(Click to enlarge)
The image here was carefully crafted by the Baron at my request, as a gift for Diana West.
Where I got the idea for this parody is lost now in the synapses of my forgetfulness, but I think of Diana often: the way she stood up to the attempts to shut her up and (failing that) to demonize her (see the link for the collection of epithets aimed at her that became the list of ingredients for Right-Wing Loopies) and drive her from the public square. Those stalwart soi-disant “conservatives” violated every principle of conservatism as they descended into ugly character assassination… and so many outright lies that their treachery required a second book just to plumb their cesspit of dishonesty.
Wait. I remember now what created the germ of this idea: The National Review recently devoted an entire issue to the problem of Donald Trump. Obviously for the Beltway Bunch, Mr. Trump is a worry. And they are attacking him in much the same way these stalwarts attacked Diana West. You can almost smell the brimstone again.
The fact that she had come out in favor of Trump prior to their campaign against Trump brought back the memories of that attack on Diana West. A similarly sulphurous smell was emanating from the Right. Again…
That’s what made me remember… reading various polemics from the Right about the danger America faces from the threat of Donald Trump’s popularity brought it all back, including the insults. Trump’s appeal to a variety of unwashed populists, Tea Party paranoids, and the hordes of generally disaffected and/or unemployed folk who dwell in Flyover Country is making the Beltway Bunch nervous. Very nervous.
They’d much have preferred that The Disaffected simply sat out this round of voting — as many of them did in 2012. And since they know the potential power of this part of the electorate — see Eric Cantor’s unprecedented and ignominious loss to an economics professor — they’re worried.
As well they should be. The Tea Party did that. The Hon. Mr. Cantor thought he could ignore his constituents’ point of view regarding immigration. And he could do just that, actually. He just didn’t realize his differences of opinion with the people who voted him into the House could be the cause of their decision to vote him out. Hubris, Mr. Cantor, hubris.
No one knows a lot about Donald Trump’s opinions on any number of subjects. But they do know one big thing: he wants a Wall on our southwestern border. It’s the same wall they want. And it’s the same wall none of the other contenders appear to deem important. So on this one big elephant in the room Mr. Trump has trumped his opponents: Give us a Wall, Y’all.
For our stubborn intransigence we wall-ers are Right-Wing Loopies. And Diana West has made her opinion on Mr. Trump and the Wall quite clear: she publicly endorsed him as our best hope in fighting the tyrannical flood of immigration. So she’s a Right-Wing Loopy, too.
This issue may well destroy the Republican Party. But if it does that’s only because the chasm between those in charge and those who vote becomes more unbridgeable with each new bellow from the Beltway.
Hubris, Mr. Priebus, hubris.
Be sure to eat your cereal, boys and girls; you’ll need your strength. It’s going to be a long and dirty road between here and the voting booth.
Wow. I had to convince myself that this was and is Andrew C. McCarthy, which I did do. I followed the links to “Red Herrings” and “An Addled Barroom Brawler”.
I have just finished my second reading of Whittaker Chambers’ Witness and now on the second of Ghosts on the Roof. I recommend strongly reading these now for anyone who has not or has previously. Knowing, in 2016, what occurred in the years from 1925 to 1955 in America with respect to American Communists is essential to having the best perspective on what’s at stake by the creeping socialistic malaise infecting America.
I now need to re-evaluate my previous trust of Andrew C. McCarthy.
Thank you Baron Bodissey.
The attacks on Diana West were truly amateurish. She should have paid her critics for those attacks. They only resulted in her book receiving greater publicity. I would gladly pay them to attack my own book. I have attempted to provoke them but they will not bite. Similarly attacks on Donald Trump are amateurish. Every clumsy attack on him only increases his popularity. Much of his support in not pro-Trump but anti-establishment. If they establishment wants to damage Trump there is a simple and obvious method: induce Nancy Palosi and Harry Reid to praise him.
McCarthy was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. In exchange, he got a huge gala for his book, hosted by Horowitz in California. Everyone has a price and now we know his…sad.
He had been Diana’s colleague and had worked with her on various projects, including the Team B Report. She’d considered him a colleague. Guess you can’t trust a colleague with a book to sell.
Claire Lopez was summarily fired from her fellowship at Gatestone for mentioning Diana’s book favorably in an essay. An essay which Gatestone obviously thought was all right since they published it AND sent out to their email subscribe list – that’s how I happened to see it.
By the time I began to send it on to people, the thing had been scrubbed from Gatestone’s website and Lopez was history – I don’t think she was even informed personally, though I could be mis-remembering the incident. She was suddenly air-brushed out of Gatestone and I haven’t been near the site since…
The whole thing was creepy. Horowitz was on Twitter arguing with us peons. He even showed up on GoV ‘s comment thread…and people began to pop up, writing reviews that began, “I haven’t read Diana West’s book, but I know it stinks…”
You can see these strange apparitions on the Amazon site for Diana’s book. Look at the reviews with one star and especially the comments appended to each negative review – that is a strange pattern. IIRC, there were about 20 or so negatives , vs. ~ 250 positive reviews, again with many comments on those reviews, too. In all my years of reading Amazon reviews, the ones appearing below that book are “unique”. I can remember no other like it – and I read many Amazon reviews.
Even with all the efforts made by Horowitz, National Review, and assorted other agenda-driven folk – a few on the American Thinker site of the “I haven’t read the book but it stinks” variety – people made up their own minds about American Betrayal. Even with the larger sites – Pajama Media, I think – refusing to permit her to answer her critics, they did not prevail. It sure wasn’t for lack of trying.
Now that National Review’s issue on Donald Trump has come out, we know the agenda: they’re insiders who don’t want to lose their position- in other words, they’re part of the insider club. I don’t trust anyone who displays a visceral, reflexive dislike of populists. They fail to understand that populist waves arise in America as the disconnect between government and citizens increases. We had one such moment in the election of Andrew Jackson and the rise of Jacksonian Democrats…who are now extinct.
Obama is largely responsible for the growth of populism this time around . The soi-disant “conservatives” of NR, Fox News, etc. are more like Obama than they are similar to other Americans…and now we see the former populists – Rush Limbaugh is one – joining the club of Faux-Cons.
This election will prove to be as historically important as Jackson’s was in his day, as Lincoln’s was in his.
If those we previously trusted can no longer be trusted, what or whom should we trust?
I have a short list of trusted, but have a very long list those sites that I frequented until they, individually, posted something that caused me to lose trust. To some of them, I returned after a year or so, some of them longer, some never. I had such a crisis here when I had the issue with Matt Bracken. The thing about having my particular standards is that, if I don’t lower them, I end up with no sources of information or none that present the subjects of my interest.
About Diana West’s book, I searched the mid-Hudson valley, New York library system, which, I suspect is huge, and “American Betrayal” is not in the system!
Dymphna, do you care to tell us what it is about Rush Limbaugh that made you state that he is a “former populist” and a member of the “Faux-Cons”, if I can assume that I know the definition?
I don’t listen to Mr. Limbaugh – his claims to omniscience plus the too-numerous commercials eventually led to turning him off. But the information I picked up at Conservative Tree House has led me to question his point of view.
Unfortunately, it is hard to search for a given subject at CTH. I usually just do a Google search w/ Conservative Treehouse and then the subject I’m interested in. Very hit-and-miss. If my gmail weren’t Chaos City, I’d be able to find what they told me to search on for the Donald Trump series…but I’ve already spent too much time bec I wanted to answer you…
Here’s one link with a summary of info on the GOP(e) war against Trump as of that date (12-9-15):
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/12/09/tripwire-alert-gope-signals-intent-to-use-mississippi-strategy-against-trump-after-trumps-primary-victory/
Use that word – tripwire – to find other posts.
As Sundance, the moderator of CTH, has said, it’s not that Trump is so wonderful, it’s that the others (perhaps not Carson – but Ben C can’t win) are all bought.
And, for me, Trump wants a wall. The only one in either party who does.
Just follow the links at the bottom of that 12/9 post.
And look at who Salem Media group owns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Media_Group
A lot of people, groups, sites that I’d thought were independent. An amazing list.
No wonder the push against Trump has been so well choreographed.
Part Two of answer to scherado:
Before I return to Limbaugh, et al, Diana’s book wouldn’t be in the library systems of most Democrat-controlled areas so your fruitless search doesn’t surprise me. Nor would the books of other conservative “loopies” be available. Just look for, say, Andrew Bostom’s books. See if you can find any. Or, to pick one at random that’s purely political, try J. Christian Adams’ book on the time he spent in the Dept of “Justice” and why he left.
_________________
In my Limbaugh search, I remembered a post Ann Corcoran wrote some weeks ago. This is on her spin-off site (not the unparalleled “Refugee Resettlement Watch”). Ann put this site up in a hurry, and will run it at least through the election and perhaps the aftermath:
http://anncorcoran2016.org/
I recommend her site for the same reason that RRW is finally winning the acclaim it deserves. She goes past due diligence into some new realm of excellence. I trust her judgment implicitly. So when a big shot like Mark Levin impugns the anonymous “Sundance” of the Conservative Tree House, threatening to out him**, Ann C came to his defense, here:
http://anncorcoran2016.org/2016/02/03/you-too-can-do-this-from-the-comfort-of-your-home/
And it was there I found the info on Limbaugh…FINALLY. I knew I’d read it somewhere.
Here’s another, on Conservatives, Inc:
http://anncorcoran2016.org/2016/01/03/conservatism-inc-with-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies/
I remember when Bill Whittle did a great shout-out to Sundance and the Conservative Tree House on one of his Firewall videos re the Trayvon Martin mess…I wonder if it’s still up??
I agree with Ann C: we need to do our own digging. Who knew about these nefarious connections??
_________
**[I remember when Robt Spencer came on our comment thread and threatened to “out” the Baron, not realizing he’d outed himself some months before. The intertubes can be vicious, sad to say]
The liberal left has their own cereal. It’s called Weedies. 🙂
As a non American casual observer of US politics, I’ve always found the primary elections a curious system. Rather than national delegates of the two political parties meeting to vote on the best electable leader to contest the presidency. You have this torturous procession through the States where people vote for the candidate that most mirrors their pet cause. Whether that person is actually electable in the general election falls to a secondary consideration. If Republican’s want to win the Whitehouse and keep out the Clintons, the answer is actually fairly simple. You nominate a candidate that can win, pulling in minorities and independent voters as well as the core republicans. What is the point of voting for a politician in the primaries that has no show of winning the general election? All this “I’m more conservative than you are” stuff is rather silly.
Actually probably most U.S. voters also have an eye to the general election and who will be electable. Because they don’t want to “throw away their vote” they say.
Still it may be hard to say who will be electable in the general election. I’ve heard that the Republican establishment, who opposed Ronald Reagon’s nomination, did not think he would be electable.
Some will vote their preference even knowing that their first choice probably will not get the nomination. I overheard some liberal Democrats say “Let’s support Bernie for as long as we can.” They assume he will probably not get the nomination but they want to be able to express their preference. When Hillary becomes the candidate for the general election they will support and vote for her.
One of my nephews is European; he’s brilliant but not even he understands The U.S. political system. He called it “archaic” and leveled what I thought was a silly (although well thought out) criticism; I had to enlighten him.
I’m not saying that our system doesn’t has problems; after all, we have Obama. But then Europe, Canada and Australia have their own versions of Obama.
As with other western constitutional republics, the problem is not so much with the system but rather with corruption. I wonder if the optimal or best functioning of a constitutional republic has a natural life span.
One can say that we have come to a pretty pass when Donald Trump is the best we can do, but we may have come to that pass. Still, on some very important issues, he stands head and shoulders above all but a few European politicians.
Baucent: do some heavy-duty research on “electoral college” and you’ll understand more. (And I’m NOT talking about the stupid, un-educated nitwits who yell “let’s get rid of the electoral college!” using zero logic or supporting evidence beyond their own feelings as “evidence” for their case)
There is a great factual, history-laden book out there about it, but I cannot for the life of me think what it is.
Will have to ask the friend who loaned it to me. Good luck!
Regardless of the some of the original reasons for the installation of the electoral college it has functioned as a way of giving more regional representation in elections.
A “one person, one vote” system would, in effect, disenfranchise much of the country as population tends to be concentrated near the coasts.
Have you ever driven across the U.S.? You can drive for 3,000 miles and still be in the United States. Obviously the interests of rural populations in Kansas may differ from those of urban New Yorkers. The people in “fly over” country need representation too.
Finally, from what I have observed in Europe, the corruption there is at least as bad as in the U.S. If their election systems were superior, it would be more apparent.
“No one knows a lot about Donald Trump’s opinions on any number of subjects. But they do know one big thing: he wants a Wall on our southwestern border. It’s the same wall they want. And it’s the same wall none of the other contenders appear to deem important. So on this one big elephant in the room Mr. Trump has trumped his opponents: Give us a Wall, Y’all.”
Something there is that does not love a wall.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/samuel-robinson-massey/mending-wall-robert-frosts-early-poems/834701443220310
I suppose the poem could have been entitled “Entropy.”
There’s an old saying: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Just LOVE this poster! No doubt parady will be lost on those it is aimed at though.
The poster is/was a gift to Diana West from the Baron and me. And since she really liked her gift, it doesn’t matter what those misbegotten insider-“conservatives” who bullied her so unremittingly think of it. In fact, using their own words to create the image provided a deep satisfaction.
It would be great if other sites posted it, too.
Well I like Trump for the ‘wall’ but I suspect there will be a wall around DC and never one across our southern border. It will never happen. If this causes a destruction of the Republican party then so be it. The party was created for a purpose in the 19th century and served some purpose in the mid 20th century in the fight against communism. After that, what? Nothing. It is merely a collaborator behind the scenes with the Democrat party. The Republican party inside the beltway and the Republican party on the American side of the beltway. Won’t that empower the Democrats fully at long last? Maybe. I suspect with enough power, being totalitarian by nature, they will begin to turn on each other and destroy themselves. That’s the nature of the Left. At that time, the proper thing to do is “arm”, aid and abet each warring faction in their party.
“This issue may well destroy the Republican Party. But if it does that’s only because the chasm between those in charge and those who vote becomes more unbridgeable with each new bellow from the Beltway.”
This more and more looks like the election of 1856, with the Republicans in the role of the Whigs, and immigration in the role of slavery. By that understanding, if Trump forms a third party, it will dominate in 2020. In the meantime, the Democrats will win the Presidency.
The $64 question: Can we survive until 2020 with the Democrats in the White House?
They will do their best to keep the jury-rigged international financial structure up and running until such time as a Republican (or Trump) is President. Then the whole house of cards will be deliberately collapsed on his head.
If the PTB know that they can’t keep it going for 5 more years, then they will make sure that a Democrat doesn’t win the White House next November. The calculus may be as simple as that.
Making sure a Dem wins/loses is simply a matter of how the Democrat political machine in our urban areas fixes their part of the vote.
There are so many disaffected voters who have given up on making a difference that the interesting number will be the total who don’t show up at all. That’s how Romney lost: the Republicans would rather commit suicide than allow populists like the Tea Party to make a difference.
I sure wish I knew why our Congressional rep has decided to retire rather than run again. And he’s not the only incumbent doing that. It’s annoying when their behavior points to *something* but the voter is left to guess what it is…there are several others doing the same thing.
His re-election was a sure thing but he’s bowing out…and the Convention will choose his replacement. So much for representative government.
I’m waiting for the whole legislative machine – Senate and House – to begin wearing togas.
“If the PTB know that they can’t keep it going for 5 more years, then they will make sure that a Democrat doesn’t win the White House next November.”
I’m guessing why you express that and I’m thinking the logic is that with four more years of this [excrement], err…brand of liberal governance that people may begin to wise up. On the other hand, if the left relaxes its aggressive voter fraud and agit prop and allows a (likely ineffective) GOP candidate to win and bumble around for four years then they can get back to business as usual.
These are hard times for a conservative who believes in the constitution, free markets, and limited government because the GOP clearly does not. The oligarchs on both sides of the aisle want the same thing, power – and the will of the people be damned.
Trump and what his opinions truly are are like the weather: if you don’t like it just wait and it will change.
The GOP no longer stands for anything. The big heads in the GOP stood behind the vilification of the Tea Party so they could keep their control. Maybe it IS time for a new party, but the rupture of the current two party system that would bring this about would give the progressives a possibly permanent hold on power.
I’m seriously worried. I don’t like the prospect of a dystopian future.
I agree. How else do you explain the fact that neither of the two Democrat contenders are anything but caricatures of the typical leftist. One is a wild eyed octogenarian and the other is a traitor and felon. The Democrats have something up their sleeve, and I also believe that they expect the proverbial swhtf during the next presidential term and don’t want a Democrat president to be blamed for it. Whether it’s an economic collapse, an ultimatum from the Chinese, a nuclear attack by Iran against Israel, etc., They can blame the Republicans and assure themselves a monopoly on power well into the foreseeable future.
Honestly, I thought the Dymphna and the Baron were better than Donald Trump. But even the blindness they watch overseas has seemingly blinded them domestically. Donald Trump is no more of a conservative than Barry and The Donald is just as much in love with himself as Prez Zero. Worse he is a carny barker standing in front of the Freak Tent and I really hate carny people.
Donald cannot hide from his misdeeds, his lawbreaking and his bad business deals that brought four bankruptcies. Folks we cannot afford for America to become his next failure. He beat up on a little old lady and tried to get her property condemned. He purposefully cut of services and harassed 1000 tenants to get them out a building he wanted to tear down for a high rise – and he even moved homeless people into the building to get tenants to move.
If you have the guts to learn even more, you can start your Donald research here – but you have to invest two hours.
thank you for your input and suggestion.
In return, I offer you an interview with Diana West,here:
http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3256/On-with-Gilmore-From-the-Trump-Effect-to-the-Trump-Closet-More.aspx
A fascinating conversation on the attack, not on Trump, but on his supporters. Instead of jihadis, we now have trumphadis.
It’s not a matter of ‘guts’ so much as watching a strange phenomenon of crudity and slash reportage from the right. They are eating their own seed corn.
Donald Trump may not be the perfect candidate for president but it does not seem believeable that we are going to get a perfect candidate. I choose to see us as being on a very possibly leaking boat in a very large body of water full of sharks. The man whose suggestion I like best will be the one who says first of all lets stop the leak.
We have problems aplenty that Mr Trump has not addressed. Those problems too can be described as leaks. If we can stop one serious problem we can move on to the next. We have not found work for the people we already have. Charitible thinking should start nearer home than across the ocean. Some of that help might include an effective wall that stops the drug traffic that helps waste away the lives of so many of our young people.
If we could find a pretty good leader many of our people might be unable to to follow up on good ideas yet. Self governmant by people who have no idea of governing themselves may be a bit difficult. Our culture might reject a hypothetical best leader.
I do not know how long it has been since the last time I have seen any best sellers on power over ones self. I see more concern with power over others.
We may have a very hard road ahead. I can not write off Donald Trump.
I wish Diana West would tear into this Iran Deal.
From all the stories over the last 8 years or so as to how close they are to having enough U-235 for a bomb–they always seemed to be 6 months away–it seems highly reasonable to assume that they finally have enough (@220 lbs).
If they have enough uranium 235, then they have bomb. This is because the artillery-type bomb does not need testing. It is so reliable to fire one subcritical mass into another subcritical mass in a gun-like device that the US did not even test its Hiroshima bomb in August 1945. The implosion type plutonium weapon is much trickier and needed testing at Alamagordo, as we all recall.
Therefore, Iran has a crude bomb. Therefore the Iran deal was paying extortion to prevent them from exploding one before the elections. How shocking this is. My god!
No wonder we and the embarrassed western nations paid so much.
The above is a big guess, but I would bet something in a futures market on this.
I suspect Iran already has at least a single bomb. It shouldn’t be that difficult for them to trade for one with North Korea. The only things that could stop them would be China and/or Russia and I don’t know if they can or would.
Saudis Arabia should have at least one bomb from Pakistan.