Ohio + Midterms

Tryanmax asked my thoughts on the Ohio special election and I thought I would make a quick article out of it and the midterms/special elections so far in general.

● Ohio: The media wants to make Ohio a big anti-Trump moment. They were more sure of this when it looked like the Democrat was going to win the historically Republican district, but even now that the Republican has narrowly won, they are happily (though nervously) calling this evidence of Democratic momentum. It's not.

Special elections are about turnout. The Republican won by 101.5k to 99.8k. That's 200,000 votes. In a normal election, roughly 360,000 people vote. So it's impossible to see a trend except that the Democrats turned out better. The Democrats usually get around say 130k, so it's not like they broke some barrier either. What's more, while the media says this shows that rural and suburban whites are turning against the GOP -- because that's what the district mainly is -- the reality is that 67% of the Democratic vote came from minority and poor inner-city neighborhoods around Columbus. So, about the only thing we can conclude is that core Democratic voters were more excited - 76% turnout to 50% turnout. That's not surprising, nor do I think that carries over to a general election.

● Socialist Flameout: Every single candidate endorsed by "wunderkind" Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost in Democratic primaries across the country last night. Coincidentally, Bernie Sanders endorsed the same people. Sadly, I don't know that this shows anything. These kinds of elections are inherently local and I think all this tells us is that the name of the guy you know is stronger than the endorsement of some outsider. I guess what it does show us is what we already knew: there's no socialist wave waiting to wash away sitting Democrats. Indeed, even Ocasio-Cortez's election involved something like 4% of the voters, so it was a fluke really. Look for this to lower the intensity on the Democratic side significantly as the far(ther) left starts to mope.

● Year Of The Woman Again: As usual, the left is declaring the annual "Year of the Woman." They are pointing to the stillborn Pussyhead March and the moribund, now-boomeranging #metoo witch hunts as evidence that women are finally finding their voices (what a cliche), and they are dreaming that this means female candidates will sweep the nation. There was even talk the other day that women might sweep away the Democratic leadership and (oh boy, this is exciting) we might finally have a female Speaker of the House (uh, so what was Nancy Pelosi?). Anyways, the reality on the ground just isn't there... as usual.

I don't have any particular numbers (itself suspicious) and I'm not going to go do the math myself at the moment, but all the women the left points to as potentially creating this supposed Year of the Woman keep losing their primaries. Even more ironically, the couple that I've seen make it through the primaries are doing so against Republican women. Right now, I would say that womanhood is irrelevant to this election cycle.

● Washington State: Washington State seems to have the left giddy. They have a California-like system where everyone runs together and the top two advance. And last night, in three districts held by Republicans, the Republicans underperformed. What's more, when you add up the Democrats and add up the Republicans, the Democrats were only a point or two below 50% Oh boy! Yeah, and that's about turn out. When the bulk of GOP voters turn out in the general election, look for those numbers to separate significantly again.

If there's an overall takeaway from last night, it's that nothing unusual is happening this year. The incumbents lack enthusiasm, a normal problem in midterms for the incumbent party. There is no socialist wave. There is no estrogen wave. A couple incumbents lose, but it's mainly due to mistakes or negligence, and it's in both parties. This is a very normal year.

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More Insight Into The Sickness That Is Liberalism

I've always told you that liberalism/socialism is basically premised on spite. It thrives on the idea that others having less is as good as or better than me having more. Well, here's an interesting bit of proof of that.

This proof comes from an actress named Ruth Wilson. Wilson plays a character on the Showtime show "The Affair." She recently complained about unequal pay for the women on her show and now her character has been killed off, leading some to speculate there is a connection. That isn't what interests us though. What interests us is her original complaint.

In February, Wilson complained about the men on the show making more money than the women. She also complained about her opposite, Dominic West, making more than she does. She then said three very telling things. First, she admitted that she doesn't even know if West makes more than her. She said:

“I definitely get less money than a male in my situation would. Definitely.”

But then said this about how much more:

“So he definitely gets more than me. I mean, I don’t know what the figure is, but I’m sure he does.”

In other words, she has no clue. She doesn't know if he makes more or not, she just assumes he does because he's a man and in her world, she would be paid more if she were a man. So her entire world view is premised on an assumption about which she knows nothing. Very typical on the left.

Oh, and could there be a reason he gets paid more (assuming he does)? Well, yes.

“Yeah. I think so. Certainly when I signed up to that project, I would have got paid less. Then they the producers might argue, ‘Well, he’s already done a major American TV show [The Wire] so he’s already got a level.’”

But hey, they've both been on the same show now for a couple years, so none of that counts, right? Never mind that he's still got a better resume, more experience, and might have more appeal... meaning it will cost more to keep him. That thought never occurs to her. To her, they've both been doing the job, so they should get paid the same, right? I wonder if she'll feel the same when some newbie joins some future show she's been on or if she'll want what she "deserves" then? I'm guessing the same rules won't apply then.

Anyways, she wasn't done spouting off her ignorance. See, when asked why she doesn't know how much Dominic makes, she said it was hard to ask him and she blamed him for not telling her. In fact, this woman, who no doubt describes herself as "strong" said:

“It’s sort of funny. It’s quite hard to bring that up in a way. But it needs to be an open discussion and men need to help us out.”

In other words, she wants men to give her everything she's entitled too without her having to do the work of even asking questions... because that's hard. Worthless.

And then we come to the really insidious part. Up to now, she's just been a typical stupid liberal who doesn't have a clue what she's talking about, but is strident in her victimization and wants her victimizer to make it all better for her without her having to do any work to make it happen. "Somebody do something!!!" Well, now we get to what it is she actually wants. Check this out:

“I don’t want more money, I just want equal money. Which means men have to take less.”

There it is: spite. I don't really want more, I just want others to have less. This is the most illogical, pathetic, hateful crap that comes from the bottom of the human soul, and yet it seems to be the basis of socialism. You see this all the time, where it doesn't matter if it helps the whiner or not, they just want to see others brought down. You own too much, we need to take it! You are too successful, we need to stop you! You are too good in school or sports, we need to eliminate that! How does that help me? It does, but it makes me feel better. That's pure spite.

They've run tests on monkeys and found that some monkeys actually prefer to deny other monkeys treats than get their own treats, when given the option. In other words, spite is an instinct in some. We're supposed to be smarter than that as a species, but liberals aren't. They would rather that you fail than that they succeed. This dumb ape, Ruth Wilson, wants men to a make less because she thinks that would be fair. What a hateful, ignorant sh*t.

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Just A Quick Thought Tonight

There's something wrong with the media. Surprise, right? I mean it though. There is something fundamentally wrong.

Here's the thing. I've been watching the sports media for some time. They suffer all the usual problems as the rest of the media -- politically biased, uneducated, stupid, monkey-see-monkey-do-ism, and smugness. But in the past couple years, I've noticed more. I've noticed that the media seems intent on destroying the thing they cover.

If there is a flaw, they not only report it, they aggrandize it. They blow it up into the proportions of a scandal. They treat it like an intentional, personal affront. If there is anyone who attacks a particular league (particularly the NFL), they treat these people as national heroes. They promote their cause, lie for them, attack those who refute or disagree, and do their best to bring as much disgrace to the league as they could. No issue is too petty for them to adopt. No issue is too minor to use to demand resignation, boycotts, and shutdowns. They are cheering for Kapernick to win his ludicrous collusion case, they want the players to go on strike, they want owners brought down for exercising the same rights they want the players to have total immunity to exercise, and they want the idea of concussions to end football itself. They want the league destroyed for moving a team to Las Vegas, where gamblers might find them! They want anyone ever accused of harassment or domestic abuse forever banned... except that it's racist when it happens. Punish the league when they do, punish them when they don't. They attack player suspensions... and the falure to take action" against bad players. They attack new safety regulations... and the NFL's failure to care about safety. Teams are racist. Logos are racist and the NFL should lose its trademark protection! And so on and so on. Any issue, no matter who worthless, becomes a cause for the destruction of some aspect of the league.

The more I watch, the more obvious it becomes that their behavior goes beyond even willful bias. It goes to the point of overt hostility, with the unstated goal being the destruction of the NFL, Major League baseball and whatever else. Why?

And I see similar behavior among a lot of the MSM in the political arena. Naturally, they want to destroy the GOP and Trump, but they seem even more hostile than that. They seem to embrace ideas that will fundamentally destroy America and American democracy. It's like they hate the rest of us and what this country is.

I'm not sure where this has come from, but I see it in today's media and growing all the time. I never saw this in the past. Something has gone very wrong.

Thoughts?

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"Not Sustainable"

Yep. That's socialism in a nutshell. Margaret Thatcher once famously said that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. So True. Yet, our low-IQ friends on the left never seem to understand this. Consider what we've seen the past year or two.

● Guaranteed Minimum "Income"

Ontario announced just yesterday that they were ending their experiment with a free basic income. The plan had been to give single people up to $17,000 a year each and married people up to $24,000, with those faking a disability another $6,000. But the plan was cancelled less than a single year into its three year plan. Why? According to Canuck Authorities, "It wasn't sustainable." In other words, it cost too much and made people too lazy. Yeah, no sh*t, eh?!

Sweden tried this last year too. They wanted to give cash to the long-term unemployed in the hopes that they would no longer feel so stressed out about finding work and would go get jobs with the stress gone. You know... for fun. That lasted only a few months into a three year plan too. Why? It wasn't working and it was costing too much. Really? Shocker!

Yet, leftists like these new socialist turds keep pushing the idea.

● Medicare for All

Bernie came up with a way to say "socialized medicine" without it sounding so harsh. He called it Medicare for all! A study released the other day, and widely reported, concluded that this would cost around $32 TRILLION to implement. And given how government works, that's understated by a factor of five. To give you a sense of perspective, the entire federal budget for 2018 is $3.6 trillion. So this would cost about 9 times the entire federal budget. Or said differently, it would mean taxes of about $100,000 a year per every man, woman and child in this country. Nice work, Bernie!

● Venezuela

Venezuela has reached the point all socialist countries reach eventually. Total poverty. Shortages of fuel, food, medicine. The total absence of basic consumer goods. The shuttering of factories. Roving gangs of killers trying to stay alive. China was headed in this direction until they went capitalist. Now they're super rich. Vietnam, same thing. Eastern Europe, same thing. Even Russia kind of sort of did this. No socialist system has lasted long. Every socialist system has drive the country in question to the brink of cannibalism. Capitalism saved them all. So why are so many Democrats proud to be called socialists? Are they just psychopaths or are they monsterously stupid... because there's no other possibility.

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Fake News... Whoops

I had such a happy moment this weekend when I read how the publisher of the New York Times "implored" Trump to stop his attacks on the media because his attacks were "not just divisive, but increasingly dangerous." Oh, that felt good.

Do you remember when the words "fake news" were first spoken? They were spoken by the leftist collective, MSM journalists in particular, and they were repeated by all the other leftist MSM types within hours. Gee, it was like a planned attack. Huh. And who did they attack with this? Fox News and other right-wing sites, and they did it with the idea of de-legitimizing them. In fact, the idea was even grander than that. The idea was that they, the MSM, had just appointed themselves as the arbiters of who would and would not be considered real news. Thus, by simply pointing at someone they didn't like, like Brietbart or Fox, and saying, "Fake News," they could get the herd to stop listening to anything those sites said.

Even more disturbingly, they also spoke of regulating "fake news" sites. So not only would they tell the herd not to listen to places like Fox, but leftists like the New York Times wanted to strip places like Fox and Breitbart of any of the protections our Constitution affords journalists and maybe even get them regulated into reporting only what places like the New York Times thought appropriate.

It was a truly evil idea.

But as you may recall, I chuckled. I chuckled because it was obvious to me that these good little Hitlerian liberals had no idea what kind of monster they were unleashing. The problem was that there was no one to say who could call whom fake news. They didn't see this, though anyone with a brain could. And indeed, within days, that is what happened. Trump was even one of the first to turn this against them. Soon others followed. And it never stopped. Now Trump has taken up this refrain to great effect and it blasting them with it daily.

So this weekend, the New York Times tweeted that Trump needs to stop attacking the MSM as "fake news" because he's killing their reputation with the public and they've hit an all-time low in terms of trustworthiness. Even worse, the Times whined, journalists are finding that the public holds them in such low esteem that the situation is becoming "dangerous" for them as certain less-stable members of the public see them as "enemies of the public" (something Trump has said too).

I have no sympathy for this. Indeed, I think it's well-earned. Keep in mind, as I just discussed, this all started because they were trying to do this very thing to conservative media groups. What's more, they've spent the whole last two years trying to destroy Trump. And I say that meaning it. They aren't criticizing Trump, they are trying to destroy him. They've published actual fake news as true (sure, they usually apologize, but not until after their lies become conventional wisdom). They smear him with rumor. They smear him hypocritically. They publish things against his family they would NEVER had allowed against Obama. And even when they haven't flat out lied they've used such a vile spin that they've certainly fed the derangement syndrome with which so many on the left and in the MSM (and a few on the right) are beset.

As an aside, this is so typical of liberals. They come up with these horrific ideas to destroy their enemies and then squeal like stuck pigs when the ideas get turned against them. It's funny how the Independent Counsel law, vote rigging in California, speech codes, fake news and the such are all fine and dandy and noble until they snare liberals. "No one could have seen this coming! Somebody needs to do something! This wasn't what we intended!"

Ha ha.

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Yeah, About That...

So I've been trying hard to figure out why, other than derangement, the anti-Trumps think this recording of him apparently talking about buying the silence of some woman he had an affair with is such a big deal. Some do claim the moral element matters, but they didn't care about Clinton or dozens others. So that's not it. Well, I think I figured it out. And what a joke it is.

For those not paying attention -- for which I can hardly blame you -- Trump's former lawyer is in trouble for some sort of crimes he committed which apparently were enough to break the attorney client privilege, though I actually doubt that to be true. His lawyer has since decided to play mafia don and is threatening to release all kinds of evil secrets if people don't help him. Aiding him in this, is his own attorney -- Lanny Davis -- who was a Clinton attorney. Funny how that works.

Anyways, this week, "someone" release the smoking gun tape that was supposed to destroy Trump and lead to his impeachment and incarceration. On the tape, Trump is apparently (the tape is unclear at key points) talking to this attorney about paying off this woman to buy her silence. Shocker! End of the world! The horror!

The only problem is that there's nothing illegal or shocking about this. Pubic figures do this all the time. It sounds like they were trying to be a little more clever about it than most by not letting her know the money came from Trump (it would come from a dummy production company supposedly to buy her story) but that's not illegal either.

So what is this smoking gun that has the anti-Trumps so excited?

No one can really say. They all just seem to know that THIS IS IT!!!

So I started digging. What I've found is everyone repeating the litany that this "could involve" tax fraud (failure to declare income), campaign finance violations, wire/telephone fraud, and conspiracy to commit the other crimes. Sounds horrible, but here's the thing... the key word is "could." The people who claim this is a smoking gun are adding a step to their logic that they aren't admitting. This payment is only tax fraud, wired/phone fraud or a campaign finance violation IF those things ALSO occurred. That's like saying, "Andrew could be guilty of bank robbery, as shown his admission of speeding, IF he was speeding as part of a bank robbery." Talk about overstating the significance of the speeding ticket.

In this case, all we know is that Trump did nothing wrong or illegal or unethical. His attorney did by releasing this information and should be disbarred and maybe imprisoned, but Trump didn't. The rest is all wishful thinking.

What's more. The tax fraud would arise if the woman didn't declare it as income. That's not on Trump. The wire fraud and phone fraud would be her use of the phones or the mails as well, unless Trump's used them to commit campaign finance fraud. Campaign finance fraud only arises if Trump used campaign money to pay for this and didn't declare it, and I've seen no evidence of that -- and I suspect that tape would have been released if it existed. So these crimes aren't even Trump's. Their best bet would be some sort of conspiracy charge, where they claim Trump conspired with the woman to help her commit tax fraud, but that's a super stretch.

So all told, there's simply no smoke here. Imagine that.

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Those Silly Leftists...

So get this...

● In the name of helping college students avoid student loan debt, colleges are apparently experimenting with taking a percentage of future income rather than issuing loans. This used to be called indentured servitude and was one of the things that was banned after the Victorian Age because it was tantamount to slavery. So liberal colleges are re-instituting slavery. Well, liberals do love repeating history.

● Income inequality, the left's favorite cause, is rising... in liberal states. In fact, it's worst in these states: New York, Florida, Connecticut, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, California, Nevada and Wyoming. In each of those, the difference between the top and the bottom is at least 30times with California being the only state in the 40s. Most states are in the high teens. Illinois just barely missed the list at 29. So the five top liberal states, dominate the list, with the sixth close by. As for the others, Florida and Nevada are blue-trending swing states. Wyoming, the only conservative/red state on the list, is probably a statistical anomaly, since no one lives there. So once again, liberal states are the home of what liberals complain about.

● I have been telling you that there are a lot of problems in the alignment of the tribes on the left. Some of them just don't fit together. Blacks and women don't play well together. Atheists and blacks. Environmentalists and unions.

One group that fits particularly poorly on the left are gays. Moreover, within the gay community, I've always thought that male-transgenders/transvestites do not fit well at all with lesbians or women generally. There are three problems with this relationship. First, lesbians tend to be anti-male, regardless of how the male dresses. Secondly, trans-males typically are using a stereotype of women that is more than a little misogynist. You see this really intensely with drag queens, who mimic women in ways that would get a heterosexual man torn apart by the #metoo community, and it seems to carry over into other aspects of the trans community. Third, when you have trans-men trying to join things that are set aside for womyn, you run into deep tribal problems. We see this in recent events with trans-men like Bruce/Caitlin Jenner being award Woman of the Year and thereby taking one of the few things the genetic woman tribe have set aside for themselves. You see it also in the trans-men who go into women's sports and "surprisingly" dominate because no matter how they look, they still have more powerful male bodies.

Anyways, in the past few months, there have been a growing number of clashes between lesbians/feminists and the trans community. Just the other day Facebook actually banned a UK feminist group for "transphobia" in their posting. A month ago, a lesbian group brought protest signs against trans groups to a gay pride rally. Look for this rift to continue to worsen, especially now that gays are no longer tied to the collective for political reasons and are free to attack whomever they want.

● The left is upset that dirty evil banks are stepping up their lobbying efforts because they feel like they haven't gotten anything from the Trump administration. Think about that. The left is pointing a nasty finger at Trump because banks are hiring more lobbyists because Trump isn't giving them what they want. Shouldn't they be celebrating the fact Trump is standing up to the banks? Not this left.

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The Democratic CIVIL WAR!!!

What has struck me lately is the coverage... or lack thereof... of the "Democratic Civil War"!

For most of my life, the media has written almost continuously about the "Republican Civil War." Time and again, this was the theme the collective media ran with. Whether they were talking about Reagan versus the country clubbers, the GOP driving out the racists, the flight of the libertarians, the exodus (in-odus?) of the Religious Right, the revolt against Bush 1, Pat Buchannan versus George Bush, conservatives versus McCain, the Tea Party, Trump versus sanity, etc. In each instance, the storyline was that there was a "civil war" in Republican ranks and the "inevitable" implosion/explosion/break-up/shattering/END of the Republican Party™.

Now, in some of these instances, the feuds were indeed quite nasty. Some definitely changed the party for the worse, while some changed it for the better. Some people did leave the party during each of these. But the party never broke up. There was almost never a threat of the party falling apart. The body of the party really almost never turned on itself (the elites are a different matter -- they've never been loyal). So in the end, the idea of a civil war proved ludicrous even as that's been the constant liberal MSM headline since the 1970s.

On the other hand, the Democrats have periodically engaged in Civil War. They've expelled the small business class. They expelled white males. They tribalized and went to war with each other over the ranking of tribal pet peeves. In 1968, their fringe got famously violent. They unseated LBJ. They have rigged their elections and their conventions. They've sabotaged each other. They've run as third parties. And unlike Republicans, they do stay home when their ideological guy doesn't make it through the primaries. And for about two decades now, there has been a power struggle between "progressives" and progressives-who-think-they're-moderates (MORONS). Despite all of this, there hasn't been a peep about a "civil war."

This election cycle, the progressives have decided that being progressives isn't satisfying enough. They've decided to call themselves "socialists," though they SWEAR they aren't really socialists //wink wink. See, they don't want to nationalize things, they just want the government to run our health system system ("medicare for all" or "single payer")... and to set wages ($15 minimum)... and price controls ("drug companies, housing")... and open borders (end to ICE)... and open season for criminals (thugs need hugs, cops should be in jail). So yeah, not socialist.

The rest of the Democrats are freaking out because they see their best chance to win power slipping away from this idiocy and they are rigging their convention (again), using dirty tricks to rig primaries (again), planning third party runs... the usual stuff. It's indeed getting quite nasty with each side refusing in many ways to support the other and likely not turning out for the other. Yet, not a peep of a Democratic Civil War. Gee, I wonder why that is?

As an aside, lest you worry that the Democrats will be overrun by this new breed of "Democratic Socialist," (1) these are the same people who've tried it for 20 years and they've made no headway, (2) ironically, they are fighting against the MORONS who are essentially ideologically identical to them so their victory would mean no real change, (3) the Democrats are too tribal to pull anything off, and (4) this new group of open socialists numbers only around 50,000 people despite the headlines of a growing movement... that's it. There are probably more prohibitionists in the US. So this is much sound and fury signifying nothing, but man is it a lot of sound and a lot of fury... unless you hear the MSM tell it.

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Interesting

So this is rather telling, in my opinion. It deals with the left and how they "think".

Elon Musk is a billionaire and the 53rd richest man on the planet. He got that way creating a computer company which was bought by Compaq and then creating an online payment system which became Paypal. From there, he created Telsa, Space-X and some other things. Musk has never been a noted darling of the left, but they've generally liked what he does. For example, they see the creation of Tesla as environmentally friendly because Tesla makes electric cars -- environmentally disastrous electric cars... but it's the label that counts on the left. He's big on solar power, roofs in particular, and claims he could power up Puerto Rico, which the evil Donald Trump plunged into darkness so he could kill brown people and eat their hearts.

They like that he on-again, off-again dates a #metoo chickie. They like that he wants to build an underground high-speed train from LA to New York. They like that he wets himself over artificial intelligence. He supports "direct democracy" and a universal income. And he resigned from some panel Trump put him on after Trump withdrew from the Paris environmental treaty. So not bad.

Well, last week, Musk volunteered to send a mini-sub to help the kids in the cave in Thailand. Somehow (not sure), this turned into a pissing match with one of the divers and Musk eventually called him a "pedo" and expressed doubt that the man was even one of the divers. Whoops. For whatever reason, this stupidity has been declared double-plus bad and the left has now decided to turn against Musk. They are fickle indeed.

So suddenly, this weekend, a whole series of nearly identical opinion pieces spread throughout leftist land all attacking Musk. Interestingly, the same day these came out, the same journals all posted one other little piece of information (//whisper whisper): did you know that Elon Musk donated to Republicans in the last election cycle?

I find this fascinating.

Not only do we have yet another example of the left producing group think articles all at the same time, but it seems that whatever his crime was, it wasn't enough without the addition that Musk donates to Republicans (no mention is made that he actually donates to both). Clearly, the leftist elite aren't selling the idea that the drones should hate Musk for what he said or did, they are telling the drones, "Here is another Republican CEO we need to destroy," and his actual crime seems largely irrelevant -- calling some guy in Thailand a pedo. In other words, it's not enough that he did something wrong, he needs to be seen as an evil person, an enemy. That's how the left works.

You know, except for the fringe right (and now the Anti-Trumps), you don't see that on the right. The right judges people on their actions. The left judges people on their correctness as a person. This is important to understand because it means that you can't appease the left with an apology or corrective action. It also means they don't judge people fairly, as we see all the time.

Musk has now apologized, but we'll see. He seems to be targeted for destruction now. I'll be curious how this plays out.

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Leftists At Play

The left is running amok. They really are.

Selective Outrage: French President Marcon congratulates Putin in glowing terms on an excellently run World Cup. Crickets from the left. Donald Trump congratulates Putin. The left erupts. How dare he?! Doesn't he know how evil Putin is?!

Body Cams Again: This weekend, Chicago police killed a black man. The race industry immediately screamed that he was unarmed and blah blah blah racist cops killing black men. A riot basically began. Then the Chicago PD released body cam footage. Surprise, surprise. The angelic African American gentlemen who did nothing wrong was indeed armed with a handgun and an extra magazine, and after the cops tried to restrain him, he ran into the street and tried to draw his gun on the cops before they shot him. Once again, body cams reveal that this idea of cops hunting innocent black men is a myth. Draw on a cop... you die. No sympathy.

Trump Whining: The news this weekend was full of images of British protesters whining about Trump. I have to tell you, I honestly couldn't care less what some British white trash think about Trump or us. I guess I am impressed that they sobered up enough to stage a protest -- must have been near a welfare office -- but I still don't care. The British government is not relevant to the world anymore and the British people are the bottom of the heap. They lead every bad statistic in Europe. As a people they voted to make themselves wards of the state. They act like white trash. Their elite have repudiated everything that ever made them relevant. Why should we care about them?

Hilariously, by the way, many of the signs I saw from their protests made no sense. It was clear that these idiots had no idea what actually bothered them about Trump... or just couldn't spell.

The Moral of Papa Johns: For those who have followed this, John Schnatter, the Founder of Papa John's has gotten himself into trouble and was ejected from his own company last week. It started last NFL season when Schnatter used the NFL kneeling issue as an excuse for pizza sales falling flat. That didn't sit well with a lot of people who didn't buy it and it hurt his reputation. So Schnatter decided to rehabilitate himself. He chose the issue of race. He decided to talk about how anti-racism he was. Big mistake. Where it went wrong was that he used the n-word in his attempt to be sympathetic, when he claimed, "Where I grew up in Indiana, they used to drag niggers behind pickup trucks." First, that's bullsh*t. Schnatter grew up in the 1970's, by which time that crap had ended -- if it ever happened outside of a few southern states. Secondly, big mistake using the n-word.

The backlash was immediate and furious. How dare he use that word?! It didn't matter to the left that he was trying to support their "everybone's racist and hunting black men" narrative, he used the forbidden word and he wasn't a certified leftist. Soon, every journalist had converted this into Schnatter making racist statements and using the n-word. Not one grasped the context of how he used or it or what he was trying to do. Within days, he was forced out. Even funnier... the company forced him out immediately, and yet a number of colleges and sports teams are severing their relationship with the company over this. Think about that. They are attacking a company that did exactly what they wanted -- fired one of their enemies for lack of collectivist thought. You can't trust them.

The moral is simple. The left is looking to destroy. It doesn't do context. It doesn't do proportionality. Unless you have a free pass from them because you are far left enough, any misstep will lead to them trying to destroy you.

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The Left Keeps Screwing Up

The left continues to implode.

● It's funny to me how the MSM never learns their own lessons. When they tried to destroy Ronald Reagan with Oliver North, they made the mistake of using camera angles that made him look heroic and the public really took to him. Yet, almost every image I see of this biased FBI agent Peter Strzok has him snarling or looking incredibly haughty. These are not looks that win people over or make the target a hero.

● The Democrats are having a real messaging problem with Kavanaugh... several actually:

● The Democrats are feuding over what message to use. Some want to attack Kavanaugh as the destroyer of Obamacare. Some want to use him as the destroyer of abortion. Some want to attack him as a danger to the Russia investigation no one cares about. Some want to use every message they can think of. And the red state Democrats are panicking that all the attacks will hurt them. There are already a great many hand-wringing articles about this.

● The Washington Post article on Kavanaugh's debt has already tripped Democrats up as it was clearly a dirty trick. The Post suggested that Kavanaugh has a problem because he took on a lot of credit card debt buying baseball tickets and remodeling his home. Here's the problem: First, most Americans are in a similar position, especially when it comes to remodeling, so this line of attack just makes him relatable and it insults the public. Secondly, it contradicts their attack that he's some rich white guy (the latest version is that he's biased by his too-strong education yo). Third, it turns out that he didn't actually have "debt" as people understand it because he paid it off... so the story was a total lie. Fourth, the baseball ticket thing turned out to be that he bought tickets for a group and the others paid him back. That the Post sold this as a scandal has blown up on them and all the leftists who mindlessly repeated this.

● Something has struck me about the Democratic attack. They never once considered whether or not he is a good candidate. Instead, they went straight to "we will do what we need to do to defeat him." This utter lack of any genuine consideration feels dishonest... disingenuous. It feels like a dereliction of duty, like politics of destruction over Senate duties. It feels like people whose goal is to destroy rather than to govern. Between that, the smears, and the hard, hard left messages, I see this blowing up on the Democrats in the midterms, especially if they act like jackasses in the hearings.

● So, a month ago, the Democrats were crowing about Wisconsin proving that the Republicans were in trouble. It seemed spurious at the time, but who knows. Well, this weekend, there was an article at Politico about the Democrats being in a panic that Wisconsin is getting away from them. At the same time, I've seen several articles saying that the polls suggest the Democrats cannot take back the Senate because they will lose as many red state seats as they might hope to gain.

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My Thoughts On Brett Kavanaugh

So Trump picked Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Kennedy. I think it's one of the better picks in decades. Here are my thoughts.

● In terms of qualifications, you aren't going to beat Kavanaugh. He's got more than a decade experience on the federal appellate court for D.C., where he is described as "influential". The DC Circuit is a great court, a very important court, which handles most important federal questions. Moreover, being considered influential is the best thing you can say about a judge. He's been a law professor at Yale, which suggests an orderly and creative mind capable of debate. He worked for Ken Starr. He worked for Bush in the White House, which shows political knowledge. You can't build a better resume.

● He's young and should serve for decades. Excellent.

● I still wish Trump would have put a conservative woman on the court, but that's a minor point and doesn't detract from his excellence.

● Philosophically, Kavanaugh is considered solidly conservative and has 12 years of a record to prove it. He's supposed to be in the mold of Clarence Thomas, my favorite Justice. He's a textualist, which is what a judge is supposed to be (though few are). He's also described as not living in a conservative bubble and having liberal friends. That's good as it keeps him grounded. He's also a strong believer in separation of powers, which is the key to small government. All good.

● The left is whining that he's a Nazi, which they would say no matter what. The fringe right is calling him a "moderate," which I think they would say no matter what. So that's good when he alienates the idiot factions on both sides.

● I'm impressed that he debunked the idea that Vince Foster was murdered and he wanted to reduce the discussion of sex in the Ken Starr report. This shows him to be both rational, not doctrinaire, and having an ear for politics. Those are all great things in a Supreme Court justice.

● Watch for liberals to howl about the faces his wife made during the announcement because, you know, that's what really matters.

● Once again, Trump proves to be excellent at delivering strong conservative talent that won't offend or scare average people (except liberals who would be scared no matter who got picked). Trump really can be an amazingly good President at times.

Thoughts?

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Thoughts...

We're heading to Zion this week to get away from the world. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th o July. God Bless America! :)

As an aside, here are more thoughts.

● The MSM really doesn't get it. Because they are leftists, they think nothing of glorifying leftist stupidity. Right now, they are treating this "democratic socialist" (read "socialist") who won the Democratic primary (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) in New York as the shooting star of some new wave. That's stupid of them. Pointing to a socialist as a rising star is the sort of thing that scares people beyond the conservative base in the public at large.

What's more, they think this woman means some sort of surge in voting by young people and Hispanics. But she won a primary in which only 17% of Democrats voted. There's zero evidence of any sort of surge. All this does is excite people on the left who will soon be disappointed while scaring people on the right and center-right to vote. Not to mention, the way they present her as a slayer of corrupt old, fate, honky Democrats just makes the Democratic Party seem corrupt and turns off the very people she's supposedly inspiring. Stupid.

● The MSM really doesn't get it (Act II) They are highlighting this sudden push by leftist activists to shutdown ICE. While I'm sure that sounds great in illegal and moron circles, that will scare the hell out of the public, who want the borders controlled. That's a bit like saying you're going to abolish the police. The percentage of people this wouldn't scare are something like 15%. Bad call to highlight this.

● The Supreme Court recently issued a decision called Janus v. AFSCME. In this case, the Supremes said that unions could not force non-union types to pay union dues. Unions had argued these dues were required to cover the cost of collective bargaining, from which these people would benefit. They specifically stated they would not go to political lobbying. Well, the court disagreed and stopped the unions. Now the same unions who claimed these funds did not go to leftist political groups are whining that they have had to drop their lobbying donations by as much as 30% -- tens of millions of dollars no longer going to leftist advocacy groups. How funny is that?

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What Greatness Is Not

LeBron James is going to the Lakers. I don't really respect that -- and this is a bigger point than just LeBron.

Cleveland was built around LeBron. When he didn't like a player, a coach or a general manager, they were fired. The roster was built to support him without challenging his leadership. The other players were content to do as they were told. It didn't work. They won a title, but then they ran into a better team in the Warriors and now LeBron is running from the mess he made. I see this is more and more with "successful" people. Indeed, I can think of a number of "great" coaches I've heard say they would only go to the NFL if they were given a franchise with a great roster and all the pieces you need to win a Super Bowl already there. But where's the challenge in that? To taking nothing and making it something is an achievement. Replacing the broken cog in an otherwise perfect machine makes you a mechanic.

Look at the feminists who think we should celebrate the first woman to do what a bunch of men have already done. Why? How is that an achievement? Is it truly so painful to be a woman that just being able to do what men do should be celebrated? Or how about those who want to celebrate the first black or Hispanic or gay to do what a buttload of straight whites have done regularly. Is that really something to be proud of? Why can't you go out and do something no human has done before? Invent something. Create something. Go to Mars. Go to Saturn. Colonize Venus or the ocean floor. Don't celebrate some white guy appointing you to some job.

When did the human race become so listless? When did our lofty goals become so pathetic? When did we stop looking at the stars and start shuffling around so pointlessly?

I've been reading "Around the World in 80 Days" and I'm reminded of an era when "explorers" really existed. When whole hosts of people launched themselves out into the world to discover, to build and to create. That sense of adventure is gone. Did you know Americans once tamed a continent? Humans once created great art too. For the love of God, make a movie that isn't processed by focus groups. Write books that aren't knock-offs of knock-offs of knock-offs. Do something special, humanity.

Unrelated One....

I find the replay effect funny. The more you watch a replay, especially in slow motion, the more it seems like the action can be changed. Missed the ball by inches? Watch the replay several times in slow motion and you'll find yourself almost thinking "he might get it this time!"

Unrelated Two....

I hate virtue signalling. It's such BS. This is the same self-congratulatory mental masturbation that gets doctrinaire, hateful liberals to swear that they would have stopped the witch burnings or ended slavery or killed Hitler. Sorry, but you faux-tolerant groupthinkers are the very people who did those evil acts, none of you would have stopped any of it. Anyways, virtue signalling is a way for racist, sexist, ageist, eco-harmful companies to declare that they are morally superior to the rest of you.

One of these that bothers me a lot comes from Subaru. No surprise there. Subarus are the car of choice for smug, progressive pot-smoking assh*le hippies. The commercial in question involves this dipsh*t couple who are looking for the peninsula trail. They are trying to find it on a map when an old smelly blind man announces that, "You're not gonna find that on any map." So they take this smelly, hillbilly rapist blind man with them so he can show them how to be pure of heart. He takes them to a cliff, where they listen for whales. Then they go into the woods at night where the pathetic husband stumbles, of course, but the blind man walks fine. In the end, we learn that (1) being blind makes you noble and gives you insight that sighted people don't have, (2) blind people have superior senses, and (3) Subaru owners are morally superior to you.

Allow me to counter... First, why in the world would they launch themselves to Oregon without researching where they were going? Gee, honey, we'll stumble upon a map and, if not, we'll find a blind man. Secondly, while Subaru is being all smug, they should realize that blind people do not gain other senses. That is a myth and it's one that upsets a lot of blind people. Subaru is clearly anti-blind for perpetuating that able-ist stereotype. Third, doesn't it occur to Subaru that using blind people to wash away their sins is condescending and blind-ist? This is the magic negro trope in hillbilly face. You are taking a human being and making them into a tool for sighted people to absolve their sins... and that's wrong. Idiots.

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Disproving Discrimination

Huge chunks of modern feminism and black-victimology are premised on claims of things that women/blacks say they experience, but which have never been subject to proof or disproof so far. These claims are then used to justify victim status and even to invent an oppressor to maintain group unity. As I've been pointing out, however, recent events have been exposing the lie behind these claims.

For example, notice how the introduction of bodycams for cops wiped the claims of epidemics of police violence. Not only has there been precious little evidence of police misconduct shown by these cameras, they have by and large exonerated the officers when claims of abuse were made. Indeed, in several high profile instances, civil rights leaders and activists were caught fabricating claims of police misconduct... false claims that would have been accepted as true in the past.

Similarly, the #metoo movement has exposed the claim that harassment and sexual assault are widespread to be untrue. Indeed, despite millions of women being encouraged to identify every complaint they could find, only a handful of men have been found guilty of much (none in court), a number of women have been exposed as lying about their claims, and many of the complaints that were made proved to be little more than "I didn't like him." The end result is that a movement which threatened initially to prove the feminist claim that America is a rape culture imploded in a big old ball of nothing but a handful of guys.

Well, now we have something even more powerful that is wiping out cherished liberal sacred cows: Uber.

Uber collects an insane amount of data and is sharing it with the public for analysis. This has resulted in economists actually getting to study the real effect of elasticity and the value of peak pricing. It is showing traffic patterns. Even more interestingly, two recent studies of the data have said the following:

1. Women make about 7% less than men driving for Uber (except in Houston). Feminists would claim this is the so-called "wage gap" in action, which they claim is evidence of discrimination against women. Only, Uber collects more data than just the amount paid. They also collect data on choices made. What they found was that men drive faster, resulting in them being able to take on more fares in the same amount of time. Men also are more willing to pick people up in dangerous neighborhoods and from bars, where premium prices goes into effect. Women are more likely to restrict their driving to Sundays and safer neighborhoods. These differences account for the entire 7%. In other words, it is the choices men and women make in how they do their jobs which results in the wage difference, not some nebulous discrimination. Wanna bet the entire "wage gap" is the same thing?

2. It is taken as gospel in the black community that blacks can't get picked up by taxis, especially black males. This is such a common belief that it makes it into comedy routines and even films like The Wiz. There have even been studies that purport to show that blacks are twice as likely to be ignored by taxis as whites. Well, an examination of Uber and Lyft's data found that blacks faced essentially no difference in wait times for rides. The difference was about 30 seconds. Yet another sacred cow gets gored.

At this rate, it seems that our increasingly data-oriented and camera oriented society is going to wipe out the legs of victimology.

Thoughts?

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Why Aren't They Listening To Us?

This was an interesting weekend. For one thing, we got out first rain in weeks. The straw that I call grass seems to have appreciated it. I've started swimming again too. Yay! And I saw some things in the news that got me wondering.

First, on the immigrant kids...

● I saw a poll which said that the majority of the public blames the parents of the immigrant kids for their separation. Only 40%ish blamed the government. I thought that was interesting. Despite the full-retard deep-throated level of insane 100% rage that the left has displayed, the public rationally gets that Trump is not to blame. It must suck being a leftist.

● I had to laugh that just as I saw articles telling me how "powerful" the image of the crying kid and the Time magazine cover were -- defined our age, they did -- both proved to be false. Time even had to apologize. Once again, the left's attempt to "define our age" is little more than lies and fakery.

● Isn't it interesting how the kids issue has almost entirely died overnight? The left went from 100% of drones screaming their "independent" outrage at 100% volume to "oh look, summer." What has diverted them? Well, Trump signing pictures of crime victims at the request of the parents and some leftist restaurant owner tossing Sarah Huckabee out of her restaurant. Focused like a laserbeam, aren't they?

Secondly, some interesting articles. I always wonder where the leftist collective gets their thinking orders because they do move in goosestep and the change seems to happen on weekends. There must be a weekend edition of "What You Think Now" or something. Anyways, this week's whine is "why aren't Trump people listening to us"?

● The first article came from the New York Times, an obscure journal that often gets whacked for plagiarism. This article wondered why Trump people don't understand how evil he is and why they still support him. Indeed, the article began with genuine shock that anyone could still support Trump despite all the reasons the left hates him. What they found by asking Trump supporters was that the public has stopped listening to the outrage. They consider it political. True. They think the left is full of crap and will complain no matter what. True. In fact, the reporter found that the more the left attacks, the more the public rallies to Trump. OMG! But how can we convince these yokels that Trump is evil if trying to convince them makes them less likely to believe us?

● Then there was an article titled "Trump seems indifferent to confusion." What this article really meant was, "no matter how much we whine and scream and block his staff from restaurants and stage protests, Trump and the public just aren't coming to our side." This article seemed baffled why we yokels don't care about the problems they are causing. Unlike the other article though, this one just concluded that Trump and his supporters just aren't right in the head.

I take these articles, and others, as a moment of shock. The left just went full retard on the kid issue and they assumed this would bring everyone to their side and destroy Trump. To see that they didn't even win a majority of the public has shocked them. They don't understand it. They are legitimately asking each other now, "Why aren't they listening to us?" The problem is this is the blind asking the blinder, and the answer is basically that we're stupid. I suspect that in a week or so, this will morph into some serious "how stupid are you people" articles. But right now it's an interesting insight into their mindset that they seem genuinely confused.

Thoughts?

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Updates

Let's update a few recent issues.

● There are a couple of interesting updates to the #metoo movement:

(1) Kevin Spacey, whose crimes against, uh, gay boys were so horrific that the #metoo movement got him scrubbed from a film and all of his scenes re-shot by Christopher Plummer, will be appearing in a new movie -- Billionaire Boys Club. Just like Jeffery Tambor, it seems that even those found guilty and given a life sentence are being forgiven now.

(2) "Actress" (cosplay) Chloe Dykstra made news a week or so ago by accusing her former boyfriend, fellow actor Chris Hardwick of abusing her. Guilty!! Right? Wrong. Hardwick denied the claims and now has produced texts showing that he dumped her for cheating on him and she begged him to take her back. He refused... right before she made her big public claim of abuse. Said differently, she lied. Several false rapes recently too. All of this flies flat in the face of the "women must always be believed" argument the #metoo movement made.

(3) Scott Baio, who was accused of sexual assault on a minor (co-star Nicole Eggert) right as he criticized the #metoo movement, has been cleared by an LA prosecutor. They cited the statute of limitation, but they knew that problem going in. My guess is that the evidence showed contrary behavior on her part.

(4) Of all the women who are going to make this Finally the Year of the Woman For Real This Time, only two have connections to the #metoo movement. That's out of what? 50,000 candidates nationwide? To sum that up in a word, think "irrelevance."

I see all of this as more proof not only that the #metoo movement is dead, but now it looks like its few victories were temporary. Maybe they should have worn pussy hats?

● Liberal Starbucks has announced that they missed their sales projections. Huh. I can't imagine why. I have no proof connecting this to their stupid Racism Day Virtue Signalling Marketing Plan, but I suspect that's cost them people from both sides -- those who want to believe that Starbucks is racist, as the company itself claimed, and those who don't want to deal with a company that goes all Clockwork Orange on its employees over an imagined race issue.

● Two thoughts on the immigrant thing. First, this has become a virtue signaling cheap shot and defending it is untenable. The problem is that rather than either (1) racing to the front and leading the charge against this while finding ways to blame the Democrats, or (2) hiding this by demanding a committee to investigate it, the GOP has done what they always do: self-righteously shoot their own. The Bush family in particular excels at throwing their own side under the bus. (As an aside, Trump's supporters need to STFU too about this. This is a freebie for everyone to oppose. Publicly fighting it only makes it worse.)

My second thought: How out of touch with reality are leftists (and elitist Washington types) to compare the separation of children from criminals and people who are not actually their parents to the Holocaust. This lack of perspective is shocking to me. It calls into question, in my mind, whether they actually understand what the Holocaust was. Do they not understand the difference between putting a child in a room full of children without their "parents", and systematically torturing, murdering and performing horrific experiments on human beings just because of their race? It's no wonder the left has raised a generation of snowflakes if they can't make that distinction.

● Finally, Kathy Griffin has decided that she has been punished enough and she declared herself forgiven. She then immediately posting vilely sexist comments against the First Lady. So did Samantha Bee and Michelle Wolf. Each got burned and came back swinging with more -ism. Why are liberals such innate sexist, racist, hateful trash? Is it a mental defect on their parts? Probably. Their brains don't seem to process basic logic and they seem to think their hate is endearing. We should probably think about locking them all up.

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Weekend Review

Some thoughts from the weekend.

● Do you know why I hate soccer fans? They're hateful assh*les. Pure and simple. Go read any of the stories about the World Cup and you will see repeated shots at the intelligence, class and sophistication of people who don't like soccer. To these people, liking soccer is like a litmus test of who is a genuine human being and who is a troglodyte. They are also awash in foreign envy, political correctness, and obnoxious martyrdom. Moreover any critical comment about any aspect of soccer is met with just a full-on blast about how idiotic, hillybillyish and typical American the commenter must be. America bad... and backwards. Soccer chick and lesbian-spouse abuser Hope Solo whined that the US doesn't "deserve" to host the World Cup. I guess we're bad people. Former team captain Landon Donovan (in a post sponsored by fraud-machine Wells Fargo) told us that we should support Mexico because of how bad we Americans are to Mexicans. F-you. It's like listening to liberal comedians smear the Trumps.

● Speaking of Trump, a Pittsburgh paper just fired their political cartoonist and he's all upset about it. He went to the New York Times and wrote a whiny article claiming that he was fired for having anti-Trump views. Of course, the anti-Trumps are lapping this up. According to the editor, however, the problem was that this guy was obsessed. All he wanted to do was anti-Trump cartoons and they were angry rather than funny or clever. This is rather easy to see actually, as the anti-Trumps I've encountered fit this pattern -- irrational, all-consuming hate with zero sense of judgment or rationality left. Interestingly, the cartoonist countered that he didn't only do Trump cartoons, that he tried to do whatever was topical, but "Trump's outrages seemed to dominate events every day." Yeah, that sounds like an anti-Trump.

● The latest anti-Trump fake outrage was that Ivanka (who has been vilely slammed almost every day by female comedians) dared to wish her father a happy Father's Day when the evil Trump is separating the children of illegals from the illegals... just like Hitler!!! (Not kidding, a former CIA head actually made the comparison). Forget that this is an Obama policy.

● I had to chuckle at an article on this football site that I follow for whatever reason. The owner is an idiot leftist and a failed lawyer who likes to give legal advice, which actually is disastrously wrong time and again. He's one of these guys who has been trying to destroy football for some time, pimping the concussion issues, tearing into the NFL for not being infallible, and finding racism and sexism everywhere. This weekend, he pondered why the public doesn't support the players when they hold out for more money. Why oh why?!

After ignoring all the real reasons, he focused on two things. First, it turns out that we just don't understand that these millionaires aren't as rich as we think they are... boo hoo. So we're wrongly attacking them because we view them as rich. Ironically, in making this argument accusing us of jealousy, he implied a half-dozen times that the people they are fighting are evil billionaires whom we should hate because they're rich. Try parsing that in your brain. The second point he made is that "it would be ridiculous not to see the racial angle here." See, apparently, we poo' white folk don't like them darkies making more money than we ever will. So we hate the players because they are black and they make money. Forget the fact that blacks and Hispanics oppose holdouts just as much as whites. Forget the fact that whites don't support holdouts by white players any more than holdouts by blacks. Forget the fact that we honkeys don't seem to take any joy in holdouts against the Jaguars, who are owned by a Pakistani man. But you know... racism. If a liberal doesn't like something, it's racism. What a load.

● Interesting discovery this weekend. Have you heard of the Stanford Prison experiment? This was a psychology experiment conducted in the 1960s in which Stanford students were recruited to be guards and prisoners in an elaborate experiment meant to replicate prison. Shockingly, the kids playing the guards became monsters and abused the other students. This supposedly showed that people will always abuse power. It became one of those seminal intellectual cornerstones of the Boomer generation and their hatred of society's institutions.

Well... this weekend, after extensive study, it was revealed that the whole thing was apparently faked. All the abuse, the reaction to it, even a guy who seemed to go insane all faked it. They were told to act this way. What does this mean? It means that an underpinning of the Boomer belief system turns out to be utter BS. Imagine that.

And do you know what? It's not alone. The famous Kinsey study that found that 10% of the public is gay and that pretty much everyone was a sexual super-freak -- another underpinning of the Boomer attack on traditional society -- was faked too. Kinsey did his work using convicts and mental patients, not normal people. So his number are completely false.

It's interesting how often iconic liberal moments turn out too be manufactured. That famous image of the soldier shot in the Spanish Civil War -- the one where he falls backwards and loses his rifle -- that was admitted about ten years ago to have been staged. Little by little all the things liberals have based their world on are proving to be false. Will it matter to them? Hardly. Just as they don't care that Trump's evil immigration policies were started under Obama, they won't care if their beliefs are founded upon utter fantasy and deception. But it is interesting.

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North Korea Thoughts

I have some thoughts on the North Korea situation. These aren't necessarily fully developed, but I think they are worth sharing. Please add your own in the comments. I'd like to hear your impressions.

● I think this "deal" happened because Trump scared North Korea. Kim really thought Trump was going to take him out.

● I think this is a really good deal actually. North Korea Kim agreed in principle to denuclearization -- something he never even hinted at accepting before. Don't underestimate that. There's nothing concrete, but I this is a huge first step from zero to "we agree we will eventually give 100%." In exchange, we agreed to stop military exercised with the South. But honestly, the South can handle itself now and we work so closely with them that specific exercises won't be needed for some time. We did not give up sanctions or anything else that I can tell. We also gave security assurances, but that would always be needed. It's also a freebie because we can always change our minds if circumstances change.

This deal reminds me of the types of deals I used to see between companies like Lockheed and Boeing. Tentative statements of intent by their CEOs that are meant to lay the ground work for the lower-level managers to put aside their war-like views and work together on something. It's a first step in cooperation, and since North Korea and the US have no relationship at all except a hostile one, I see it as a necessary step for laying the foundation for the next step. Basically, a relationship was created today, and it has an agreed upon goal. That's significant.

● Trump has definitely tossed the ball into Kim's court. We gave up nothing really and left all the work for Kim to do. Trump even said as much when he said that he trusts Kim, but might change his mind in six months. Through that, he basically declared: "We gave Kim a to-do list and we'll see if he does it. For now, I'm willing to trust him." That reminds me of Reagan's "trust by verify" sentiment. It's smart. It keeps the pressure up. It allows a quick change of posture.

By comparison, in the awful Iran deal, Obama gave up sanctions and agreed to walk away and stop bothering Iran in exchange for Iran not doing anything bad for a few years. That's an example of how not to make a deal. It tied our hands for nothing. It gave Iran what it wanted. It never established any sort of relationship from which to work. This Korea deal is much, much smarter.

● The left is thankful nothing more concrete resulted from the summit. They clearly want it to fail because they don't want Trump getting credit for anything good. Obama's Susan Rice even tried to defuse any sort of deal by whining that Korea just wasn't ready back them to reach a deal. Yeah, right. You make your own luck, Susan.

● The idiots are doing what they always do:

● Some are whining that Trump legitimized Kim by being nice to him, as if there would be any way to reach a deal with him by slapping him. When dealing with irrational people, from dictators to angry spouses, you always need to calm them down first... not agitate them.

● Some super hawks are saying this too, but that lacks a sense of reality. You can't treat someone as if your boot is on their throat unless it is.

● Others are upset that Trump didn't address human rights. Again, a lack of priorities. The goal here is to change the very nature of the regime. If that happens, human rights follow. Worrying about human rights loses the focus on what the real goal is.

● I suspect that North Korea may use this deal as a way to shift out from under China's wing. There is an opening at least to eventually align themselves with the west, and North Korea doesn't seem to like/trust China much... so maybe.

● Am I hopeful? Surprisingly, yes. Kim seems interested in change and Trump had made it easy for him. Will he do it? Not sure, but all the signs are there if you look. And Trump isn't the kind of guy to treat this like a finished matter either, so I think it will be driven home eventually.

Thoughts?

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Buttheads

The headlines are really disturbing today. Lots of, uh, butt stuff.

● Louis Farrakahn is ranting about "Jewish Power" and "anal sex." Seriously. Sounds like somebody went to the wrong bath house.

● Apparently, they now have a saliva test to determine prostate cancer. Really? Yuck. Who the hell is going to perform that test? Tastes like cancer to me! Keep your saliva off my prostate! Maybe that's why Farrakahn is upset?

● A driver with road rage apparently defecated on someone. Or did he? Maybe he was just trying to get a prostate examine?

● Either Canada or Oregon has launch missiles at Washington state. My money is or Oregon. Meth makes you do crazy things.

● The left is ecstatic today that Trump's Korea summit didn't end the Korean issue. They can't take much more success for Trump.

● Rose McGowan is warning us not to let Anthony Bordain's suicide split us apart and she's issued a call for unity. Huh. I didn't know anyone had taken sides. Can't the left do anything without fighting about it?

● Ariana Venti Grande (that's a Starbucks joke) is engaged. I'm sure that will last. Anyways, to let him know what he would be getting into, Ariana just posed without makeup on the cover of some magazine. Here is her picture. That's her on the left and without makeup on the right:

● Diane Feinstein now says she had no idea how immigrant children were treated under Obama. She was in Austria durink ze var too.

● Finally, the NBA seems to be full of nasty little b*tches who gossip and backstab each other. Wow. They've spent the past week all whining about being the best but its so unfair that like nobody notices them because of like stuhhff, "throwing shade" at each other and whining that so and so better shut up, whining about each other's contracts, telling us who shouldn't be allowed to play for whom, and even making rap songs insulting each other. Unbelievable. It's like my youngest daughter's circle of frienemies in fifth grade.

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