Intentional Conservative Archives - Page 3 of 15

Didn’t President Trump See “Hillary’s America”?

January 4, 2019January 24, 2017 by debisimons

So, on the Wednesday before the Inauguration (hereafter to be described as the “National Day of Patriotic Devotion”) at-that-point-still-President-Elect Trump and VP-Elect Mike Pence appeared somewhere, and Trump mentioned that admirers were telling him, “There hasn’t been anything like this since Andrew Jackson.” He has issued statements saying that Jackson was “an amazing figure in many ways.”

Wait, what? Wasn’t it just this summer that the great Dinesh D’Souza epic “Hillary’s America” hit the multiplexes, in which Andrew Jackson is portrayed as a total villain? As the founder of the . . . Democratic Party? I’m confused. So I took a look back at a review on that peerless purveyor of news, WND.com, in which Chuck Norris lays out the ten best things about the movie. One of them is: “The Democratic Party was the original pro-slavery and anti-minority party, and still is, when one understands its underlying motives and tactics. From Andrew Jackson’s suppression of slaves and slaughter of Indians . . .” (from July 31, 2016) So my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. That was Andrew Jackson in the film, whipping slaves (when he wasn’t coercing comely females ones into bed) and driving Native Americans off their lands.

So why isn’t Pres. Trump insulted that people are comparing him to Andrew Jackson? Beats me.
Could it be (this is just a suggestion) that American history lessons don’t figure bigly on cable news? Just askin’!

Praying Properly for President Trump.

January 4, 2019January 20, 2017 by debisimons

I’m linking to an article below by the estimable Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Committee on Ethics and Religious Liberty, who refused to support Donald Trump during his candidacy and, like many other honorable and thoughtful conservatives (and in his case, also a Christian), has paid a personal and professional price for that refusal.

So when he says to pray for Donald Trump, now, as of noon today, President Trump, well, I guess I’d better listen. Even more important, I guess I’d better listen when Moore quotes Scripture. I’ve addressed this issue before in a couple of posts last year—one in November and one in December—but now that we truly do have a President Trump I guess I’d better do some more pondering about my responsibilities as a Christian citizen.

Are Your Baloney Detectors at the Ready?

January 4, 2019January 16, 2017 by debisimons

So much material over the weekend that we have yet another embarrassment of riches this morning. The whole John Lewis Kerfuffle. (As usual, Trump seems incapable of responding to anything in a statesmanlike way.) Most disturbing, and something I don’t have time to explore right now, the Trumpian remarks made to a German and a British news outlet about NATO and Russia. I’m sure that story is going to be going on for a few days. Ah, remember those halcyon days when the time between the election and the inauguration was a halcyon time?

A Journalist Poses the Right Question.

January 4, 2019January 14, 2017 by debisimons

As I’ve said before, it’s always a great boost when I find ideas I’ve been espousing myself in a professional, reputable source. Anne Applebaum is a recognized scholar on Eastern Europe and its history since World War II; she has written a magisterial book on the subject. (So magisterial that I found it impossible to read, but her scholarship is undeniable.) She has also been smeared by Breitbart News, a distinction that always adds credence to anyone in my book!

So she has an excellent article in the Washington Post today, saying about the Trump/Russian revelations basically what I said about the Access Hollywood tapes: Why is anyone surprised or shocked? It’s only reinforcement of what we already knew. She also says, “How could salacious Russian “ kompromat ,” or compromising material, be used to blackmail someone as shameless as Trump?”

Good question, Anne! Read the article in full:

“Stop obsessing over ‘secrets’ about Trump and Russia. What we already know is bad enough.”

Two Alternatives about the Trump Dossier

January 4, 2019January 13, 2017 by debisimons

Interesting article yesterday in National Review from a highly-qualified source, David Satter, who has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russia for four decades and holds the distinction of being the only American journalist expelled from Russia since the Cold War. I think he knows whereof he speaks.

So when he says that he thinks the infamous Trump dossier is a Russian fabrication designed to sow discord in our government he isn’t talking through his hat. He says that the document bears the marks of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) disinformation and that the perception that the Russians cared one way or another who won the election is false. They simply wanted to be a disruptive and destabilizing influence no matter who won. So far, so good.

What Are We to Make of the Buzzfeed Dump?

January 4, 2019January 11, 2017 by debisimons

Just in case you’re out of the loop (as in that you have a real life and so don’t spend every free moment checking news sites), a new eruption has occurred as of last night just before Trump’s “news” conference today. Buzzfeed, a web outlet that apparently started out as more of a clickbait site but has been trying to reposition itself as a purveyor of legitimate news, released a 35-page intel document that purports to outline extremely damaging information about Trump’s personal life that the Russian government has been using/will use to get the PEOTUS to go along with whatever they want. In other words, blackmail material. There is also supposed evidence that the Trump campaign actively collaboratedwith the Russians during the campaign. The leak in the dam that led to this news leak was the addition of a two-page summary of this material (as well as some other data, perhaps–that part isn’t clear) to the intel briefing that Trump received last Friday about Russian hacking during the election. Buzzfeed then decided to go ahead with publishing the entire document (which has been floating around for months, apparently, with no one being willing to publish it because it was unverifiable). I haven’t yet seen a reputable mainstream news outlet praising Buzzfeed; condemnation seems pretty much universal. (I link to one such article below.)

The Strange Case of Jeff Sessions.

January 4, 2019January 7, 2017 by debisimons

The man who is PEOTUS Trump’s nominee for Attorney General of the US was denied a position as a US District Attorney back in 1986 when his nomination was killed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Back then, and now, the focus was on his supposed racism. Now that he’s up for AG, those charges are on the table again. Is he or isn’t he?

But that’s the wrong question, at least partly because the answer is unknowable. The same two minor incidents keep coming up in the discussion: that he made a joke about the KKK and that he called a black lawyer “boy.”

In Which I Get a Little Savage . . .

January 4, 2019January 4, 2017 by debisimons

about Michael Savage.

Just a little. I’m pretty wimpy.

I’ve been saying for awhile now that I wanted to do some posts about the various sources I’ve run across, good and bad, since I got started reading about political matters this summer. Originally I envisioned some sort of annotated list, but my ideas have expanded quite a bit since then. I just had no idea what all was out there. (“Out there” would be a good description for some of them.) I was, of course, familiar with Rush Limbaugh, and indeed had had a brief time about a decade ago when I listened to him during lengthy commutes. It didn’t take me long to get completely disgusted with him, though. And I had read something about Alex Jones during that same time, I believe in a Washington Post Magazine article, that painted him as a loony but basically harmless all-night call-in radio broadcaster. And I had heard of Breitbart, I think from some forwarded material. They seemed a bit . . . extreme.

How’d We Get Ourselves into This?

January 4, 2019January 2, 2017 by debisimons

Here it is the first weekday of the New Year, Jan. 2. Probably many of you are off from work today, but not me! I’m on the job, starting us out with an overview of how we’ve ended up with the inauguration of Donald Trump looming over us in 18 days. Nothing here is going to be anything new, as it’s all been written about exhaustively, but I haven’t seen anyone put the pieces together into a coherent narrative. All of this information is publicly available or a matter of taking that information and drawing some conclusions.

Lessons from Hungary.

January 4, 2019December 28, 2016 by debisimons

Can we learn from the mistakes of other nations as we look forward (in a way) to the inauguration of Donald Trump as President? I hope and pray that we can. The comparisons to other right-wing populist leaders are pretty chilling.

The opinions of those who have actually lived in countries that are experiencing similar issues to ours have weight that outside sources don’t. We can’t afford to just sit back and relax, folks! Our republic is a product of our vigilance.

Here are some takeaways from Miklos Haraszti, a Hungarian author and director of research on human rights:

Hungary, my country, has in the past half-decade morphed from an exemplary post-Cold War democracy into a populist autocracy. . . . The world is looking at the United States now in a way that we never thought would be possible: fretting that the “deals” of its new president will make the world’s first democracy more similar to that of the others. I wish we onlookers could help the Americans in making the most out of their hard-to-change Constitution. We still are thankful for what they gave to the world, and we will be a bit envious if they can stop the fast-spreading plague of national populism.

Read the entire article here:

“I watched a populist leader rise in my country. That’s why I’m genuinely worried for America.”