Summing Up — Thus Far

A follow-on to Silverfiddle's blog post Howls of the DC Damned:

Then, again, we have what Robert Mueller said yesterday, May 29, 2018, in his statement, which has again ramped up calls for impeachment:

... [I]f we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so....

Full statement HERE, which some interpret as goading Congress to act and which some interpret as muddying the waters for the 2020 General Election.

Additional reading: Bob Mueller Runs and Hides in Eight Minutes to Avoid Having to Answer One Key Question by Roger L. Simon:

...When did you know there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?

If the answer, as many, including Andrew C. McCarthy [See THIS], are indicating, is somewhere in Fall 2017, what in the Sam Hill was Mueller doing putting the country through two years of prolonged agony? It's not likely he did all this to prop up CNN's faltering ratings.

Was it, just by chance, to induce obstruction from one Donald J. Trump who -- like a relatively normal person but with a shorter fuse than most, justifiable in this case -- would react like a stuck pig to being falsely charged for so long? That would have been essentially entrapment....

Apocryphal Chinese curse:

Howls of the DC Damned

Silverfiddle Rant!

When dirty democrats and deep state conspirators accuse others of doing something, you can be sure they are doing it themselves...

All excerpts are from the AP Article, Trump moves to escalate investigation of intel agencies.

"House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff accused Trump and Barr of trying to “conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies.”"

Hmmm... That's exactly what Obama's political hacks running the alphabet agencies did to President Trump...

An "Obama Admin senior intelligence official" (a sneakweasel, hiding behind a cloak of anonymity because dirty dealers fear sunlight) offered this up:

"... said their principle concern is that the attorney general, hand-picked by Trump, could declassify and release selective bits to make the previous administration and former senior officials look bad."

How rich.  You mean like Russian disinformation about golden shower prostitutes?  Or unmasking the incoming National Security Advisor and then leaking details to the press that lets the whole world know our intel agencies listen in on all phone calls?  You mean like that?  Like the Obama gang did?

And what president does not "hand-pick" his cabinet members, including the Attorney General?  The Press is wracked with a deep, rotting sickness.

 The Establishment damns Atty General Barr as a partisan abuser of his office...

"Thursday’s move further solidifies Barr’s position in Trump’s eyes as a legal warrior fighting on his behalf."

"Trump has told close confidants that he “finally” had “my attorney general,”

Well, at least the President didn't call the Attorney General his "wingman."

They have also damned Barr and the Trump administration for ***Sacrebleu et Quelle Horreur!!!!*** "framing the issue" when releasing the Mueller Report. Unprecedented! No one in DC has ever done that before!

The psychological projection is stunning, and the conspirators are actively engaged in PsyOps, propagandizing the American people and billowing smokescreens to preemptively discredit the DOJ and their findings, which will most likely embarrass and incriminate various high level Obama officials who now infest CNN, MSNBC and any other Infotainment Media Outlets that pay them to perform.

Stay Tuned. This is going to be a nail-biter all the way to the end. 

For Memorial Day 2019

[With thanks to Warren, who called my attention to the cited essay below]

[about "Flags In" at Arlington National Cemetery]

Some appropriate reading for Memorial Day and worth pondering....

From Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetery by Tom Cotton, published in Hillsdale College's Imprimis (April/May, 2019):

Every headstone at Arlington tells a story. These are tales of heroes, I thought, as I placed the toe of my combat boot against the white marble. I pulled a miniature American flag out of my assault pack and pushed it three inches into the ground at my heel. I stepped aside to inspect it, making sure it met the standard that we had briefed to our troops: “vertical and perpendicular to the headstone.” Satisfied, I moved to the next headstone to keep up with my soldiers. Having started this row, I had to complete it. One soldier per row was the rule; otherwise, different boot sizes might disrupt the perfect symmetry of the headstones and flags. I planted flag after flag, as did the soldiers on the rows around me.

Bending over to plant the flags brought me eye-level with the lettering on those marble stones. The stories continued with each one. Distinguished Service Cross. Silver Star. Bronze Star. Purple Heart. America’s wars marched by. Iraq. Afghanistan. Vietnam. Korea. World War II. World War I. Some soldiers died in very old age; others were teenagers. Crosses, Stars of David, Crescents and Stars. Every religion, every race, every age, every region of America is represented in these fields of stone.

I came upon the gravesite of a Medal of Honor recipient. I paused, came to attention, and saluted. The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor. By military custom, all soldiers salute Medal of Honor recipients irrespective of their rank, in life and in death. We had reminded our soldiers of this courtesy; hundreds of grave sites would receive salutes that afternoon. I planted this hero’s flag and kept moving.

On some headstones sat a small memento: a rank or unit patch, a military coin, a seashell, sometimes just a penny or a rock. Each was a sign that someone—maybe family or friends, or perhaps a battle buddy who lived because of his friend’s ultimate sacrifice—had visited, honored, and mourned. For those of us who had been downrange, the sight was equally comforting and jarring—a sign that we would be remembered in death, but also a reminder of just how close some of us had come to resting here ourselves. We left those mementos undisturbed.

After a while, my hand began to hurt from pushing on the pointed, gold tips of the flags. There had been no rain that week, so the ground was hard. I asked my soldiers how they were moving so fast and seemingly pain-free. They asked if I was using a bottle cap, and I said no. Several shook their heads in disbelief; forgetting a bottle cap was apparently a mistake on par with forgetting one’s rifle or night-vision goggles on patrol in Iraq. Those kinds of little tricks and techniques were not briefed in the day’s written orders, but rather got passed down from seasoned soldiers. These details often make the difference between mission success or failure in the Army, whether in combat or stateside. After some good-natured ribbing at my expense, a young private squared me away with a spare cap.

We finished up our last section and got word over the radio to go place flags in the Columbarium, where open-air buildings contain thousands of urns. Walking down Arlington’s leafy avenues, we passed Section 60, where soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were laid to rest if their families chose Arlington as their eternal home. Unlike in the sections we had just completed, several visitors and mourners were present. Some had settled in for a while on blankets or lawn chairs. Others walked among the headstones. Even from a respectful distance, we could see the sense of loss and grief on their faces.

Once we finished in the Columbarium, “mission complete” came over the radio and we began the long walk up Arlington’s hills and back to Fort Myer. In just a few hours, we had placed a flag at every grave site in this sacred ground, more than two hundred thousand of them. From President John F. Kennedy to the Unknown Soldiers to the youngest privates from our oldest wars, every hero of Arlington had a few moments that day with a soldier who, in this simple act of remembrance, delivered a powerful message to the dead and the living alike: you are not forgotten.

*****************************************************************************

The Thursday before Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery is known as “Flags In.” The soldiers who place the flags belong to the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment, better known as The Old Guard. My turn at Flags In came in 2007, when I served with The Old Guard between my tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Old Guard is literally the old guard, the oldest active-duty infantry regiment in the Army, dating back to 1784, three years older even than our Constitution....

[...]

No one summed up better what The Old Guard of Arlington means for our nation than Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey. He shared a story with me about taking a foreign military leader through Arlington to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Sergeant Major Dailey said, “I was explaining what The Old Guard does and he was looking out the window at all those headstones. After a long pause, still looking at the headstones, he said, ‘Now I know why your soldiers fight so hard. You take better care of your dead than we do our living.’”

Read the entire essay HERE.

Memorial Day is not really about store sales and cookouts. 

Rather, Memorial Day is a solemn commemoration of our fallen military across the centuries. 

Pause, remember, reflect.

What Is Ramadan?

(Much of this blog post was previously published in 2011 and 2015)

Ramadan 2019 began at sunset on May 6 and continues for 30 days until June 5.

What does Ramadan really celebrate, particularly Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan?

If one understands the history of Islam and, especially, that of Ramadan, one will come to understand that such a commemoration, including iftar dinners at the White House, should be unacceptable to all those who oppose Islamic supremacism.

Fake Everything

Silverfiddle Rant!

Robocalls are a menace, and Caller ID spoofing is a sinister twist on this black art.  Remember the National No Call List?  It's a joke, brought to you by the same government apparatchiks who claim they can solve climate change if we just give them enough money.

Paul Starr rants about robocalls in his American Prospect article, The Robocall Deluge Is a Case of Government Failure.

And it's not just robocalls...

The robocall deluge is just one manifestation of a phenomenon I call “media degradation.” It goes along with spam email, spam text messages, fake news, deepfake videos, and much else.

Add to this a total loss of on-line privacy and "harmful content" in social media.  Mark Zuckerberg joins Paul Starr in calling for more government intervention.

I share their concerns, but not their calls for more Big Government.

Here's how I rank their concerns, #1 being the biggest:

1. On-line Privacy.  Government needs to pass a law. Now.  Stating no one may sell, buy, share or otherwise traffic my personal information without my explicit written consent.

2. On-Line Free Speech.  I want government to bust the on-line trusts.  Global corporations own the digital public square, so social media must be converted into a public utility that guarantees access for all who do not break the law. The Twitter Stasi banned the pro-life movie Unplanned's twitter account, un-banned it, and then erased all its followers.  King Twit Jack Dorsey needs to be dragged from his imperial palace by his hipster beard and publicly caned for all of the censorship he has engaged in.

3. Fake News. I do not want government intervening.  The situation is bad enough as it is.  The Infotainment News Media is going to have to police itself and clean up its act if it wants to up its approval rating, which is now lower than President Trump's.

4. Deepfake Videos. This is a biggie given how reliant as we are on video evidence and the unreflective credulity we invest in it. It's bad enough what the porn stuff can do to a person's reputation.  Think about deepfakes of "leaked conversations, etc" of world leaders, or deepfaked atrocities designed to propagandize us into one more rage mob or worse, another war.  What consoles me is the empirical fact that technology solutions solve technology problems.  Context, forensic examination, non-video corroborating evidence or lack thereof, etc will snuff most deepfakes, if the resulting hysteria doesn't get out of control first.

5.  Robocalls, Caller ID Spoofing, Spam E-Mails, Spam Texts.  These annoy me, but I don't see the need for government intervention, although I would like to see the tech industry try harder at deploying customizable apps to help us snuff this didgicrap.

6. On-line Trollery.  The Hill is rife with spam comments and obvious trolls, some flying false flags just to provoke. I would like to see some heuristic technology developed to eradicate such infestations.

7.  "Harmful Content" in social media.  If it doesn't break the law, Stop. Banning. It. I support some common sense community standards, but the Silicon Valley Archipelago has gone way overboard.  Turn them all into public utilities and regulate them as such.

What say you?

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance):

[about Rhapsody in Blue]

Education Today? (With Addendum)

In what world is this appropriate for a second grade teacher to do?

And why is the teacher still employed at the school?

Addendum below the fold:

"We are a Good People"

Silverfiddle Rant!

Rabbi Dov Fischer speaks for his people, and for America, in the wake of yet another hate crime hoax and calls for slavery reparations...

Yes, we are informed by the Shoah, as we are by the destruction of the Holy Temple that someday will be rebuilt in Messianic times on its promontory on Mount Moriah, as we are by the expulsions, Inquisitions, blood libels, pogroms, Communist terrors, and other persecutions that have visited us. That makes us vigilant. But we do not build a culture on that. I wish so much for others in other cultures to understand that no culture can be built in 2019 America on a slavery that ended in 1865 by virtue of 300,000 White men giving up their lives to end it.

Vestiges of our racist past remain.  Yahoogle "Sandtown Baltimore" for one example. We have stubborn pockets of racists, some noisy, some violent, and some quiet and sneaky.  We always will, but our polite society that snickers at blasphemy and vulgarity does not tolerate bigotry. 

Dov Fischer again, from the same linked article:

We are a good people. We do not lynch Blacks or others. Rather, we had Loretta Lynch. Outside of New York, we smile at people we do not know as we walk down the street. When we cross a street, we wave to the driver who waits to make a right turn. We make friendly small talk at the grocery cash register, even a guy with a yarmulke when paying a woman with a hijab. We are a good people. And we deserve better than the despicable Big Lie that this country is riven on racial, gender, religious, or ethnic lines.

Very few of us had a perfect upbringing, and our family histories tell of struggle, oppression and every variety of unfairness life hands out.  Nursing grudges and grievances while believing people owe you something is a path to unhappiness and failure.

The best message you can give people is to encourage them overcome: Let go of the past. Do the right thing, work hard, delay gratification, get an education. Success--hard-won and self-earned--is the best response to the bigots and the haters.

Recommended Reading

See Democrat Contenders' Laughable, Massive Giveaways by Erik Rush.  Excerpt:

...Among the mind-bogglingly unaffordable proposals being floated are reparations for blacks for slavery. On April 8, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced a bill that would study the concept of reparations for descendants of slaves. Booker said that the bill is “a way of addressing head-on the persistence of racism, white supremacy and implicit racial bias in our country.”

The persistence of racism, white supremacy and implicit racial bias in America is an utter fiction (unless one takes into account the uncomfy bed progressives have made for blacks), but blacks and rank-and-file liberals have been convinced that these are endemic to our nation.

[...]

...T]here are definitely enough propagandized blacks and foolish whites among us to make this a reality given the right (or wrong) combination of a Democratic president and Democrat-controlled Congress.

Read Mr. Rush's entire essay HERE. He discusses much more than race.

For Mother's Day 2019

(For politics, please scroll down)

Four generations in January, 1978:

L to R: my beloved second cousin, whom I regard as my daughter (b. 1967); me at age 25; my mother (1916-1987); and, Wawa, my maternal grandmother (1898-1981).

The above photo was taken here in the living room of this old house, built circa 1935.

I miss you, Mom and Wawa.

Comment Of The Day

A few days ago, commenter Baysider posted the following insightful comment to Silverfiddle's May 2, 2019 post "Seattle Is Dying" here at Always On Watch:

I live in such a town - Soviet Monica. Crime (and vagrancy) is up, WAY UP, since the Crime Train is bringing boatloads more freeloaders into town. People are disgusted. We have to protect and defend ourselves. Government has abandoned that function in all but name only.

We ALSO contribute a lot to the private rehab agencies, but I'm not interested in YOU unless you want to take a step in the right direction. Don't expect free lodging and a latrine in MY yard. You can be willing to straighten up and move in the right direction and we'll help.

Our city actually threatened fines/jail to ordinary people like me who wash the filth away -- for spreading disease! What do they expect us to do, lick it up? My garage door guy wears a mask when he works in this area because of all the stench of urine which signals disease that he is working among.

Related reading: Medieval Diseases Are Infecting California’s Homeless: Typhus, tuberculosis, and other illnesses are spreading quickly through camps and shelters (The Atlantic, March 8, 2019).

How long can California survive this onslaught? Similar situations exist all over Southern California, including even in Beverly Hills and Bel Air.

Related...Police Union: LAPD Officers Contracted Staph Infection After Homeless Person Came Into Station (May 7, 2019).

Joe Biden's Brain

(At Always On Watch 2, in the wake of Mr. AOW's brain hemorrhage on September 1, 2009, and my consequent crash course in neurology followed by up-close and personal encounters with the rather peculiar phenomenon of confabulation, I posted a few times about Joe Biden's brain. This post is an update to those previous posts and is a post irrespective of Joe Biden's political views; in fact, I feel compassion for what I believe to be the man's neurological issues)


Joe Biden is known for making gaffes.  In fact, a Google search of "Joe Biden gaffes" yields lists of Bidenisms. One example of a Bidenism, an example which reads much like spinning tales around a campfire:

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened." –Joe Biden, apparently unaware that FDR wasn't president when the stock market crashed in 1929 and that only experimental TV sets were in use at that time, interview with Katie Couric, Sept.22, 2008

Read the entire list HERE.

Just last week, there was this: Biden Tells ‘The View’ Obama’s Presidency Had No ‘Whisper of Scandal’.

Funny? Sure. But is something else going on?

Check out the following information about confabulation:

Animal Humor

(For politics, please scroll down)

With thanks to Warren, who emailed me the link to the video below:

[about ferrets]

Bonus video below the fold.

Seattle Is Dying

Silverfiddle Rant!

Mrs. Silverfiddle and I watched the captivating documentary, Seattle is Dying, available on YouTube.  It is a professional one-hour production and has almost 3 million views.  I recommend you cast it to your flat panel and enjoy the hi-res camera work.

The entire film is one long parade of homelessness and drug abuse, and the sadness and misery and crime that results. It's all exacerbated by the city's inability to address the growing problem.

The wife and I found one part particularly galling.  A homeless clown, enjoying it all as street theater because we are a nation rich enough and stupid enough to allow bozos like him to make a joke of it all...



In related news, the brain surgeons running Washington DC, thought it would be a great idea to put up homeless bums and drug users in luxury apartments, but it ain't working out so well.

Seattle defenders are pushing back against the viral documentary, but they've got a fight on their hands.  Even good liberals are fed up in this city that voted 87% for Hillary and only 7% for President Trump.

What say you?