5333 private links
Lachlan Markay
@lachlan
New: 15 GOP state treasurers are threatening to pull state assets from any banks that accede to John Kerry-led admin efforts to discourage lending to/investment in fossil fuel companies
States threaten to pull assets from banks that drop coal
axios.com //
This is the right move. You are never going to convince a bunch of woke, left-leaning CEOs that they shouldn’t do something with faux appeals to principle. All they understand is financial pain, and every legal tool should be used to inflict it until they learn their lesson. //
Freedom does not become any less crushed if it’s private, big business doing the crushing. Trying to control people without their consent by using the power of large corporations is not capitalism. It’s cronyism. Republicans that recognize that will be equipped to fight the battles that are undeniably coming our way. Republicans that don’t should get out of the way because the rest of us aren’t content with being subjugated by the left under the guise of principle.
When have Democrats EVER given up something truly important to them in order to seal a compromise with their Republican political opponents? It simply never happens!
Compromise and fair dealings are possible between willing parties who share moral values and deal honestly with one another – at least in the non-political realm. For example, compromise on price in commercial transactions is legitimate. //
Whether through barter or monetary exchange, transactions are possible between all kinds of people regardless of “race, color, creed,” etc. The system works well for tangible commodities; compromise is the underlying concept that makes such transactions possible (at some point, both parties have to agree to the exchange). However, in matters of morality and truth, there can be no compromise.
The Left have hijacked the basic concept of compromise in the political realm by inserting the “free radical” (and malarkey) of “moral equivalence” into the equation. Moral equivalence is the Marxist claim that two radically different people/nations/political-ideological systems are taking the same actions and should be judged and treated the same way. The problem is that the concepts of good and evil are purposely not considered. Moral equivalence (also referred to as moral relativity) is a cancer on the body politic. //
Where do you compromise with the pro-abortion crowd in the Democrat Party? At the number of weeks at which a pregnancy can be legally terminated? On what the definition of “health of the mother” means in allowing an abortion? On whether parents have any say in their minor daughter’s decision? No moral equivalence exists in this situation, and those supporting abortion never discuss the moral dilemma involved in ending the life of a human being – mainly because they suppress what their consciences scream at them about the barbarism of abortion.
The bottom line is this: to suggest compromise with such people is to sanction abortion. There is no other way to put it. At what price do conservatives compromise their souls to agree with this evil and immoral practice? //
What’s the bipartisan compromise that enhances conservative principles and morals on any of those topics? We are not going to see anything from the Left other than a demand that we ignore our principles and concerns, and when we “compromise,” we inch American culture leftward just as the Left have planned and executed since the days of Woodrow Wilson and his “progressive amendments”.
Conservatives must remember that, at times, it is easy to believe that the item we think we desire (compromise and the elusive comity that we expect from the Left when we do compromise with them) is worth more than it actually is and underestimate the value of our own positions. //
“Compromise” has been a losing strategy for us for decades. Compromise with the Left has gotten us into the deep hole in which we find the nation today. It’s the reason we’ve been losing the culture war and why the Left have taken over most of our political and cultural institutions. We need to fight back and DEFEAT the Left politically at every turn – on every subject while defending our core moral principles – and forget about the fool’s gold that is “compromise.” It’s our only hope if we wish to preserve the Republic.
John Hayward
@Doc_0
·
Oct 11, 2019
I wonder if any of the super-duper-principled True Conservatives are going to criticize the totalitarian Democrats for their LGBT town hall, which was filled with vows to shred the Constitution and use raw State power to socially engineer the American people.
We hear a lot of nasty cracks from that crowd about religious conservative voters selling their souls to support Trump. Let them explain how conservative purity requires handing the country over to the left-wingers who just spent all night vowing to destroy religious freedom.
This was never difficult to understand, and it was never hypocrisy from evangelicals. The handwriting was on the wall during the Obama administration. They knew perfectly well what a President Hillary would unleash upon them.
It's not just a religious freedom issue, either. Criticize Trump however you like, but he isn't aggressively trying to use the power of the State to forcibly remake the electorate. His most aggressive uses of executive power have been efforts to PREVENT others from doing so.
You want to talk about bedrock conservative principles? Intrinsic to the very notion of conservatism is resisting the use of coercive force to make people abandon their beliefs and live according to the whims of those who have power over them.
“As we saw last summer, some of the local governments are actually telling, not necessarily in Florida but throughout the country, basically telling these folks to stand down, telling police to stand down while cities burnt, while businesses were burnt, while people were being harmed,” the governor said. “That’s a dereliction of duty.”
He continued:
What our bill says, and what I’ll sign into law today, is that if you’re derelict in your duty as a local government, if you tell law enforcement to stand down, then you’re responsible for the damage that ensues. And if someone’s been harmed, or their property has been destroyed, then they can sue you for compensation.
The measure defines a riot as a violent demonstration involving three or more individuals engaging in activity that causes injury to others, damage to property, or threat of both. According to Newsmax, “the law also created a new second-degree felony called an ‘aggravated riot,’ when the riot has more than 25 participants, causes great bodily harm or more than $5,000 in property damage, uses or threatens to use a deadly weapon, or blocks roadways by force or threat of force.”
The line our society must draw is at protecting citizens from medical coercion in order to conduct business. Some might worry this would constitute a mandate on businesses, but it isn’t. Mandates compel action.
States and private firms that demand vaccination are the ones leveling mandates: businesses like a lobbying firm in DC that has informed a mother who intends to have more children soon that she must get a new, emergency vaccine with unknown affects on fertility and pregnancy if she would like to travel — and thereby succeed — at the company. //
On the other hand, denying activity that strips choice and dehumanizes citizens and families fits neatly into traditional conservative governance. “You may not compel abortion,” “you may not marry a child,” “you may not have multiple spouses” — these are bans based on traditional values we can confidently defend. “You may not mandate a novel injection for customers to engage in commerce” fits cleanly into this tradition. //
Government-corporate databases are both a dream for hackers and a quick path to a social credit system, and the only way to retard that kind of power is to make medical mandates a terrible burden to the states and businesses that demand them. The way to do this is a patchwork of states that resist by banning them. Do corporations want to do business in states like Texas, Florida, and Montana? Do airlines want to maintain hubs in states that say no? Are companies willing to write off that much market share?
This patchwork of resistance will also bring on reluctant allies who otherwise would happily join the new regime. //
“I don’t care if Google is a private company because it has too much power,” J.D. Vance, bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and a possible 2022 Ohio candidate for senator, told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson on his podcast. “And if you want to have a country where people can live their lives freely you have to be concerned about power, whether it’s concentrated in the government or concentrated in big corporations.”
Vance is right. While the past year has revealed that a depressing number of Americans will yield to arbitrary power wielded in the name of COVID-19, and will surely submit to both novel medical procedures and invasive private databases just for a chance to return to normalcy, moral governance ought to protect them from being coerced into that choice at all — and should protect those who still refuse from being treated as second-class citizens. //
To stop COVID vaccine passports, legislators concerned must target the databases. The databases are going to have to be digital to make sense, for speed, for efficiency, and because people will otherwise forge paperwork. The only effective way to go after them will be to prohibit any sort of digital database that collects or distributes personal medical data, and to make it a crime for organizations not covered by HIPAA to make services conditional on a customer granting access to medical data.
Organizations that are covered by HIPAA include doctors, clinics, pharmacies, nursing homes, and health-care plans, among others. If a business is not among those then it is not allowed to ask for access to your medical records. This will both protect privacy and prevent medical coercion, and when added to executive orders like those in Florida and Texas, will deal a death blow to the plan to force the COVID regime of the past year onto American citizens for years and decades to come.
This is the kind of survey liberals loathe. Not that the rest of us don’t already know they’re the most miserable people on the face of the Earth, of course, but when the survey is the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, an ongoing survey of Americans conducted since 1972, which The New York Times describes as a “widely used resource” and “the scholarly gold standard for understanding social phenomena,” that’s gotta leave a mark. //
Yep, conservative white women are the happiest people in America.
And the unhappiest people in America? Drum roll, please… the survey says… white liberal men. My initial reaction was: of course, they are; I assume the majority of them are either married to or in relationships with white liberal women. I mean, this is not a giddy crowd. //
I’M A WALKER
@HourTommy
Replying to @Timcast
Aren’t liberals upset being called men and women? //
Jim
@Jim_Bachelor
Replying to @Timcast
It’s because they are in a abusive relationship with politics where they are told 100% of the time they are the bad guy that causes so much pain for women and minorities.
The trickle is starting but we need to create a roaring river, a current of good sense. It is time to put diplomacy on pause. It has its place, and for those of us still engaged in public debate and discussion, we should never completely abandon it. Persuasion is a vital part of winning any culture war. There is value in walking softly, but sometimes persuasion can only be made palatable to the other side by carrying a big stick.
So draw your line. Decide where it is. It won’t be the same for all of us. //
Your line will be different from my line and that’s ok. The battle has many fronts. But it’s important to understand this:
The quiet season is over. We are in a noisy season. Grab a bullhorn and start screaming. //
JohnTruman • 4 hours ago
Churchill had it right. True then. True now.
"If you will not fight for right when you can win easily without bloodshed. . .you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Sandy 〽️
@RightGlockMom
This is awesome - lol
Rush Limbaugh's Death Certificate Says 'Greatest Radio Host of All Time'
In truth, the left and its Democrat Party are the most ideologically rigid entities in the western world. It meets disagreement with force, not open-mindedness or debate. It has a habit of “othering” people and you or a group you belong to may go from the toast of the town to being an “other” very quickly. Your acceptability only goes as far as your usefulness.
This is made all the more dangerous by the fact that the left is the establishment now. //
The right is the counter-culture on both a countrywide and global level. We are the real “Resistance.” We’re the rebels, surrounded by a force whose primary goal is domination and subjugation. It is now as it was at our founding, and our Constitution is the barrier between us and the people who would see their way be the way for everyone and to punish those who refuse to go along with their rules.
This should excite the right. Rebellion is in our blood and the idea that we’re actually the new idea on the block is a message that should resonate with everyone, especially the young who are drawn to dynamic ideas and revolutionary thinking.
It’s clear the left’s thinking is old hat, flawed, and boring. The ideas that it wants to institute don’t work and the people generating enthusiasm about it seem plastic and fake.
The right should run with this idea and make sure we focus our speeches, talking points, and more around it.
We’re the revolution, not them.
Rush Limbaugh created modern national talk radio as we now know it. For over three decades he kept at rapt attention—live from noon to 3 p.m. on weekdays—the largest conservative audience in broadcast history. More than 15 million tuned in each week.
Last week, 32 years and more than 23,000 hours of on-air commentary after he went national in August 1988, Limbaugh died of lung cancer at age 70. //
Limbaugh was hated by the left because he was deadly effective in fighting it, and he was feared at times by the Republican establishment—because he could also be deadly effective in fighting it. //
Limbaugh was a master comedian. His pauses, intonations, and mock tones were far funnier than those of our contemporary regulars on late-night television.
He was a gifted mimic, an impersonator, with as wide a repertoire as masters of the past such as Vaughn Meader, David Frye, and Rich Little. Yet Limbaugh worked mostly behind the microphone, without the aid of an onstage presence. //
Limbaugh’s canon was never to talk down to or insult the base. It was natural for him because he grew up with, knew intimately, and felt most comfortable with traditional middle America. //
For someone with a reputation for mockery, I never heard Limbaugh in private or in correspondence fixate on his enemies or blast his former friends. Mostly he laughed them off, and instead turned to what he told hundreds of those who knew him: “How can I help you in any way?” //
Limbaugh’s was a quintessential American success story. It is impossible to imagine any other country producing either him or his career. We are mourning for Rush, but also for ourselves. We are going to miss him and need him more, not less, each day that he is now silent.
Cruz isn’t out there telling Americans to stay home while he jets off to warmer shores. Cruz isn’t demanding businesses close while secretly patronizing his own wineries or barbers. Cruz hasn’t been pretending to care about getting stimulus checks out to Americans while flaunting his comfort and hypocrisy on live tv.
In fact, Cruz was just doing what he has been saying all along that every American has the right to do. He was taking care of his family. He has done nothing but encourage Americans to be cautious but still live their lives. He wants businesses open. He wants schools open. He wants Americans to be free even as they exercise extra safety measures for the time-being. He has been consistent in that message, so it isn’t strange that he’d be living it out himself. //
Commenter: His answer should have been "It is entirely within protocol in an emergency that if you can safely remove yourself and family from the impacted area, do so. This way first responders will be able to focus on those who do need help and you do not get into dire straights yourself."
Love him or hate him, Limbaugh’s legacy cannot be discounted. He paved the way for many right-leaning Americans to have a voice and helped to transform the conservative movement that, for all its faults, has stood as a bulwark against those who wish to steer our nation further towards Marxism. If the so-called progressive left were being honest, they would acknowledge that this is the reason they detested Rush Limbaugh, nothing more, nothing less.
The weakness and stupidity of America’s right has allowed false narratives to cement in the minds of the public. It’s killing our freedoms. It’s killing our jobs. It’s killing our families. //
The narrative, as I define it, is simply an assumption or set of assumptions widely accepted by the general public as facts. As we know, facts cannot be changed. That is why they are facts.
This is also why it is so critical to ensure the general public gets an accurate narrative. Otherwise, if the base set of publicly believed facts is wrong, every step after that will also be incorrect. It’s like getting swallowed up by an avalanche and digging ferociously in the wrong direction. //
We no longer have the option of riding the initial news cycle and accepting it at face value. Our failure to hold the line and speak hard truths has made the left’s job of cementing a lie in the minds of the people infinitely easier. From now on, when the next major event arises, let us resolve to set the narrative ourselves instead of being consumed by it.
I vividly remember sitting in line at the drive-up window at the bank — remember those? — and listening to Rush as he was telling a story. There was no political angle to the story he was telling, but the acrimony, sarcasm, and biting humor he wielded like weapons had me laughing out loud.
When Rush and his wife moved from Sacramento to New York, all their household belongings were moved by a national moving company. Rush and his wife flew and expected to furnish their New York apartment with the belongings after they arrived.
They never arrived. Never. Ever.
My recollection is — and this goes back 33 years now — that Rush ranted about this moving company on his show every day for several days. At first, it was just “When will they find our stuff and get it here?” He would recount his numerous conversations with company officials — I don’t think he ever named them because he didn’t want to risk getting sued — about the status of the search for his belongings and their assurances that they would be found — while commenting on the seeming impossibility of losing a full-sized trailer load of household belongings being hauled cross-country by a semi-truck. I tuned in every morning to hear what he might have to say that day about the events of the past 24 hours and the great search for a trailer holding all his earthly belongings. One day he announced that the search had ended. The trailer had simply vanished. Oh well.
In his first few years on the air, his political commentary was always intertwined with humor — usually mocking humor at the expense of some icon of the liberal establishment. I was in my late 20s at the time, so the edgier he was the more I liked it.
Radio icon, who died Wednesday at age 70, closed Feb. 2 show by telling listeners: 'We'll be back soon'
Between 10 and 15 million voters in this country decide the outcome of Presidential elections and the partisan makeup of the Congress. These are the voters who “swing” from one party to the other during election cycles. Capturing the majority of these voters is the path to winning control of the government. //
The amplification of her views through the megaphone of her Hollywood celebrity could not be tolerated by maybe the wokest of woke companies in Hollywood — Disney, a world-wide media behemoth. That one of their topline stars would align herself with the non-woke in such public ways was not tolerable. She could not be a source of conservative thought extending its reach via Disney portals of entertainment and communication.
A new CBS News poll reveals that a majority of Americans believe the biggest threat to the American way of life is other Americans. More than two-thirds of poll respondents said they believe democracy in the U.S. is “threatened,” and 54% said “other people in America” are the “biggest threat to the American way of life,” more so than economic factors, viruses, natural disasters, or foreign actors. //
What does this all add up to? Simple. We have two groups that hate America and Americans. These groups overlap a bit. They are the hardcore Leftists and the self-described, Elites. The Elites are comprised of garden variety Leftists, but also include RINO politicians and pundits. Think Hunger Games.
These two groups have grown so strong, they have made it virtually impossible to compromise with them. Meeting them in the middle has become akin to a situation where a mugger comes up, threatens to kill you, rape your wife, and take all your money. You hope that a compromise might be that he takes your money, kills you, and lets your wife go. Really?
There really are two Americas, three if you count the Elites and the Leftists as two groups. Make no mistake about it. The Elites and the Leftists do indeed pose a huge danger to America. And make no mistake about it. It’s not just President Trump they hate. They hate us. Mr. Utter has written an excellent article. Please take the time to look it over. The only beef I have is that we really don’t need a poll to realize at this point, We have met the enemy and he is us.
our Constitution is the foundation of this country and who we are,” she continued. “It is what guarantees us our civil liberties, our freedoms that are endowed to us, not by any man or person in government, but are endowed to us by our Creator, and so this is something that we must all unite around.”
“This is something that we recognize that those who stormed the Capitol on January 6 trying to stop Congress from fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities, they were acting as domestic terrorists undermining our Constitution,” Gabbard told Carlson. “As you pointed out in my video, those like John Brennan, Adam Schiff, and others are also acting as domestic terrorists because they are also undermining our Constitution by trying to take away our civil liberties and rights that are guaranteed to us.”
deornwulf
6 hours ago
When historians examine the events of Wednesday, January 6, 2021, they will not come to the same politically motivated conclusions that have been bandied about by political hacks, pundits, or other popular propagandists. They will not call the event an insurrection, sedition, or even much of a riot because there are some inconvenient facts that do not support that conclusion. Those facts are based on simple numbers.
The first thing a historian will do is to look at the numbers related to the event, such as the cost of repairing any damage that was done. Those numbers will show the actions of prior recent incidents to be far more costly to fix than what happened on that Wednesday. Court documents will then be examined to see exactly with what crimes were people charged. So far, there have not been any charges of insurrection or sedition. Without supporting court action, a historian will conclude that the accusations were nothing more than political theatre.
Another source of information for historians will be the insurance claims. Records of payments or of declarations of exclusions will be examined to see if any claim by any individual was excluded. Contrary to popular belief, declarations by politicians or media personalities do not determine if an event is legally considered an insurrection. Such determinations require a great deal more and include judicial action.
Death records, specifically “Cause of Death” certificates, will also be scrutinized by future historians. According to the latest information on the event, one unarmed woman was shot and killed from behind by a police officer, three as of yet unnamed individuals died from “medical emergencies” (one of which may have been from being trampled during the panic caused by the tear gas deployed by the Capitol Police) one police officer committed suicide, and a police office suffered a stroke after returning to his desk. The cause of the last death is still under investigation but there have been plenty of unfounded rumors circulated by the media to further their narrative.
Last, historians will examine all video footage of the event along with any written records. Serious research will not stop at a single image to make conclusions. Instead, every image and every video will be closely examined to put the contents into perspective. The clever cropping and framing being used to push narratives will be cast aside. Time stamps on videos will be used to create a timeline of the event. Images and video of other events of the time will be compared to this one to aid in determining what actually happened versus what the propaganda narratives are claiming happened.
Over time, the facts of Wednesday’s events will tell a far different story to future historians from the propaganda and soundbites being pushed around by those pushing a political agenda. One must decide if one is going to be on the side of history or join in the chorus of hyperbole and kabuki political theatre.
If tech feudal lords and oligarchs can decide which sovereign has a voice and platform, then sovereignty is meaningless. Europeans must take note.
By Sumantra Maitra
Whatever the result of the massive Twitter purge, it made one thing clear to the world. Carl Schmitt’s most important and controversial aphorism, “sovereign is he who decides the exception” is still timeless.
In the American republic, the sovereign is not the state, which has hollowed out. The sovereign now is the group of neo-feudal oligarchs, Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, who now decide and control who can speak, see, learn, and buy, and what and when. Give them an army of their own like the East India Company, and the American state is over. //
The hypocrisy here is the establishment of a new hierarchy and power structure. Twitter is doing what it can, not what it cannot. Tech companies can go against Western conservatives because they are not afraid of Western conservatives. They have realized that, due to their ideology and free-market dogma, modern conservatives are impotent about using the state or power.
Twitter cannot do that with China or Antifa, because there will be real consequences in terms of their revenue or street violence. In other words, tech companies are afraid of state power in some countries (China, Russia) and not in others (the free-market United States). The principle of power remains the same. As Phillippe Lemoine said, “Twitter banned Trump because it could and that’s all there is to it. At least the Athenians were honest with the Melians before they destroyed them.” //
No wonder China, Russia, the European Union, and India are trying to control their internet. Their sovereignty is in question if tech oligarchs decide who can speak and who cannot. And the Chinese are happy to rub it in that at least in China, the state remains supreme to a bunch of feudal lords arbitrarily deciding rules. //
The tech-lash censoring of the president and a bunch of conservatives is similar to the king realizing during Magna Carta that it’s the feudal lords who hold real power, not him. It is the duty of historians to add that conservatives have only themselves to blame if they lose the war with the tech neo-feudalists.
They had years to break up monopolies. They didn’t. Vae Victis. The coming consequences will be severe.