A Super-Dee-Duper week at the Supreme Court of the United States of America!

What a wonderful week at the Supreme Court of the United States of America! On Monday, those rights that are defended by the 1st Amendment, were upheld as the "Supreme Court Backs Anti-Abortion Pregnancy Centers in Free Speech Case", which struck down California's effort to force religiously oriented “crisis pregnancy centers” to promote abortion mills to their patients with government scripted materials. And then Tuesday brought us a case in which the "Supreme Court Ruling Delivers a Sharp Blow to Labor Unions", which, by some estimates, will liberate some 770,000 citizens from having to support public sector labor unions, which are no longer able to compel membership dues from either those who fundamentally oppose the union's ideology, or simply because they don't want to be members of that union. That is such a good thing (Hopefully Missouri will extend the same right for 'private' workers, again. IOW: 'Vote Yes on Prop A' this August!)!

And then today, Wednesday, came the icing on the cake, as Justice Anthony Kennedy is stepping down from the court, and President Trump will soon be nominating his successor from the list of 25 potential nominees that Neil Gorsuch was also selected from.

Oh... happy day!

Of course, people being who they are, your mileage may vary... people such as, Chris Matthews, for instance:

"...To give this to the Republicans when they control the Senate basically 51 or 50 to 49 with John McCain perhaps not voting again—to give them this last chance to pack the court 5-4 again hard conservative, I again, I say the base will attack the leadership for this if they allow it to happen and they should. Because this is time for vengeance for what happened 2 years ago. And if they don’t reap the vengeance now with four and half months to go before the election, they will not look very strong to their base..."

Doncha think that his use of 'vengeance', really captures the reasonableness, the sense of toleration, and the desire to work together for the 'greater good', that the Pro-Regressive Left so thoroughly embodies? A perfect likeness, I think.

The Left's botched attempt to bring the GOP's Chickens home to roost
Unfortunately, even though Matthews' shouldn't have anything to splutter his hopes upon, his reference to 'what happened 2 years ago', is to a gift that the GOP gave to the Left, from when Merrick Garland was denied a hearing for the SCOTUS seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia's death. That desperate delaying tactic was, as I railed at the time, " a weak, despicable, display of cowardice.", and it didn't require much cranial wattage to realize:

"... the precedent that it will set for every President elected from here on out, where Congress will set limits on executive power based upon it's current comfort levels on the coming election...."

, which in effect provides an excuse to deprive a sitting president of the opposite party, of his power to nominate a SCOTUS vacancy during a presidential election year (one quarter of his term in office!). It is an awful, irresponsible idea... which was validated by the GOP. What's worse, it wasn't necessary, which had they made even a light review of Garland's record, they'd have seen that it was full of opinions that warranted the Senate's legitimate denial of consent to his nomination to the SCOTUS, as many of them were in direct conflict to the United States Constitution that he was supposed to be upholding. Had Sen. McConnell and the GOP had the sand to meet the challenge head-on by examining and exposing the unsuitability of Garland for the highest court in the land, that ploy first proposed by then Senator Joe Biden, would have been long forgotten in irrelevance.

Fortunately for us, however, that same excuse won't work today. Why? Here, let Sen. Schumer tell you why:

"Our Republican colleagues in the Senate should follow the rule they set in 2016: Not to consider a Supreme Court justice in an election year."

Don't look now Sen. Schumer, but this is not a presidential election year, it is only a mid-term election - which he has to know... though maybe, as my friend Dana Loesch suggests, maybe he's simply hoping on your ignorance to carry his argument through:

They know better than this but they’re counting on you not knowing.
1) It’s the Biden rule
2) It’s not a presidential election cycle
3) Kagan was confirmed in August 2010 during a midterm year. https://t.co/3xEikgBKNR

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 27, 2018

Yep, not only is it not a presidential election year, but years after Joe Biden first floated that absurdity, President Obama himself nominated, and saw seated, Justice Elena Kagan, in the swing mid-term election year of 2010!

IOW my dear Leftist friends: You've got no legs to stand on.

We The People, on the other hand, are looking pretty good, as the vacancy left by Garland's being passed over, was one which President Trump later filled by nominating Neil Gorsuch - an excellent justice, second only to Justice Thomas on the current court. I only hope that President Trump can deliver another such winner from his list of 25 Justices, so that I can see what getting tired of winning, really feels like. :-)

The Frauds of Free Trade, and the possible uses of Tariffs

As someone who holds Free Trade in high regard, I'm about sick of all of those on all sides of the issue, who toss the term about as if it holds no further meaning or purpose than to serve their personal political agendas. For instance, there are the direct frauds of 'free trade', such as Sen. McCain, and a host of others, who have been blathering on about President Trump's tariff talk, as being a threat to what they delight in calling 'Free Trade' between the G7 nations:

To our allies: bipartisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization & supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 10, 2018

There's just one teensy problem with that - for it to be possible to harm an actual Free Trade scenario between the nations of the G7, something resembling Free Trade needs to already exist between them - and it doesn't!!

These nations have not signed on to their pet 'trade agreements', concocted and employed reams of demands and requirements in carefully worded legalese, in order to say nothing more than:

"We pledge not to hamper, alter, favor or hinder anyone engaging in any form of trade across our borders."

Instead, they, and Canada is particularly relevant in this, have enshrined multiple tariffs against trade from the dairy, lumber, and other industries of the United States of America - not only is that not how Free Trade works, it eliminates the possibility of it, which means that the one thing that most definitely does NOT exist between the peoples of those nations right now, is Free Trade!  It is not 'Free Trade', but multi-national agreements of officially sanctioned intrusions into a Free Market, that are the '70 years of shared values' that the likes of John McCain are tweeting their support of, and to hear them pretending to defend 'Free Trade', is like hearing Jack the Ripper calling for chivalrous behavior towards women.

Free Trade is not brought about through governments imposing their restrictions, directives and penalties upon the peoples' attempting to trade across those nations borders.

Free Trade is what results when the political philosophy (which economics is but a subset of) of those nations, have created a Free Market to trade freely within, by establishing a Rule of Law that is dedicated to upholding the rights, property and contracts of their people.

Free Trade, and Free Markets, cease to exist when some or all of those nations write laws and treaties which use their political powers to alter, hinder, favor, and exploit what trade they do deign to permit between their peoples - no matter what you choose to call that, that is not Free Trade.

The truth is that where there exists a NAFTA, or a TPP, or G7 agreements, or ___ (fill in the damn blank), in place between these nations, cutting 'deals' that their people must conform not only their trade to, but more than a few slates of preciously politically correct policies, these manifestos of political manipulation, favoritism and corruption, ensure that there can be NO FREE TRADE existing between the nations involved in these agreements. Those who are peddling, supporting, enabling or ignoring the reality of these 'trade agreements', in order to continue this... fiction about 'Free Trade' being threatened, are, IMHO, the more egregious liars, hypocrites, and frauds involved in the process, not the person who is upsetting the collective apple cart by refusing to play along nicely in such deceitful schemes.

Late Update:

Trump shook up the meeting on Saturday morning by proposing to eliminate all barriers to global trade, a surprise turnaround from his aggressive tone on tariffs before the summit.

“No tariffs, no barriers, that’s the way it should be, and no subsidies,” Trump said during a 30-minute press conference in La Malbaie. "I did suggest it and people were -- I guess they’re going to go back to the drawing board and check it out."

Sorry, who's the threat to Free Trade?

But wait, there's more!
And then there are those constitutional experts who are using 'Free Trade!' and 'the Constitution!', to prattle on about how only Congress can create tariffs, not the President,  and in doing so are being more than a little disingenuous and obfuscatory. Yes, that is what is stated in the text of the Constitution, very true, as you can see in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1,

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

, but there's more to the truth of the matter than that. Congress has passed a number of laws, that explicitly delegate that power to the President, giving him the ability to propose or impose Tariffs, with very few restrictions. Those laws have yet to be successfully challenged and overturned by the Supreme Court (good lord, even writers at Vox realize this - what's the 'experts' excuse?). So... unless you are advocating for pitching the entire congressional record, laws, regulations and codes (which... I'm listening), shut up already about the President not having the power of Tariffs.

FWIW, I don't think it's a good idea for a president to have that kind of power, but thanks to Congress's disdain for our Constitution, and their repeated preference for the Administrative State, the President does now effectively have that power.

... and the economics of cheerleading
And for the rest of you who are enthusiastically on Trump's side of this, stop beclowning yourselves by saying that Tariff's help the economy - they do not. Or rather, it is the easiest thing to point to what is helped by them, but it takes only a little more effort in thought and attention, to see the greater and more widespread damage that they do to the rest of the nation's economy, and to equal treatment before the law.

Frédéric Bastiat, in his 'What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson', and in his 'Economic Sophisms', gave more than enough arguments and demonstrations of the truth of this, back in the mid 1800's, and just as 2+2 is still equal to 4, the truths he exposed and explained about the economic folly of tariffs (and other market interventions), are still, stubbornly, factually, true today, and for all tomorrows to come.

Tariffs are economically unjustifiable. But what about politically...?
Is there a place for Tariffs? Economically speaking? Again, IMHO, No. When government interferes into its citizens contracts in order to 'help' them compete with others from other nations (or within their own, for that matter), the appearance of helpfulness is an illusion. There is no credible justification for initiating the use of Tariffs to 'help' your nation's industry, and especially not to 'level the playing field' with another nation's people and industry, who are legitimately more productive in that area than your own. Ignoring and abusing that power, will result in real and immediate harm to the liberty, rights and property, of those you're ostensibly trying to 'help'. It is true that in the Founder's era, with the study of Political Economy still in its infancy, it was thought there was a justification for tariffs, which is why it was included in the Constitution. However, as was proven over and again within just 50 years of the ratification of our Constitution, on that matter our Founder's were mistaken. Oops.

Still... that doesn't mean that there isn't a political justification for using tariffs.

There is an argument to be made that Tariffs provide a viable means for political retaliation against nations that are improperly and aggressively using their political power to gain from economically damaging another nation's industries, and in a scenario such as that, Tariffs may well be justified in much the same way that retaliatory force is justified in response to physical aggression from an attacking person or an invading nation. Tariff's may well have a valid place in a nation's political arsenal, as a means of addressing economic conflicts, aka: Trade Wars.

But. As with any form of warfare, it is going to be costly, and it will do damage to their own economy, in employing it - neither side will benefit, except through the complete cessation of hostilities. The questions to be asked, are:

• are the other nation's aggressive provocations worth the response?
• will that response do greater damage to the aggressor nation, than to your own?
• will those actions be enough to convince them to curb their aggression?

That is a dangerous game to play, and it only becomes moreso by treating these situations, as the economic questions they only appear to be, rather than as the weighty political issues they actually are. Such oversights can lead to  dangerous misjudgments, misapplications of power, and would almost certainly lead to deeper and more painful complications, conflicts, and unforeseen consequences, from their misuse.

Free Trade, real Free Trade, is hands down, the best policy for all.

But again, if Trump wants to threaten tariffs as a means of negotiating with other nations to end their tariffs, or as a means of political retaliation when they will not drop their aggressive policies towards us, then although I worry about the  possible consequences (which should not be taken lightly), I don't have a real problem with his doing so.

But if we persist in speaking of Free Trade, where it does not and cannot exist; if we insist that some presidents follow constitutional means while ignoring the legislative means that Congress has written to get around them; if we ignore economic realities in the face of partisan fervor; if we fail to identify the nature of the remedies we use, and remain ignorant of the real consequences those measures might bring about... if anyone expects that we can willfully ignore reality as a means to achieving economic benefits for America... we are all in for a very rude awakening.

Democracy Dies in Darkness... and they like it that way

Ok, so I've finally read the dreaded "FISA Memo" which the GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote in regards to classified materials, which they had vetted on sources and methods, approved by President Trump, and released to the public. I've heard the Democrat's warnings about endangering national security and about out of context charges. I've read the NeverTrump'rs downplaying of the memo, by Nat'l Review's David French, and the L.A. Times; and of course, although I'd like to read it, we do not yet have the Democrat 'counter memo' available yet, to get 'the other side' of.

The three points noted below are what I find most significant in the FISA Memo, and everything here hangs upon them. If those three points are true, nothing else matters (and if they are fabrications then these charges should be reversed, with a vengeance). But let's deal with the above items first.

As regards the hysterical 'Endangering National Security!' shrieking that we've been deafened by over the last few days by members of the Democrat Party, there are zero credible, or even stretchable points, that can be construed as to be threats to National Security, in this memo. The charge is ridiculous on the face of it, and further makes the case that they'd go to the most desperate measures possible to keep what's referenced in the memo, under wraps. IOW, 'Democracy Dies in Darkness... and they like it that way.'

Then there's the exercise in blinkered besides-the-point Fith'king (pansified 'Fisking'), from NeverTrump'rs (Left and Right) seeking to bone up the almost immediately discredited charges in a New York Times article last year, as being the only noteworthy points in the memo, and their 'oh boy this is gonna be great!' gleefulness about supposedly substantiating some fringe pieces of the "Russia! Russia! Russia!" case against Trump, are pathetic examples of personal pique, and desperate ideologically snowed-blind efforts to avoid allowing any 'good' to get near a story on Trump.

If anyone can read this memo, and come away focused only upon the charges against Trump, or Trump's charges against the media and FBI, instead of being absolutely incensed over the obvious use and abuse of power perpetrated against the American people, by those entrusted with protecting the American people, in order to further their own interests of political and personal gain, then they possess, IMHO, only sick, twisted, stumps of burned out apparatus, where effective minds had perhaps once dwelt.

The Democrats tell us that they'll put out a counter-memo, soon, that will show just how deceptively out of context the memo's charges are, which I'd very much like to see.

But.

Decades of experience reading what passes for 'The News' from all sides, has accustomed me to seeking out the possibility of missing contexts in stories, and as the bits and drabs of the truth of them have leaked out weeks, months or years later have confirmed to me, I'm fairly good at it. I can imagine a large number of clipped, minimized or dropped contexts in this Memo, but none that would actually matter, where it actually matters most.

What I find most damning in the FISA Memo isn't open to much deflation as a result of an expanded and clarified context, because whether or not the essential piece referenced in the Memo (developed from the Steele dossier) actually served as a foundational basis for the FISA warrants, or instead simply lent some additional support to the request for that warrant to spy upon American citizens, the nature of that document's unsubstantiated charges, and its authors' personal animus, bias, financial and political interests involved in its being used, catastrophically taint everything connected to it - especially as that nature was concealed from those who were presented with it as if it was worthy of respectable consideration.

Seriously! If Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the 'Russia Investigation' because he publicly talked to a Russian diplomat in a greeting line at a State Dept sponsored event, then there's damn sure no room for anything connected to that piece (sponsored and paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign), being used in establishing any aspect of any warrant, let alone the highly volatile nature of a FISA Warrant, and that goes doubly for such information being used while those facts about its origin were deliberately withheld from those who were given them to aid in determining whether or not to issue said warrant (see #4 below).

No matter the imaginable contexts and scenarios that may be brought to light in the future, the following points alone, establish unacceptable behavior, corruption, in the use of the most sensitive and debated investigatory powers our government is able to bring to bear upon American citizens, so as to abuse those powers for the very worst, most corrupt of purposes - that of changing the outcome of a presidential election, to suit the political judgment of a few.

And people, please, stop bringing up Watergate. There is no comparison to Watergate here - that scandal involved a criminal break-in for political purposes. This matter involves using the legal apparatus of our judicial system, to legally spy upon American citizens, in order to corrupt the public mind for political purposes, in a campaign for the highest elected office in the land - not to steal politically sensitive materials, but to corrupt the political judgment of the entire nation. I'll restate that last point: The purpose of obtaining this FISA Warrant, was to corrupt and taint the judgment of the entire American electorate, to manipulate their votes by corrupting the highest functions of our government - our judicial system and defense systems - to taint and dis-inform the public mind and alter their votes by means of our most powerful institutions which are entrusted to 'protect and serve' that same public.

These few points from the FISA Memo, short of their proven to be outright lies, these are not open to the sway of additional context:

• "1 a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele's efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials."
• "3 a "During this same time period, Ohr's wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife's opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs' relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC."
• 4 "...While the FISA application relied on Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information." [emphasis mine]

If you can defend behavior such as that, I can find no means or warrant for defending yours.

"We are Americans first" - Really? The first step towards resolving a problem, is admitting you have one.

I saw President Trump's statement on the rioting in Virginia, and it was as good and as to the point, as can be expected. But unfortunately, it rested upon the line

'We are Americans first'

They say that the first step towards resolving a problem, is admitting that you have one. Well, we have a problem, and the problem is that I fear that phrase is not only no longer true, but is perilously close to having no meaning at all. Why? Because in order to truthfully say that we are Americans first, a person has to first be able to say:

'American'

, with some understanding of the word that's coming out of their mouth. From what I can see, in looking at what other words are coming out of people's mouths, I'm seeing very little to indicate that most of us do know the meaning of American, beyond the shallow legalistic sense of having been born within the geographic borders of the United States... and if that's the extent of your understanding, when you come up against racist organizations advocating for 'America'... well... do you see the problem?

Sure, you're given a legal status by being born within our borders, but you do not, in any meaningful sense, become an American by such means alone, at least not in a way that is any different from how a person becomes a German or a Russian, i.e. by being born of parents on American soil - aka: by 'blood and soil', which, BTW, also happens to be the traditional rallying cry of fascists.

Now do you see the problem there?

Being an American that understands the meaning of that word, American, requires understanding that the meaning of that word, is not gained by means of osmosis through your ancestors blood, or through the soil that your mother gave birth to you upon, which were features and events which you yourself had absolutely no hand in, knowledge of, or choice in. If that and your "[insert your favorite color here] Pride!", are the extent of your claim to being an American, then you are not, in that more meaningful sense, an American.

To understand what it does mean to be an American, means understanding, and accepting as best you can, the fruit of that particular set of ideas that were expressed in our Declaration of Independence, especially, that:

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

Those phrases of our Declaration, have deep philosophical meaning, which gives voice to the meaning and purpose of America, and yet, as Jefferson later wrote to a friend, they weren't meant to be especially impressive, or 'deep', or as an exercise in edgy literary or philosophical virtue signaling, but simply as expressions of something much more commonly profound:

"Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c..."

If those ideas and 'harmonizing sentiments' or the 'elementary books of public right' are foreign to you, then you necessarily stand mute before them, making you intellectually, and spiritually, foreign to America, no matter what the legal status of your physical ties to its 'blood and soil' are.

Am I being too harsh in this? If we look about the land today, what evidence do we find for the sentiment that 'We are Americans first'? If we look to Charlottesville, Virginia, for instance, what did we see on display there last weekend? When I look at the center of these heinous events, I'm seeing prime reasons for the fears that I'm talking about, as racist, socialist, anti-American sentiments were on display in abundance, with very few visible examples of those 'Harmonizing Sentiments' which are what made it possible for the contents of our melting pot, to want to see themselves as being "Americans first."

For Instance:

Why is America fired up over President Trump telling Comey: "You're fired!"

If you've had it already with the 'James Comey fired from the FBI!' stories, I get it, but as no one seems to have any more facts than I do, I'm going to add one more comment to the mix.

Do try to recognize, that asking and answering 'Why did Trump fire James Comey?!', is, in absence of an exhaustive cross examination of Donald Trump, nothing more than an exercise in expressing your own feelings about Trump, and Comey. Period.

The only facts that we can actually know at this time, is that shortly after the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, was finally confirmed by the senate, with high bi-partisan support (and which satisfied some procedural protocols for removing the agency director, from a staffing perspective), and he was asked to write a report on Comey's status as director of the FBI, and his conclusion (which as he adamantly expressed, even reportedly threatening to resign if it was misrepresented[OOPS: reportedly, that 'reportedly' is fake news. STUNNER], was not the causal reason for Comey's firing, but simply an evaluation of the existing situation) was that Comey was compromised and ineffective, and that the FBI would be better off with a new director.

Of course, as I posted last year, Comey, by his own testimony, had used his position as head of investigations, to make prosecutorial, and even judicial judgments, about whether charges should be brought or pursued, against Hillary, Huma Abedein, Anthony Wiener, etc. For me, that alone warranted his instant termination. My own question on why Trump fired him, is not 'Why now?' but 'Why not earlier?'. However, as James Comey himself noted in his farewell letter, the president has the power and authority to fire the director of the FBI at any time, for any reason. You should note, that his removal does not halt or impede any ongoing investigations. It's also worth noting, that his temporary replacement as Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, is a Clinton appointee, who has shown, especially through his wife's campaigning for office a potential for highly partisan leftist leanings - Trump is unlikely to get much aid and comfort through his position as director, so do tailor your pet conspiracy theory appropriately.

Why did Trump fire him? Because he felt it was time to. And in typical Trump fashion, having reached that decision, he acted swiftly, and in a dramatic fashion worthy of Reality T.V. - Comey found out that he'd been fired while standing in front of a room full of FBI agents, as they saw that the TV monitor behind him, was running the news crawl that Trump had fired him. Talk about your ratings moment!

For those of you who are all up in arms about this, honestly, I can only laugh and shake my head. America as a whole, Left, Right, Center and Libertarian, has shown itself to be uninterested in, and unfamiliar with, the concepts of, and structures of, our constitutional republic, preferring popularity, personal interest, and 'gotcha!' partisan political posturing, to prudent wisdom in governing. America, sorry, but as you clearly prefer to be entertained by the likes of South Park, The Simpsons, and Reality T.V., and YOU voted on that basis, whether for Clinton, Trump or the also-ran obstructionists, for President of the United States of America.

THIS is what that looks like! What did you expect?! Personally, I expected much worse, and so far I've been pleasantly surprised with what Trump has, and has not, done in office - I was imagining much worse. I dislike his lack of understanding our constitutional principles, and especially his economic views, but despite your angst and caricatures, he has a long history of capable executive, management and administrative abilities, a fond regard for Americana, as well as a flare for drama and publicity, which he's honed through a decade or more of Reality T.V., and so far, he has used all of that to deliver above my expectations. Fingers crossed. Salt tossed over shoulder. Wood knocked.

For those whose reactions are dramatically different from mine, they might have been summed up best by Stephen Colbert's startlement at his audience's failure to be up to speed with the PC Media's latest 'against him, for him, against him' positions on Comey, as they cheered when he announced his firing. The thing that came to mind for me, when I heard that, was George Orwell's '1984', as the crowd is being led in 5 minutes of hate against "Eurasia", and the speaker receives a message and stops mid word, and changes to "Eastasia", as the hate continues on unimpeded. Unfortunately, Wiki is the best source ref that I can do at the moment, but I think it captures the Colbert moment in '1984':

"At the start, Oceania and Eastasia are allies fighting Eurasia in northern Africa and the Malabar Coast.

That alliance ends and Oceania, allied with Eurasia, fights Eastasia, a change which occurred during Hate Week, dedicated to creating patriotic fervour for the Party's perpetual war. The public are blind to the change; in mid-sentence an orator changes the name of the enemy from "Eurasia" to "Eastasia" without pause. When the public are enraged at noticing that the wrong flags and posters are displayed, they tear them down—thus the origin of the idiom "We've always been at war with Eastasia"; later the Party claims to have captured Africa."

Ladies and Gentlemen of America, if you disregard the concepts and principles and history that made this nation uniquely American, in favor of idle and base amusements, while giving political power over your lives, to people who have more regard for their own power, than your individual rights - what did you think would follow after that? Last year, the HBO series "Westworld" made masterful use of a Shakespearean nugget of a quote, from "Romeo & Juliet",

"These violent delights, have violent ends"

When you comment, and act, not from careful consideration, but simply to give swift vent to your passionate and emotional feelings, you transform yourself into the ideal audience for taking part in 'Hate Week', and lacking any solid conceptual foundation, you too will hardly skip a beat in venting your emotions, as the label of your hated enemy is switched, from one set of letters, to another... and seriously, why would you think such labels would have any more value or purpose, to those you've put in charge of running the show, than a red cape to a bull?

Again I've got to ask, America, what did you expect? SMDH.

Jeff Sessions' Recusal: The GOP's continuing pursuit of publicly preening their political stigmata.

So Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself, in response to a spurious, baseless, charge. Was this an admirable act of selflessly sacrificing himself to maintain the appearance of justice? Is he rising above "... any semblance of a conflict of interest...", by appeasing the calls of those who have no concern for impartiality, or truth, or justice?

No (begin rant).

His action today lifts no one, ennobles no process, and is itself a form of injustice. It's a dereliction of duty, sacrificing that Justice which he has been put in office to defend. His action will reduce no political temperatures for the Trump administration, but will only serve as a means to turning up the heat. Why is it that the Right positively loves indulging in and bathing in these waters of judicial snake-oil, do they really think that they look good preening in them before the media, and the nation?

It is unsightly and obscene.

Am I going too far? I wish. There was no honest question of propriety involved here, only the Left's relentless pursuit of an opening, any convenient pretext, to gain political benefits for themselves by means of the media, which they have not been able to achieve through public elections.

This is the main exchange that is being manipulated against Attorney General Sessions:

"SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY: Several of the President-elect's nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?" the Vermont Democrat asked in a questionnaire.

SESSIONS: No."

He was asked if he had been in contact with any member of the Russian government 'about the 2016 election', and he answered, 'No'.  Did that question, or his answer to it, in any way imply that he had not met with representatives of the Russian Govt at all?

No.

Why? Because as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, it would be not at all unusual for him to have met with ambassadors from other nations, including Russia, as a part of his job, and his having done so in that capacity, does not impact the answer he gave in any way, shape or form, not even if he were running for his own re-election, because it is part of such a senator's job. Even my own Senator from Missouri, Sen. McCaskill did, although she claimed that she'd never met with a Russian Ambassador in her position as a senator on that same Armed Services Committee, which Twitter and the Washington Post quickly showed to be a, by Democrat standards, blatant lie.

Are we to presume then, that, as a Democrat herself, that she now intends to tender her resignation in an attempt to live up to those same preposterous standards she demands of the Right?

No? Huh. Such a surprise.

Sessions should not have even offered a verbal 'PC Penance' of '... despite appearances, in fact...'. Instead, he should have called out these deceptive, dishonest, manipulative allegations, as being what they are, and continued on with the business he was put in office to do.

Did he?

No.

Instead, following the traditional GOP passion for publicly preening in ritual acts of political self mutilation, he chose to recuse himself from those duties that, if he cared about Truth and Justice, he should have diligently insisted upon personally overseeing, with extreme care and attentiveness, because that's what he owes, not to the media, but to the American people, on whose behalf he is now serving as Attorney General.

Instead, we're treated yet again to the GOP's preferred means of parading about in their political stigmata, by indulging, again and again, in actions that are the equivalent of those who cut and scar themselves for attention, offering up the plaintive cry:

'Aren't our wounds admirable and impressive?!'

The truly despicable truth is, that the GOP's indulging in these actions gives the left's deliberate lies and aspersions a sheen of credibility, serving to empower and embolden their efforts to increase their own ill-gotten political powers, by any means necessary. And this recusal will fuel and intensify their pursuit of those powers.

Will it accomplish anything at all for the GOP? No. Will it encourage the Pro-Regressive Left to treat them more fairly? No. Will it lessen pressure on the Trump administration? Hell no. Will it in any way shape or form enable the GOP to better uphold and defend justice for the people of the United States of America? No.

Will it weaken the GOP's ability to faithfully advance what they were elected by the people of the United States of America to do? Yes. Will that weakness encourage the left in its pursuit of even more power? Yes, it absolutely will do that.

For this, President Trump ought to tell Jeff Sessions: "You're fired!"

There are a lot of things that I take issue with Trump on, but in this case, I'd like to see a lot less GOP/Reince Preibus - Trump, and a lot more News Conference-Trump, something like 'This is a fake story and we're not going to treat fantasy as reality, so sit down!'

Instead...it's times like this that 'the Right' disgusts me, and I am so proud to Not be a member of the GOP.

/rant