Author: Raymond

 
From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Donald Trump based his campaign on trying to scare the public about immigration. He called undocumented immigrants rapists, murderers, and gang members, and warned of a crime wave if that immigration is not stopped. He has not mellowed. In the last few days, he has repeatedly said that the undocumented immigrants would cause much more crime if allowed to come to this country.

Trump’s xenophobic and racist base believe those lies — and they are lies (since statistics show that undocumented immigrants actually commit far fewer serious crimes than U.S. citizens commit). Fortunately, the U.S. public is not buying the repeated lies of Trump.

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From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

Industry scientists may be biased? Fair enough. But why should we assume that the integrity of the fired scientists is beyond dispute? Scientists can just as easily be biased against business and free enterprise. Government policy should not be shaped by them, either. Statists always recoil whenever anyone considers unregulating, as if regulations are good, simply because they are government regulations. But what if the motive is anti-business or anti-prosperity?

That said, pollution is one thing. Climate change is something entirely different. Climate science has become the God of the Left’s environmentalist religion. Environmentalism is based on the faith-based notion that nature is inherently “pristine” and any human action that upsets some precarious and perfect “balance of nature” is by that very fact immoral and catastrophic. There is no evidence of that.

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From Neil Bamforth at MadMikesAmerica:

Now it does need to be said that Britain, like every nation, has its fair share of idiots and thick people. Many years ago a newspaper published a picture of a double deck bus – an old London ‘Route Master’ as it happens – that had been supposedly found on Mars. I was, sadly, not amazed that there were people who actually believed it. I have no idea what they thought the fare for such a trip would have been.

What passes for headline news in America can often cause confusion in Britain. Many people didn’t believe Donald Trump was really called ‘Trump’. “It must be a misprint,” said one chap in my local pub, “nobody is named after a fart” – given that a ‘trump’, in Britain, is a polite word for fart. He meant it. He couldn’t believe anyone could actually be called ‘Trump’.

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From Alinda at The Intersection of Madness and Reality:

In June of 1977, then President Jimmy Carter declared that in the United States June would be known as Black Music Appreciation Month. Barack Obama our 44th President renamed it to African American Music Appreciation Month. No one dare in good sense argue the tremendous influence that African Americans have been not only in music but to this country in general.

Our music has been our refuge historically and will continue even now. Leaning away from the obvious at times, but those true music geeks will peruse this list and appreciate the tracks and if not feel free to chime in your favorites for next year’s list.

Here are some songs and their influence on African American culture. Enjoy, pick up a few , and since it’s summer, you might want to fire up the grill.

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From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

The headline says it all:

Trey Gowdy, who headed the Benghazi investigation for more than 2 years, claims Mueller is taking too long

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From driftglass:

From Bloomberg, with emphasis added:

A Morgan Stanley Star Wants You to Back His Political Movement
Will Americans embrace a new party founded by bankers?

Eric Grossman doesn’t look like he would want to do anything drastic. The top lawyer at Morgan Stanley is a 51-year-old homeowner in the New York suburbs with twin sons and a seat on the firm’s management committee. He’s another man in a power suit in a midtown Manhattan bank.

He also wants to topple America’s two-party system.

Grossman is trying to build a new party—called the Serve America Movement, or SAM…

Another day, another boutique, Third Party vanity project by another cloistered plutocrat hitting up his fellow entitled plutocrats for money because Both Sides!

“Perhaps it’s a fear of arrogance that people are like, ‘Wow you can’t say that, you can’t say you’re going to be a party,’” said Richard Bennett, a partner at investment firm B-FORE Capital who contributed $140,000 to SAM. “I’m like, why not? What else are we going to do? That’s the only thing that’s going to fix it.”

And what exactly does the Banker’s Cookbook Party stand against?

Divisiveness!

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From Blue in the Bluegrass:

There’s a ridiculous and counter-productive “debate” going on right now about how Democrats should handle the nomination of a face-eating leopard to the Supreme Court.

Should Democrats fight like rabid ferrets in a losing cause in order to inspire Democratic voters for the November elections?

Or should they surrender in order to protect red-state Democratic Senators up for re-election?

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From nojo at Stinque:

They’re fine ideals, after all. They continue to inspire. Our cynicism arises from not living up to them.

And hey, we did fight a war over them. A revolutionary war.

What was that about?

The crux of the matter was not Life Liberty Etc., but despotism, rule by an unaccountable power. That is where we find the phrase that resonates most today, the “consent of the governed”, from which, and only which, a legitimate government derives its authority. Absent that consent, living under a government that is “destructive” of that consent, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”.

And here we are.

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From Andy Borowitz:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Shortly after the United States Supreme Court upheld Donald J. Trump’s controversial travel ban, millions of people from other countries expressed puzzlement that anyone would want to travel to the United States at this juncture.

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From Green Eagle:

The lead story from the Washington Post today! The lead story!

“Liberal hostility toward Trump aides could galvanize the GOP base…

Recent displays of anger directed toward members of the Trump administration — such as the White House press secretary being asked to leave a Va. restaurant and a speech by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — could play into the president’s hands.”

Do you ever remember any of the mainstream media truly concerned that the avalanche of hatred directed nonstop by Republicans toward Democrats for decades could galvanize the Democratic base? Never. Because, in fact this headline article is not a kindly meant warning to the Democratic party that a howling mob of millions of Republicans might attack them because some pathological Republican liar is kicked out of a restaurant. No, it is in fact a barely veiled threat that if Democrats do not shut up and take a few more decades of that abuse, the mainstream press, even its most allegedly responsible members, is going to go on a campaign to accuse Democrats of being loathsome subhumans, while as usual ignoring the monstrosity that the Republican party has become.

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