The Snowflake’s Core
The biggest difference between the audience and a playwright is that the playwright knows how the story’s going to end. He feeds them tidbit after tidbit, clue after clue as he leads the audience’s minds on a merry chase.
The audience may think it they part of the action onstage, but they are not. They only experience the illusion of being involved but they are almost entirely passive, mesmerized in their seats.
- General sent thousands of 'inappropriate' e-mails to woman who reported harassment by Petraeus's mistress...
- FBI agent banned from probe after he 'grew obsessed' and sent her shirtless photos...
- REPORT: Gens. Petraeus and Allen intervened in nasty child custody battle...
- 'Bombshell story is just a smoke screen for something bigger'...
- Petraeus personally investigated Benghazi attack...
- Local TV station mistakenly airs altered, sexually-suggestive version of Broadwell's book cover...
The chief disadvantage of conservatives is that they have chosen to be reliant on the Republican Party, which has for reasons of its own, decided to act almost entirely like an audience. They ask a few questions, essay a few reviews. They may even occasionally pelt the players onstage with a few rotten tomatoes.
But they remain the audience.
If there any scandals behind the curtain, if the actors are thrown out without cause or if a monster has taken charge of the story there is no one for the cast to run to for help. For their entire world consists of only two places: the stage and the audience. And the GOP is part of the audience.
Anyone who believes that something curious is happening behind the scenes on the national stage has two choices: to watch the play and believe what happens or to hope the Republican Party audience asks for a refund on their tickets.
But that’s not going to happen because the GOP likes the stagelights. Each of them dreams of being up there one day, basking in fortune and glory. They will put up with anything, endure an intermission of any length for the chance, however remote, of someday being in the glow of the footlights. They wouldn’t leave the threater unless a fire broke out.
However there is a third possibility that can be added to this binary state of affairs: for prominent persons in the audience to form a national council which will independently ask questions that the Republican audience will never voice. Maybe no one will listen to them at first, but as the strange play drags on their cries from the back will be ever more insistent. And what they might say is the following:
“The theater itself, including the aisles and the chairs you sit on, are the stage. Every second man in the audience — the person beside you — to whom you have paid but little notice, is picking your pocket. That is the real screenplay.”
Well that’s what happens in this little parable. But on the political stage of America today, there is nothing but quiet and the crunching of popcorn.
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
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I have a new business idea for those already impoverished and about to be rendered destitute by the second Obama term. Shirtless photo studios. For only a small amount you can send a recipient of your choice a shirtless photo of your client in an admiring pose.
You can either send the photo as an attachment to a single email, or if you choose the special “Four Star Membership” and show how much you care by attaching it to 30,000 emails.
I’d rather sell you a shirt. Not that there’s much market for shirts these days.
To be or not to be, the stage voice booms out
As Boehner and Romney nod off
The curtain comes down to applause and a shout
While nearby a patron will cough
But Boehner and Romney sit fast in their seats
As the audience files for the door
The play is now over, the playwright’s deceits
Now history forever more
The theater now empty and totally dark
Mitt Romney will finally stir
And wake Mr. Boehner with a commanding bark
Demanding to know where they were
They try to get out but the exits are locked
The batteries on cell phones too low
As Democrats giggle the two men are mocked
As being too late and too slow
For to be or not, as the Bard often said
Is the question a man has to see
Is the question of whether to live or be dead
And the GOP choose not to be
That 30,000 figure was attained by a ‘fat finger’ on a ‘re-send do-loop’ or was spewed by some innumerate boob in press relations.
Peyton Place is but a shallow for-shadow of the 0bamanation.
Not only will Barry out divide Buchanan, he’s going to out do Grant for maladministration scandals — even if he has to gin them up himself.
He’s way beyond bowing to foreigners — our boy wants to give the store away to Putin & Co.
The revolution was fought to get entirely away from tax caprice — and royal dictat.
For our Winter of Discontent, Barry is taking us back to basics — with a vengeance.
What ever Barry has in the way of electoral legitimacy evaporates January 20, 2013 — for who can accept the corrupted tally flogged by the Left.
The President has economic results on par with Hoover — and we are to believe that he nailed every swing state in the land — and nearly took North Carolina?
Our polity has descended to Venezuelan levels of poll corruption. Hugo Chavez really is the style. For those who’ve forgot: he modified their constitution — making himself de facto president for life.
Anyone bold enough to steal 2012 is going to steal 2016. And by that time the nation really will be in martial law — de facto.
El Presidenté will be willing to ‘step up’ ‘for the good of the children.’
I feel really bad for the physician husbands of these women. They are slaving away to provide for their wives, kids, houses and the women are off chasing generals. The men should have avoided marriage, worked less, and travelled more. On modern society the alpha cad >>> beta provider chump.
Sorta topical cross post from Spengler, today.
In previous bouts of isolationism the United States had the luxury of British, French and even German power, plus the relatively safety of good geography, between two oceans, giving us time to reflect and readjust.
Not so now. His 0′ness has squandered our ‘design margin. We have neither residual economic nor military strength left. Our only hope is that we can maintain our technological lead long enough for our energy resources to come on line. They will be needed in the first Great War of the 21st Century.
Hoary Prediction #1. GW21 will begin at or near the end of this term, or at least the small wars that will grow into the big one. 0 will lead, this time from the front, into some goofy situation in MENA, Southern Africa etc. He could also ignite some shooting wars in Asia. He will most likely develop an overly legalistic view of our various East Asia treaties for a way to withhold support for Japan, S. Korea, Formosa, Philippines, Australia, Singapore et al.
The rest of the world will then size up our 2016 election slates. Hillary or equal plus some numb nuts RINO. The bad guys will go for it (China and Czar Putin’s New Russian Empire). The good guys are on their own.
We can win a war, even a ground war in Asia, if we get time. Time the British Empire will not buy again. In order to win, we will need to ramp up not so much ourselves as the West in toto. Spengler is not so sure this can be done. I believe it will be a close run thing. The requirement will be the new Democracy Army. Anglo-sphere, Europe, and Free East Asia. Possibly nuke free, but more likely including a limited exchange.
Sorry for the free form rant.
Enjoy your day
One should not forget that extreme tyranny leads to an interesting form of civil war. The armies that overthrew Montezuma were overwhelmingly Indian; Cortes and his entourage was merely the iron tip of an Indian spear. Likewise, the Visigothic Kingdom’s persecution of Jews led to a ridiculously easy Moorish conquest of Spain; Muslims could rely upon Jewish garrisons to hold any fort their advancing army took.
When domestic tyranny is bad enough, barbarian victory might no longer be seen as the worst option.
This scandal does give a new definition to the term “descamisados” – or the “shirtless ones”…
Wretchard, I think you are suggesting Mitt Romney sat in the front row of the audience during and after the “debates”, mesmerized into silence in his seat. But maybe he knew some of the plot (I like the word “plot” here). Did Romney have briefings which included the terrorist involvement instead of just overactive movie critics? Did he ask any of the obvious questions to his briefers? Did he get the Behghazi report from Petraeus? That the CIA was capturing and interrogating prisoners? That 0bama et al watched the attacks in real-time without responding in kind? That responders were told to “stand down”, and were relieved of duty for planning a response? That there were calls for help which were unanswered? Did Romney agree that a movie was a good cover story? If so, did Romney deserve to lose, never to strut on the stage? If briefing information was withheld from him, why is he silent now about the lack of the briefings he was required to have?
How about a “business” on Craigslist of renting out “biographers” and unpaid social “lay-zons” to the military on a cost plus basis?
#4 blert
“He’s way beyond bowing to foreigners — our boy wants to give the store away to Putin & Co.”
Note this below. Putin has announced that Obama will come to Russia. The White House has made no mention of it. He is being summoned by his master.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/putin-obama-plans-visit-russia_663287.html
On the matter of audience and stage, those of us who wish to enter the play and take a part to defend ourselves are being restrained by the Republican audience who are defending the footlights and the Democrat actors they so idolize. We have to be willing to kick the a**es of the Republican ersatz ushers.
Subotai Bahadur
” … this binary state of affairs: …
In low-level family or personal counseling—such as a family doctor might provide—you often see people locked into these false dichotomies, such a couple endlessly arguing over stick butter vs tub butter; it never occurs that the solution would be to buy one of each.
The principle: always give yourself three choices.
Only choice are the Republicrats or Democans? It is certain that eventually a third choice will arrive.
7. Alexis: “Cortes and his entourage was merely the iron tip of an Indian spear.”
Indeed. The army that assaulted Tenochtitlan comprised over 400,000 Indian allies of the Spanish. They came from the city/nations in the Valley of Mexico that were irredeemably hostile to the Aztecs. By my calculations this may have been the largest army theretofore in human history assembled on a single battlefield. Those city/states were incredibly populous–Tenochtitlan and its sister-city Xaltelolco were probably the most populous cities on earth, with a combined population of around 1 million souls–and their agriculture was extraordinarily productive, enabling them to sustain huge forces in the field for the length of the battle.
blert@4: “That 30,000 figure was attained by a ‘fat finger’ on a ‘re-send do-loop’ or was spewed by some innumerate boob in press relations.”
More likely that Kelly had access to one of Gen. Allen’s servers that contained the 30,000 pages. The ‘cloud’ don’t you know.
12. SBW ‘Tenochtitlan and its sister-city Xaltelolco were probably the most populous cities on earth, with a combined population of around 1 million souls–and their agriculture was extraordinarily productive,’
Teotihuacan means “where men become Gods”. They weren’t all human.
“Voilà une affaire qui n’aurait pas manqué d’inspirer l’auteur de théâtre Georges Feydeau, connu pour ses vaudevilles.”
There we have a affair that would have inspired Georges Feydeau, a theater author known through his vaudevilles piece”
from a french military blog:
http://www.opex360.com/2012/11/13/le-chef-de-lotan-en-afghanistan-eclabousse-par-laffaire-petraeus/
a comment:
“Quel tombeur ce Patreus, c’est une sorte de DSK de l’armée américaine.”
what a womaniser this Petraeus, he is kinda the DSK of the US army
In the meanwhile, Putin is purging the russian army too
10. Subotai Bahadur
#4 blert
“He’s way beyond bowing to foreigners — our boy wants to give the store away to Putin & Co.”
Note this below. Putin has announced that Obama will come to Russia. The White House has made no mention of it. He is being summoned by his master.
We’re going to have a second, virtual, “Yalta Conference,” where Russia will again be allowed to exert influence on its former territories and former Warsaw Pact nations with impunity thanks to Obama’s new “flexibility.” The arrangement will be more in the nature of “Finlandization,” mimicking the relationship Finland found necessary in order to survive outright occupation by Russia. We will once again betray Eastern Europe.
How stupid do you have to be to use a freakin’ gmail account. Google gets rid of absolutely nothing-it’s basically a data-collection company.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-evil-side-of-google-exploring-googles-user-data-collection
OT but somewhat relevant: it seems that some folks are indeed pulling their support of charities, and letting them know why (is this one of you Clubbers?
). I think my favorite part of this is the butthurt note to the website from the progressive submitter. And didn’t this guy get the note that supporting the BSA was the worst form of homophobia? Maybe he’s going to “evolve” like his man Buraq. Oops, I guess there are consequences to voting.
When people talk about the Choom Gang, the focus is generally upon Barry Obama’s use of marijuana and cocaine. Yet, there are two aspects of the Choom Gang that ought to be troubling.
Firstly, Barry Obama and his gang were engaged in activity that would have sent less privileged youths into prison. Think about it – other people go to prison for drug possession but Barry Obama didn’t. It’s a double standard, one that Barack Obama brags about. If he had been less privileged, he would not have been protected by that double standard.
We live in a society where it’s socially okay for Barry Obama to smoke marijuana, but it’s illegal for other people to do so. His very election leads one to wonder why the United States is still fighting a “War on Drugs” that has led to thousands of deaths in Mexico – a war caused by a culture of lawlessness in the United States that Barack Obama has been part of.
Secondly, Barry Obama made the rules for the Choom Gang. He presumed that he epitomized “being cool”, and he lorded it over everybody else. He was basically a bullying tyrant who abused his appearance of being counterculture to enforce conformity upon other people. He acted as if there was only one acceptable way to smoke weed – his.
There are many different reasons to oppose the presidency of Barack Obama, but the bottom line is that his political movement amounts to a cult of personality – a form of social bullying. We keep on being told that bullying is wrong, and yet Michelle is effectively bullying fat children on an institutional level. We live in a culture that hypersensitizes children to their weight, and Michelle Obama is making it worse.
Whether we like it or not, we live within the Age of Obama. Rather than trying to bring back the old “Reagan Coalition”, we need to do what we can to break the lockstep conformity of Obama’s political machine. We need to find Obama strongholds that can be subverted, not necessarily to vote Republican, but rather to be part of a post-Obama governing coalition – to clean up his mess.
“And the GOP is part of the audience.”
As are we all. Moreover, we’re a captive audience. We lack any option to simply step out of the theater.
All respect to Wretchard, you’ve been speculating all along that the Benghazi charade is a cover for something much bigger, though I’m sure these tawdry affairs aren’t what you were hinting at…. Cover for a secret CIA jail? Arms trade with Syrian jihadis? OK, but that hardly seems to justify all the astounding lies and effort put into the serial deceits by Obama & Co.
As hideous as our ME stance was before Obama, I’ve been saying the catastrophic collapse of America in the ME is enough of a bomb burst. The place has now permanently toppled to the retrograde forces of Islam, and that augers black nightmares for America and the world for years to come… And though I still think Benghazi is simply another installment of that toxic mixture of arrogance and titanic incompetence known as the Obama Administration, it keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, so I think you may be onto something after all…
I’d love to hear you speculate on what you imagine may be afoot here… Are you imagining full blown conspiracies which go beyond arms trade with Syrian Jihadis and/or secret CIA interrogation sites? The deliberate irreversible and treasonous ousting of America from the ME perpetrated by Obama himself plus quid pro quo? What???
And another question… What did you detect early on that had you prognosticating with such confidence that Benghazi was cover for something much bigger? That assessment by you was instantaneous and firm and has remained consistent all along…
If a caucus, even of a jerry-built and ad hoc character emerged, say made up of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan came together to examine two things: the election cheating charges and the Benghazi/Petraeus issue, it would do two things. It would break the ice. Other groups, better than it perhaps, or determined to be allied to it, would emerge.
Second, it would force the unseen hand.
Above all we need to force things into the open. Now, early. If there is no hand, well and good. But something exists out there, it will be drawn.
This may be the single most vital task of the moment: to create an alternative to simply waiting for Boehner or Issa to do something. That is a fatal passivity.
And another question… What did you detect early on that had you prognosticating with such confidence that Benghazi was cover for something much bigger?
I simply reasoned from first principles; you can never go far wrong doing that. Learn to trust yourself to the extent that you would trust yourself in any of your daily activities. You are more competent than the newspapers say you are.
That doesn’t mean spouting conspiracy theories, but if everything you see screams “false”, don’t be taken in by the reassurances of supposed experts. Trust your lying eyes
23. wretchard: “Above all we need to force things into the open.”
But how? What can I do? I have no standing, no power. I am just a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of silent seas.
But how? What can I do? I have no standing, no power.
We all have a little bit of power. We must use what we have to the full. Things will emerge will emerge clearly in the end, though the architects of this disinformation campaign are calculating that it will come out too late.
Disinformation campaigns are not about concealing. They are about confusing. They cannot ultimately deny knowledge to the observer; but they can delay it’s perception.
Our role is to write and reason in a plausible way and by so doing hasten the hour when the truth becomes manifest. One can’t let speculation outrun the available evidence because the quickest way to discredit yourself is to make wild accusations.
But always back to the key idea. Create the core of the snowflake. Send out the meme around which ideas will attach like a snowball. The idea which will return to people’s minds when they at last find confirmation. When the dots connect, they will remember what other dots we are talking about.
Will it be enough? Who knows? Nobody knows where our fates lead. “All that we have to decide is what to do with the time given us.”
Wretchard #23,
The problem I see with such a council is that it has to score a home run the first time at bat. If not, they would be regarded as the tin-foil hat gang. Two of the three you mention are already regarded as such by what, 55% or so of the population?
GOP likes the stagelights… They wouldn’t leave the threater unless a fire broke out.
I wonder if a currency crisis brought about by the loss of the “reserve currency” status of the US dollar would qualify as a fire to the GOP.
If not then hyperinflation perhaps?
Printing money out of thin air (QE3) always ends badly.
24. wretchard
Trust your lying eyes
………….
The Meme that’s gaining strength is that the pubbies didn’t show up on election day.
The problem with this is that all the threads I read at free republic on election day from people around the country were that people in republican districts were showing up in greater numbers than anyone had ever seen. In democrat districts… not so much. The lower number of votes for Obama reflect what I read. However, the lower number of votes for the romney does not. Perhaps the fall off in republican votes was all in democrat districts. Like Philadelphia where republican votes went down to zero.
It would be good if a statistician got hold of the numbers and made better sense of them.
From US News:
In other news, Paula Broadwell’s driver’s license was found in Rock Creek after she had lost it while jogging. “The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls for comment on the report. Broadwell’s attorney, Robert F. Muse, confirmed that Broadwell, a North Carolina resident, lost her driver’s license in the park.”
Dots and more dots. How do they connect? Maybe they don’t connect. Perhaps we’re imputing a false pattern to them. Could happen. But maybe they do connect? How do we know? My guess is that there’s some point at which not recognizing a pattern has a higher information cost than recognizing it. We recognize the pattern when it is simpler and more natural to do so.
“The Washington Post literally – and I mean literally – buries this detail in a profile of Jill Kelley – “a Tampa resident who poured her energies into throwing lavish parties for and hobnobbing with area military brass” – on its site today:
A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials.”
The clot thickens-
The only charity worth a damn is the Salvation Army. The others, including Catholic Charities, are so in bed with the guvmint, it’s a wonder they don’t need to wear condoms.
W-26 “Disinformation campaigns are not about concealing. They are about confusing. They cannot ultimately deny knowledge to the observer; but they can delay it’s perception.”
The feeling of confusion is commonly felt by people in condition white, just before they are mugged. They know something feels wrong, why is that guy asking for a light, but they don’t have the experience to act-they are trying to figure out what is going on. The assailants patter is just a way to introduce uncertainty and get inside the victims OODA loop.
14. Baobo
12. SBW ‘Tenochtitlan and its sister-city Xaltelolco were probably the most populous cities on earth, with a combined population of around 1 million souls–and their agriculture was extraordinarily productive,’
Teotihuacan means “where men become Gods”. They weren’t all human.
……………..
For anyone interested, you can download a copy for free
the true history of the conquest of new spain by bernal diaz del castillo one of its conquerors.pdf
http://www.2shared.com/document/tVlD-7d_/the_true_history_of_the_conque.html#RGlHxpFYX6ekm1ls.99
The story was only translated into english for the first time during the 1980′s. It was written by one of Cortez’s lieutenants and chronicles Cortez conquest of the Aztecs. Everyone knows that the Aztec priests practiced human sacrifice. However, One of the things that jumps out at you from the book is something that is not taught in school. The aztec priests were homosexuals. They would “act up” right in front of Cortez and his men.
I knew the Pentatuch and middle eastern archaeology well enough to know that that human sacrifice and homosexuality in the priesthood seemed to go together–in that part of the world. However, since this combination of behaviors showed up in an unrelated and unconnected people groups–that meant that human nature itself is defective. the old calvinists were right.
That put the real fear of God in me. This was just one of many data points that turned me into a Christian.
Now it has come out that Jill Kelley’s crazy twin sister once dated Charlie Crist. Oy…
31. Victor
A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials.”
…………
Who was the Lebanese official who was assassinated a couple weeks back?
wretchard @23
“If a caucus, even of a jerry-built and ad hoc character emerged…”
We’ve laid the groundwork for just that at our nowhere particularly important local level.
That “fairly productive” ad hoc meeting I attended this past Saturday regarding our sketchy local election results is already bearing some fruit. The original grey-scale five (a black democrat, a Puerto Rican republican, an indeterminate but pissed off me, and a couple sorta white folk from jilted candidates) is now over forty as of this morning (before the morning dead-tree paper even went to print) – All set in motion by our letter to the editor posted to last night’s E-edition outlining reports of specific election incidents with contact information for those who want to come forward with their election reports. This has already yielded up several angles of attack which we can pursue that hold the potential to completely destroy the narratives and disinformation put forth by election officials and their minions.
The main hook of our little concerned citizen missive being the widely published public statement by our local Attorney General regarding his newly opened ‘investigation’ wherein he is quoted stating; “the purpose of the investigation is intended to put to rest all the unfounded allegations of fraud, corruptions and whatever other charges have been levied.”
“Unfounded”…This verdict from our Attorney General before his so-called investigation even begins mind you.
The defenders of the official narratives are now on the defensive because in their hubris they apparently believed people can’t count.
Baffle them with truth and fight your way inside their OODA loops…Let the geniuses hoist themselves by their own retard.
28. Random Blowhard
I wonder if a currency crisis brought about by the loss of the “reserve currency” status of the US dollar would qualify as a fire to the GOP.
……………
Not in the cards….this was in newspapers all over the world today. It has huge geopolitical implications.
International Energy Agency foresees an energy-independent US within 10 years
If the IEA is right, by 2020, we’ll produce more oil than Saudi Arabia.
by John Timmer – Nov 13 2012, 2:25pm EST
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/11/international-energy-agency-foresees-an-energy-independent-us-within-10-years/
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Alas the Obama administration may be missing the chance to win game set match point.
They’re currently in the process of putting sections of the green river formation oil shale off limits to any mining whether surface or in situ.
Interior proposal would limit commercial oil shale development on federal lands
By Zack Colman – 11/09/12 02:07 PM ET
The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.
The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. It faces a 30-day protest period and a 60-day process to ensure it is consistent with local and state policies. After that, the department would render a decision for implementation.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/267095-interior-proposes-shielding-federal-lands-in-west-from-drilling
……………
However, they are leaving some of the oil shale areas open for development.
………………
Under the plan, 677,000 acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming would be open for oil shale exploration. Another 130,000 acres in Utah would be set aside for tar sands production.
The administration and Democrats said that while the plan would curtail what was originally sought for oil shale development, it still opens up a significant amount of land that was previously unavailable for the energy production method.
The administration noted the plan pushed forward Friday also included two research, development and demonstration (RD&D) leases for oil shale development.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/11/obama_administration_seeks_to_drastically_limit_oil_shale_development_on_western_lands.html#ixzz2C9X93Thl
The media circus is full, frothing frenzy over the more salacious aspects of the Broadwell Affair. Someone in D.C. is feeding them tidbits without regard to facts or the consequences of collateral damage. It’s interesting how when they wish to, they can dig under every leaf and stone to get the dirt.
We live in a hypocritical world.
the Tampa girls are sued for credit cards debt (millions)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9676330/David-Petraeus-affair-Florida-twins-courted-generals-and-racked-up-millions-in-debt.html
pics and vids
-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232159/David-Petraeus-scandal-General-John-Allen-accused-sending-inappropriate-emails-Jill-Kelley.html
Dots and more dots. How do they connect? Maybe they don’t connect. Perhaps we’re imputing a false pattern to them. Could happen. But maybe they do connect? How do we know? My guess is that there’s some point at which not recognizing a pattern has a higher information cost than recognizing it. We recognize the pattern when it is simpler and more natural to do so.
And sometimes spotting the pattern involves what we do not see. It is interesting that people who are colorblind have an easier time of seeing through camouflage than do folks who have normal vision. The trick is being able to distinguish the noise from the signal and which frequencies to ignore because they simply contain too much noise to expend the resources needed to analyze them. And of course things can be over-analyzed and a focus upon details can obscure a recognition of the big picture.
Strange things are occurring. I find it hard to believe that all of these scandals are coming out just so suddenly and conveniently. I have a rather strong suspicion that the surface scandals and official explanations are just little pieces of poisoned meat thrown out to distract the hounds from finding the truth they are chasing. They are camouflage.
We may not know the why of it, but with so much distraction we can get an idea of the minimum magnitude of what is being hidden. And whatever that it is, it seems to be huge.
All this stuff swirling around Petraeus/Allen/Kelly/Broadwell seems like massive amounts of chaff being deployed. I tend to believe Broadwell’s dad, who says that the real story is something quite different and quite large. I’m sure the Administration is the one leaking out all these salacious details, a couple every day, very neatly spaced out.
And speaking of Blomberg–Fritsch, another 4-Star is disposed of:
Four-star general demoted for improper spending
A chap could get paranoid questioning the timing of all this stuff.
Just get up and walk out of their theater. That is what I think Bill Whittle would say. Let their play go on. In the meantime, create your own that people will flock to because it is closer to the true and proper desires of the human heart. This is LONG, but worth setting an hour aside to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s02SypCcYIc
Sorry to be a bit out of synch here, but I’ve been traveling.
Just wanted to toss this out for cogitation. On the subject of vote fraud, did you notice how the Left was preparing the battle zone before the election with stories about how “voter fraud” was all just a big fake bit of Republican paranoia?
The key article was by anti-Koch, Leftist hack Jane Meyer in The New Yorker. A mere week before the election they publish her piece, “Who Created the Voter Fraud Myth?”
This was not meant for the general public, who don’t read The New Yorker. This was meant for the chattering classes, who do read The New Yorker. A carefully prepared preemptive strike against the very IDEA of vote fraud. So when the very clear signs of fraud appear, the chattering class has already been prepped to toss it all off as meaningless.
All the wheels were spinning just so, weren’t they?
Hmmmm. “Paula Broadwell’s driver’s license was found in Rock Creek Park.” So was Vince Foster. A warning? I know, it sounds like a tinfoil hat idea. But what if it’s not?
@ 36. Charles
31. Victor
A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials.”
…………
Who was the Lebanese official who was assassinated a couple weeks back?
Good question
The issue has become a broader matter of dual citizens from Lebanon, Israel, KSA etc attempting to influence and intimidate US Military Generals.
The DNI/DoD will now come down very hard on dual citizens of Israel, Lebanon, KSA etc-
to protect fundamental American interests and isolate such real and potential foreign agents
About time-enough is enough of these foreign agents acts against US interests
Responding to 30 Wretchard above: Frances Fragos Townsend (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend
) said the same thing on TV a day or so ago.
For those who say “What can we do? We are but a weak audience to the danger.”
“You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Gloin; for you are dangerous yourself”
We are beset with dangers in accordance with the measure of our potential. Energy is measured by how far you can fall. There is power in the audience. The actors on stage are the illusion.
Victor @ 46: Anent “coming down hard” on persons of Middle East descent”, does that include Huma Abedin and Valerie Jarrett?
Experts are puzzled by what prompted the FBI to look into Jill Kelley’s E-mail in the first place …
Jill knows an FBI guy, she called him and he started it as a favor, and then he was pulled off as too close to the players, and then, … so now the story is that the investigation NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED. I think Rush has been ranting about this for two days now. I think that was also Lanny Davis’ position on Hannity today.
Remember folks, it just gets weirder from here, every dang day.
dworkin@42
General Ward was General Ham’s predecessor at AFRICOM. Ward was suppose to retire upon leaving AFRICOM in 2011 but was held on active duty pending an investigation of his lavish spending.
Who is talking about Benghazi, unquestionably the worst scandal in American history?
It might as well never have happened.
Let’s guess. Who did the women in these affairs vote for?
And not to state the obvious, but didn’t we once have a Democratic President, not CIA director or Afghanistan military commander, a president who had a couple of issues with women himself.
But in Wonderland, anything is possible.
We can trust the hard-nosed media to unravel this one. They cut their teeth on Watergate. They’re like bloodhounds in the hunt.
The man the country proudly elected to the highest office will make sure that the truth as his controllers see fit will come out though his mouthpieces on the national networks.
As for connecting the dots, there are many potential patterns depending upon which dots you wish to give emphasis to. For the moment, forget about the reasons or possible validity for them, and just consider as a data set the fact that many of the high military commanders of nation X are suddenly being thrown down en mass. What does that mean? What does that usually mean when it happens elsewhere? And who are they being replaced by? Do we know?
And what conclusions can be drawn from that?
… just another thought from the Twilight Zone.
What would it look like if some enemy were trying to tear down the last institutions for which people still had respect?
A couple of thoughts.
Patraeus made lots of enemies in Washington when he showed how to suppress an insurgency. It was not to be attempted and failure was supposed to be guaranteed. He foolishly made himself vulnerable and is reaping the results.
The coming fiscal cliff includes serious cuts to the military. What better way to soften the opposition than to discredit the institution. Remember that these folks would love to be able to spit in the face of a veteran if they could get away with it.
A pretty reliable indicator of what the Obama administration is about to do is to look at what they are attacking others for doing. Maybe someone very high up who visibly kissed his wife after winning the election has something that is going to come out but what better way to cover it to have everyone else scurrying about digging into the infidelities of others. An odd strategy but surprisingly effective so far. Not the first time someone has done something impossibly unbelievable where the reaction was “impossible, unbelievable”.
Cris @54
“What would it look like if some enemy were trying to tear down the last institutions for which people still had respect?
”
Exactly. It would look a lot like everything we’re witnessing.
44. peterike
Sorry to be a bit out of synch here, but I’ve been traveling.
Just wanted to toss this out for cogitation. On the subject of vote fraud, did you notice how the Left was preparing the battle zone before the election with stories about how “voter fraud” was all just a big fake bit of Republican paranoia?
………………
Yeah man. I’ve been thinking along these lines too. This article was floated by a number of Obama people flogging his campaign before the election on facebook. This Florida republican programmer says that an election can be fixed without anyone knowing about it or how it was done. The Obama people were in high dander that Romney’s people would do this.
http://1389blog.com/2012/11/12/programmer-testifies-about-rigging-elections-with-vote-counting-machines/
The interesting thing is that this strategy has been used before and on an equally high scale. In the early months of 2008, the new york times and related news outlets ran a campaign against McCain saying that he was ineligible to run for president because he was born in the panama canal zone. The campaign stopped instantly when the US senate passed a resolution drawn up by Obama and others that certified that McCain was a US citizen. When the same arguments came out in the Summer of 2008 about the sketchy background of Obama–the conservative media was caught wrong footed. Nothing was done. Nothing was looked into. It looked like sour grapes.
esse est percipi — to be is to be perceived. That is the famous formulation of Bishop George Berkeley (in whose honor the site of the University of California was named).
What good is it to have a National Council of Responsible Elders to look into matters if their existence is not noticed? What good was it for Jennifer Griffin and Catherine Heridge of FOX news to report on Benghazi if no one heard it or paid any attention to it?
To be noticed such a council would have to include President G. H. W. Bush, President G. W. Bush, and a former Secretary of State or Defense, or CIA Head from a Democrat Administration. That would be a minimum starting point. If there were a single member of the MSM with integrity who was well known, that would be another key member.
But councils of all sorts tend to homogenize their reports and rarely speak with blunt clarity. Even when they begin to approach such clarity — like Simpson Bowles — they are blurred in public perception and buried under the rug.
So long as the public gets its information from Jon Stewart, the big three networks, and their local newspapers, I don’t see how we can establish any meaningful counterforce. Soon some variation of the so-called “fairness doctrine” will be imposed to get conservatives off talk radio (even though it is clear that their influence is minute and couldn’t even get McCain numbers for Romney).
It is a wonderful thought to believe that some sort of National Council of Responsible Elders could be a meaningful third force, but it strikes me as a noble but frustratingly unlikely fantasy. Sorry.
W @ 23: “This may be the single most vital task of the moment: to create an alternative to simply waiting for Boehner or Issa to do something.”
Back in those far distant days when Anthropogenic Global Warming was about to destroy the world (or at least women & minorities), a number of Leftie State Governors came together to try to coordinate State AGW laws & regulations, since FedGov was moving too slow.
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. The majority of State Governors are from the Not-the-Democrat party. The minority of State Governors who are from the Democrat party know that most of them are on the outside of the true circle of power in Democrat circles — that they, the Bolsheviks, will need to blow apart the Mensheviks dug into DC if they are ever to replace them. Looks like an ad hoc bipartisan association of a number of State Governors could form the core of the “alternative” Wretchard would like to see asking questions of the clique currently controlling FedGov.
State Governors have skin in the game, they are outsiders, and they have standing as elected officials. They are your boys. Now we just have to work out how to drive the formation of an ad-hoc Governors Investigative Committee up the priority lists of enough Governors.
b @ 58: It is a wonderful thought to believe that some sort of National Council of Responsible Elders could be a meaningful third force, but it strikes me as a noble but frustratingly unlikely fantasy. Sorry.
It doesn’t have to be a force as such, just a study group, a kernel around which to rebuild society at some point. Asimov’s “First Foundation”. In fact, better if it is NOT a force early on, less threatening.
from Wikipedia on “Brave New World”:
Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money, and wanting to be an individual is horrifying. Conditioning trains people to consume and never to enjoy being alone, so by spending an afternoon not playing “Obstacle Golf,” or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance.
46. Victor
@ 36. Charles
31. Victor
A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern government officials.”
…………
Who was the Lebanese official who was assassinated a couple weeks back?
Good question
The issue has become a broader matter of dual citizens from Lebanon, Israel, KSA etc attempting to influence and intimidate US Military Generals.
…………………
Probably the more important question than the name of the Lebanese official–is who was it that fed high administration officials the idea that the middle eastern riots were about some film that no one anywhere had ever seen or heard about until it was ginned up as a reason for said riots and the Benghazi raid.
batman 58,
There was a national Council of Responsible Elders that represented the State governments. It was called the United States Senate. Repeal the XVIIth Amendment.
The intent of the Constitution was that the Senate would represent the States and act as a brake on the more populist and passionate House of Representatives. The Senate was given the job of vetting and approving treaties and appointments. A second parallel body of wise men selected from the states was given the job of vetting and selecting candidates for the Presidency. It is called the Electoral College. The Senators were expected to be eminent men retired from private pursuits who could look at the Big Picture. The Electors would be prominent men of affairs, as they used to say meaning commerce and the professions, still active in their communities.
My suggestion is to revive the EC by giving membership to the heads of the three branches of each state’s government ex officio and appointing other members for fixed terms staggered as are Senate terms. In addition I would transfer to the EC as a political body the power of Judicial Review.
“This may be the single most vital task of the moment: to create an alternative to simply waiting for Boehner or Issa to do something.”
Darrell Issa has plenty of Islamist rumors. Pay attention to him.
The maddening problem is this: We are at war.
Yes, we are at war to preserve the Constitution of the United States. And we have been at war over this for longer than most folks realize.
The situation is truly crazy.
Man up, for Pete’s sake, people. Fight back. Pummel them back. Hold NOTHING back. When the idiotarians of your community mount a charge for whatever strikes their latest fancy, crush them!
It sucks like crazy, having to get involved with the trying idiocies of your local town council or whatever. What a bunch of hosebags and horseshit.
But without fail there is a queen in the audience who is a fixture, chipping away, feigning offense, working it, girlfriend! Democrats OWN local politics. Half the reason is they take that unopposed. Non-Democrats have better things to do, quite frankly. So government is a Democratic project.
Wow does it suck having to actually go down to town hall and deal with all the Democrat party bullshit. Because there’s a ton of it. And, that’s a feature: they use it to keep you away.
America is not going to get free of the Democrat tyranny until it stands up to it.
The MSM that has been so assiduously avoiding/hiding Benghazi is all over this. I have to therefore deduce that the propaganda arm of the Democrats has received their orders from Obama’s people that they are to make this into a VERY big deal. The last time we had hype like this was the Trayvon Martin case, and *everything* that the media told us was false. Everything.
Paul Ryan has the right idea. He denies that the President has a mandate to do as he wishes
That’s the right attitude. Concede nothing. Question everything.
Everything.
Romney should be out there, day after day, asking about Benghazi. Raising questions about Petraeus. He spent nearly a billion dollars climbing to the apex of national attention. He should use that exposure.
Another L3 project, Wretchard? Ted Cruz seems well-positioned.
The Kelly chick and her sister look like “boom boom girls” as they used to say during my brief military career.
If Petraeus is sitting on information he needs to man up and spill the beans. It will prove whether he’s a warrior or another politically correct media created PX warrior.
SBW@25: “I am just a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of silent seas.”
Yeah, so was that bug alien, but it still managed to mess up Sigourney Weaver’s day.
Romney should be out there, day after day, asking about Benghazi. Raising questions about Petraeus. He spent nearly a billion dollars climbing to the apex of national attention. He should use that exposure.
Romney is over.
He burned that billion dollars, it’s over, too. Some capitalist. Empty suit. Said so all along. Would rather *have* an empty suit than Obama, but it was not meant to be. That was exactly Romney’s campaign, and it crashed. It deserved to. Selah.
Ryan, however, is still in the game, and maybe still on the way up. Let’s see how these new wave Republicans acquit themselves in the coming days, which will not be easy, may be as difficult as any in American history – or worse. Let’s see if they’ve got something, or are just the next wave at the country club, which the Jacobins are about to burn down anyway.
Alexis, that has to be the most insightful thing I’ve read in two weeks. Very good job.
James Madison–
Besides the conclusive evidence resulting from this assemblage of facts that the federal Senate will never be able to transform itself, by gradual usurpations, into an independent and aristocratic body, we are warranted in believing that if such a revolution should ever happen from causes which the foresight of man cannot guard against, the House of Representatives, with the people on their side, will at all times be able to bring back the Constitution to its primitive form and principles. I am unable to conceive that the people of America, in their present temper, or under any circumstances which can speedily happen, will choose, and every second year repeat the choice of …men who would be disposed to form and pursue a scheme of tyranny or treachery….who would either desire or dare…. to betray the solemn trust committed to them. What change of circumstances time, and a fuller population of our country may produce requires a prophetic spirit to declare, which makes no part of my pretensions.
If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.
I’m about fed up with it. Who wants to hear anymore how much Mitt Romney sucked? Isn’t he the guy we were hanging our hat on one month ago? No, Mitt Romney does not suck. But he is history. So, file it. A shame, but that’s what it is.
Instead of attacking Mitt Romney, attack Barack Obama. Relentlessly. For example, we won’t get anywhere crying over stolen elections. Why? Because we have a lot of circumstantial evidence and a lot screwed up numbers, but we do not have a smoking gun. We’ve got no hard evidence. So what. Stay on the attack. Do everything in your power to tinge this election with an air of wrongness. Everyday call the Demcrats by their name: a bunch of treasonous bastards.
But, we do have principles, do we not? So, we stick up for them. We insist upon them. We make damn sure it is known far and wide that we are going in loaded for bear, and we’re going to fight for our principles. We’re in it to win, and to screw the evil Democrats to the wall as hard as possible.
The American people will never hold that against you. Never.
Go in swinging for the moon.
To make a barely-topical point, this is the value of things like Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, and even perhaps the trailer that was not at the heart of the Benghazi affair.
F (45), actually Foster was found in Fort Marcy Park, wasn’t he?
Cowboy @ 73
Romney got it right, the GOP got it right.
America is knackered, and they both know it. America, with a per capita debt bigger than the Greek per Capita debt, is resorting to stealing (aka Quantitive Easing) to survive.
Of all people, Romney knows this. Like a good hedge fund operator, he shorted the election. Then he laid the smokescreen. Horrified by his success in the first debate, he never afterwards looked like a contender: no mention of Bengazhai, no investigation of miscounts, the absurd ‘Battle of the Bulge’ in Pensylvania.
But he is over, a sacrifice to the future.
There will be much more reality between now and the next election. We will look back on the tit and bum scandals of the Patreus affair with grim humour as we watch the European riots spread beyond the Eastern seaboard of America.
Our mission is to use these inevitable events to restore the Constitution.
ADE
#44, #57
Well, yes, or course. The same strategy as all those Obama ads calling Romney a “liar”: pre-emptive prevarication, AKA thuggery.
Yep, Obama calling Romney a “liar”. Heh.
And doing it relentlessly. Pounding that message in. And all smiles during the debates. And the people eating it up.
Stalinist to the core.
So maybe Putin has invited Obama to Russia so as to give him a few more tips? Some fine tuning? (Where exactly is that sweet spot in the back of the head?)
Remember: “The best is yet to come”
To tens of millions of American voters, a conservative message of self-reliance and individual economic freedom is, quite frankly, terrifying.
So says David French over at NRO
He’s right. It terrified me. Sadly, a life of self reliance has not resulted in “individual economic freedom” for me. But there’s always tomorrow.
He goes on to say: Within this liberal bubble, it is simply conventional wisdom that conservatives not only don’t care about those less fortunate but that we will even promote human suffering if it means higher profit margins and more cash in our pockets.
This is another part of the fight back. Every conservative needs to preface any remark on any social issue with the phrase “While we ALL want [insert cause du jour here], and then finish the line with “we are concerned that you are stiffing the payers, our children.”
For example, “While we ALL want free education to age 65, we are concerned that you are stiffing the payers, our children”.
ADE
I read that there were in fact NO e-mails sent or received at all.
In reality the Generals and their henchhoneys used a system where you can gain access to another’s e-mail files remotely and then they could read the unsent Drafts. This avoids actual tracable e-mail transmissions.
On the other hand, it would seem to me that if you allow that, they very probably can gain access to ALL of your e-mails, sent or unsent, as well as those received – from anybody. This is almost certainly how Broadwell found out about the Tampa woman.
And of course this morning we find out that the FBI raided Broadwell’s home in NC and found she had classified information there. What else did she get besides “draft” e-mails while remotely snooping on Petraeus’ computer?
The snow falls
The snow melts
Everybody marches through the mud.
With regards to Wretchard’s main thesis, the first thing comes to mind is that I can think of one major conservative who refused to be part of the audience — who kept sneaking around backstage and jumping on stage at inconvenient times — Andrew Breitbart — and look at where it got him.
As far as the 30,000 pages, obviously no one wrote 30,000 pages of personal emails. No one ever said that there were 30,000 pages of her writing. The articles said that it took 30,000 pages to print out what she sent.
Broadwell said that she had a top secret clearance with access to “everything.” Put one and one together folks.
RWE
Q: Bigger than Broadwell, bigger than Kelley, bigger than Benghazai, bigger than Obama, is why the GOP blew it?
Ans: They know America is knackered.
Any strategy going forward from this must factor that in.
ADE
We need a snowflake core of our own. We need the core meme that this election was stolen. But unlike the silly meme pointed out earlier that “the voters” stayed home”, our meme is the truth. I notice other commenters here feel this way. I feel strongly this way.
The clincher for me wasn’t that Obama got more votes than Romney. It’s that MCCAIN (!) got more votes than Romney. To the tune of what? Two-three million votes more. Come on folks! Given the widely reported and observed evidence of orders of magnitude more enthusiasm for Mitt than Mccain, the meme that conservative voters stayed home in 2012 just doesn’t hold muster.
Honestly folks, I can’t remember there being an easier political 2 + 2 for us to figure out. Romney had to have millions of votes taken away from him. But like Richard’s theme for the Benghazi scandal, I fear we are only an audience. I fear even more so that we have no more power than that of an audience.
I don’t have the resources, time- or power- to figure out exactly how votes were taken away. Up till now most talk on fraud deals with how votes are illegally given TO a candidate. Precinct corruption in inner cities as clearly documented (and, sadly, always ignored)is just one example of this type of fraud. But I haven’t found much out there on how a candidate has votes taken AWAY from him. At least not on such a grand scale as I’m suggesting. Some have suggested destruction of absentee and early ballots and I suppose that could be the case. My thought is that something fishy’s going on with electronic balloting machines. For just one simple example, have a computer program on the machine internals kick out a Romney vote say, one out of every x number of button pushes for Romney. But again, I am too powerless and more importantly, too lacking in the skills of a computer programmer to follow through on my hypothesis. I just wish that some young gun would grab this baton and run with it.
Y’all may get tired of hearing this, but there is only one “third” way.
The play’s authors, the audience, and the playhouse itself did not arise ex nihilo. The play from which all else derives has already been written and was outlined, on paper that survives to this day, thousands of years ago. Read it, study it. What is happening and will happen is mapped out already, and free will can only be expected to affect the process, not the outcome. We are dealing with powers and principalities here.
Global government is next on the agenda. The U.S. has been neutralized with that end in mind.
The only means to get inside the OODA of the bullies is to absorb the hard, cold facts of reality and move on.
The third force is the church, and the thing to do now is look above the stage, protect the remnant, and try to save as many, including yourselves, as possible.
On the ground, in the political arena, I suppose that means a robust preemptive move to protect conscience rights against the predictable aggression of the secularist theocracy.
Part of the ‘audience’ for Soetero’s Silly Season sits in Moscow, in Bejing, in Tehran, and in various other places we are not thinking about.
Those harsh critics are looking at a divided America where much of the country thinks the mandate of heaven has been withdrawn; a military where the rank & file must be beginning to lose confidence in their civilian leadership and their bought & sold officer corps; diplomatic & intelligence functions which are incompetent where they are not perverse.
Wretchard has wondered if Benghazi was the first act of something bigger. Soetero has certainly given a number of audience members the opportunity to stage a big surprise by seizing the stage and putting on their own show.
83. maineman “The third force is the church, and the thing to do now is look above the stage, protect the remnant, and try to save as many, including yourselves, as possible.”
We have undeniable proof- yes, incontrovertible evidence that hell exists. I have been informed in visions that there is a place darker than any prison, hotter then any flame of human fire. Where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners scream in endless and unendurable agony. Your skin rotting and peeling a fireball spinning in your screaming guts.
I know, oh yes, I know…
Eric @ 82: “But unlike the silly meme pointed out earlier that “the voters” stayed home”, our meme is the truth. I notice other commenters here feel this way. I feel strongly this way.”
Eric, I feel your pain. But if we want to get to the truth, we have to start with the facts. According to uselectionatlas.org, total votes cast in the last 2 elections were:
2008 – 131.5 Million
2012 – 122.8 Million
If voting machines had assigned Romney votes to Soetero, then the total of all votes cast would not have been changed. But it is that total which is smaller. Yes, a significant number of voters stayed home in 2012. Study the trend over multiple elections, and that fact is even clearer.
To be clear, I too suspect that Democrats have been practicing voter fraud for years. That is why I would like to see sophisticated statistical analysis of the votes cast. But the unappetizing truth remains — Romney lost because a large number of people decided he did not give them a clear smaller-government program which they could vote FOR.
For those of you still reading this thread, and somewhat down in the dumps, here is a post to cheer you up, via Vanderleun at http://americandigest.org/,
http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/the-frogmans-prophecies/
Also, just breaking at Zerohedge, IDF strikes Hamas Army “Chief of Staff”, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-14/israel-assassinates-hamas-armys-chief-staff-precision-airstrike-hamas-vows-infernal-
Eric – “his election was stolen. … notice other commenters here feel this way.”
The fact of the matter is that the federal government did nothing to prevent fraud and everything to promote it.
A quick partial list –
Cooked BLS data
Fought voter ID laws
Increased food stamps by 100%
Promoted food stamps in Mexico
Promoted SEIU
Allowed illegal contributions from foreign countries
Politically prosecuted political opponents through the IRS and other agencies
Intimidated independent polling organizations
As far as I am concerned the US has been stolen from the people through a soft coup by greedy, hateful, government workers. This follows that we are no under legitimate rule by the facts as we already know them. As this list gets fleshed out over time, if anyone is so bold as to connect the dots they can only come to the same conclusion as I. America as you knew it is gone. You are a stranger in a strange land and you are not welcome by your new leaders. They in fact hate you and discriminate against you in violation of the laws as they are written because it is the right thing to do. Welcome to fascism.
The Republicans are starting to sound like the Canadian Liberal party. We are important because we are important, but vast numbers of people have no contact, hear nothing from them that affects them personally. Someone on high. Some rich guy shows up with the ability to raise money and gets whomped in an election. Good heavens, what happened in California with money last gubernatorial election? Same with the senate. Choosing the women who ran a wrestling show because she has cash?
The Republicans lost in 2008 because rational people thought McCain would get them into another war. And because the Republicans just had handed a very large check to some very rich people as they watched their own assets shrink by 2/3.
Listen to Delingpole http://ricochet.com/podcasts/delingpole/The-Eco-Fascists
This is talking to a woman in British Columbia dealing with the local environmentalists. This is the source of revival of the Republicans, that is what happened in the ’90s when on a local level driven conservatives got involved. All the answers I have heard since the election are about someone from on high solving this; a better candidate, getting the message across. It has to work the other way.
The left pays people to work on the local level, getting involved in local politics. That is where the real fights are happening. The EPA won’t bend to any direction from Washington, but are forced to by persistent local opposition knowledgeable in the tactics that work.
There is no conspiracy. Both parties suck, and power corrupts absolutely. Remember the discussions before the election on how conservatives were planning on keeping Romney on the straight and narrow? What fools.
The Canadian conservative party worked for years to establish a base of supporters and contributors that has allowed them to not be dependent on corporate money or government subsidies which are available in the system up here. The other parties don’t have that in place and are at a severe disadvantage. The Republicans need to do the same thing.
Think of the national Republican party thought and practice as the California Republican party morphed and blown up to cover the country. They deserved to lose, the fools. It has to be bottom up.
” … My thought is that something fishy’s going on with electronic balloting machines. For just one simple example, have a computer program on the machine internals kick out a Romney vote say, one out of every x number of button pushes for Romney. … ”
Trouble is both sides can do that.
Romney’s silence is still unexplained. By the last debate, he surely (with briefings and congressional input) knew enough to take a low risk and push hard with questions to Obama, while smiling to show how peaceful he is to the single moms. The last “debate” was his last chance to be covered by the media directly to the voters. He intentionally blew it. Later, even on the campaign trail when it was known that the CIA had a prison in Benghazi (and Romney surely had this information available), he remained silent. “I challenge Mr. Obama to explain why he has renditions and interrogations against hie executive orders, and why he watched a real-time video of our ambassador under attack while ordering help to stand down”. The challenger needs to take low-risk, high-payoff gambles against incumbent weakness, particularly when he knows there will be vote fraud.
Romney’s silence now is explainable as keeping his powder dry while congress does some digging. But his silence every day before election day is inexplicable. Does Romney have a “biographer”?
Batman@58, Eric@82
Not wanting to sound like a broken record, but since people keep putting out erroneous information. (I’ll admit I’ve fallen into the trap myself.)
Romney received more votes than McCain in all the “battleground states”, except Ohio.
In early reports McCain had a 3 million nationwide lead over Romney nationwide. That lead is now below 8000,000 and closing. Check it out for yourself.
2008 (Official Government totals)
2012 (This site appears to have the most up to date totals)
From JammieWearingFools:
Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to testify about the Libya terror attack before the House and Senate intelligence committees, Fox News has learned.
Petraeus had originally been scheduled to testify this Thursday on the burgeoning controversy over the deadly Sept. 11 attack.
That appearance was scuttled, though, after the director abruptly resigned over an extramarital affair.
Lawmakers, though, complained that the scandal was no reason they shouldn’t hear from the man at the helm of the CIA when CIA operatives came under attack alongside State Department employees in Benghazi last month.
Unsk @ 93:
Yes, and Petraeus up till now has been resisting testimony. He personally investigated Benghazi, including going to Libya in the aftermath. He’s the only high official who has been on the ground. And yet, he and others would have you believe that others are best to testify about it. What do they take us for? He better testify. For what it’s worth. His credibility is shot.
I find myself still trying to understand the whole Panetta-Petraeus swap anyhow. Was that some tacit green light for sanctioning more aggressive operations in the agency? Is the NSA trying to get the analytical arm to butt out? Knowing the thought behind that might shed light to the overall actions of the Kremlin. Where is a Kremlinologist when you need one?
There was a time when there was a notable riff between the operations arm, Christian Soldiers one and all and the bureau analysts, metrosexual Democrat machine operatives. Maybe we are witnessing the take-over of the operations side that was once in line with Porter Goss.
#93 and #94:
It has been reported that when he was asked by a friend about what happened in Bengahzi Gen Petraeus replied, “Do you want the real story or what the official version is?”
Do you think we will ever hear the real story?
“Do you think we will ever hear the real story?”
I suppose the term “under oath” doesn’t mean much anymore. Now, in an unlawful regime, what is more likely, that the truth will be upheld or punish? I suspect that in the case of all communist regimes, the answer is punished. The truth will be punished. Maybe even preemptively.
RWE (78),
What I read says that they used a shared webmail account of some kind. That wouldn’t give access to anything else, or any other email account.
* Government takeover of GM
* Solyndra/environmental ca$h give away
Now John McCain and Lindsey Graham are attempting to wrest the Benghazi investigation out of the Republican controlled House in favor of the Democrat controlled Senate.
Will Patraeus convict himself of perjury and change his story about the video? To what end? The force behind the Benghazi investigation has been successfully dissipated, the MSM is heartily into the lascivious side of things, they’ll never go back.
Snooki rules!
kp @ 98: What I read says that they used a shared webmail account of some kind.
Our national security technology is amazing.
–
As is Obambus’ grasp of the concept of mathematics. He is driving me nuts these days telling us that “the mathematics does/doesn’t work”, when he seems to have no conception what that actually *means*. It’s something he hears as arguments, “Uh, Mr. President, the mathematics have to work on that.” And he agrees, has adopted that as a valid point, that the budget has to work according to quark chromodynamics, whatever that means to the nerdly guys who do that stuff.
But who can throw stones, when the director of the CIA’s grasp of technology holds it cute to conceal an illicit affair by using a shared gmail account?
Question: could Petraeus actually access Gmail from inside of the CIA office firewall, much less any more secure networks?
90. Gordon
” … My thought is that something fishy’s going on with electronic balloting machines. For just one simple example, have a computer program on the machine internals kick out a Romney vote say, one out of every x number of button pushes for Romney. … ”
Trouble is both sides can do that.
Which may be why neither side is too keen on talking about it, let alone doing anything about it.
rickl…
That’s a false equivalence.
For almost the entire existence of the nation, certainly since President Jackson, the East Coast cities have been notorious for wholesale corruption — and in particular — running voting Machines that manufactured self-serving ballots.
Of particular note was the establishment of competing police departments in New York City in the 1840s. The first, original, force was so fantastically corrupt that it was deemed a lost cause. The conflict between the two forces triggered the factions into wearing pistols — for the very first time in America.(!) They were needed to fight each other.
This practice spread across the land, pistols weren’t cheap, so that they’re everywhere today.
But, from that time to today, New York City has always been considered a Democrat Machine Bastion. From time to time, a Republican – honest pol – has to be elected to put the system back on the rails; otherwise, the next mayor is internally selected — and the vote is mere procedure. (It’s never a close vote.)
Chicago is a younger city — with a Democrat Machine springing up early on. It, astoundingly, has been able to hold onto its rep as the most corrupt Machine in the nation. That has to smart: New Orleans, Baltimore and Honolulu have always sought to eclipse it.
Rural areas, the Republican base, have NEVER had a reputation for Machine Politics. For, Machine politics revolves around abusing the polls with fresh-off-the-boat immigrants. Such rubes scarcely exist out in the sticks — and would be impossible, logistically, to track down and manipulate if they did.
No, vote stuffing is an almost pure Democrat ploy — typically used in Democrat primaries, as well. The most blatant vote stuffing known occurred between Democrat factions in New York — in the Nineteenth Century. By that time the Republican vote was entirely eclipsed.
The reason Jews and Catholics vote Democrat is tied directly to their landing in New York at that time. Their immigrant’s allegiance has been handed down the generations.
THIS is the reason why the Democrat Machines everywhere pursue the Latino vote. Fresh ones are cynically expected to replace the old Catholics (Irish, Italians) progressively/ Progressively lost to the Republican Party.
When it comes to ballot ‘games’ it’s a Democrat free-for-all. Period. Stop.
The number of Democrat Machines exposed over the decades — and their corruption — fills books. Strangely, not a single Republican Machine comes to mind.
So, while both parties can theoretically game the tabulating machines — it’s always been the preserve of the Democrat Machines to do so.
There is, then, no equivalence.
Josh…
I’d be quite surprised if any of DP’s e-mails originated from his CIA office. They’d be Not Safe For Work — and he’d be so busy — he can’t really control his calendar — that such correspondence would have to be on private time.
The family/ wife’s computer — at home — springs to mind.
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I’ve read that some of the e-mails were addressed to him at CIA HQ or some such.
That doesn’t ring true: apparently, they were left in limbo as ‘drafts’ on gmail.
Meaning, they weren’t ‘sent’ per se at all.
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Just how much spin can one story have?
103. blert
Yes, I know all that. But, then, why do the Republicans not challenge the Democrats when they suspect shenanigans?
We all know that if Romney had won, the Dems would have screamed bloody murder about “stolen election” and had squadrons of lawyers at the ready all over the country.
If the answer is that Republicans are gentlemen playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules, then they are too naive or stupid to hold positions of power in a dangerous and treacherous world.
So why are they so reticent to challenge the Democrats?
For what it’s worth, I do believe that the Democrats stole this election. I don’t trust Obama’s machine any more than I do Hugo Chavez’s. I don’t think it was massive voter fraud; I think it was done on a micro scale.
Recall that one of the first things Obama did was to put the U.S. Census under the control of the White House. I think they had the detailed data to target precisely the precincts they needed. In some areas they stuffed the ballot boxes with Obama votes; in other areas Republican votes were “disappeared”. It was done with surgical precision, and it will take very sophisticated analysis to unravel.
rickl…
That’s my take, too.
Kind of makes a fellow wonder how much longer we have to wait till we hear that Playboy has offed Paula several million to do a nude spread.