The Virginian

There’s no reason to beat around the bush here: what the FBI is claiming is mind-boggling when they claim the shooter had no target in mind. Consider the number of accidents of circumstance you would have to believe were going on here to not have the shooter doing what seems obvious from every piece of evidence we have: researching and planning for an attack on Republicans of some kind, particularly looking for an opportunity when security will be low and vulnerability will be high. This was an attack, not an “anger management” problem.

Step back, though, and think on the institutional conclusions here. Considering how ludicrous the FBI’s conclusions are as it relates to an attack on the third ranking member of the House of Representatives, you might reconsider whether to trust the FBI’s conclusions in other areas, as well. And this is how our faith in institutions is degraded: steadily, gradually, with incident after incident where men in suits stand in front of microphones and make claims we know are not the whole truth.

Labels: AP, crime, FBI

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:11 AM 0 comments links to this post

The FBI gave an utterly bizarre update on its investigation into an attempt to assassinate Republican members of Congress. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) remains in the hospital from the attempt on his life in which two police officers and a congressional staffer were also shot. The hospital upgraded his condition to “fair” and said he faces a long recovery.

Americans may know, thanks to public social media profiles, that attempted murderer James Hodgkinson was an active Democratic activist and Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer who hated Republican members of Congress. He held membership in multiple social media groups strongly opposed to Republicans, such as “The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans,” “Join the Resistance Worldwide,” “Donald Trump is not my President,” “Terminate the Republican Party,” “Boycott the Republican Party,” and “Expose Republican Fraud,” among dozens of other groups. He was a voracious consumer of liberal media and believed the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to secure the White House.

The FBI admits that Hodgkinson:

• vociferously raged against Republicans in online forums,
• had a piece of paper bearing the names of six members of Congress,
• was reported for doing target practice outside his home in recent months before moving to Alexandria,
• had mapped out a trip to the DC area,
• took multiple photos of the baseball field he would later shoot up, three days after the New York Times mentioned that Republicans practiced baseball at an Alexandria baseball field with little security,
• lived out of his van at the YMCA directly next door to the baseball field he shot up,
• legally purchased a rifle in March 2003 and 9 mm handgun “in November 2016,”
• modified the rifle at some point to accept a detachable magazine and replaced the original stock with a folding stock,
• rented a storage facility to hide hundreds of rounds of ammunition and additional rifle components,
• asked “Is this the Republican or Democrat baseball team?” before firing on the Republicans,
• ran a Google search for information on the “2017 Republican Convention” hours before the shooting,
• and took photos at high-profile Washington locations, including the east front plaza of the U.S. Capitol and the Dirksen Senate Office.

We know from other reporting that the list was of six Republican Freedom Caucus members, including Rep. Mo Brooks, who was present at the practice.

So what does the FBI decide this information means? Well, the takeaway of the briefing was characterized well by the Associated Press headline about it: “FBI: Gunman who shot congressman had no target in mind.” The Associated Press reported the FBI:

• believes the gunman “had no concrete plan to inflict violence” against Republicans,
• “had not yet clarified who, if anyone, he planned to target, or why,”
• believes he may have just “happened upon” the baseball game the morning of June 14, and that the attack appeared “spontaneous,”
• are unclear on the “context” of Hodgkinson’s note with six names of members of Congress,
• does not believe that photographs of the baseball field or other sites “represented surveillance of intended targets,” and
• “painted a picture of a down-on-his-luck man with few future prospects.”

In fact, USA Today went with “FBI offers portrait of troubled Alexandria shooter with ‘anger management problem’” for their headline, since that’s what the FBI emphasized in the briefing.

The FBI also said there was no “nexus to terrorism” in the attempted mass assassination of Republican leadership by a Democratic activist. The claim that tourists take pictures of a a completely unremarkable baseball field in a tiny neighborhood also seems odd, particularly when the pictures were taken a few days after The New York Times reported that Republican members of Congress practice baseball there with little security. Someone going by the moniker “Yoenis Cespedes” wrote, “As a guy who could arguably be called a reconnaissance manager when he was in the Army, this is reconnaissance.”

Oh, and here’s a little tidbit that didn’t interest many people in the media beyond a brief mention in the last paragraphs:

Hodgkinson also visited the office of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign he had worked on as a volunteer, and was in email contact with the two Democratic senators from his home state.

As one Twitter wag put it, “You’d think “Congressional Shooter Visited Actual Capitol Hill Offices” would be kinda a big deal and you’d be wrong.”

I wrote last week that the media’s big problem right now is that everyone in the country knows how they’d be covering the shooting if the parties were reversed. Can you imagine if a shooter had visited the office of Sen. Ted Cruz and corresponded with two Republican senators? Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) gave emails to investigators last week but it was treated mostly as local news.

With trust in institutions at historic lows, and the bureaucracy beset by fears of politicization, the FBI made a poor decision to gaslight Americans by claiming that the assassination attempt wasn’t premeditated terrorism but a spontaneous “anger management” problem.

The FBI’s briefing appears so contrary to the facts as to be insulting. When a man with a history of hating Republicans cases a location, takes pictures, verifies the targets are Republicans before opening fire, has a list of Republican politicians in his pocket, and shoots and nearly kills Republicans, it’s hard to swallow the FBI’s contention that the shooting was “spontaneous” with “no target.” The agency should reconsider whether it wants to troll Americans about something this serious.

Hyperpoliticized, Captured-By-Progressives Garbage Institution the FBI Claims James Hodgkinson Had No Particular Target In Mind, Didn't "Surveil" the Minor, Ugly Park When He Repeatedly Scouted It and Took Pictures of It

—Ace

I don't think I'll ever trust the FBI again, and would be very skeptical of any case they made, were I sitting on a federal jury.

Labels: culture of corruption, FBI, Political assassination

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:10 AM 1 comments links to this post

House intelligence committee sources say career officials at the National Security Council are slow-walking the delivery of subpoenaed records on former National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice’s handling of classified information and the “unmasking” of Trump campaign workers — material from the Russian hacking probe that middle-level NSC managers claim was transferred to President Obama’s library and could “remain closed to the public for five years.”

One source, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, called the transfer curious and appeared to reflect an effort by former administration officials to obscure evidence on whether Ms. Rice and other top officials in the Obama White House illegally tried to identify which Trump campaign and transition aides had been caught up in the U.S. intelligence intercepts of Russian interference in the presidential race.

...

Democrats want the probes to stay tightly focused on possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump and collusion between his associates and the Kremlin. The U.S. intelligence community has unanimously concluded that the Kremlin was behind an organized cyberattack campaign to interfere in the U.S. election and undermine the candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton last year.

But since the Russia probes launched earlier this year, Mr. Trump and his aides have argued that the real scandal lies elsewhere. They contend that senior Obama administration officials, including Ms. Rice, inappropriately unmasked and perhaps illegally leaked to the media the names of Trump campaign officials swept up in the hacking probe, and failed to take sufficient steps to stop the hacking once it was uncovered.

Judicial Watch sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the NSC in April seeking records concerning Ms. Rice’s communications on a range of subjects.

NSC Access Management Director John Powers responded on May 23 — roughly a week before the House intelligence committee began seeking the records.

“Documents from the Obama administration have been transferred to the Barack Obama Presidential Library,” Mr. Powers wrote. “You may send your request to the Obama Library. However, you should be aware that under the Presidential Records Act, presidential records remain closed to the public for five years after an administration has left office.”

Labels: Conspiracy, Obama crimes, spies, Susan Rice

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 6:36 AM 0 comments links to this post

Railing against Donald Trump, accusing him of racism, bigotry, child abuse, treason, changing lanes in rush-hour traffic, sexism, insufficient respect for LGBT, and even mopery, with The Washington Post and The New York Times in a daily race to see who can get the most rants on Page One, is great fun for the Democratic base. But so far it can’t win elections.

But neither can civility and good manners, as Jon Ossoff learned in the suburbs of Atlanta. These suburbs were thought by Democrats to be the place to break the losing streak. After all, these were not the rural, small town deplorables with a gun and a Bible, but “people like us.” Some of the suburbans even went to college, and if they went to church on Sunday they probably slept through most of the sermon. Civility and good manners came in second, too.

“Our brand is worse than Trump’s,” the glum election-night benediction by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, has been repeated so often since that it has become a mantra. “We can’t just run against Trump.”

Labels: Democrats

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 6:22 AM 0 comments links to this post

After a Bernie Sanders supporter tried to commit mass murder last week -- the second homicidal Bernie supporter so far this year -- the media blamed President Trump for lowering the bar on heated political rhetoric by calling his campaign opponents cruel names like "Crooked Hillary" and "Lyin' Ted."

As soon as any conservative responds to Trump's belittling names for his rivals by erupting in a murderous rage, that will be a fantastically good point. But until then, it's idiotic. Unlike liberals, conservatives aren't easily incited to violence by words.

What we're seeing is the following: Prominent liberals repeatedly tell us, with deadly seriousness, that Trump and his supporters are: "Hitler," "fascists," "bigots," "haters," "racists," "terrorists," "criminals" and "white supremacists," which is then followed by liberals physically attacking conservatives.

To talk about "both sides" being guilty of provocative rhetoric is like talking about "both genders" being guilty of rape.

Nearly every op-ed writer at The New York Times has compared Trump to Hitler. (The conservative on the op-ed page merely called him a "proto-fascist.") If Trump is Hitler and his supporters Nazis, then the rational course of action for any civilized person is to kill them.

That's not just a theory, it's the result.

A few months ago, 38-year-old Justin Barkley shot and killed a UPS driver in a Walmart parking lot in Ithaca, New York, then ran over his body, because he thought he was killing Donald Trump. During his arraignment, Barkley told the judge: "I shot and killed Donald Trump purposely, intentionally and very proudly."

In the past year, there have been at least a hundred physical attacks on Trump supporters or presumed Trump supporters. The mainstream media have ignored them all. (You can click the Anti-Trump Hate Map to see some of them here -- www.amren.com/news/2017/05/anti-trump-hate-map/.)

Labels: Coulter, Liberal violence, Trump Derangement Syndrome

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 6:42 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: alt-right, guerrilla art

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 10:05 PM 0 comments links to this post

In the end, the board took disciplinary action against 74 Middlebury students. Most received probation, which means that they will face more serious penalties if they violate these policies again.

No, Dr. Patton. They faced no penalty for this offense. “Probation” at Middlebury doesn’t mean a weekly meeting with your probation officer and random drug tests. It just means a temporary mark on your record that is expunged if there is no further violation. A slap on the wrist? Not even that.

A few, who took an especially prominent role in the episode, received what we call ‘college discipline,’ which places a letter in their permanent file noting their infractions. Because students often must disclose such information in applications to graduate programs and employers, it is a serious penalty, with potentially long-term consequences.

Serious penalty? Dr. Patton could write that with a straight face? Being involved in the protest will be a plus in the eyes of the admissions committees for many graduate programs. Employers? Most won’t notice, some will be amused. No one is going to say “Oh, we can’t hire this person. He was in a student protest a few years ago.”

Video of the protest in the lecture hall has already identified many students who were in flagrant violation of Middlebury’s policy, as stated by both Bill Burger and me at the outset of yesterday’s lecture. They are hereby suspended for the rest of the term. The administration will seek out additional video evidence and suspend all other students who can be identified. The fact that some students will not be shown on video and thereby escape punishment cannot deter the administration from acting against students for whom the evidence is clear and unambiguous.

As of this morning, Middlebury College is cooperating fully with Middlebury and Burlington police in their efforts to bring criminal charges against those who committed assault and battery against Bill Burger, Allison Stanger, and Charles Murray, with special attention to those who injured Prof. Stanger. Any students who can be proved to have been among the protesters who committed those assaults and attacked the car carrying them away from the scene will be permanently expelled, regardless of the specific role they may or may not have played.

Labels: Academia

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 9:41 PM 1 comments links to this post

Labels: Drudge, murder, Political assassination, Seth Rich

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:38 AM 0 comments links to this post

OSSOFF TRUMP-SLAYER FALLS...
MOST EXPENSIVE HOUSE RACE IN HISTORY...
REPUBLICAN WINS SCAROLINA HOUSE SEAT...

DEMS LOSE AGAIN
GA SEAT SLIPS AWAY

Labels: Democrats, Drudge, election, Pelosi

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:34 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: Europe, jihad, Multiculturalism

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:33 AM 0 comments links to this post

House Democrats are continuing to block testimony from about a dozen witnesses who sought to appear before the intelligence oversight panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Congressional officials said one of the key witnesses, former informal adviser to the Trump campaign Carter Page, was scheduled to testify at a closed hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

But Democrats on the committee blocked the testimony, asserting they needed more time to prepare.

"He's the guy that many Democrats have been pointing to as the supposed mastermind and you would think they were interested hearing his story," said one Capitol Hill official.

Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), the committee's Democratic leader, did not respond to emails seeking comment on the blocked testimony.

Labels: Democrats, Trump

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:46 AM 0 comments links to this post

ACOSTA, PA. — On a warm June morning, a large crowd gathered in the lush, gentle folds of the Allegheny Mountains to hear President Donald Trump live on video.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be speaking with you on this great, great day,” he said. “The miners of Pennsylvania are mining coal again.”

On a stage, five men unfurled a gold banner that blared, in large black letters: “Trump Digs Coal,” as the audience went wild.

For the first time in nearly a decade, a new coal mine has opened here, and a US president has rallied alongside an industry deemed by many as obsolete.

The Acosta Deep Mine in Somerset County marks a dramatic upturn for the area. And while President Trump cannot claim that he brought the industry back here personally (this new mine was already being developed before the election), he is an effective cheerleader for folks who’ve been discounted by the political elite.

“We will begin by employing 70 to 100 miners and we hope to open a total of three new mines in the next 18 months — and that will mean additional hiring,” said George Dethlefsen, CEO of Corsa Coal, which owns the mine.

More than 400 people applied for the first wave of jobs that will pay from $50,000 to $100,000, Dethlefsen said.

In a region where the median household income is $29,050, and nearly 12 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, the economic injection is huge.

‘I don’t think people outside of our small town understand how life-changing this development is.’

It also creates a ripple effect: For every new job generated by the mine, even more jobs like waitresses, hotel workers, barbers or grocery workers are needed to support the community.

“The money essentially stays here in our hometown,” said Greg Griffith, owner of Griffith Excavating, who was working the mine last week with his crew. He has hired new people to take on the workload and will employ even more as the other mines open.

“I don’t think people outside of our small town understand how life-changing this development is.”

He’s right about that. Just days after the event, progressives on Twitter slammed the mine, comparing the opening of an energy-supplying coal pit to the launching a VCR factory in the digital age. In their minds, it’s a waste of time.

And the response from the people of Acosta? Stop treating other Americans like the enemy.

They also point out that the criticism is wildly misinformed. The coal from this mine is not going to be used for energy — instead, it will be used for the production of steel for the next 15 years. (According to the World Steel Association, coal is used to make 70 percent of the steel today.)

Every single one of us relies on steel in our daily lives. It’s found in our cars, bikes and public transportation. Those wind turbines so loved by environmentalists? Made of steel. The utensils we use to eat? Steel. Medical devices used to save lives? Steel.

Labels: coal, energy, mining, Trump

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:38 AM 0 comments links to this post

Consider also the most frequent lie about Trump – the claim that he himself is an extraordinary and inveterate liar, somehow even worse than his predecessor or his defeated electoral rival. But the “lies” Trump is accused of telling fall mainly into the category of opinions over which the left differs with him, or the exaggerations of a salesman who makes off-the-cuff claims without bothering to check the facts (not the same thing as a lie proper). The most memorable case of such overreach seems to be his claim that he lost the popular vote to Hillary because of voter fraud committed by illegal aliens. Since no one can seriously claim that voter fraud is non-existent, the “lie” consists in the number of fraudulent votes – three million or so – that Trump seems to have plucked out of the air. Obviously, Trump doesn’t know that there were three million fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 election. But neither do his critics know there weren’t, since there has never been a national survey of voter fraud, while Democrats have done everything in their power to prevent a system of voter identification from being put in place. In other words, both sides are sustained by unsubstantiated claims, although it is Trump alone who has proposed to settle the argument through a new commission that will look into voter fraud across the fifty states.

Trump has never been accused of telling a lie with the life-altering consequences of Obama’s claim that “ISIS is on the run and al-Qaeda is on the path to defeat,” or that the Benghazi attack was over a video, or that you can keep your doctor if you like him. These led to electoral victories, complacency in the face of terrorist attacks and massive legislative programs. Nor has Trump lied to the FBI, the Congress and the American people about the existence of classified documents which he exposed to America’s enemies, as Clinton has.

Labels: Lies, Trump

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:23 AM 0 comments links to this post

The Supreme Court ruled this morning that the government cannot deny full trademark protection to allegedly racially offensive trademarks. The opinions are here.

The case involved an Asian-American band called “The Slants.” It sought federal registration of that mark. The Patent and Trademark Office denied the application under a Lanham Act provision prohibiting trademarks that may “disparage. . .or bring. . .into contemp[t] or disrepute” any “persons, living or dead.”

The Court ruled in favor of The Slants. The vote was unanimous, though the Court split 4-4 on some of the finer points.

Labels: Constitution, Free Speech

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:17 AM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: Democrats

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:07 AM 0 comments links to this post

The problem is, the way the play Julius Caesar unfolds totally contradicts their agenda. Are they really this stupid, or just blind with partisanship?

The whole point of this controversial retelling is to allow a bunch of progressive wankers to indulge in a little piece of assassination porn. And after that bloody money shot, the play still has two acts to go, with no pleasant afterglow for the murderous conspirators. They end up crushed, defeated, and dead; all they accomplished was to usher in the autocratic rule they claimed to be preventing.

This Central Park show would save a lot of time for everyone if they just jumped right to the murder and left off the ending. It would be much more satisfying to the virtue signalling cosmopolitan herd that is their target audience.

Did the Public Theater not actually read the whole play? Do they not know history? Being Leftists, probably they don’t. I don’t remember who said it, but it reminds me of a quote I heard that progressives are the only people you can convince to touch a hot stove twice. They have great faith in their pseudo-religion of politics to sever the connections between cause and effect. Ever since the election various forces on the Left seem to be trying to psyche themselves up for some kind of terrible action. The rhetoric and the violence are both escalating. Their extremism will not get them the results they desire, and will destroy them as well. That is what Shakespeare unequivocally shows us.

I do find it interesting they selected dead white cis-gendered male Shakespeare as the vessel for their fury. What, weren’t there any plays available by a woke, gender fluid writer from an oppressed group?

And yet, despite the fundamental betrayal of Shakespeare’s conclusions, and the horrible hatred on display towards Trump and his voters, the establishment remains largely supportive of the production. Global corporations like Time Warner stand by their funding choices, despite the public outcries and controversy. What gives?

To understand why the elites are being so rigid and unresponsive to such obvious provocations, it’s important to look at the works of another insightful English writer. George Orwell pegged the motivation here, in his frighteningly accurate book 1984. Orwell noted:

“The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors…all the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present day society from being perceived.”

The election of 2016 was a direct assault by the people on the entrenched forces of the establishment. It’s probably the first time in a very long time in America where the elites were not able to manipulate the outcome within the parameters of their carefully managed illusions of choice. Like Orwell described, they’ve been able to stick to their Narrative script for decades now, and channel all planning and development through their agenda. They have been the gatekeepers, and for any advancement you must play by their rules.

When the first real challenger to this dominance arises, note their ultimate reaction: calls to murder anyone who will not submit to their status quo. To get the message out, they are twisting art into a blatant threat. However, such is the competence of our would-be rulers they overlook the clear conclusions of the work they are tainting with their hyper-partisan antics. We really need a better word than “elites” to describe these self-serving buffoons.

Such over the top histrionics enacted by our educated classes can be seen as a dangerous omen. Just like ancient Rome, the decadence and corruption of our ruling classes could lead to national disaster. One of the mightiest civilizations ever known was overrun by primitive invading hordes.

Will that be our fate, ruin due to governing class misrule? Perhaps. However, I see a different dynamic opening up.

On June 16, 2017, the Public Theater performance of Julius Caesar was interrupted. Two brave citizens struck right at this presumptive heart of cosmopolitan superiority, calling it and its patrons out as the fascists they are. Expect more like this, as the tactics of Alinsky are turned against the minions of the budding totalitarian state (EDIT June 19: as predicted, there were further disruptions. Two of them).

I always say in America, we are our own barbarians. Our culture is collapsing, but really, it’s not our culture. For decades we have been living in a Matrix-like alternative reality, the insidious slow boil of Cultural Marxism. That is what is showing its exhaustion and strain, and resorting to intimidation to try to artificially extend its existence: the long march Leftism that has infiltrated and denigrated our institutions.

The conspiracy of Postmodernism is dead. The Deplorables are coming to overthrow this failed system with the values that made the United States great in the first place.

Change starts in the arts. Watch this blog for more developments of this joyous insurgency.

Welcome to Remodern America.

Labels: Culture, Leftism, liberal snobs, ruling class, Trump Derangement Syndrome

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 6:58 AM 0 comments links to this post

Leftists said if Trump won, that there’d be violent mobs of hate, and intolerant fascists would try to silence those with whom they disagree. And they were right. It just was by a group of people from which they didn’t expect it: themselves.

Labels: liberal fascism

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 2:45 PM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: Academia

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 9:51 PM 0 comments links to this post

Labels: humor

# posted by Moneyrunner @ 7:30 AM 1 comments links to this post