Whether it was the false nationalist teardrops over Benghazi, or their constant whining that Hillary Clinton's emails contained something that "might" reveal a national security secret, the Republicans are being exposed (once again) for being national security charlatans. This is clear because of how they are largely ignoring evidence that the Russians had a hand manipulating our presidential election.
So, yeah, it's clear they will hype and scare monger incessantly, until their faux standards and concerns are applied to them.
The fact that Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), John McCain (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-NC) are part of a small group of Republicans who want to investigate the CIA's finding that Russia tampered with our presidential election tells us one thing: there is still a larger contingent of Republicans who don't want to investigate because they care more about gaining power than they do about protecting the integrity of America's sovereignty.
It's at this point that "aiding and abetting the enemy" creeps into our story. The traitor and treason references begin to write themselves into the script here ...
"Tell me more ... explain that to me" has always been the enemy of the toddler throwing a fit. If the adult is genuine in their desire to listen to what the child has to say, they can get most children to explain what's bothering them. The adult can then help them work out their anger issues by asking the kid how they might fix the problem confronting them.
This is called good parenting.
It's also how, in the clip below, Trevor Noah parents one of America's political adolescents, Tomi Lahren. She's the new poster girl for frustrated conservatives who like throwing tantrums over the dystopian world they want to see created, now, and a world they don't really understand.
Check out how Noah parents Lahren on her political tantrums - as Voxpoints out - by asking Lahren to explain how a black person is supposed to make their point if protesting, marching, or taking a knee are considered thuggish or inappropriate by people like her.
What Noah did is show how empty and selfish Tomi Lahren's understanding of the world really is. She had no answer for Noah, who repeatedly asked Lahren to explain how a black man is supposed to make their point if protesting, marching, or taking a knee are all considered inappropriate.
At one point Lahren tried to hide behind the flag by saying she was insulted by people like Colin Kaepernick disrespecting what others fought and died for (newsflash: it includes free speech). But Noah was having none of it.
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He ignored Lahren's attempt to hide behind the final refuge of scoundrels, and asked what's the appropriate form for black Americans to get their point across if protesting, marching, or taking a knee are not accepted by people like her.
Noah asked:
“What is the right way, I’ve always wanted to know ... for a black person to get attention in America?”
So, rather than confront Lahren about her faux indignation over tactics (protest, march, or kneeling), and her fake teardrop patriotism, Noah focused on what Lahren has to concede constitutionally, free speech.
What Noah did was illustrate how Lahren sure likes to enjoy her free speech, but doesn't want others to enjoy it more than she and her fellow jackbooters do. Like the kid who doesn't want others to enjoy their toys more than them, Noah showed how Lahren is going after the toys of another kid. Noah called her out on her political tantrum by effectively saying to Lahren, "It's OK to cry, but tell me why the other kid can't have or enjoy the toy their parents gave them?"
Lahren had no answer.
Unfortunately, this doesn't matter for most of those who follow Tomi Lahren. They just want the toys of others to be taken away.
The reference above brings back memories of my good friend Duane Moore, who liked to call out Christian hypocrisy when he saw it. Neither Duane nor I were model Catholics, but we had read the Bible, which is why when we were doing our radio program from time to time he would quote Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."
To this I would add Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven ... On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'
If you're a Christian Trump voter and don't see yourself here, you need to reread Matthew 7: 21-23 until you get it. Seriously.
For the Christian commentators who want to respond to this post, while maintaining the Christian spirit, just be sure to keep in mind what the Bible says about "bridling" the tongue and deception in the heart (James 1: 26).
Remember how Republicans, including Bakersfield's own Rep. Kevin McCarthy, complained that Obamacare was killing jobs in America? That narrative is not going away. Most recently, Vice President-elect Mike Pence told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that Team Trump was going to repeal Obamacare because it's a "disastrous policy that's been killing jobs."
Unfortunately, for the GOP, their "job killing" rhetoric just doesn't match what's happening in the real world. In fact, the GOP is living in an alternate universe when it comes to their jobs claim. Check for yourselves ...
In real simple terms, with 178,000 jobs created in November, unemployment has fallen to 4.6 percent. President-elect Trump is inheriting an economy near full employment, or what Politico calls the Obama Boom.
My question is a simple one: What kind of world are we heading into when our politicians have no problem lying about things that are easily fact checked, and easily proven to be flat out lies?
But wait, the lying gets worse.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) went on record during his 60 Minutes interview saying he has no issue with President-elect Donald Trump tweeting the lie that "millions of people voted illegally." He and the rest of the GOP are not only prepared for, but they are quite comfortable with, the prospects of a fact free Trump administration.
All of this suggests that George Orwell's 1984 doublethink and Newspeak language will not only become accepted forms of speech, but - as Alec Baldwin's SNL skits are starting to make clear - telling the truth may even become subversive.
I did an interview a few weeks back for Agence France-Presse (AFP), the global news agency based in France. AFP was in Bakersfield trying to explain to their audience how a Blue State like California could have a region that supported Donald Trump. I helped AFP set the profile for Bakersfield and Kern County by pointing out (1:03 into the clip) how you could dump both in the middle of Texas and no one would notice the difference.
Below is the French language version of the interview, which included an all too brief clip of my book in the foreground ...
One last note. While I spent about 25 minutes being interviewed - discussing the political and economic reasons for Trump's election - my comments were reduced to the Texas reference, as you can see in the interview. So, yeah, I had a lot more to say beyond what you see in my brief comments, but AFP had another story they wanted to tell.
Still, it was fun chatting with the AFP crew. I hope they come back.
While one could quibble over the absolute zero numbers in other countries, and even dispute the 643,000 medical bankruptcies in 2013 by a few thousand (up or down, as Snopes discusses here), one reality remains: Before Obamacare was passed, over 60 percent of all bankruptcies in America had a medical cause.
After Obamacare well over 50 percent of all bankruptcies still have a medical cause. Let's repeat that. Even after Obamacare, health care costs are still the #1 cause of bankruptcy filings in America. What this means is Americans are still adversely affected by an inefficient and wildly expensive health care system.
For the record, the three top causes for bankruptcy in America are divorce, job loss, and the inability to cover health care costs. The real tragedy here is that well over one-half of those who file for bankruptcy because of health related bills have health insurance.
We need to understand that Donald Trump is no accident. The environment that created and nurtured his hateful and paranoid brand of politics has been in the making for decades now, as this clip makes clear ...
CNN host Alisyn Camerota has her journalistic neutrality crushed by the mindless stupidity of one her panelists. Specifically, one of Alisyn Camerota's panelists stunned her with the thoroughly debunked claim that millions of "illegals" voted in California, which you can see here or here ...
I guess one of the questions we (and especially journalists) need to start asking is, How much blind stupidity do we allow to fly unchallenged in the name of journalistic integrity or neutrality?
Seriously, life should not be a perpetual reality show for the intellectual midgets of our society simply because we want to gauge the temperature of a focus group, or the electorate. We shouldn't let things go unchallenged, and allow people to use our modern forums like medieval stages, just so we can get our jollies laughing or wincing at what the village idiot of the day says.
Let's be clear here. I'm not saying we need to keep these kind of comments out of the public square. Ignorance and blind stupidity should be exposed. What I'm saying is more hosts and interviewers need to do what Alisyn did and stand up for what's factual, while debunking what's not, in real time.
Sure, it will require a good deal of more work and preparation. But this is what journalistic integrity (and professionalism) is built on.
The point is, if the media allows ignorant commentary to go unchallenged - or fails to do what CNN's Alisyn Camerota does in the clip above - others who are equally ill-informed will watch and assume "it must be true" because the host ignored the uninformed reference.
It's real simple. We're better than this.
At least we're supposed to be.
- Mark
Addendum: Apologies for using the same opening headline as yesterday, but it does appear we have a running theme in the making. I'll probably be using it again.
