January 5-19, 2021

Jan 05 16:06 Democrat fascists terrorize Republican senator's DC home

Jan 09 07:07 MLK's speech is prophetic

Jan 11 10:54 Tina Smith excuses Obama, Reid & Pelosi

Jan 12 14:54 The divisive Democrats

Jan 14 07:20 Nancy Pelosi's faux impeachment 2.0 is just the beginning
Jan 14 15:24 Is Impeachment 2.0 Benghazi 2.0?

Jan 15 05:53 Susan Page's sloppy impeachment reporting

Jan 16 04:13 Mike Pompeo's foreign policy accomplishments

Jan 19 08:12 Proof Angie Craig isn't a moderate

Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Democrat fascists terrorize Republican senator's DC home

Unfortunately, it isn't surprising that Democrat terrorists, aka Antifa, terrorized the Washington, DC home of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley . Equally unfortunately, it isn't surprising that the Washington Post had a different perspective on the event. According to the Post, "activists said they had staged a peaceful vigil on Monday night to protest a GOP plan to object to Congress's certification of the presidential electoral vote this week. On the sidewalk in a Northern Virginia suburb, a group of 15 people chanted while holding candles and signs saying, 'Protect democracy.'"

This tweet tells a different story:


Now Antifa is changing their story:


This was written by the Washington Post 'reporter':
Demonstrators with ShutDownDC, which organized the protest, told The Washington Post that they did not engage in vandalism or even knock on Hawley's door. A 50-minute video shared by the group shows protesters writing in chalk on the sidewalk, chanting through a megaphone and at one point leaving a copy of the Constitution on Hawley's doorstep.

"This was not threatening behavior," said Patrick Young, a ShutDownDC organizer. "This is people engaging in democracy and engaging in civil discourse. : This was a pretty tame and peaceful visit to his house."

The video speaks for itself. The Washington Post didn't tell the truth. Period. Full stop.

Posted Tuesday, January 5, 2021 4:06 PM

Comment 1 by eric z at 06-Jan-21 10:36 AM
Georgia on my mind.

Comment 2 by eric z at 08-Jan-21 11:02 AM
Danforth turned on Hawley. Are you surprised? Marching orders will be coming soon. Meanwhile, poor Josh.

MLK's speech is prophetic

Thursday night on Tucker Carlson Tonight, he played a tape from an MLK speech from 1967. In the speech, MLK said "But in the final analysis, riots are the language of the unheard. What has America not heard?" This summer, CNN and MSNBC used that statement as justification for the riots in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Chicago.

On Wednesday, CNN and MSNBC said that riots were acts of sedition and insurrecton. Let's watch that snippet of MLK's speech at Stanford in 1967:
[Video no longer available]
Prior to that famous part of that speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said that "it is as necessary for me to be vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think that America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society that must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots."

Following that, King said "It has failed to hear the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met." It's 53+ years later. Democrats still rely on that plantation to maintain political power. Democrats still haven't listened to minorities. Democrats don't listen to blue collar workers, either. When then-candidate Trump said that the forgotten man would be forgotten no more, Rust Belt Democrats and independents rallied to his side.

That's something that Democrats couldn't let happen again. That's why Democrats teamed with Big Tech. Big Tech silenced anything negative about Joe Biden. In return, Biden littered his transition team with people from Big Tech. Now Big Tech is killing their competition. Big Tech just permanently deleted President Trump's account. Google Play Store has eliminated the Parler app in an attempt to kill Twitter's competition. That's corruption in the Democrats' pursuit of total political power. That's pathetic.

Posted Saturday, January 9, 2021 7:07 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 09-Jan-21 08:42 AM
Speech in a vacuum is folly. Speech has to be heard. With national approval of "Congress" below 20% they were not hearing distrust from either end of the political spectrum. When heard, it was mocked or disdained.

The problem now. The entire reaction is denying legitimacy to the suffering and unhappiness crony capitalism that both parties revel in.

It is unfortunate Trump's money ginning via contesting the election result caused the discord to grow in a wrong way, but taking the discord into the Capitol was a Cleansing of the Temple. It was confronting the money changers. Biblical that way.

The dioscord and distrust on the left has been better mannered. The BLM demonstrations were separate from the equal marginalizations both inner party operatives and their revolving door colleagues - coconspirators were up to. The disgrace of that final bill size and lack of anybody in either house having read the damned thing before voting was a worldwide showing of failure.

Those people, both parties, deserved confrontation. Trump unfortunately was incapable of channeling things toward a greater goal, he was self obsessed, but the expressions of dissatisfaction, BLM in its time, the Tea Party allied demonstrators in the Capitol, all that was speech. Speech, unfortunately not heard in any discernible positive way.

When government abandons good of the people over crony capitalism, buying of favors, government becomes illegitimate and needs confrontation.

Good can arise from the Capitol protests if the servants of plutocracy take notice in a reformatory manner.

It was a cleansing.

Also, censorship is bad, and mainstream media reacting against other speech outlets is unAmerican.

The nation needs to get government back to a focus on FDR's four freedoms. On the health, education, and welfare of the people of the nation. Each one. Every one. As best as that can be done by sincere effort. Bullshit free effort. Harmful rhetoric and incitement has a place. It is speech. It is protected. For a sound reason.

We've all been schooled about dumping tea chests into the harbor. When necessary.

The worry is that the full scope of the message went unheard, being addressed by pearl clutching mischaracterization of near universal disapproval of the job the two-party system is doing.

Quit whining, and do the job properly, please. That is the crux of the message Congress critters need to hear and heed. Casting partisan games out of the Capitol protest is false and wrong, for either side to do now.

The DC revolving door is a major problem. Biden's choices embody the problem as if it were virtue.

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 10-Jan-21 12:13 PM
Eric, for the most part, you understood what I was teaching. In MLK's instance, though, through today, the Democratic Party didn't change life for the better for African-Americans. President Trump significantly improved their lives financially & through the First Step Act.

Further, Democrats used to like blue collar America. They've abandoned them with NAFTA. When Trump talked about the "Forgotten Man", that resonated with people in northern Pennsylvania & southern Ohio. They're now the base of the conservative populist movement. They don't fit into the Bernie/AOC populist movement because of the Green New Deal, which will kill their jobs and communities.

Comment 2 by eric z at 11-Jan-21 01:41 PM
Gary, Clinton inherited NAFTA from George "Willie Horton" Bush, and liked it. He and his "New Dem" followers made for the GOP wing of the Democratic Party. The Clintons? I have little regard for their integrity or politics. They did, as you said, set back the party focus upon ordinary people. Neither party is without fault, nor without scoundrels.

The Tina Quote - it is unfortunate she only mentioned distrust with election precesses; and not a distrust of those elected, however god or bad the voting process is. When offered two choices each election, it is like your favorite team, the Packers or the Giants. Those on the West coast and the midwest and south might say, "Why do I have to pick one of those two?"

Tina is not the best and brightest of the host of people in the Democratic Party; indeed she is lesser on both counts than the person whose interrupted term she stepped into, courtesy of Mark Dayton whose "Tax the rich" promise somehow fell through the cracks - and sure, he could point a finger at Kurt Zellers, but Zellers never made the promise.

Each party is at fault. Last, which do you choose, the Packers, or the Giants?

Comment 3 by eric z at 11-Jan-21 07:35 PM
The Parler website - - - Until the Jan 6 Capitol event, I'd never heard of it. Had you, Gary?

Now the situation is advanced. Apple has removed the App as Google has, and Amazon, having a hosting contract for the site, has shut it down, on a claim of breach of terms of service. That is not shutting down one or a few accounts. It is taking the whole site dark until/unless the site owners find some other hosting arrangement. A bet is they don't until after the inauguration. Any bet takers?

This morning a websearch still listed it, the search function is not blacklisting it [DuckDuckGo, not Bing or Google]. But it is dark, with the browser giving a cannot reach that site error message. Full censorship by one private party of another's web speech. It is troubling.

There appear to be no leagal rules, except the absolution in advance where a site provider is not legally liable for content posted - with the current expectation of reasonable site owner responsibility - policing that site policy is followed, no curbed speech gets through, etc.

The classic speech restraint is you cannot shout "Fire" in a crowded theater. Dangerousness of some speech to cause actual harm. Sedition? That is a serious charge. Trump's morning speech transcribed is available on the web. Did Trump incite riot? Your readers, Gary, should hunt down the transcript [I saw it on CBS website] and see whether they believe Trump went too far, or whether he is wrongly blamed. But without looking at a video, and not getting demeanor evidence on Trump and Rudy, even reading a transcript might be insufficient. My impression, I'd cut Trump slack on presumption he really believes he won and is not in it as a hustle to get folks to send him or a front operation money which goes into Trump's pocket. He has a history, Trump University and all, chasing a buck when feasible by means that are questionable.

Response 3.1 by Gary Gross at 15-Jan-21 11:05 PM
I've been using Parler for a couple months before Big Tech took them down. Big Tech is the new fascism. Since Big Tech is highly protective of the DNC, it's fair to say that DNC leadership is fascist. Pelosi is. Ditto with Schumer. Ditto with Harris. Biden isn't only because he's got the acuity of a piece of wood.

Tina Smith excuses Obama, Reid & Pelosi

In her statement about Wednesday's riots on Capitol Hill, Minnesota's Democrat Sen. Tina Smith said "Today's attacks on the U.S. Capitol and federal buildings strike at the core principle of our democracy, that the people decide who represents them. The seditionists were incited by the most destructive and anti-democratic President in our history. For too long, some political leaders, especially the President, have used their power and position to fuel distrust in our elections with no evidence and no purpose other than to advance their own personal political power. It's despicable and runs counter to our oath of office, to protect the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic."

In addition to lying to Minnesotans, Sen. Smith ignores the behavior of President Barack Obama, Speaker Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. First, Sen. Smith told the Democrats' lie that there was no evidence of election fraud. That's an outright lie. The courts didn't deal with the merits of Georgia's consent decree or the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's rewriting election law. Election laws that aren't written by state legislatures aren't valid. Democrats utilized such 'laws' to vote. Those votes shouldn't count.

Next, when Sen. Smith said that President Trump was the most "anti-democratic President in our history", she didn't admit that President Obama got most of his things done with his infamous pen and phone. DACA, DAPA and virtually killing the energy industry were done via executive order or regulations put in place after the 2016 election.

Sen. Smith hasn't admitted that President Obama's stimulus bill essentially passed on a party line vote or any good-faith negotiating. That's when President Obama told Eric Cantor that "We won" before shoving the bill through with Pelosi's and Reid's help. Obama, Pelosi and Reid weren't interested in negotiating, just like AOC isn't interested in negotiating now.
[Video no longer available]
The Democrat Socialists' intransigence is creating GOP frustration. When that frustration boils over, there will be hell to pay. I wouldn't want to be a Democrat then. The Democrats' agenda isn't popular outside their cult. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and AOC don't care about negotiating. AOC said so. Today's Democrats are perfectly comfortable forcing things down people's throats. Think back to Pelosi's most famous statement:
[Video no longer available]
Tina Smith is like Obama, Pelosi, Reid and AOC in that she's willing to overlook the Democrats' strong-arm tactics. Smith puts ideology above people, too.

Posted Monday, January 11, 2021 10:54 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 11-Jan-21 01:51 PM
Who controlled whether there would have been extensive Senate hearings on the Thanksgiving too long and too short a time to read and vote bill; or the Christmas too long and too short a time to read and vote bill? Yes, the same BS was done in the House by Pelosi and crew; budgeting in secrecy being a fault of both parties; and undemocratic when collusion; called "bipartisanship" happens that way. Secret governing is bad, no two ways about it. However, reforming only one of the parties is looking at only half of a big-time problem in the way DC operates and why those folks struggle to try to reach a 20% approval among the people. That is one hell of a bad and ongoing situation. Poseurs and statesmen differ. The former being more prone to be run by money; but slush money feeds not only the problem in both houses, but the revolving door of DC operatives, hand out for a handout before consideration of "best for the nation."

The divisive Democrats

In November, Joe Biden called for unity throughout the nation. Conservatives didn't take him seriously at the time. Conservatives were proven right that Democrats didn't really want unity when Nancy Pelosi decided to impeach President Trump with just 8 days left in President Trump's term in office.

If Democrats impeach President Trump again, it shouldn't be taken seriously. It shouldn't be taken seriously because:

  1. Democrats wouldn't hold impeachment hearings.

  2. Democrats wouldn't call a single witness.

  3. Democrats haven't identified a high crime that President Trump has committed.

  4. Democrats would vote on a single article of impeachment in the middle of the night a week before the inauguration.


With only eight days remaining in President Trump's term, the House of Representatives is barrelling toward a second impeachment vote in the coming days as outrage about the president's role in the storming of the Capitol by his supporters last week continues to reverberate throughout Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will take two major steps toward impeaching Trump, which would make him the only president to be impeached twice. Tuesday evening, the House will vote after 7:30 p.m. on a resolution from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., calling on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. That amendment sets up a process by which the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet may declare to Congress that the president "is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."

The vote likely will not happen until very late Tuesday night.

This isn't something that I'll take seriously. Democrats accuse President Trump of inciting violence. Pardon the pun but that's a trumped up charge on steroids. Nowhere in his speech does President Trump call for violence. He does call for "peacefully" marching up to Capitol Hill to protest the House's actions. That word "peacefully" douses the Democrats' inauthentic claims with ice-cold water. You can't incite violence while peacefully protesting.

Democrat Rep. David Cicilline of RI told CNN this morning that they didn't need an investigation because everyone saw what happened. That's true but it's apparent that Democrats didn't hear what President Trump heard. Democrats continually insist that President Trump incited violence. Either Democrats are liars or they can't hear straight. I'm betting that they're liars.

Democrats have been trying to impeach Trump since the day after the 2016 presidential election. Democrats lost all credibility after this:
[Video no longer available]
Democrats apparently condone threats and intimidation against Republicans but they're prepared to impeach a president who didn't incite violence. That's why I won't take the Democrats' impeachment seriously.

Posted Tuesday, January 12, 2021 2:54 PM

No comments.

Nancy Pelosi's faux impeachment 2.0 is just the beginning

Anyone that thinks that Impeachment 2.0 is serious isn't paying attention. Big Tech's silencing of Parler is the start of the Far-Left's authoritarian agenda. Glenn Greenwald's reporting is frightening.

Throughout the article, he warns of the Far-Left's real agenda. Nowhere does it come through clearer than when he writes "The liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg pronounced herself 'disturbed by just how awesome [tech giants'] power is' and added that 'it's dangerous to have a handful of callow young tech titans in charge of who has a megaphone and who does not.' She nonetheless praised these 'young tech titans' for using their 'dangerous' power to ban Trump and destroy Parler. In other words, liberals like Goldberg are concerned only that Silicon Valley censorship powers might one day be used against people like them, but are perfectly happy as long as it is their adversaries being de-platformed and silenced (Facebook and other platforms have for years banned marginalized people like Palestinians at Israel's behest, but that is of no concern to U.S. liberals)."

Then he wrote this:
That is because the dominant strain of American liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism . Liberals now want to use the force of corporate power to silence those with different ideologies. They are eager for tech monopolies not just to ban accounts they dislike but to remove entire platforms from the internet. They want to imprison people they believe helped their party lose elections, such as Julian Assange, even if it means creating precedents to criminalize journalism.

Paul Wellstone and Hubert Humphrey would be upset. They'd be angry, too, because today's Democrats have become corporatists and fascists. Wellstone's love of debate and Humphrey's libertarianism has disappeared.
This is chilling:
[Video no longer available]

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2021 7:20 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 14-Jan-21 09:09 AM
You are attacking fascism without calling it what it is. Possibly fascism on the GOP side squares okay with you?

For years, three networks were the agenda. Eisenhower onward, telling the story as it was written for them. Now with the web fascism needs to impose on it.

And the Google owners and Schmit their apparent front man, and Bezos, are not young. Relative to Pelosi and Trump, Hoyer and Biden, younger, but NOT young.

Gates? Look up his age. He's taking over his dad's mantle. A new old-white-guys generation of fascists; and the two-party DC revolving door revolves - one big club and you ain't in it, like the man said.



On your party's side, wave the flag and go to church. Progressives are dispossessed of any say. Tea Party has been discredited by Trump, doing his job for the team.



Open eyes, Gary. And Harris? Pliant, and accepted. She does as much flip-flopping as Bubba did, and seems his equal in integrity. Scratch beneath the surface, she

has Hollywood ties and gravitas through marriage, Clyburn likes her; and Clyburn (like Bloomberg) fronted Biden. Along with Comcast, so figure propaganda going into the election, and lo, Biden won.

You do not really think things will change, do you? Trump blustered out populism and cut taxes for the wealthy along with GOP House and Senate GOP leadership and no real objection from establishment Dems. Apparently Trump during it all was in debt up to his ears, and adaptable on that score, while pandering to get votes. Manchin is already salivating over a 50-50 split so that he can advance his millionaire agenda and be recognized as the swing-vote team player he is for the fascist team - in each party, And West Virginia keeps sending him back to screw his ostensible constituency. Go figure.

If you want to play any founding father games, read up on their distrust of standing armies when not clearly at war. Why the word "militia" was used; Second Amendment. Seems they did not want a police state. They just liked capitalism and ownership of other imported humans. 1792, on the dawn of becoming a nation, Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Law and order dudes, their way, taxing the frontier for the benefit of the East Coast.

Federalism in hands of a propertied elite. Oh my.

Comment 2 by eric z at 14-Jan-21 10:00 AM
Breitbart:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/01/11/lawsuit-amazon-blacklisted-parler-due-to-political-animus/



Parler is suing Amazon A web search will show multiple reporting; none of which I've read. The Breitbart item links to the pdf text of the complaint;



Parler is using a lawyer from Olympia, Washington. Not an established firm, as best as I can see. That may be because of venue.



Parler wants injunctive relief, to be put back onto the web - claiming irreparable damage if not reinstated. Also claiming Sherman Act violation and breach of contract.



Unlike the prolix "paper snow" often filed, the complaint is held to 19 pages. Not suing in DC but "IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE." Where Amazon is headquartered.



Your readers may want to check it out. The Prayer for Relief seeks treble damages [per Sherman Act] as well as reinstatement.



Breitbart links to the item at "Court Listener" a page maintained by "Free Law Project." That gets into another story entirely. Pacer and having a federal courts paywall between citizens and federal court posting of online filed court documents. Pay to play.

Is Impeachment 2.0 Benghazi 2.0?

Based on this article , it's reasonable to question whether the Capitol Hill riot was pre-planned. It's apparent that this wasn't a spontaneous reaction.

According to the article, "Evidence uncovered so far, including weapons and tactics seen on surveillance video, suggests a level of planning that has led investigators to believe the attack on the US Capitol was not just a protest that spiraled out of control, a federal law enforcement official says." That fits with what President Trump said at the Save America rally. At that rally, President Trump said "We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard . Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections, but whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country."

President Trump didn't incite insurrection just like Benghazi wasn't a spontaneous uprising about a video. Benghazi was pre-planned just like the Capitol Hill riot. That means that Impeachment 2.0 is just as illegitimate as the first impeachment. At the end of this video, Nancy Pelosi announced that 232 people voted for impeachent:
[Video no longer available]
That means that:

  1. every Democrat voted for impeachment;

  2. every Democrat voted without hearing a single witness;

  3. every Democrat voted for impeachment because they hate President Trump;

  4. every Democrat voted for impeachment without the House conducting an investigation.


Here's hoping that Democrats get totally obliterated in the 2022 midterm elections. Here's hoping that those 10 back-stabbing Republicans lose their primaries, too. Good riddance to those back-stabbers.

Posted Thursday, January 14, 2021 3:24 PM

No comments.

Susan Page's sloppy impeachment reporting

Susan Page's sloppy impeachment reporting is worthy of criticism. That's especially true in light of the fact that John Sullivan , a known left-wing agitator, "can allegedly be heard egging on protesters in video he provided to the FBI, according to a federal criminal complaint. He has also shared the video to his YouTube and Twitter accounts under the pseudonym Jayden X."

Page's reporting is indisputably sloppy. Now that Sullivan "was charged Thursday in federal court in Washington after being arrested by the FBI", it's safe to say that Nancy Pelosi's impeachment of President Trump is sloppier than the first impeachment of President Trump. This video lays things out pretty precisely:
[Video no longer available]
That video does a far more accurate job than Ms. Page did. This paragraph from Ms. Page's article is particularly sloppy in light of the new information:
The storming of the Capitol last week by a mob egged on by the president has brought a rapid judgment not only from the lawmakers whose lives were threatened on that violent day but also from other Americans who bore witness. The nation's broader culture - from business leaders and bankers to coaches and golf pros and social media platforms - has delivered an unprecedented series of rebukes as well.

Now that we know that left-wing agitators infiltrated the crowd, it's time to re-examine the theory that this was the work of an angry right-wing mob. This should dispel that myth:
Sullivan also allegedly told Foulger that he had been in the Capitol during the riot, entering through a broken window while wearing a ballistic vest. As protesters climbed over a wall near the Capitol entrance, he allegedly exclaimed in the video, "You guys are f------ savage. Let's go!"

"There are so many people," Sullivan's voice can be heard saying as the camera shows a large group of people making its way toward the building. "Let's go. This s--- is ours! F-- yeah. I can't believe this is reality. We accomplished this s---," he said at another point "We did this together. F--- yeah! We are all a part of this history."

Thank God we know that President Trump got this mob riled up. At least, that's the media mob's storyline. Finally, there's this :
"There's this narrative going around right now that Antifa was the people there causing the riots, causing the tension, they were the only people breaking into the Capitol, and I wanted to be able to tell a part of history and show that that was anything but the case," John Sullivan, the founder of Utah-based Insurgence USA, told Fox News Thursday.

Insurgence USA describes itself as "the revolution." It began protesting racial injustice in policing last year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

In August 2020 remarks to a small crowd at a Washington, D.C., intersection, Sullivan pointed to the nearby White House and unleashed a torrent of violent rhetoric. "We ... about to burn this s--- down," he said. "We gotta ... rip Trump right out of that office right there," he continued, adding, "We ain't about ... waiting until the next election." He then led the crowd in a chant of, "It's time for revolution."

That confirms that this riot wasn't President Trump's making. This shames Nancy Pelosi's "snap impeachment." It's just a replay of the Nick Sandman/Covington Catholic story where the media mob assigned blame, then were forced to retract their stories when the full video came out.

Posted Friday, January 15, 2021 5:53 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 15-Jan-21 10:09 AM
Think about a post on the funding fallout - all the corporate turncoats who were on the Trump bandwagon and now are distancing themselves, their money, from politicians who express beliefs against the validity of the 2020 presidential election process. It seems the "We wanted our Joe - We got our Joe," outlook mirrors a fascist merger of big banking and big international business to defend their election result. The Business Roundtable posted one of the first online congrats to their Joe. Now there is defunding and reorientation, and media and money (the same driving people in each) along with Lincoln Project operatives who collectively in a nearly single voice have anointed Status Quo as their main objective. Status quo being Deep State again (still?) in the driver's seat; or is that a wrong impression? Denying that the nation is now a fascist combine of government and business - not labor - seems to become a harder and harder task; yet MSM perseveres. This Capitol event has a miasma of structured intent to discredit a part of the GOP base that has not been pliant enough to big capital. Or is threatening such a stand-apart approach.

Confusion of fascism as an organization structure with how in the middle of the last century it involved single figure concentrated political power - just like Stalin in socialist government - is to ignore fascism by committee. By a community of like minded fascists who see control strong without any socialist strength to counter via any need for a strong-man set-up.

Fascism is how an economy runs and how a government actually operates - so what about Deep State fascism with power spread between revolving door political operatives enriching themselves and fat cat donors buying favors from the revolving door folks.

Or Gary, do you disagree? Your thoughts would be welcome if you ever choose to pursue the topic. Fascism without a political/governmental strong-man boss.

It gets into a "What is the key defining aspect of 'Fascism'" where there is much room to explore.

One aspect would be group-think where politics hinges on very narrow, minuscule differences and where advocates of any "polar positions," i.e., deviant in any even minor fashion away from a narrow spectrum, conservative-libertarian or progressive-socialist thinking for example, get squelched by government, economic heavy hitters, and a press with what amounts to a singular voice.

Gary, do you think your readers might have views one way or another about whether we are headed to fascism or are already strongly there now?

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 15-Jan-21 11:00 PM
Wall Street fat-cats weren't part of Trump's campaign. In 2016, Hillary outraised Trump by 2:1, with most of that advantage coming from max contribution bundlers from Wall Street. This time, the vast majority of Trump contributions were from small online donors. The Trump base is the Democrats' former base.

The Deep State remains because Democrats defended them when they didn't insist that the Deep State didn't exist. This is the definition of fascism that I rely on:

a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce.

Comment 2 by eric z at 16-Jan-21 12:41 PM
So you say Stalin was a fascist? A Marxist fascist? Saudi Arabia then is fascist under MBS?

You say fascism cannot exist without an all-powerful dictator? That it is not an economic cohesion thing, if a top dog strong boss is absent? What of the velvet glove vs. the iron fist? By your definition two-party fascism cannot exist. Yet we are living it.

Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 19-Jan-21 12:23 AM
I didn't say that "fascism cannot exist without an all-powerful dictator." People are either successful or unsuccessful in establishing a fascist government. That doesn't mean that the person isn't a fascist. Pelosi's governing tendencies are fascistic. Fortunately, at least until now, she's been thwarted. Big Tech thirsts for a fascist government where they silence the leader of the free world but let communists spread lies so they have part of the Chinese market.

Mike Pompeo's foreign policy accomplishments

Fred Kaplan's article is proof that progressives are idiots. It's Kaplan's opinion that Mike Pompeo is the worst secretary of state in our nation's history. Kaplan wrote "Through his two years and nine months as the nation's top diplomat, Pompeo has said or done nothing that's enhanced our security, our values, or even - right or wrong - his administration's own policies."

The only accomplishments that Mike Pompeo had as Secretary of State was moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, negotiate (as part of a team) the Abraham Accords with 5 Arab nations, box Iran in after the disastrous JCPOA that John Kerry capitulated on, held a legitimate red line with Syria and helping take out Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the IRGC. That's unless you want to give him partial credit for the USMCA and Phase I trade deal with China and playing an integral role in de-escalating tensions between North Korea and the other Pacific Rim nations.
Like Trump, Pompeo ceaselessly inveighed against the Iran nuclear deal; it is no coincidence that Trump pulled out of the deal and re-imposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic on May 8, 2018, just 12 days after Pompeo was sworn in as secretary. (His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, had advised Trump to stay in the deal.) Pompeo claimed, with swaggering confidence, that the sanctions would compel Tehran back to negotiate a 'better' nuclear deal - or possibly force a collapse of the regime. Fast forward to today: Iran's economy is a wreck, but the regime survives, its hardline factions are stronger than before, and its reactors are closer than ever to churning out an atomic bomb. (President-elect Joe Biden wants to restart the nuclear deal, but Iran's technological progress and the stiffening of its politics will make this harder to accomplish.)

Thanks to John Kerry's talks with the Iranians after leaving office, Iran held out in hopes of a Biden administration. The bad news for Biden is that the Arab nations that've signed onto the Abraham Accords with Israel hate Iran. The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, along with nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait will balk at the US rejoining the JCPOA. They were driven into the Abraham Accords with Israel because of Kerry's coziness with Iran. Here's the Abraham Accords Declaration:

President Trump and Mike Pompeo have a lengthy list of foreign policy accomplishments. By contrast, the Obama-Biden administrations has a lengthy list of foreign policy failures.

Posted Saturday, January 16, 2021 4:13 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 16-Jan-21 12:14 PM
Gotta sign unreadable gimmick signatures with a Sharpie pen, it is a GOP party requirement.

Again a guess, Pompeo ends up the GOP 2024 top of the ticket candidate. They've already got you, Gary, beating that drum.

Proof Angie Craig isn't a moderate

Angie Craig appeared on TPT Almanac Friday night. During the second segment of the show, co-anchor Eric Eskola used a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., in a 1967 speech at Stanford. In that speech, Rev. King said "But in the final analysis, riots are the language of the unheard. What has America not heard?" To put Eskola's question in context, he said "Rev. King said riots are the voice of the unheard. We've had riots across the political and social spectrum this past year. How do we get a truce here? How do we calm things down?"

Rep. Craig is supposedly a moderate Democrat but her reply was anything but moderate. She replied "Well, I don't know how you get a truce with violent criminals who are invading the nation's Capitol. I think what we have to do is understand that it is upon every single elected official in this nation to tell the truth and so I think we start with the truth, Eric, and we go from there. But until we really understand and start telling the truth again as elected officials, I think you're going to have a segment of President Trump's base who is -- they're just out of control at the moment."

What does "President Trump's base" have to do with this summer's riots in Portland, Seattle, New York, Minneapolis and Chicago? Remember that Mr. Eskola's question was about "riots across the political and social spectrum this past year. How do we get a truce here? How do we calm things down?" Here's the video of the entire segment:
[Video no longer available]
Rep. Craig was asked about this summer's riots. Instead, she deflected with typical DFL talking points about the Jan. 6 riots. Notice that she didn't highlight far-left activist John Sullivan's arrest in Utah in connection with inciting the Capitol Hill Riots. In the video, which I can't find anywhere, Sullivan cleary disrupts or obstructs Capitol Police from protecting lawmakers. Here's Page 1 of his arresting affidavit:

Angie Craig has twice voted to impeach President Trump. In both instances, Rep. Craig voted to impeach the president without hearing from a single eyewitness with firsthand information of the incident. In both instances, Rep. Craig voted for impeachment without an impeachable offense having been committed. Craig isn't as wild-eyed as AOC or Ilhan Omar but she's still pretty far left. Voting twice for impeachment without eyewitness testimony or without the president committing an impeachable offense is the definition of radical.

Posted Tuesday, January 19, 2021 8:12 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 19-Jan-21 03:36 PM
It would be good if Craig were primaried by a progressive who'd win. Craig is beholden to her corporate background and should move off the centerline of the road toward progress so that she'd not need to be primaried.

And why did Craig have to vote twice to impeach?

BECAUSE - Too many Senators lacked the courage and sound judgment to do what was best for the nation the first time; that is why.

Craig's biggest failure? She did not outdraw Jason Lewis the first time. People in the district made a mistake the first time. But they learned.

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 20-Jan-21 05:25 AM
First, President Trump never committed an impeachable offense. Second, no witness with firsthand knowledge of the impeachable offense was brought forward in either case.

What was the high crime that President Trump supposedly committed a year ago?

Comment 2 by John Palmer at 21-Jan-21 08:25 PM
Gary, when you have your mind made up you do not want to be confused by the facts. Testimony might provide some inconvenient facts and that might reveal your bias. Angie Craig dodged Eric's question because that's what hack politicians do.

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