Sunday, December 12, 2021



Trial by media

We are in a season of trials and non-judicial judgments of unusual interest. Once again I feel a duty to try to raise the bullet-riddled and half-lowered standard of due process.

I’m looking forward to reading the excellent Miranda Devine’s book about the endless imbroglio of Hunter Biden’s legal shortcomings. I have never doubted that Joe Biden was well aware of his son’s activities and that they ramified far beyond the original controversial associations in Ukraine and China.

Seeing the video of then VP Biden boasting that he had had a prosecutor fired in Ukraine by threatening to withhold congressionally approved assistance to that country was doubly galling. And it was a particular and unspeakable outrage to have to endure the malicious farce of the impeachment of President Trump over his telephone call to the president of Ukraine.

As the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, he was perfectly within his rights to ask to know the facts in respect of the former vice president’s son’s commercial activities in that country. He didn’t try to direct the outcome of his inquiry; he merely asked for the facts.

It was especially infuriating when some of the same titans of the intelligence community who had been peddling the monstrous falsehood that Trump was “a Russian intelligence asset,” got together late in the election campaign to sign a published statement that allegations about Hunter Biden’s laptop and related activities were “Russian disinformation.” Hope springs eternal that the Molasses-paced Durham investigation will expose James Clapper and John Brennan and other former intelligence agency leaders as the unworthy men that they are.

As readers would be aware, I found the thought of a Biden presidency horrifying; I have never in 50 years thought he was remotely competent to be president, and I never forgave him or Teddy Kennedy for their near-crucifixion of a great public servant and outstanding candidate for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork.

With all that conceded, I must say that I have not seen any evidence that the antics of the Bidens in China, Ukraine, or elsewhere caused any alteration of official policy in favor of the regimes that were paying the Biden family. It was from all credible accounts potentially corrupt and an outright sale of possible official influence on the U.S. government, a deplorable and even degrading activity, but not surprising from Joe Biden, and more importantly, not necessarily illegal.

The Chinese and the Ukrainians can give money to Hunter Biden if they want to, and he can make any claims he wants about his general ability to be a conduit to an influential person in Washington. A crime may have been committed, but I don’t see that there’s any evidence of it as a bribe to the Bidens that triggered any action in consideration for the payments.

On the laptop issue there seems to be no doubt that Hunter Biden has lied in public about it, but I’m not aware of any reason to infer that he lied under oath to a grand jury or to investigative government officials, which evidently would be illegal.

Utterly incompetent though he has been, questionable though the results of the last presidential election were, of declining cognitive powers though he is, (and at his peak they were rarely impressive), Joe Biden is the president and he deserves that element of respect that attaches at all times to that great office.

His entitlement to that respect is not diminished by the shameful and orchestrated manner in which America’s morally bankrupt national political media withheld that respect from his predecessor.

I told my late friend Bill Buckley that I thought he had failed in the normal requirements of civil respect for the presidency of the United States when his cover headline at the National Review when President Clinton left office was “Goodbye to the Big Creep,” referring to a comment of Monica Lewinsky. No U.S. president should be referred to publicly with that level of disrespect in his own country.

Similarly, though it is considerably more amusing, the inspiration for “Go Brandon,” a very coarse reflection on Mr. Biden, chanted at times by scores of thousands of people, is an unjustified indignity to the office.

There is an enormous variety of methods available to register one’s disapproval of a president but encouraging huge sporting crowds to chant the F-word before president’s name is an unacceptable vulgarization of public discourse and an obscene effrontery to the headship of the American people and government.

It is interesting to see the media reaction to the simultaneous trials of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jussie Smollett, and Elizabeth Holmes. Since most of the media is in the grip of both the reflexive and impassioned left, the suspicion has been raised in conservative Republican circles that the Maxwell trial is being scantily covered because Democrats fear that Bill Clinton and many other prominent Democrats could be implicated in the allegedly indecent treatment of under-age women by the late Jeffrey Epstein, in which Ms. Maxwell has been accused of participating.

Republican suspicions are also aroused by the fact that one of her prosecutors is Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI director James Comey, whom Hillary Clinton blamed for “shivving” her in the 2016 election campaign, and whom President Trump fired over Comey’s promotion of the Trump-Russian collusion fraud. The theory is that Ms. Comey might negotiate a soft plea bargain to protect prominent Democrats.

The left-wing media are also downplaying the Smollett trial, presumably because of the interference of prominent Democrats to have the initial charges against Smollett quashed and the credulous treatment by the Democratic establishment and media of Smollett’s initial claim to have been attacked at 2 o’clock in a cold Chicago winter morning by two masked African-Americans purporting to be Trump supporters.

At least the Holmes case is not partisan or ideological but is interesting because she had such a spectacular rise and fall and is conducting a very innovative defense based on the theory that she sincerely believed all that she claimed for the medical testing product which she and her former business and romantic partner devised.

They are all unusually interesting cases, where, as usual, the media have ignored the Sixth Amendment guaranty of an impartial jury by poisoning the public jury pool with relentless insinuations that all the defendants are guilty.

CNN’s firing of Christopher Cuomo is also noteworthy; I have always found him and his brother, the former New York governor, unutterably obnoxious public figures.

But I do not see anything morally wrong or as professionally more objectionable than the general quality of CNN political reporting in Christopher Cuomo trying to help his brother when he was under assault as governor. There may be more sinister aspects to this question than what I have seen, but on its face a man should not be fired for loyalty to a close relative.

And for CNN, which broadcasts fanatical partisan misinformation and fatuous political correctness and Trump-hate, to dismiss one of its commentators on such grounds, is sheer hypocrisy, standard fare from CNN.

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New Poll Reveals Democrats Far More Likely to Hate Opposing Party

The liberal left pleads for the sympathetic, compassionate treatment of all, especially those misunderstood criminals. They boast of a kinder, more inclusive ideology. Democrats insist that those with different opinions are being rigid and unyielding.

However, a new poll tells a far different story. Seems registered Democrats, especially those from younger generations, are exceedingly less tolerant of differing political beliefs than either Republicans or independents.

Many of these self-proclaimed supporters of inclusiveness won’t even be friends with someone who holds a mildly different political stance. The self-righteous progressives will decline a date with almost anyone espousing to a conservative viewpoint.

They’re even cautiously wary of the more moderate members within their own party. When it comes to supporting their local communities, many liberal Democrats refuse to do business with any Republican-owned businesses.

The percentage of the college-age Democrats who say they would never date a Republican is over 70 percent. While the numbers fall slightly for holding friendships or frequenting conservative businesses, it’s still nothing even remotely resembling “inclusive”.

This seems to be a typical trend among liberal Democrats. They’re fine, as long as everyone parrots what they believe. Everyone should be included, as long as everyone agrees with all their self-entitled ideologues.

Barely five percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t be friends with a Democrat. The reverse number for liberals is nearly eight times higher. While nearly a third of the polled Republicans seemed rather reluctant to date a Democrat, that number was double in reverse.

So, it seems the self-proclaimed party of inclusiveness is anything but. They’re the exact opposite of what they say they believe. This poll speaks volumes. On one hand, it shows that Democrats have problems practicing what they preach. It also clearly proves they’re hypocrites

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There Are 2 Clear Motivations for the Leftist Elites’ Attacks on Working-Class Americans

Beyond the casual and now familiar classism are two easy-to-understand motivations: the need to continuously punish supporters of former President Donald Trump for their voting habits and a desire to lash out at those who have steadfastly resisted the commencement of our new progressive era.

The former is simply a continuation of the attitude manifested from the very first minute of the Trump administration. As I write in my newly released book about the Trump era,

“[For Trump opponents], “Trump the President” was unacceptable. He was counterfeit. He could not last. He lacked discipline, intellect, and preparation. His preferred method of communication was Twitter. After all, who (other than he) would conduct government by…Tweet? Who (other than he) would so disrespect the long-tenured establishments of both parties? Who (other than he) would daily circumvent the self-appointed gods of our cultural and political values?”

For progressives, daily anti-Trump vitriol was and remains so easy.

The animosity generated by the great surprise of Nov. 8, 2016, (and the following four years of conservative government) never runs out of fuel. Here, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, even as his presence on the national stage continues to diminish.

But it is the strikingly difficult start to the Biden era that further illuminates “the attitude.”

A series of real-world policy failures (COVID positivity rates and deaths, supply chain slowdowns, a chaotic southern border, inflation, Afghanistan) and election setbacks (Virginia and almost New Jersey) have the grifting intelligentsia both minimizing the failures (inflation is an “upper class” issue, per White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain; “on average” Americans can afford to pay more, per MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle; God forbid the “tragedy of the treadmill delayed,” per White House press secretary Jen Psaki), and, of course, further doubling down on race.

With respect to the latter, recall how progressives howled that alleged white supremacists — including a growing proxy group of African-American white supremacists — allegedly gaslighted race to elect (you guessed it) a suspected white supremacist as the new governor of Virginia. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Admittedly, an inexplicable explosion of white supremacy — in northern Virginia of all places — will appear ludicrous to the average person who saw the Virginia results as a simple repudiation of those who seek to separate parents from their children’s education. But race remains the only “go-to” claim when progressive experiments fail — as they always do.

All of this has me thinking that “the attitude” may not play out so well over the long term. One can only hope…

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Anti-vaccine speech by prominent Australian conservative politician

She should be free to decide what to put into her own body. J.S. Mill argued that ownership of one's own body is the most basic liberty

Federal One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has told a crowd of “pro-choice” business owners she has no intention of getting vaccinated against Covid-19, saying she is “not putting that s*** in my body”.

Senator Hanson was a guest speaker at a “businesses for choice” event in Ipswich on Thursday night. The group behind the forum describes itself as wanting to “support like-minded patriotic and conservative representatives, irrespective of party affiliation”.

In her remarks, Ms Hanson said she would not listen to bureaucrats, the United Nations or the World Health Organisation “pushing their own agenda” to “take away my freedom”.

However she insisted she was “not an anti-vaxxer”.

The vast majority of Australians have chosen to get vaccinated against Covid, with Ms Hanson’s own state Queensland passing its 80 per cent double-vaxxed threshold this week. At the national level, 93 per cent of Australians over the age of 16 have received at least one dose and 89 per cent are fully vaccinated.

“I’ll tell you honestly: I haven’t had the jab, I don’t intend to have the jab, I’m not putting that s*** in my body,” Ms Hanson said in footage obtained by Channel 9.

The crowd responded with applause.

“I’ve taken that stance and that is my choice,” she continued. “I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but I am very careful what I put into my body. I felt that I’ve kept pretty good health all my life, and I intend to keep it that way.

“I don’t intend to listen to bureaucrats or politicians, or UN or WHO pushing their own agenda and take away my freedoms, my rights, my choices when that’s why I’m fighting this issue and so should you.”

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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