It’s Friday, January 20th, 2017…and thankfully, blessedly, we bid adieu to the first…and hopefully only…anti-American President in U.S. history; the perfect personification of evil whose hypocrisy…
The new wall and guard shack outside the Obama’s Washington mansion.
…was only exceeded by his hyperbolic, wholly-underserved sense of self:
And who leaves behind him not only a tattered legacy of sordid scandal and abject failure…
So here’s wishing President Trump godspeed as he embarks upon his mission:
Any way you slice it, the next four years…
…should prove memorable.
And Barry…
We thank God every day we won’t have to suffer through…
…your third term!
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, courtesy of NRO‘s Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty correctly recalls something which seems to have escaped The Dear Misleader:
Manning Was Always One of the Bad Guys.
I’m feeling really consistent this morning. I never liked, trusted, or defended Manning, whether it was the Bradley or the Chelsea edition. (Which we refuse to recognize.)I never liked,trusted, ordefendedJulian Assange.I never forgot that heouted the U.S. military’s secret Afghan informers to the Taliban, believes in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, appears to be working with Russian hackers and Russian intelligence, blames America for ISIS terror attacks, and stands accused of raping at least one woman — charges that he has thus far refused to face. (I did wonder aloud if exposing something as significant as a foreign government bribing a presidential candidate would justify an action like hacking.) I had serious gripes with the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance operations, but I never liked, trusted, or defended Edward Snowden. Snowden released a ton of information that had nothing to do with spying on Americans, and everything to do with spying on foreign states and potential threats, which is literally the NSA’s job. (Judging from the reviews, the new book by Edward Jay Epstein makes Snowden sound like an egomaniacal lunatic.)
The good guys don’t reveal classified secrets that endanger other people’s lives. That’s not a hard or complicated rule.And after they’re convicted and sentenced, they shouldn’t be given a get-out-of-jail-free card because they’ve become a national symbol of gender change.That doesn’t change what Manning did, or the consequences.
We spent the last two months hearing that Wikileaks is a tool of the devil and that Trump has nothing but contempt for America’s intelligence community, and Obama’s parting gesture as he steps out the door is … to groin-punch the IC bycommuting the sentence of the most famous Wikileaker of them all?
Am I awake? Why would Obama forfeit Democrats’ momentary “we’re the party of national security!” messaging this way?
President Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of an individual who leaked confidential information to Wikileaks is in direct conflict with Democratic rhetoric lambasting Wikileaks for publishing illegally obtained emails from the DNC and Hillary adviser, John Podesta.
Wikileaks is only evil when it’s politically expedient. At least if you’re a Democrat.
Manning is a traitor who pled guilty to a lesser offense to avoid the full penalty for his crimes. He has received too much mercy already. Obama’s commutation of his sentence is a disgrace.
It is also disgraceful for the New York Times to report without balance that “Prosecutors … presented no evidence that anyone was killed because of [Manning’s] leaks.” As the Times well knows, in cases involving classified information, the government frequently cannot reveal – let alone prosecute – the damage done. As a practical matter, such revelations end up disclosing more classified information and, critically, identifying other informants and countries who have covertly provided national-security assistance to the United States. That is why it is always a gimmee for apologists of the Mannings, Snowdens, and Clintons to minimize the harm they have done; it is generally impossible to provide concrete information to counter this claim absent exposing more intelligence and endangering sources for obtaining it.
Democratic New Jersey senator Bob Menendez questioned what message Obama was sending to future whistleblowers.
“What happened here is that literally hundreds of thousands of documents were released. It put national security at risk. It put individual operatives at risk. It put our national interest at risk,” he said. “At a time when we are seriously questioning what Russia did, as it relates to our recent elections and the role of Wikileaks, I’m not sure what kind of message we send here. I’m really surprised that the president took this action, and I have concerns what message we send about ultimately revealing sensitive national security documents.”
President YOLO.
We for one believe Manning’s commutation was not only a parting poke in the country’s collective eye by an anti-American Islamofascist, but a last-minute sop to a LGBT movement which is part of the larger Progressive pogrom intent on shredding the nation’s moral fabric. As we’ve always maintained…
As for his release of the FALN‘s lead assassin, Oscar Lopez-Rivera, we can only hope someone close to Barry suffers the same fate as the victims of the unrepentant killer whose sentence he commuted.
Since we’re on the subject of those playing for the other side, they’re the subject of Cortney O’Brien’s latest entry at Townhall.com:
Trump Transition Team Demands CNN Retract Hit Piece on HHS Nominee
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Donald Trump’s nominee for HHS secretary, became a source of controversy on Tuesday after CNN published a piece that suggested he was guilty of insider trading. Price, the piece surmised, immorally supported legislation that would benefit a company in which he had purchased stock.
Trump’s transition team is demanding CNN retract the “blatantly false story.” In a statement released Wednesday morning, they provide facts they say CNN could have easily found via House Financial Disclosure Filings. Had they done that little bit of research, the reporters would have found that the trades in question were made without Price’s knowledge.
Dr. Price learned of the purchase of Zimmer Biomet on April 4, 2016, when his financial advisor sent him a list of trades to be disclosed on his House Periodic Transaction Report (PTR).
Dr. Price submitted the PTR reflecting the March trades on April 15, 2016.
Dr. Price began work on his legislative effort to delay the comprehensive joint replacement demonstration project in 2015 in order to preserve treatment options for patients. He sent a Dear Colleague letter regarding this effort on September 21, 2015.
As you can see, the timeline proves Price’s innocence. Yet, CNN and the Obama administration continue to push an opposing narrative.
“For many years,” Donald Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon, “our country has been divided, angry and untrusting. Many say it will never change, the hatred is too deep. IT WILL CHANGE!!!!”
As persuasive as the ALL CAPS are, I have my doubts.
Put aside Trump’s specific shortcomings for the moment. The presidency has become ill-suited to the task of unifying the country, because the presidency has become the biggest prize and totem in the culture war. Like the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in England, if one side controls the throne, it is seen as an insult and threat to the other. And whoever holds the throne is seen as a kind of personal Protector of the Realm.
The political parties have been utterly complicit in the process.(Though Republicans to a FAR lesser extent than the Dims.) Exploiting social media and other technologies, Republicans and Democrats shape their messages around the assumption that they — and they alone — have legitimate ownership of America’s authentic best self. That’s why whichever party is out of power promises to “take back America” — as if the other side were foreign invaders.
Barack Obama was elected in 2008 in no small part to fulfill the promise of his 2004 Democratic Convention keynote address: to banish the slicing and dicing of America into Red States and Blue States.
The colors of the electoral map may have been smudged and scrambled over the last eight years, but the underlying polarization Obama inherited from George W. Bush only intensified on his watch. Trump will be the third president in a row to promise to unite the country, and he will almost certainly be the third in a row to fail.
It’s tough to unite a country when at least half of it is operating under a false set of “facts”!
The ugly squabble between the president-elect and Representative John Lewis (D., Ga.) over the weekend offers a glimpse into how bad things will get.
Lewis earned his icon status on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala. But over the years, he’s traded some of his moral capital for partisan chips, insinuating that only the Democratic party has ownership of the civil-rights era and its victories, despite the fact that a higher share of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. Indeed, the goons who cracked Lewis’s skull on the Edmund Pettus Bridge were acting at the behest of a Democratic governor and Democratic local officials. Even the bridge was named after a Democrat.
In 2008, Lewis saw nothing wrong with comparing Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) to the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace, adding: “Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division.” He did it again in 2012, insinuating that voting for Mitt Romney might lead America to “go back” to the days of fire hoses, police dogs, and church bombings.
This was not idealism, but poisonous cynicism, and it helped contribute to the feelings of resentment that were so essential to Trump’s victory.Now, Lewis is going further still, refusing to attend Trump’s inauguration and arguing that Trump cannot be a legitimate president because of Russian meddling in the election. Lewis may have reason to believe that Trump did not win fair and square, but questioning Trump’s legitimacy is exactly what the Russians probably wanted from the beginning: to undermine Western and American faith and confidence in democracy. (It’s a sign of Lewis’s partisanship that he also boycotted George W. Bush’s first inauguration because he didn’t think Bush was legitimate either.)…”
Truly there are none so blind as those who will not see; case in point, courtesy of Tom Knighton writing at PJMedia:
“A professor at Marquette University has been suspended since December 2014 because, on his personal blog, he criticized a colleague who forbade students from questioning the propriety of gay marriage in her classroom.
Now, Marquette has ruled he can come back to work — if he issues an apology for having expressed his opinion:
Dr. John McAdams has been on paid suspension since December 2014 for a blog postin which he calls out another instructor, Cheryl Abbate, for telling students not to dispute the propriety of gay marriage in class because it would be “homophobic” to express opposition to the idea.
According to Watchdog, Marquette legal counsel Ralph Weber sent a letter to McAdams’ attorney on January 12 affirming that McAdams will remain suspended indefinitely because he has not not complied with university President Michael Lovell’s demand that he release a statement admitting “guilt” and apologizing for violating Marquette’s “Guiding Values.”
…Let’s take a look at Marquette’s“Guiding Values“for a moment:
Marquette University Guiding Values
Endorsed Dec. 8, 2014
In accordance with the Catholic, Jesuit mission and vision of Marquette University, we hold that all people and things are created to praise, reverence and serve God in our community and throughout the world, and thus every aspect of the university’s lifeblood and work holds this principle and foundation as its beginning and end. Therefore, we will enact the following values and behaviors in our lives and our work to serve the greater glory of God:
Pledge personal and holistic development of students as our primary institutional vocation
Pursue academic excellence and educate students who are men and women for and with others throughout the world
Embody a spirit of interdisciplinary curiosity, research, innovation, entrepreneurship and application to change and improve ourselves, our community and our world
Nurture an inclusive, diverse community that fosters new opportunities, partnerships, collaboration and vigorous yet respectful debate
Live as servant leaders with a commitment to the Jesuit tradition and Catholic social teaching for all people, beliefs and faith traditions
Create bold, ambitious plans enacted with agility, authentic accountability and a commitment to the greater good
Please, someone, explain to me how forbidding an opinion shared by a great many Catholics and Jesuits — the faiths Marquette is founded upon, after all — fosters “vigorous yet respectful debate”?Sure sounds like Marquette has blatantly violated its own Guiding Principles.
A quick look atDr. McAdams’ blog postshows that, while he was critical of his colleague, he supported his arguments and did not engage in any disrespectful behavior.Meanwhile, Professor Abbate — by forbidding discussion on gay marriage, then informing a student who disagreed that he should drop the class — did the opposite.Further, in the comments on his blog, McAdams defended Abbate’s legal right to limit discussion in such a way since the college is a private institution.He simply disagreed with her decision.
Dr. McAdam has said he won’t go gentle into that good night at Marquette, and I don’t blame him. If anyone is owed an apology, it’s him.“
…You Can’t Argue With A Sick Mind…particularly when it’s a Progressive Catholic’s. As we’ve observed countless times before, Liberalism is in fact a virulent, debilitating form of mental illness; and only Christ can truly effect its cure!
Which brings us to The Lighter Side…
Finally, were we now Commander-in-Chief, we know one useless piece of Brass…
We’ll be heading down to Puebla, Mexico tomorrow morning on a week-long missions trip with our church. And while we’ll try to get out an edition, time and the quality of the hotel wireless network may preclude us from publishing.
So, until Monday, January 30th, here’s a little light reading from VDH to keep you busy:
Any way you slice it, the next four years…
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