 25-Aug 9:03 AM
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