...Democrats face a potential disaster with 25 of their seats up in 2018 and only eight of the GOP incumbents campaigning....The entire essay is copied and pasted below the fold for those of you who do not have a subscription to the Washington Post. All emphases mine
In his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton introduced the term "thought-terminating cliché".[15] This refers to a cliché that is a commonly used phrase, or folk wisdom, sometimes used to quell cognitive dissonance. Though the clichéd phrase in and of itself may be valid in certain contexts, its application as a means of dismissing dissent or justifying fallacious logic is what makes it thought-terminating.A few irksome clichés from recent television broadcasts:
Lifton wrote:
"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."[15]In George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the fictional constructed language Newspeak is designed to eliminate the ability to express unorthodox thoughts.[16] Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World society uses thought-terminating clichés in a more conventional manner, most notably in regard to the drug soma as well as modified versions of real-life platitudes, such as "A doctor a day keeps the jim-jams away".[17]
In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt described Adolf Eichmann as an intelligent man who used clichés and platitudes to justify his actions and the role he played in the Jewish genocide of World War II. For her, these phrases are symptomatic of an absence of thought. Arendt wrote, "When confronted with situations for which such routine procedures did not exist, he [Eichmann] was helpless, and his cliché-ridden language produced on the stand, as it had evidently done in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy. Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence."[18]
"I don't know what else to say other than Obamacare is the law of the land. It'll remain law of the land until it's replaced," he said. "We're going to be living with Obamacre for the foreseeable future."
See How Islam Is Different from Other Religions by Shadi Hamdi, from the June 13, 2016 issue of Time Magazine. The essay is copied and pasted in its entirely below the fold in case you do not have a subscription to the magazine.
Sanchez Milian [age 18] is originally from Guatemala and was attending the high school as a ninth-grader, reports WTOP. Court records say Sanchez Milian arrived in Montgomery County seven months ago after having been questioned in Texas by border patrol agents in Texas and issued a notice to appear in front of an immigration judge.Read the entire article HERE.
Gov. Larry Hogan weighed in on the topic Monday night [March 20, 2017] when he condemned the Maryland House of Delegates for passing what he called "an outrageously irresponsible bill that will make Maryland a sanctuary state and endanger our citizens." Hogan vowed to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.
On WBAL Radio Tuesday, Hogan said, "This was a brutal and violent rape of a 14-year-old girl in a school in Montgomery County and there are so many unanswered questions. How was an 18-year-old who was already picked up for crossing the border illegally apparently able to be in class with a 14-year-old girl?"
While Maryland agencies generally follow 48-hour detainers issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Montgomery County is one of three jurisdictions named in an ICE report this week for having declined an immigration detained, he said....
The system is legally prohibited from denying education based on immigration status.I'm no fan of Tucker Carlson and his irksome quizzical facial expressions, but this interview is worth watching:
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| Mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, philosopher Blaise Pascal (1626-1662) |
FBI’s Comey Doesn’t Deny the FBI Is Wiretapping Trump: 'I just can’t talk about anything that relates to the FISA process in an open setting’Read the rest HERE.
The FBI is leaving open the possibility it sought -- and perhaps attained -- a wiretap of Donald Trump's communications.
When addressing the controversy over whether the Trump Tower was wiretapped during the Obama Administration, the FBI director, James Comey, tread carefully, acknowledging there is an investigation into Donald Trump's campaign's communications with Russia, but said there is "no evidence" to support Trump's tweets exactly as written.
Comey notably left open the possibility that it had, or still is, monitoring Trump communications.
When asked whether the FBI sought a FISA court warrant to wiretap Trump's team, Comey simply said he cannot comment on anything FISA related.
Here's an excerpt from Comey's question and answer session with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.):...
On her Tuesday show, Rachel Maddow teased a scoop: She had Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns. It was the first time his federal returns would be released.Read the rest HERE.
Small digression: MSNBC's Maddow didn't have them. Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston got them, and went on her show to talk about it.
Anyway, when she finally revealed what was in the taxes, it was not a huge deal. Trump earned about $150 million in income in 2005, and paid $38 million in taxes....
TRUMP PAID HIGHER TAX RATE [25%] THAN MSNBC COMCAST [24%]... MUCH HIGHER THAN OBAMA [19%]... AND BERNIE [13%]According to this source:
...“It is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns. The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the president will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans,” the White House said in a statement.Read the rest HERE.
Maddow, however, said that “for the record, the First Amendment gives us the right to publish the return.”...
Scripps College, a prestigious women’s school outside Los Angeles, is promoting the idea that non-white students must be given monetary compensation for the “emotional labor” of having to deal with so-called microaggressions.
Campus resident assistants at the school are hanging up two sets of posters titled “Emotional Labor 101”: one for whites, and another for minorities, whom the posters dub as “victims of emotional labor.”
[...]
The posters mirror what you might find on social media—where social justice warriors often demand financial recompense for calling people out, and yell at others to “educate themselves” when taken to task for their statements.
See Everyone Already Hates the GOP’s Obamacare Alternative. ...The bill repeals most of the taxes and penalties levied by Obamacare—including the taxes on medical devices and tanning services (lovingly known as the “Snooki tax”). And it drops the cap on how much employers can deduct for providing healthcare plans for their employees.Read the entire article HERE.
[...]
There even appears to be a hidden “backdoor” health insurance mandate...
[...]
...[M]issing from the plan were several of Donald Trump’s campaign promises: competition for health insurance across state lines, an expanded health insurance market, and a reconfigured prescription program that lower the price of key drugs.
The measure has already been lovingly labeled “#Trumpcare” by social media. For those that can decipher the bill’s complex language and weird scheme of tax credits and salary caps, none of it seems palatable....
2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.Read the rest HERE. Read it now.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
...Both parties wanted to see Clinton win. The Republicans, at least the leadership, liked the setup under Obama. They got to pose as rock-ribbed conservatives fighting Obama, without ever having to do anything. Democrats liked that Obama was just issuing executive orders and bypassing the parliamentary process. The Washington ecosystem was at equilibrium as long as everyone on both sides played their part.Read the rest HERE. Read it now.
[...]
A long time ago I pointed out that Trump was The Mule, the character from the Asimov novels. Trump is the destroyer of worlds, not because he has some grand vision of the future and wants to plow under the existing order to make room for his utopia. He is the destroyer because the old order can only exist if Trump does not exist. His rise to the White House is the nullification of the established order. It’s why Washington is going for total war to destroy him. They see it is a matter of survival.
It’s probably too late. The Mule has arrived.
[T]he Obama administration sought, and eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the information, including the conversations of private citizens, would be leaked to the media.Read the details HERE at Conservative Treehouse.
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| (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance for this graphic) |
Others gasped in audible disbelief when he announced the formation of a government department to assist victims of illegal-immigrant criminals.Why was that statement from Trump particularly objectionable? Since when has helping the victims of crimes become objectionable?
