Briefly...

I am thinking at some point this year to address a couple of topics of controversy from past year in a completely different way than was previously done on this website or elsewhere. The only question I have is what sort of time I will have to work on them -one would be published in August if its done at all this year.

Anyway, I just wanted to note this thought I have had recently in brief here as I may refer back to it at a future point.

Points to Ponder:

"We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner." [Senator Barry Goldwater (circa 1962)]

Buy Your Popcorn. BuzzFeed Sues The DNC Over The Trump Dossier

Mitt Romney Will Announce His Run For Senate Thursday

Elizabeth Warren doubles-down on claim to be Native American in speech to Native American group

Her Indian name: Sitting Bullshit!

Miscellaneous Musings on Bubbles Political and Otherwise:

Though some of what I am about to say has been said on this humble website in the past; some of it is new information. Having noted that, I want to clarify that I enjoy being outside the various political bubbles and it seems few folks who seek to follow the news and world events are willing to do this.

Now in my case, it admittedly came in stages. I listened to talk radio close to around the clock from 1991-1996 but left the Republican Party after the 1996 elections. I started using Drudge to get my online news in 2000 while dialing back my talk radio consumption and watching more Fox News. I really cut back talk radio after I gave Limbaugh the heave after the 2006 elections along with Drudge who had begin courting conspiracy schmucks and featuring them. I changed my primary news source online to Real Clear Politics and its subsidiary pages around that time as well but I still consumed Fox and other cable news regularly until I cast Fox and other cable news aside when the bubble created by Fox propaganda around the 2012 election was burst on election night. I swore on that night that Fox and the others could go to hell and I have not regretted my decision one iota since.

Now if I listen to talk radio at all its local stuff or sports 90% of the time. I avoid all television and radio news and get my news in small doses online from various sources via the Real Clear aggregators. Though a longtime Independent voter, it took a while to completely free myself from the various bubbles of the right but I am glad to be and it pleases me when I see and hear of others freeing themselves as well...

Points to Ponder:

"If you’re fine with the U.S. government using paid-for opposition research to justify spying on persons connected to presidential campaign staff, then nothing I can say will help you understand how worrisome this disclosure is. Except maybe this: switch the candidate’s name you hate with the one you like. That means President Trump surveilling staff from the Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign after a dossier commissioned by the Republican Party links them to China. You’d trust Trump, and every future president, with that, right?

The involvement of the intelligence community in the 2016 presidential campaign, clumsy and disorganized as it appears to have been, will be part of the next election, and the ones after that. If you’re in search of a constitutional crisis, here it is. After all, when we let George W. Bush create, and Barack Obama greatly expand, the surveillance state, didn’t we think it would eventually come to this?" [Peter Van Buren]

A contribution to the Jaded Politics project was posted to the Musings From Exile website{1} back on September 27, 2017 which can be read HERE. I did not mention it earlier because for a variety of reasons, the piece originally scheduled for that date was not actually published to Jaded Politics until December 3, 2017.

I was not aware of the publication being approved until about a week ago when going to the page to reference material for a column currently being drafted. Anyway, I apologize for not notifying readers of it until now.

Note:

{1} "I link to the Musings From Exile website version so I do not trigger a trackback to it on the main page; thereby ensuring that I keep Rerum Novarum separate from that project." [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 8, 2017)]

Points to Ponder:

"'REAL socialism hasn't been done yet' is in itself an argument against socialism. If your system is so susceptible to abuse that it happens literally every time you try it, what does that say about your system?" ["neontaster"]

"One From the Vault" Dept.

The following is a flashback to the archives of this website{1} from 2009. Without further ado...

Now certainly one problem the GOP has had in the past twenty years is the attempt to placate moderate voters at the expense of principles. It is one thing to reach out to others -indeed this is always well and good. However, one can also take any good thing too far and the GOP was showing an unwillingness oftentimes to take stands on principle against the Democrats. There was also a perverse sense of entitlement to the GOP elections at the presidential level since 1988 and even before that time. Part of the problem with that kind of political entitlement mentality was that people presumed in 1988 that George H. W. Bush would be a worthy successor to Ronald Reagan rather than Jack Kemp and Bush won the nomination that year (followed by a healthy election landslide) by giving indications that he would continue to follow in Reagan's footsteps. He then betrayed this trust and that was what started the ball rolling in the direction we saw in the past twenty years. Another problem in that interim was the message that the GOP received in the 1994 midterms after Bill Clinton's election triumph over President Bush and Ross Perot two years earlier.

I have heard some try to posit the excuse that the GOP "did not know how to govern while in the majority" and while this may have been true in 1994[...], it does not explain problems in subsequent years. It certainly does not explain what we saw when George H. W. Bush's son was elected and the GOP led congresses of the first six years of his presidency.[...] But there was also the sense of "entitlement" in the GOP where they viewed whoever came up short last time as "due" the next time. We saw this with Senator Bob Dole in 1996[...], we also saw this in 2008 with Senator John McCain.[...] However, there is also a problem of nostalgia that while I have seen it addressed recently has been the source of criticism by some from the more conservative persuasion.

If there is one thing that has become an annoyance as of late it is reading the words of those who present facile solutions to the GOP's problem. Yes there were problems with letting the so-called "RINOS" have too much control of the party apparatus. But there is also the problem of opposing extremes with extremes; namely, those who would respond to an overly wide tent mentality with one that is much too narrow... 

It is all find and well to raise the banner of Reagan as many do but you have to know what Reagan really stood for and how he operated politically or else you will not learn from the past so that it informs your future: learning from the past being a hallmark of proper conservative philosophy...

It is all find and well to raise the banner of Reagan as many do but you have to know what Reagan really stood for and how he operated politically or else you will not learn from the past so that it informs your future: learning from the past being a hallmark of proper conservative philosophy...[Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 16, 2009)]

On the anniversary of President Reagan's birth, revisiting some material I wrote in years past about him seems apropo.

May he rest in peace.

Note:

{1} In posting this thread as I have, it necessitates creating a new primary posting tag so with this posting, consider the primary posting tag Vault Flashback to be added to this website for the current and future postings where applicable. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 20, 2017)]

Security Cam Catches Brazen Package Thief Trying To Flee Porch Only To Fall And Break Her Leg

‘Frasier’ star John Mahoney dead at 77

Trumps hosting Super Bowl watch party at Palm Beach golf club

Think of the Trump supporters who "boycotted the NFL" and "boycotted the Superbowl" while President Trump hosted his own Superbowl viewing party in Palm Beach!

At least Mr. Trump got to see a pretty compelling game :D

On the Changing of One's Positions:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

It is very rare that I can say that I have actually changed in any real substance a position I have previously taken over the past thirty years of my life. However, it bears noting in the interest of disclosure that my approach to the subject of amnesty which was once as hardened as stone against any movement whatsoever in this area as recently as a bit over ten years ago or more has undergone some change. This website was suspended in December of 2009 and not reactivated until April of 2017. As a fair amount of time had passed where this site was dormant and as I work very hard to be consistent in every position I have taken, it is only rational that I acknowledge what could appear to be a glaring contradiction in a position currently held versus one previously held.{1} And in researching past threads of this website for a piece I am currently writing on a different subject{2}, I was reminded of my previous position on amnesty as I had quite often publicly stated it. Therefore, I want to in the interest of proper ethics at the present time address this matter directly.

As for the precise moment when my position changed from what it was to what it currently is, I was able in other communications mediums to find an example of my previously set-in-stone position as recently as June 19, 2013 when I said the following:

[L]ets see, the two biggest issues on Capitol Hill right now are immigration reform and amnesty with the Senate trying to ram through an amnesty-laden bill before July 4th. Meanwhile, Tea Party folks are holding an "Abolish the IRS" rally in DC for today. Those who wonder why I have in the past year viewed the Tea Party as having jumped the shark, here is a crystal clear reason why!

However, I was also able to find a comment on another thread from June 13, 2013 where I stated the following:

Getting back to the immigration reform proposal on the table now, I do not see how S 744 is a net positive for Republicans. The best time to deal with immigration reform is after the 2016 election if the GOP can retain the House, gain the Senate, and win the presidency. At that point, they can address this issue with a far better bill than the crap being offered up here.

And then there is this posting of mine in another communications medium from April 18, 2014:

[I] heard that Nancy Pelosi sought to use the Holy Thursday footwashing ritual to play the role of Jesus and wash a couple of immigrant childrens feet to push amnesty for illegals and I am wondering: can we nail her to a cross for illegal immigrants on Good Friday?

It would appear that pinpointing in writing a precise eureka moment where my view changed is probably not possible to do. However, I can narrow down a range and it is over the past few years where I have taken more time to think with greater care on this particular matter in all of its particulars which caused my position to change. It has changed to one which is in my view more reasonable and humane than the position I had previously taken.{3} And while I may well in the coming weeks and months publish some materials written in the period of this website's suspension where I delve into this matter more precisely, it makes sense to me to first acknowledge in a forthright manner that any appearance of inconsistency between my past enunciations on this matter and any future ones on this humble site will not be imaginary ones.

In short, there has been a change in how I view this matter so consider this posting to be a public acknowledgement of the matter that may be referenced if needed from this point onward in future postings on the matter in question.

Notes:

{1} Should such a phenomenon actually exist or be brought to my attention.

{2} It will be for Jaded Politics.

{3} "Last I checked, being in the country illegally is at least a misdemeanor. So as citizens with misdemeanors can satisfy their violations with paying fines and jail time, why should illegals not be able to do likewise? [Excerpt from a Communications Thread (circa June 14, 2014)]

Woman denied emotional support peacock on United flight

Truth is at times stranger than fiction!

The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?

Points to Ponder:

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" [Matthew 23:29-33]

Miscellaneous Musings on the First 2018 Government Shutdown...

Having already explained last week how one can logically figure out how to ascribe blame for the shutdown, let us now consider what the deal struck to reopen the government means based on what the demands were that precipitated the shutdown to begin with. See my first comment for details...

Originally, the Republicans wanted a clean CR whereas the Dems wanted a six year extension of the CHIP program as well as a legislative solution for DACA. Republicans agreed to the former but balked at including the latter in an appropriations bill. The Democrats then withheld enough votes to shut down the government when they did not get DACA in the CR resolution. So Republicans wanted a CR without DACA in it and the Democrats insisted it be included.

The resolution to reopen the government does not have DACA in it. Therefore, the Republicans got what they wanted on the primary point of contention and the Democrats did not.

So insofar as one can rationally conclude that in terms of who "won" to the extent anyone actually "wins" in this stuff, the side that got what they wanted is logically the "winner" in this meaning the internal polling for the Democrats must have been pretty awful for them to have caved so quickly.

‘Trump Was Merely Sharing The Gospel With That Porn Star,’ Explains Jim Bakker

I was literally making this same joke to people for a few days before I saw this!

Miscellaneous Musings:

Whose fault is the shutdown?

Consider the House vote. A resolution was passed 230-197 in the House to fund the government. The yes votes were 224 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Meanwhile the no votes were 11 Republicans and 186 Democrats.

Consider the Senate vote. 60 votes were needed to break a filibuster and 45 Republicans voted yes along with 5 Democrats. Meanwhile 44 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted no. There was one Republican who did not vote. When you remove McConnells no vote which was a parliamentary trick to enable for a fast revote later on, 46-4-1 for Republicans and 5-44 for the Democrats. Furthermore, even if all 51 Republicans voted yes along with the 5 Democrats, they still would have been 4 votes short of the needed 60.

Consider that President Trump would have signed the bill upon it passing the Senate if it had done so.

There is no way this can logically be pinned on the Republicans so...

#SchumerShutdown