On The Warpath

Glenn Greenwald's affinity for Edward Snowden and disdain for the CIA/NSA/FBI and their apologists leads to a vigorous (and inarguable!) reprise of the Horowitz report, the FBI FISA abuses, and the media "watchdogs" that saw nothing. Includes good links to other belatedly concerned lefties such as Matt Taibbi and Charles Savage.

Comments

[Jim Eagle]

Already?

Cheers, TM.

[Jim Eagle]

Reposting from last thread:

TomB,

A very articulate post. One thing I have done with my son is to make sure he understands our constitution and how it was created and why. I have always felt "the why" was more important than "the how".

In his US History class they have formed teams to debate whether creating our republic was necessary or an over-reaction. That question has never been asked as far as I know. But an intesting way for our kids to understand life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

[Captain Hate]

Greenwald, Taibbi and Savage know which way the wind is blowing.

[Jim Eagle]

CH,

Greenwald has inherited the mantle of Nat Henthoff, IMHO.

[Captain Hate]

Maybe, Jack. Hentoff was very outspoken on what a disaster Gaylord was

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/12/john-w-whitehead/america-under-barack-obama-an-interview-with-nat-hentoff/

[Tom Bowler]

Also reposting from the last thread:

Thanks, Jack. Now there's a question that would never have occurred to me: Was creating our republic an over-reaction? I'd like to hear how your son answers that one.

Which leads me to further speculation around our founding and the founding fathers. People of their time might have thought of Adam Smith as edgy and pseudo-intellectual. Imagine thinking of our country's founding as driven by a fad. Of course, with the perspective of a couple hundred years, it's safe to say Smith's ideas didn't turn out to be a fad.

But I think it was quite a lucky thing that our founders were subject to the intellectual influence of Adam Smith right when they were drawing up their plans.

[Captain Hate]

Donald Trump's superpower is that he is presiding over the best economy in at least the last fifty years, while job prospects for "journalists" are as bad as in the Great Depression.

The latest shoe to drop is that Bloomberg Media just took over a website called CityLab from the Atlantic, and laid off all the staff.

CityLab is devoted to explaining how cars are evil, and why everyone should be forced to live in a 500 square foot apartment in a high-rise building next to a mass transit stop.

Kriston Capps, one of the laid-off staffers, is of course whining on Twitter about how Unfair this all is. Kriston's last article in City Lab was about how wonderful is would be to provide tenants facing eviction with "free" legal help (no discussion of what this would do to rents or to screening of prospective tenants), but he also concentrates on the Big Things, like in an article that starts;

It's time to crack down on single-use plastic drinking utensils, the world's most disposable product

Best of luck on the job search, Kriston.

I'd tell you to learn to code, but the joke is that people like you became journalists because you were incapable of learning how to code.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at December 15, 2019 02:59 PM (I2/tG)

[Jim Eagle]

CH,

I first ran into Henthoff when I became interested in jazz and subscribed to Downbeat magazine while I was in college. One time in one of his Downbeat columns he mentioned something about free speech. I can't remember actually ignited his opinion but I think it might have been some city blocking black jazz musicians. Could be since this is pre-ciivil right marches, etc.

I was sort of surprised and got interested in his other opions beside his discussions of Art Blakey or Coltane. He was always interesting.

Thanks for that interview with Nat.

[Jim Eagle]

I am no longer going to correct all my grammatical or spelling errors. So use your crypto skills:)

[Another Bob]

“She will be in the hospital and rehab a long time.”

Marlene, you might be surprised. In our case it was less than a week in the hospital, then IIRC about six weeks of inpatient rehab in a non-hospital facility.

(It probably should have been another couple weeks, but we didn’t like the place and pressured to get her out sooner. They got lazy about replacing dressings and she developed a minor infection at one of the incision sites.)

[sbwaters]

the joke is that people like you became journalists because you were incapable of learning how to code.

CH, I learned to code and only then became a journalist.

[Narciso]

An intellectual fad i dont think so, now the french revolution and rousseau was probably closer to that. One might argue the proxinate course of the first was the debt incurred from the french indian war as the second was the american revolution, also the little cooling period wrought havoc on the harvest of 1788.

[MissMarple2]

I just saw that Rudy Guiliani is on the warpath (coincidental phrase) over on Twitter.

He is putting up actual EVIDENCE of wrongdoing over in Ukraine.

I will see if I can sort it out and link it. I have been absent because my son, youngest grandson, and son's new wife came to visit and pick up a bunch of Christmas ornaments.

In the process the Pomeranian/Chihuahua, Jack, got all territorial and bit my thumb, drawing blood. At least he bit me and not my grandson, who probably would have been traumatized.

[KevlarKid]

what is your mom's first name, Marlene. i'd like to send along to our larger prayer Circle across the Central Valley.

[MissMarple2]

This is Rudy's first thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1206290349422981120.html

"Budapest | Kiev | Vienna

After hundreds of hours & months of research, I have garnered witnesses & documents which reveal the truth behind this impeachment, which includes NO wrongdoing by @realDonaldTrump.

These threads only touch the surface. Read & watch all. More to come. "

[Narciso]

There be trolls here:

https://mobile.twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1206291142498750465

[Jane]

Ok I watched Comey and Schiff. Comey was ‘shocked’ at the abuses and couldn’t imagine his staff missed all that. He pretended his arguing 3 of the warrants was also the fault of the staff. He was an absolute sleeze.

Schiff was simply a joke. Said nothing even worth remembering.

[henry]

@realDonaldTrump

So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong. Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red handed. He was actually caught a long time ago. So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail? Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?

[MissMarple2]

Rudy Giuliani
@RudyGiuliani
·
Dec 14
This is a coup. There is nothing legitimate about it. The charges are a direct assault on the legitimate exercise of power under Article II and as such unconstitutional and illegal. Hold these
people accountable for putting party ahead of the good of the country.

[Narciso]

We were coinciding, its striking how all this documentation was ignored.

[MissMarple2]

Rudy Giuliani
@RudyGiuliani
·
Dec 13
This hatred of Trump is unwarranted. Where are our establishment religious leaders preaching against hatred. The evangelical leaders seem to be the only ones affirming the values taught by Jesus Christ. It’s time for the Catholics, the Episcopals, the Orthodox, etc to speak.

[KevlarKid]

these crimes are presented as a patchwork of mistakes so far. how will the DOJ prosecute the broader conspiracy to overthrow a presidency?

[KevlarKid]

Pope Che with nada to say cept weeweechu a meddy chremiss?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Our founding fathers didn't just look to tradition and ancient wisdom. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776. Eleven years after that, out constitution was signed.--

We're not in disagreement. I think I noted that, unlike the Frogs, they used the best parts of The Enlightenment which Smith was one of the great thinkers of.
But the entire enterprise, including The Enlightenment was built on the framework of Western Civilization.
Adam Smith and John Locke's ideas were not ultimately antithetical to that civilization. Spinoza and especially Rousseau's, brought to their inevitable extremes in the French Republic were.

[Narciso]

The less this dotty pontiff says less chance of category error, and i was a catholic for forty years.

[MissMarple2]

This tweet has the screen cap to the firm denial by the USTR and Mnuchin over the WSJ's story about how we were giving all of these tarioff reductions (aka bribes) to the Chinese.

Firm denial, story based on secret sources. The WSJ is failing fast.

I've never seen a statement like this from USTR or Mnuchin in my time covering the Trump administration: pic.twitter.com/e2oSxrSPSs

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) December 15, 2019

Screen cap at the link.

[MissMarple2]

Brad Parscale
@parscale
·
1h
Raised 10MM+ = Greater than $10,000,000 in donations in one week.
🤔

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

What can you say about Comey's judgment that when the Horowitz report first dropped he was on twitter crowing about its vindication of him and the den of stoats he presided over, but now he's shocked, SHOCKED that the stoats were gambling behind his back.

[Narciso]

I think this one was addressed before:

https://spectator.org/nixons-resignation-reconsidered/?fbclid=IwAR2UJmdpiLUzkvclnMWjO9okUep1hDFbOR54xKGdH-5zTmjrpUt5bOC1Y18

[henry]

Comey’s judgment? About average for government work.

[MissMarple2]

Nunes tells Schiff he needs to be in rehab:

Link if you are on a phone and this is too hard to read:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EL2cZ_BW4AATs9g?format=png&name=900x900

[Tom Bowler]

We are not in disagreement, Ig. Nor are we Narciso.

[Narciso]

Its agood rhetorical question, the soil was ready in the colonies case, too luch water in the french case and a century later the ground was too dry in russia.

[Narciso]

The french revolution scared catherine away from continuing reforms.

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
1h
Approval Rating in Republican Party = 95%, a Record! Overall Approval Rating = 51%. Think of where I’d be without the never ending, 24 hour a day, phony Witch Hunt, that started 3 years ago!

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
1h
The @foxnewPolls, always inaccurate, are heavily weighted toward Dems. So ridiculous - same thing happened in 2016. They got it all wrong. Get a new pollster!

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
2h
“The President did nothing wrong here. There is no crime.” @charliekirk11
Impeachment Hoax!

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
2h
“There is no bribery, or any crime at all, alleged in the Articles of Impeachment. This is a first in the history of our Country.” @JudgeJeanine
@RepMikeJohnson

[clarice]

Iggy, if it's the last thing I do, I'l going to persuade you to write for American Thinker. Your post on the Founding Fathers is a gigantic hit on FB.

[clarice]

Comey needs a decent shrink.

[MJW]

New York Times: U.S. Secretly Expelled Chinese Officials Suspected of Spying After Breach of Military Base

This story was posted earlier, but I mention it again to highlight the headline: U.S. Secretly Expelled Chinese Officials Suspected of Spying After Breach of Military Base.

Did these Chinese officials join the U.S. military? The reason I asked, is that I thought by the current definition, it isn't spying unless the "observers and reporters" actually infiltrate the organization they're observing and reporting on.

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
3h
As bad as the I.G. Report is for the FBI and others, and it is really bad, remember that I.G. Horowitz was appointed by Obama. There was tremendous bias and guilt exposed, so obvious, but Horowitz couldn’t get himself to say it. Big credibility loss. Obama knew everything!

[anonamom]

IRT discussion of the Founders. This has been on my refrigerator door for eight years, it appears from the date of publication!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703959604576152742545048826

Our Founders Were All on the Same Page

In regard to Donald Kochan's wonderful "Reading Adam Smith in Arabic" (op-ed, Feb. 17) about the importance of exposing the Arab world to the ideas of Western democracies: It is important to remember that the men who met to write the U.S. Constitution were able to do so in less than four months because they were, excepting regional and personal differences, quite literally on the same page.

They had all read the same books: Locke's "Two Treatises on Government," Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws," Rousseau's "The Social Contract," Voltaire's writings and those of Adam Smith. They had read deeply, and often in Latin, the Roman writers on civil life: Virgil, Cicero and Tacitus. These books gave the founding fathers a vocabulary in which to conduct a discourse about what a government ought to be and do.

Prof. Kochan is right. These ideas are our greatest gift to countries attempting to form relations between a state and its people.

Cabell Smith

Pacific Palisades, Calif.

[MissMarple2]

Hey dems, you think the Judge is worked up and on fire? You would be right. However the rest of the country is even more ready take Trump to a landslide re-election.
Justice will prevail. https://t.co/Y4opJdZxjs

— SCOTT PATRIQT 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲⭐⭐⭐ (@Patriqtscott) December 15, 2019

Link goes to tweet with Judge Jeanine's opening segment. 9 minutes.

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
19m
.@seanhannity
, who will be interviewed on @marklevinshow
tonight at 8:00 P.M., @foxnews
, stated about the Impeachment Hoax, “This is outrages lying, corruption and propaganda. Should never be allowed to happen.”

[Captain Hate]

One time in one of his Downbeat columns he mentioned something about free speech. I can't remember actually ignited his opinion but I think it might have been some city blocking black jazz musicians. Could be since this is pre-ciivil right marches, etc.

A semi educated guess was this was about cabaret cards that the city shook down musicians to have in order to perform. They were surely unconstitutional and I'd imagine Nat was instrumental in having them declared as such. Monk was arrested at least once for not having one and you'd lose it if you had a drug conviction.

[Captain Hate]

CH, I learned to code and only then became a journalist.

You're very far to the right on the bell curve.

[Narciso]

Well he was doing what any intelligence officer worth his salt was, now if hes plainclothed if hes a national in this country circumstances obtain.

[Buckeye]

The discussions about the drivers behind the language of the Declaration of Independence today have been very interesting.

In the genealogy research Mrs. Buckeye has been doing, she has uncovered many documents that date to the Revolution. Historical accounts, family wills, etc.

Both of us are descendants of veterans of the Revolution that staked their claim to lands set aside in the parts of Ohio that were the Virginia military district.

The sense I have after reading these documents is that these pioneers wanted their 160 acres, thank you very much, and just get the hell out of the way. They knew they were on their own, and there was little the government could/would do on their behalf.

I suspect fighting and dying for a decade had a significant contributor to that attitude.

[MissMarple2]

Retweeted by the President. Link goes to a video.

“I’ve never seen something like this – using the Congressional system to try to destroy people that have committed no crimes whatsoever ... it’s just almost unbearable.” #ImpeachmentHearings https://t.co/H5yIFeaXdn

— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) December 13, 2019

[MissMarple2]

“This is really a sad day -- a big show … America needs to hear from the witnesses; and, we didn't get to hear from them here. This was a kangaroo court -- outrageous to put the country through this!” pic.twitter.com/IhIZqkZ4Rk

— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) December 13, 2019

Link goes to a video.

[Dave (in MA)]

Eric Carmen@RealEricCarmen·
 I just tried to retweet something Charlie Kirk
 wrote and got a message saying my account "may not
 be allowed to perform this action." Unbelievable!

[MissMarple2]

Fake News! https://t.co/NWaeaG1exu

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2019

Link goes to a tweet by Rep. Jim Jordan with a video with Chuck Todd.

[MissMarple2]

Retweeted by the President:

Mark Meadows
@RepMarkMeadows
·
Dec 13
Democrats are right when they say today is a sad day. But not for the reason they think.

It's sad because today is another step toward a strictly party-line effort to take down @realDonaldTrump
- where the only bipartisan element is bipartisan OPPOSITION.

[Jim Eagle]

An interesting factoid about our constitution is that Jefferson proposed it be revised every generation. I am suprised the Progs haven't used that in all their repeal the electoral college arguments. Which tells me they are absolutely ignorant of our Constitution and its rights it bestows on Citizens.

[MissMarple2]

Ugh. Snow has started falling here.

[henry]

Sunny & a balmy 25 here. Nice day.

[MissMarple2]

Question: "You yourself accused [Trump] of bribery. Why did you decide not to make bribery one of the articles of impeachment."

Speaker Pelosi: "This was a decision that was recommended by working together with our committee chairs, our attorneys and the rest." pic.twitter.com/wDEydLweTm

— The Hill (@thehill) December 13, 2019

Link goes to video.
==========================================
Mark Meadows comments:

Mark Meadows
@RepMarkMeadows

Because it wasn’t true
==========================================
President Trump throws a well-deserved insult:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
8m
Because Nancy’s teeth were falling out of her mouth, and she didn’t have time to think!

[Jim Eagle]

We had intermittent sunshine and a high of 48F. But the showup for the annual Polar Bear plunge was awesome. Over 500 people showed up with all kinds of costumes. Ocean temp was 50F.

[Another Bob]

50F water temp for a Polar Plunge? LOL

For years we had to cut holes in the ice...

[MissMarple2]

Witness Viktor Shokin:

Holds doc’s proving money laundering by Burisma & Biden’s.

Fired due to VP Biden’s threat not to release $1B in vital US aid.

Shokin’s med records show he was poisoned, died twice, and was revived.

Lots of heads will roll in Ukraine if this opens up. pic.twitter.com/1W1OgkumXA

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) December 15, 2019

Link goes to video.

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
13s
Congressional Do Nothing Democrats are being absolutely decimated in their districts on the subject of the Impeachment Hoax. People that voted for them are literally screaming in their faces. Crazy Nancy is finding defending Shifty Schiff harder than she thought! #2020Election

[jimmyk]

Shokin’s med records show he was poisoned, died twice, and was revived.

Died twice? Ok it's a tweet, but "nearly" would have fit in there.

[Jim Eagle]

From our Polar Bear plunge:

[D]

Marlene:
Prayers for your mother and hopes for a speedy recovery.
Excellent posts today.
I see that it is ok for CH to compliment Tom Bowler but he objected to my shout out to Robin.
Go figure.
I will continue to compliment posters that offer such valuable insights.

[Threadkiller]

I thought Folsom St was on the west coast?

[Jim Eagle]

Is there another reason to hate the Boys that when ever they score at home, the TV producer immediatlely goes to Jerry Jones sitting in his comfort zone box?

That outside of the fact it always seems you have the two fanboys Buck and Aikman slurping it up.

[Threadkiller]

BIG PICTURE – Lisa Page’s lawsuit is not about a breech of privacy; that’s the excuse.  Lisa Page is working with her Lawfare allies to block the release of unredacted text messages between her and Peter Strzok.  The totality of the communication outlines the context of the FBI conspiracy during the 2016 election.  That *conspiracy* is what FBI Director Christopher Wray was put in place to hide.

DAG Rosenstein recommended Chris Wray for that exact purpose. Wray then hired David Bowditch as his deputy.  Bowditch was/is compromised by his former role in the San Bernadino terrorist attack.  Wray then hired Dana Boente as FBI legal counsel. Boente was/is compromised by his prior role in theDOJ-NSD FISA effort, and his role in the capture of Julian Assange to cover-up the false claim of the Russia DNC hack.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/12/15/former-ag-michael-mukasey-outlines-fbi-conspiracy-explains-why-lisa-page-is-suing-doj-and-why-fbi-refuses-to-unreadact-text-messages/#more-178697

[Jim Eagle]

TK,

Cooper's Beach is our Folsom Street in mid-December but there are no guys in jock straps and giving blow jobs.

[henry]

Person of the year hardest hit, Madrid climate summit a dud:

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “disappointed” by the meeting’s outcome.

“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis,” he said. “We must not give up and I will not give up.”

https://twitter.com/marketwatch/status/1206351294736338947?s=21

[Jim Eagle]

Two different countries. Two different forms of government but same outcomes when the Progs lose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIM03PD5Imw

[JM Hanes]

Ignatz:

I was trying to remember the original quote touting the importance of virtue in re governance, and came across a whole page of Liberty and Virtue citations, although the background was so distracting that I copy/pasted it into a blank document to read it. It includes comments from the founders and their contemporaries, like this one from Jean Jacques Rousseau, "A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue," up to something actually worth contemplating from George Will, "Today it would be progress if everyone would stop talking about values. Instead, let us talk, as the Founders did, about virtues."

That said, I have to disagree with your assertion that, "Their particular genius was to then know how to codify those traditional virtues." I think they were rather remarkable for not attempting to do any such thing. The closest they might be said to have come was the Bill of Rights, a proscriptive list which presumes a certain lack of virtue.

I certainly believe the Founders were generally in accord over the necessity of and relationship between both private and civic virtue. Indeed the 18th century definition of happiness owed more to the Epicurean sense of civic virtue as the most gratifying ideal, than to happiness as we understand it today. In fact, Jefferson once claimed:

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.

Then again, you can find supporting quotes from Jefferson on almost any side of almost any issue. He once looked forward to the day when we would be a country of Unitarians.

While I'm not sure exactly how dramatically we differ, I do think your assertion that, "They were men shorn almost completely of ideology," seems wildly overstated, especially considering the arguments and politicking that went into both our revolution and the Constitution which emerged from it. It was a time of great intellectual winds blowing in many directions, and I believe the Founders were fully conscious of embarking on something new. Nor were they of one accord when it came to whose shoulders they were standing on. Jefferson, it seems, was not always on the "same page" with himself:

Jefferson in many ways doubted the classical world was the original mold upon which the American experiment had to be built. He was sure the ancients knew all but nothing about revolution and, more generally, that looking backward for precedents was not suitable to the American republican character.

There were others who rejected anything that smacked of Hellenism. Jefferson quotes are just the easiest to find, but there was a real range of attitudes and philosophies among the group as a whole. Yes, they emerged from the Western Civ/Judeo-Christian tradition, but so did the revolutionaries in France who represent a different face of that shared background.

The founders were, by and large, educated, landholding businessmen (in which group I would include farmers). I would argue that that, in and of itself, is a pivotal, foundational and structural difference between the American & French revolutions, which affected the course of their histories every step of the way. By the time the French got around to rejecting religion outright, their trajectory was already well-set. Unlike the U.S., the French revolution exploded forth from a landless, initially urban, class with centuries worth of animus toward the upper, educated, landholding, entitled classes. That may be the most significant difference between the two, IMO.

We were also extremely lucky that an ocean lay between us and our Continental contemporaries. If we had been a contiguous land mass, we'd have been carved up like Poland before a Constitutional Convention was even a gleam in our founders' eyes. The French revolution was buffeted by the crosswinds of European great power interests in powerful storms we never had to weather. The post-war peace afforded us the time & space to actually argue about the arrangement of our government.

[JM Hanes]

Clarice:

"Comey needs a decent shrink"

I'd just rake him over the coals and be done with it.

[Threadkiller]

Cooper's Beach is our Folsom Street in mid-December but there are no guys in jock straps and giving blow jobs.

:-)

[matt - deplore me if you must]

And Greta had to sit with the luggage according to her Twit account. Apparently she took the train from Sweden to Madrid. What a sap. It's more expensive than air travel; she wasted days she could have used hectoring adults; and she had a crappy seat.

[Threadkiller]

I think we all an agree that The Founder's weren't smart enough to draft the eligibility requirements without leaving a loophole for a British Subject to become Commander in Chief of The United States Armed Forces.

Or maybe they did it on purpose???

[anonamom]

comey this morning
"real sloppiness"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yfXxeJn3Tc

[Captain Hate]

As I said I'm *officially* in the Christmas spirit and will say nothing negative about any JOM commenters through New Years. Possibly longer.

[JM Hanes]

Clarice:

Among the many reasons I always look forward to reading your Sunday column, turns of phrase like these:

"congressional and state oversight of the commander in chief"

"triptych of overreach"

Thanks so much for all your work!

[anonamom]

Chris Wallace gets it, and isn't buying the BS Comey is trying to send his way.

[MissMarple2]

Patricia Dickson
@Patrici15767099
·
30m
Joe Biden Says He’ll End Standardized Testing In Public Schools After Questioner Calls Them ‘Rooted In A History Of Racism’

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/14/joe-biden-end-standardized-testing/
==========================================
Great idea! Then we won't know who knows how to read, what math level the student is at, etc.

I bet this was a suggestion from a Chinese plant.

[Captain Hate]

Has DR JILL approved ending standardized tests? That's her field of expertise purported knowledge.

[jimmyk]

—They had all read the same books: Locke's "Two Treatises on Government," Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws," Rousseau's "The Social Contract," Voltaire's writings and those of Adam Smith.—

How many have read these today? How many of our supposed leaders in government could tell you the first thing about these thinkers? I bet not one in ten. And of those, not one in ten understood them.

[jimmyk]

“Joe Biden Says He’ll End Standardized Testing In Public Schools“

Does Joe not realize that schools at run by local governments? How does he propose to do this?

[anonamom]

I see that it is ok for CH to compliment Tom Bowler but he objected to my shout out to Robin.

Patriarchy.

[MissMarple2]

jimmyk,

None of these progs are capable of standing up to confrontation. That is why they all agree to the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Student Loan Forgiveness, etc.

When they are asked if they support such programs, they all dutifully raise their hands. They are incapable of saying, "No. That's a bad idea, and here's why..."

Incapable of saying no. Now imagine these people dealing with the Chinese. Disaster!

[anonamom]

How many have read these today? How many of our supposed leaders in government could tell you the first thing about these thinkers? I bet not one in ten. And of those, not one in ten understood them.

That's why it's on my fridge--I thought I should read them.

[Extraneus]

Good piece by Greenwald.

[MissMarple2]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

.@seanhannity
, who will be interviewed on @marklevinshow
tonight at 8:00 P.M., @foxnews
, stated about the Impeachment Hoax, “This is outrages lying, corruption and propaganda. Should never be allowed to happen.”
============================================
Above was retweeeted by the President, with this comment:

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
18m
Watch these two great people talk about the Impeachment Hoax. Will be by far the best hour on television!

[sbwaters]

jimmyk, I consider anything by Rousseau to be suspect. Cite one worthwhile concept in his "The Social Contract”.

JMH, Rousseau’s "A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue" is a meaningless platitude.

And what is this "virtue" of which they speak but do not define? Far more sensible is Emerson’s better crafting of Dictionary Johnson’s “The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.”

Jefferson was a marvelous wordsmith adept at borrowing words, but what did the evidence show he believed? He proved all in for Virginia and not much for the nation.

The Constitution did not so much trust in virtue as not trust anyone. Therein lies wisdom. We are, after all, human.

[Jim Eagle]

jimmy,

By witholding money for those schools.

That is why they call him Joe pro quo

[D]

There is no way Biden can end standardized testing.
What a doofus.
We make allowances for students with special needs and for those where English is their second language.
Some people just aren’t good test takers.
There isn’t any bias in the tests.
You do have to know how to read.

[MissMarple2]

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/15/gowdy-comey-fisa-abuse/

Gowdy: ‘Too Damn Late’ For Comey To Admit He Was Wrong About FISA Abuse'

[Captain Hate]

Over reliance on Rousseau produced the French Revolution.

[henry]

@AP

BREAKING: Senate Democrats are proposing a weekslong Senate impeachment trial seeking testimony from four new witnesses including John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney over President Trump's actions toward Ukraine, according to a newly released document. https://t.co/IEWzy4kGM2

[Jim Eagle]

MR,

The bias in standardized testing is the schools those kids are educated in and their outcomes. The fastest way to deal with this disparity is school choice but the Dems owing their votes to the Teacher unions will not even consider. However here in Florida the reason DeSantis won was his backing of ed school vouchers for disadvantaged kids (mostly AA in the inner cities of JAX and MIA).

I think somewhere that SAT and ACT don't want to acknowledge there is a bell curve out there proving that.

[MissMarple2]

henry,

That is bull crap. We need to bring in Ukranians who had dealings with Biden, Biden's son, and that lying ambassador. Call Ambassador Rogers.

On top of that, I want to see some of these people arrested.

[henry]

Miss M, I didn’t expect Chuckie Schumer to propose anything sane.. like putting Schiff, Nadler and their staffs under oath.

[JimNorCal]

House passes "path to citizenship" for a million illegals. This site sounds a bit shrill, but ...
Where does the Senate and PDJT stand?
https://www.dcclothesline.com/2019/12/15/while-you-were-distracted-by-impeachment-congress-just-passed-amnesty-for-over-1-million-illegals/
This week, Congress passed HR 5038, which is a 224-page Farm Bill that includes a path to citizenship, or amnesty for well over a million illegal aliens. ...
The act allows undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S. to apply to become “certified agricultural workers,” a temporary legal status, if they have worked in farming for at least 180 days in the past two years and pass background checks. ...
Certified agricultural workers can apply for a green card after paying a $1,000 fine for violating immigration law, and agreeing to work in agriculture for another four or eight years, depending on how long they’ve already been in fields.

[JimNorCal]

I'm thinking the VA gun control push is sparking substantial pushback.