Monday, February 1, 2021

February 1, 2021 Trump: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb By Brian C. Joondeph

 

American Thinker

Trump: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

March weather, according to folklore, comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, although late March often has its share of nasty winter storms where I live. Donald Trump’s presidency has followed a similar pattern.

He came to the White House four years ago like a lion, handily defeating the “smartest woman in the world” that virtually every pollster confidently predicted would win the election. Trump’s agenda was that of a lion king.

He built a wall on our southern border. Mexico did pay for it, not literally, but through renegotiated trade deals. He restored the military, cut taxes and regulations, appointed scores of conservative judges, moved strongly toward peace to the Middle East, and made America a country to be respected, if not feared, by our foreign adversaries.

Trump accomplished all of this while corrupt agents of his own executive branch lied and conspired against him and his administration, with bogus claims of Russian collusion. There were active plots to overthrow his constitutionally legitimate presidency through nonsensical impeachment and discussions of invoking the 25th Amendment.

YouTube screen grab

Lions, although the king of the jungle, travel with an entourage, their pride. Trump’s only pride, and joy, is his family. His own party is part of the pack of hyenas eager take the lion down, as in the Lion King movie. The hyena pack is huge, including the entire Democrat party, much of the GOP, media, sports, Hollywood, finance, and most of corporate America.

Trump was a lion for most of his four years, campaigning for reelection with far more energy than the last dozen or so presidential candidates could muster combined. The 2020 presidential election was filled with irregularities, anomalies, and statistical impossibilities that might lead one to suspect that it was stolen in a coordinated manner, although the word “steal” is verboten, the new S-word not to be mentioned in woke society.

A reasonable investigation and airing of irregularities and accusations would clear up this matter, but the verdict was delivered without benefit of judge or jury, leaving half the country believing fraud was likely.

Trump raised his concerns before the Georgia Senate elections where, to no one’s surprise, similar electoral hijinks produced a similar outcome to the presidential election. Trump’s team of lawyers cried foul, but no one wanted to hear it, not the media, courts, nor legislative bodies. For his efforts to raise the issue of electoral integrity and encourage his supporters to “peacefully patriotically make your voices heard” by members of Congress, he was quickly impeached, again.

He now awaits a Senate trial to remove a sitting president from office, which he is not. So what? In Washington, DC, a tax is a tax until it is not, as Obamacare and Chief Justice John Roberts’ interpretation illustrated. Impeachment is whatever Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer deem it to be. How soon until Baron and Melania are impeached and convicted for the unforgiveable crime of living with the Orange Man?

Trump exited the national stage like a lamb, a couple of classy and dignified speeches, dutifully ignored by the media who were busy gushing over Biden’s Rolex watch, perhaps a token of appreciation given to “the big guy” by some foreign interest. Where was the lion of four years ago? Did he finally concede to the cackle of hyenas surrounding him with bared teeth?

We were promised a “storm,” not just some rain and wind but something “biblical.” It was to be the “greatest show on earth,” a “great awakening” with “panic in DC.”  But then again, we were told to “trust” Sessions and Wray. How has that worked out? They said, “the hunters become the hunted” and that “nothing can stop what is coming.”

That last statement was prophetic as nothing did stop what was coming, from a dodgy election and impeachment, to a senile grifter occupying the Oval Office systematically undoing all of Trump achievements. Was the past four years all for naught, a short blip in the steady decline of America? Was it like a few warm sunny days in mid-January when everyone comes out to play before hunkering back down for the rest of a brutally cold winter?

At least 75 million Americans are awake, perhaps many more if anyone cared to investigate, but to what end? We no longer have “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as Abraham Lincoln promised in the Gettysburg Address. Instead, we have government by and for the elites, the ruling class, the “big club” of which none of us are a member.

Spygate conspirators are living large, facing none of the promised “indictments coming.” James Comey is teaching at Columbia, Peter Strzok at Georgetown, the latter’s wife, perhaps as a peace offering for her husband’s dalliance with Lisa Page, named an acting director at the SEC.

Kevin Clinesmith, who falsified evidence for Carter Page’s FISA warrant, received a slap on the wrist of a year of probation and hours of community service. Compare that to how Michael Flynn was treated for misremembering an irrelevant date.

Spygate is going out like a lamb, no indictments, no punishment, no reckoning, only promotions and rewards. The big club is taking care of itself.

Does Trump still have a trump card to play? As time passes, this glimmer of hope is fading faster than our freedom of speech on social media. It’s not in his nature to lose, especially in such fashion, exiting the biggest stage in the world like a lamb.

He has hinted at things to come, as when he mentioned in passing while golfing, “we haven’t finished yet.” I hold out hope, although dwindling, as without hope there is nothing. Is the lamb actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing? We’ll see.

The corruptocrats have certainly not finished. We have doctors telling us we should wear not one, but four masks. Never mind breathing through a dozen layers of fabric or mask shortages. Or Black Lives Matter, after violently destroying neighborhoods and cities last summer, being nominated for a Nobel “Peace” Prize. The only distinction between protests and insurrection is whether Democrats or Republicans are involved. Up is down and down is up. If this is the new normal, America is finished.

The lion left the building like a lamb, and the only storm is one being unleashed on those not in the “big club,” punished and castigated for supporting the lion in his quest to make America great again. Instead of a steaming cup of covfefe, all we are left with is a flaming bag of disappointment and dwindling hopes.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and freelance writer. He is on sabbatical from social media.




February 1, 2021 Crossing the Digital Rubicon By Shawn A. Means

 

American Thinker

Crossing the Digital Rubicon

For an easy laugh at a party, pull out a Nokia candy-bar phone.  “What is that…a phone?”  “Does it actually work?”  “Oh!  Do you have to hit buttons three times and stuff?”  “Can you get Facebook on it?”  And so forth.  Then, follow up with examples of the pitfalls of smartphone ‘privacy.’  Reliably observe nods of agreement and disturbed faces.  Generally, people know how their lives are invasively monitored, their most intimate details packaged and sold as a commodity on markets they have little to no control over.  Fatalistic shrugs of ‘what can you do’ and declarations of ‘I can’t live without my phone’ ensue.

Perhaps it is a fair trade.  Detailed personal profiles are exchanged for handheld convenience along with dogged artificial intelligence analyzing what product or service will successfully secure our money — or even our loyalty.  Brand loyalty is a highly-prized substance as franchise owners around the world attest.  Other forms of allegiance are also highly-prized.  Consider if your private personal details, even intimate psychological profiles, are instead exploited for coercion to an ideology.

Behold the technological behemoths Apple, Google and Amazon flexing their monopolistic powers fatally crippling a competitive forum for public discourse in the form of a plucky app called Parler.  The leader of the most powerful nation on Earth was summarily ejected by Twitter, et al. — with no accountability and no recourse — severing communications with millions of followers.  Leaders of the world express dismay at the brazen display.  The corporate technological overlords claim the moral high ground.

In 2016, Apple defied federal investigators' requests for ‘back door’ access to a dead terrorist’s iPhone.  Apple’s flapping flag on Public Relations Hill was roundly praised by privacy advocates and civil libertarians.  Yet Apple’s flag meekly bowed to the Chinese Communist Party, denying Hong Kong protestors safety of virtual private networks, or exposing overseas Chinese citizen’s data to CCP inspection, or cutting off access to news and information beyond the Great Firewall.  Apple’s obedience to Beijing is joined by none other than the sanctimonious Google and Amazon, whose hypocrisy facilitates the genocide of the Uighurs.

Politicians and partisans in the U.S. called for the social media ban of the President and the corporations finally complied.  Employees of the very same corporations are joining the government, the very same employees that approve of Parler’s crippling, and that overwhelmingly financially support one political party.  Some journalists perpetuate the blissful irony, praising censorship of the President but fretting over exertion of such monopolistic powers.  Others pithily observe the handwriting on the wall:

“The new corporate authoritarian liberal-left monoculture is going to be absolutely ruthless — and in 12 days it is merging with the state.”  Michael Tracey, 9 Jan 2020.

Meanwhile, the infrastructure for a monstrous surveillance state glows in commodified hands.  Portrayed by the leftist New Republic as another tendril of the ‘military-industrial complex,’ shadowy data tracking companies such as Factual identify not only app usage patterns, but physical locations for profiling consumer behavior.  They state on their website that U.S. users may ‘opt-out’ of data collection, but nevertheless they will “continue to collect, use, and transfer mobile app data for purposes other than interest-based advertising or ad delivery/reporting.”  Expect commandeering of this data for political policing of compliance with the authoritarian liberal-left monoculture.  Soon, even emotional responses and the technology to manipulate them will enable ensuring fervid belief in Big-Tech Benevolence.

Brace for a Ministry of Information amassing in warehouses of whirring servers detailed profiles of not just purchasing history, but locations, associations…politics.  Imagine the delirious delight of, say, the East German Stasi marvelling at their targets willingly revealing their daily whereabouts and rendezvous, obviating clumsy radioactive tagging techniques.  Surreptitious meetings of desperate dissidents will be naked to the Eye of the State all thanks to the insidious trade of convenience for lack of privacy.  Law enforcement and the military already map cell-users’ relationships — even if the phone is not ‘smart.’

The authoritarian liberal-left monoculture has crossed the Rubicon.  Behold the Progressive Praetorian Guard — all carefully vetted for loyalty — and their Potemkin Village President now seated in power, whose pitiful popularity is quietly disguised.  Do not be fooled: the barbed wire and boots are a threat to those who dare dissent.  The smearing of Trump supporters as ‘terrorists’ is justification for a new Secret Police, while Democrats demand wholesale purges from government, evoking the words and associations forbidden by other paranoid Parties.  Merely questioning the Biden ascendance to power is ‘sedition,' ignoring the insidious hand of Big-Tech tilting the scales

This is only the beginning as the CEO of Twitter brazenly declared to his employees as to how ‘it’ will go on far beyond the inauguration.  Blacklisting and banning for the monoculture is apparently not enough.  The anti-social justice Michael Recetenwald observed: “the means by which a police state is being set up is the demonization of Trump supporters and the likely use of medical passports to institute the effective equivalent of social credit scores.”

The buttons on my venerable Nokia are regrettably failing.  After years of service, and several-days-long battery life, sending texts now demands insistent and frustrated pressing.  Alternatives in the smartphone ecosphere provide some escape from the duopoly of iOS and Android, but rarely come to fruition.  Classic Nokia designs are making a comeback, however; it seems cell-phone simplicity has a wider appeal than my amused smartphone-toting friends think.  The giggles at parties still come easy, and the disturbed looks and shrugs still ensue.  Cue next slaps on the shoulder and suggestions that I’m simply being paranoid.

 

Dr. Shawn A. Means is a mathematical biologist and Christian apologist published in numerous scientific journals. He can be reached at shawnmeans@mac.com.

Image: Raimond Spekking, via Wikimedia Commons and via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0




February 1, 2021 Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny By Trevor Thomas

 

American Thinker

Democrats' Climate Agenda Will Mimic Their COVID Tyranny

If you've enjoyed the last 10 months of foolish, science-denying lockdowns and mask mandates, the widespread destruction of businesses and economies, and the government telling you what jobs are "essential" and how you are to conduct yourself in your own home, then you must absolutely love the Democrats' climate agenda.

For decades, the climate cultists from the "New Religion of First World Elites" have attempted to use fear — the destruction of the planet — and a fake cause — saving the planet — to convince Americans to vote for Democrats and enact the perverse science-denying climate agenda of the modern left.  For a primer on how this would work, look no farther than 2020.

As soon as the Wuhan virus entered the U.S. in early 2020, Democrats across the U.S. saw it as a means to a political end.  Consumed with hatred and obsessed with the removal of President Trump, the 2020 presidential election was their primary political target.  To help accomplish this, Democrats in politics and the media rampantly spread Wuhan virus fear porn.  Subsequently, Democrat mayors and governors across the U.S. — encouraged and enabled by their like-minded allies in D.C. and the media — enacted widespread and economically devastating lockdowns and accompanying measures.

In spite of the fact that most of these measures were unproven and unnecessary — time again has proven this true — the Democrats persisted because "orange man bad."  They also persisted because, to paraphrase David Horowitz, inside every leftist is a totalitarian screaming to get out. Because of their lust for political power — because they have made a god of government — leftists are always looking for the next problem that their government elites (supposedly) alone can "solve."  Again, the Wuhan virus provided an excellent opportunity for this.

If you can convince people that they're going to die if they don't do as you say, those in power hold great sway.  As C.S. Lewis cautioned lovers of liberty in the mid-twentieth century, "a hungry man thinks about food, not freedom."  Today, a corollary to this would be "a man living in a pandemic thinks about remaining healthy and alive, not about his liberties."

Likewise, if you think the planet is doomed if we don't do away with fossil fuels or stop eating beef, then you are probably willing to give power to those who promise to take such things away — by force if necessary.  After all, if the planet is doomed otherwise, what force to do such things could be unjustified?

Whether a virus "emergency" or a climate "crisis," in an attempt to justify their totalitarian agenda, leftists the world over tell us we must heed their so-called "experts" along with their computer models.  Most often, the main role for these "experts" is to give Big Government, which is already too willing to encroach on our lives, even more of a reason for doing so.  This is especially true in times of crisis, whether the crisis is real or manufactured.

Sadly, as 2020 well demonstrated, in such times, many of us are far too eager to become what Lewis called in 1958 "Willing Slaves of the Welfare State."  Typically, in order for any oligarchy to rise and rule effectively, it needs some "extreme peril," something to cure, some desperate need that the rulers promise to fulfill.  As Lewis asked, is this not "the ideal opportunity for enslavement?"

When a generation lives in fear or dread of some looming crisis or when a society is made to believe that someone else can provide the things that it supposedly cannot live without, is this not the opportunity for those who seek to rule over us to be seen as liberators rather than the totalitarian tyrants they are?

Today's totalitarian left is devoted to scientism, and their government can well be described as a technocracy.  Thus, when the American left is in power, the motto of the technocrats prevails: "only science can save us now" or "science is the way out."  Whether it is a global pandemic; global warming — excuse me, "climate change" — stem cell research; the beginning of life; health care; crime; homosexuality and marriage; or even gun control, racism, or economic policies, the technocrats claim to have the answers.

Scientism almost always leads to a technocracy.  "I dread government in the name of science," said Lewis.  "That is how tyrannies come in."  What a profound conclusion!  How many of us have been duped in the name of "science"?  How many of us cower and yield — or "shelter at home" — because, well, if the "scientists" (and then the politicians) tell us to do so, then we must do so?

Sadly, too many of us then grow accustomed to our chains.  We become children, or pupils of the State (like "Julia").  We continue to elect leaders who perpetuate the cycle of the "welfare state," based significantly on the lies of scientism.  Like their agenda to fight the Wuhan virus, the left's climate agenda reeks of scientism and technocracy.

There is hardly a cause in the universe that has gotten more wrong than the climate cultists who, for decades, have proffered a wide array of climate catastrophes that require immediate, or near-immediate, actions.  Time and again these doomsday scenarios have been proven wrong.  These climate cultists have long relied on the deceptive use of data to push their totalitarian agenda.  Daily it seems we are subjected to "another global warming fraud."  I suppose everybody needs an Apocalypse — especially totalitarians lusting for power.

Climate science has become such a joke that the "faithful" for years now have been led by a child.  However, their dangerous and destructive climate policies are no joke.  Leftists have shown us what they will do when governing in a "crisis."  I fear that lockdowns and mask mandates will pale in comparison to what will be called for if the American left's climate agenda gets the force of U.S. law.  We've seen how many businesses the left can destroy in the name of controlling a virus; imagine the destruction it can wreak if it controls America's energy policy.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Image: nrkbeta via FlickrCC BY-SA 2.0.




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