Deceptive Appearances

   Yesterday's top story should have actually been the story that General Michael Flynn apparently met with Pennsylvania Islamofascist Fethullah Gülen.  The entire reason that Flynn was popular with the Trump people was his tough talk against radical Islam.  So it was shocking that in actuality, Flynn was meeting with the person most responsible for the desecularization of Turkey.  Gülen was originally part of the clique surrounding the military government of Turkey in the 1980s.  Back then, radical Islam was seen as an antidote to Marxist impulses in Turkish society.  (Kinda like Afghanistan?)
    Appearances are deceiving, and the supporters of O.B. are often not what they claim to be.  In his column from today, Jonah Goldberg diagnoses the paranoid everymanism of the Orange Blatherskite supporters.  Goldberg writes:
          On the right, a new version of prolier than thou is the new hotness.  Steve 
           Bannon is a multimillionaire former Goldman Sachs globalist who made 
           much of his fortune in Hollywood.  But his new racket--no less of a 
            racket for bein sincere--is to make himself the Joan of Arc to the 
           Trumpen proletariat.  He sells people--many no doubt decent--on
           the idea that there is a Great and Powerful Oz behind the curtain
            keeping them down, thwarting their dreams and denying them their
            destiny.  The Republican Establishment is whatever Bannon or 
            Sean Hannity (another multimillionaire who wears his 
            Budweiser on his sleeve) needs it to be.  It is simeotaneously oppressively
             powerful, blocking Donald Trump's "agenda" at every turn, and out-
             rageously weak, full of Quislings refusing to fight the cultural Marxists
             and George Soros's army of social-justice ninjas.  And because so many 
             people believe this tripe, everyone in the Establishment pretends they
             are against it.  They are like aristocrats of the old order donning
             workman's clothes to avoid the revolutionary mobs.  All of this only
              makes Bannon's life easier and the Establishment more pathetic. When
              no one will defend or deny the existence of your strawman, it's easy
              to win a debate.  Nothing proves the need for intensifying the witch 
              hunt more than the witches' ability to evade capture.
      Estase used to talk about the Primrose League.  He once thought that the average Republican politician was a squishy moderate who avoided social issues like the plague.  In comparison to the ethnically-obsessed Trumpsters and the alt-Right scumbags, the Primrose League looks damn good right now.

Disclaimers in Journalism, Part Two

       While Estase eschews the O.B. term "fake news," it remains clear that journalists seek an agenda other than the truth.  On last night's CBS Evening News, a segment entitled "Sexual Misconduct Alllegations" telescoped the cases of Bill O'Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, and a third man into one story.  The segment only actually discussed O'Reilly.  So the point of the segment was nothing other than an attempt to malign Fox News.
      So what about the fans of Peace & Love Inc., who claimed that Monica Lewinsky and suborning perjury was at bottom "just sex?"  So why is "just sex" a problem for Bill O'Reilly, but not Bill Clinton?
      What is even more outrageous is the fact that CBS presented the O'Reilly segment before their story on the Tampa serial killer!  Since when is sexual harassment a higher priority than an active serial killer?
       Another example is the difference in treatment between environmentalists and pro-lifers.  Unabomber Ted Kacynski was never described as an environmentalist.  Earth Liberation Force and its acts of eco-terrorism are never mentioned.  In contrast, journalists make sure to try to associate abortion clinic bombers with the millions of peaceful pro-lifers.
      These are prime examples of how settling scores with ideological enemies is the top priority for broadcast journalists.  Much overheated rhetoric has suggested Orange Blatherskite is an enemy of the free press.  O.B. may have a poor way of communicating it, but the problem of political advocacy in journalism is real, a problem journalists created themselves and refuse to address.

Memetastic Sunday V

Three Odious Phrases

       Broken records are never fun to listen to.  The supporters of Orange Blatherskite sound like broken records all the time.  Here are some of their greatest hits.

1)  Snowflakes A term that is used indiscriminately against everyone who doesn't like O.B.  The implication is that snowflakes are lazy, spoiled, etc.  Of course, you are supposed to ignore all the times that O.B. supporters act lazy, spoiled, etc., or the way that O.B. himself seems to have an affinity for blaming everybody for his problems except himself.  It must suck to be Jeff Sessions.

2) Drain the Swamp Trump supporters sure have a short memory.  This dreamy little phrase was coined by Bela Pelosi when she became speaker during George W. Bush's second term.  The implication was that Hastert's reign as speaker was marked by an unusual amount of corruption.  It beggars the mind how Paul Ryan (a Republican) and Mitch McConnell (also a Republican) deserve to be abused for their supposed corruption by a man with no political experience who made his money off of strip clubs and casinos.  Orange Blatherskite is the swamp!

3) Would you like Hillary better?  Now this one is just stupid.  It's like saying that a sucking chest wound is better than liver cancer.  The primary season of 2016 had many alternatives to O.B.  The idea that because Hillary Clinton is a dishonest harridan, literally anything is better is an insult to our intelligence.  The Republican primary voter was either unspeakably stupid, or starstruck by a TV celebrity.  Estase wonders whether the fact that two alternatives to O.B. had Hispanic names, and a third was married to a Hispanic woman was the real reason people fell for O.B.

  Perhaps it's asking too much for the apologists for Trump to ask if they would come up with some new catch-phrases.  These three have really worn out their welcome.

Oh Blah Blah Retrospective

       Today one of my friends shared a story about how anyone who didn't think Oh Blah Blah was a great president only felt that way because he was black.  Oh brother.  Estase wishes to outline some reasons he thought Oh Blah Blah was a crappy president.  And none of them have anything to do with race.
                 I.  He was the most pro-abortion president ever.  Obama promoted abortion every way conceivable (no pun intended).  He created Obamacare with the sole aim of finding a way to sidestep the Hyde Amendment.  Before Oh Blah Blah, Clinton was the most pro-abortion president ever (partially to hide the ugly fact that he used women like Kleenex).  But even Peace &Love Inc. pretended to wish abortion was rare!  The crowning touch was forcing religious organizations to buy abortion drugs for their employees.

               II.  Coddling radical Muslims and Communists was second nature to Obama.  He turned NASA into a pro-Muslim propaganda organization.  He removed sanctions on the Castro brothers in Cuba.  His appointees went on record praising Hugo Chavez.  (And we all know what great things Communism has done for Venezuela!)

              III.  The IRS scandal.  Obama shamelessly used the IRS as an attack dog against right of center organizations.  People vilify Nixon's use of an Enemies List, but Obama did the same thing, and CNN never devoted a minute of airtime to the scandal.

               IV.  The officer purge within the U.S. military was an unprecedented attack on our military readiness.  The end result is an incompetent Navy, where boats inexplicably end up in Iranian custody, and warships collide with other vessels.

      Lots of politicians end up on Estase's dishonor roll.  Seeing this article made me feel the need to give an accounting of why I didn't like Obama.  Being accused of racism is not something Estase takes lightly.   At the same time, this was the evil genius of leftists:  to make their standard-bearer a person of color, so that anyone questioning their actions could be dismissed as a racist.  If only the right were so cognizant of appearances!  Instead, most conservatives were convinced of the wisdom of making someone who used racial and national scapegoating on a regular basis their standard-bearer.   But perhaps Estase is some kind of racist for not backing Orange Blatherskite?

Unibrow Party Fun in Killinois

       The main disincentive to voting in the present circumstances is the inane similarity between the two parties.  When the Republican Speaker of the House says he is on the side of Communist Antifa, and the Republican Governor of Illinois signs a bill making the entire State of Killinois a sanctuary for illegal aliens, remind me again how these clowns are better than the Democrats?  The latter, Sci-Fi Bruce Rauner, is the exemplar of the Unibrow Party (h/t Shannon Joy).  Despite a history of having chums like Disturbin' Dick Durbin and Rahm "The Borg" Emmanuel, Mr. Rauner managed to wrest the nomination for governor from people with actual, conservative records.

     Just like the adorable little alien tykes in Village of the Damned, Rauner insinuated himself into a party that wasn't his own.  And now, when he did the same kind of crap the people of Killinois bounced Pat Quinn for doing, we're all surprised and stuff.  Note to Republican voters:  try nominating people who have been Republicans for longer than five minutes!   Or maybe it's expecting too much, wanting competent politicians who actually believe in something other than their own ego?  But enough about Donald Trump.   

What in Hell Do I Entitle This?

   
       Der Sturmer, the namesake of this website was the newspaper of the SS.  I literally don't know how to express the shame that Orange Blatherskite should feel right now.  Between this and O.B.'s bromance with Steve Bannon, it seems that the alt-Right has shown its true colors.  The terrorist attacks by Neo-Nazis and the Klan should have been immediately denounced.  Trump should have gone on TV to address the nation Saturday night.  This garbage needs to stop forthwith.  I don't know how stupid O.B. is that he didn't realize that Daily Stormer is pro-Nazi.  If he knows history this little, I tremble for the fate of our nation.  The alt-Right needs to be exorcised from both our nation, and from the Republican Party.  Charles Sumner is spinning in his grave right now.

Get Outta My Way Johnny, I'm Gonna Spit!

       This is a post apropos of everything, and nothing at all.  Its title is a quote from the 1931 movie Scarface.  Above is a gratuitous shot of Zooey Deschanel.
        How on earth did we get to this juncture?  Years of dumbed down schools, years of politicians promising the moon, and delivering steaming piles of crap.  A GOP establishment that is a solopicism:  fundraising on a set of values, while in actuality accomplishing next to nothing.  A set of people (often entrusted with platforms where they pretend to speak for conservatives as a whole) like Rush Limbaugh, jumped on board with a New York progressive with no political experience.
        And the result?  A presidency that seems even more like amateur hour than the Clinton White House.  (And that's saying something!)  A putatively conservative network where their lead broadcaster has been sacrificed to the Gods of Feminism!  (Don't get too emotional about O'Reilly--just regret that it wasn't Hannity.)  It all makes you want to say, as Cicero did, "What times!  What values!"
      Only, the current crop of conservatives remind me more of 30s gangster movies than they do of Marcus Tullius Cicero.  Indeed, Paul Ryan is making me feel like quoting Little Caesar, played by Edward G. Robinson:  "I guess that's what I get for liking a guy too much!"  Oh, for the pigshit Irish gunman Tom Powers, who was so pugnacious in The Public Enemy that he went on a suicide mission against Schemer Burns' gang even though his boss wanted him off the streets.  Tom Powers' fighting spirit is only seen in the Freedom Caucus;  unfortunately, O.B. wants them to end up the same way Tom Powers did--dead at Mother's front door.   Tommy gun heroes are so much more likeable than gutless politicians.

Memetastic Sunday III

Conservatives Without Chests, Part Two

     It is astounding to Estase how many people act as though there is something conservative about Orange Blatherskite.  O.B. is the Republican Bill Clinton:  an oversexed demagogue with no coherent foreign policy.  During the campaign, O.B. acted as though he would avoid enmeshing us with the attempt to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.  The Syrian civil war is a quagmire that even Oh Blah Blah was smart enough to only talk about engaging us in.  But now, before his first one hundred days have even elapsed, O.B.'s dubiously qualified Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is talking regime change!  
       Despite promising a pro-life Supreme Court justice, O.B. named a milquetoast Anthony Kennedy clone to replace Justice Scalia.  Unfortunately, the Republican voter is a fool who was gulled into choosing a candidate for his image rather than for substance.  O.B. talked a big game, and that made up for his lack of fluency on actual policy.  The ignorant red state voter is himself a conservative without a chest;  this is why they fell for someone who was all talk and no emotion.  "Make America Great Again" means being eighty percent identical to Peace and Love Incorporated (AKA the Clinton mafia).  Wesley Clark may as well be our head of the JCS.  Merritt Garland may as well be our newest Supreme Court justice.

Gorsuch Fail

       Few things challenge one's faith in humanity like a Supreme Court nomination process.  The Court of King's Bench, as Estase calls it, has become a timid rubber-stamp to the big government overreaches of the last 100 years.  Its members are political operatives more than legal scholars.  I had almost forgotten why I despise my state's senior Senator, Disturbin' Dick Durbin.  His attempt at Borking Neil Gorsuch was a reminder of what a sleazy, dishonest piece of human garbage he is.  First, Durbin accused Gorsuch of having John Finnis write his dissertation for him.  Then he took a quote from Finnis about the British demographic shifts of the last thirty years, which was very much like what Pope Benedict XVI said about European demographics in general.  Of course, piece of shit Durbin implied that Finnis (and by extension, Gorsuch) were racists.  Showing that Gorsuch is more like Justice Roberts than Edward Coke, Gorsuch hung his mentor out to dry, disavowing what Finnis said.  So Gorsuch basically agreed with Durbin that the unexceptional quote by Finnis was racist.  Both Durbin and Gorsuch failed a test;  Durbin by being himself, and Gorsuch by being such a milquetoast as not to challenge Durbin calling his mentor a racist.
         Neil Gorsuch is smart, likeable and polished.  Smart, likeable and polished is not what the high court needs.  Brave, principled and adversarial is what the high court needs.  Someone who won't defend his mentor will not fight for the Constitution either.  Nor will he resist Orange Blatherskite if he tries to overstep his actual authority.

Free to be Skewed

      Everyone who has right-of-center leanings knows that the media aren't their friends.  TV news, newspapers, and magazines typically advocate for bigger government, liberal social trends, and Democratic politicians.  These are just facts of life.  Orange Blatherskite, however has taken the step of banning five news organizations from White House press briefings.  One can easily tell reasonable people from Trump stooges by their response to this.  Reasonable people ( like those who remember any courses on civics or government) know that O.B. has gone too far;  that he is living down to the protofascist his enemies already believed him to be.  Trump stooges, in contrast, act as though this is somehow sticking it to the liberal media.  They forget that previous Republican presidents never assumed they had a right to exclude hostile journalists from the press pool.
       Fox News' Bret Baier has been right to defend CNN from this exclusion, pointing out that CNN cried foul when Oh Blah Blah tried to exclude Fox from the press pool.  The proper way to deal with liberal media bias is not to pretend they don't practice journalism.  Even dishonest journalists deserve to be treated as journalists.  The problem of liberal media bias is a problem that the consumer needs to deal with.  If you don't believe CNN or BuzzFeed is a reliable source, don't use them.  You don't deal with them by shutting them out from press conferences.  That is juvenile and counterproductive.  The last thing O.B. needs right now is to look like he doesn't respect a free press.

Why Conservative Media is Dead

       The incoming administration seems to be a collection of crony capitalists.  Why a former Exxon executive is qualified to be Secretary of State is the most alarming Cabinet pick so far.  Did something happen to prevent John Bolton from being a contender for Secretary of State?  Did a boulder smash the prescient Mitt Romney, whose 2008 observation that Russia was our geopolitical number-one threat loomed large as Oh Blah Blah found Vladimir Putin our toughest nut to crack?  The ignorant old canard that government needs to be run like a company seems to be the ruling philosophy of Orange Blatherskite.  
        Those who believe that canard are probably not likely to read political philosophy, so they should seek political theory in a more palatable form--the movie "RoboCop."  The point of the movie RoboCop was that governing and making money were two separate activities, and ones that in many ways conflict.  It is a sad commentary on the state of conservative media that it now sees no conflict between the skills of making money and the skills of good government.  Fox News is now utterly worthless as a barometer of conservative thought.  It now seeks to marginalize those voices who questioned the candidacy of Orange Blatherskite.  As business experts play statesmen, it is highly unlikely that any of the Fox talking heads will point out their defects.  Estase was watching Tucker Carlson's new show.  Tucker Carlson seems to be nothing more than a less-annoying avatar of Sean Hannity.  The same game of "you-people-are-hypocrites-because" and then inserting whatever issue is under discussion is Hannity's stock in trade;  it is also the game Carlson seems to want to play.  Conservative media is unlikely to challenge a winner.  If challenging popularity was within Fox's range of action, they would have done more to challenge the sleazy tabloid media push of Orange Blatherskite.  In other words, Fox was more interested in not offending their viewers than they were interested in vetting the candidates.  If Fox was too weak to point out that Trump wasn't a conservative when he was running, they are too weak to point out that he isn't a conservative as President.

The Orange Blatherskite

       Citizen Kane has been elected President.  Estase has been calling the last president Oh Blah Blah for nine years.  So it behooves him to come up with a fitting moniker for Citizen Kane.  Estase formally dubs the president-elect The Orange Blatherskite.  Or O.B. for short.  Since Citizen Kane has such a fascination with all things gynecological, Estase can think of no more fitting title for him than O.B.  It also packs in a reference to all the lack of coherence that make him such a baffling pick for high office.  If liberals thought George W. Bush was hilarious, O.B. will make their sides split with laughter.  And they can relish the fact that the religious right (Requiscat in Pace) helped make a porn star First Lady!

Conservatives Without Chests

       "Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature, Part III, Section 3
       "The crudest sentimentalism (such as Gaius and Titius would wince at) about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use.  We were told it all long ago by Plato.  As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'  The head rules the belly through the chest--the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnaminity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments.  The Chest--Magnanimity--Sentiment--these are the indispensible liason officers between cerebral man and visceral man.  It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man:  for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.  The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests.  It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals.  This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence.  It is not so.  They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her.  Indeed it would be strange if they were:  a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which Gaius and Titus could debunk as easily as any other.  It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out.  Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary:  it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so." C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man, (p.34-35)

       Watching Donald Trump talk like a social conservative is like watching a mime pretending to have a heart attack.  The portrayal is an academic exercise, disconnected from his real sentiments.
       Trump opposes Cosmopolitanism, the stoic idea that all men are brothers.  He peddles a mixture of self-interest and white nationalism.
       The secular educational system replaces conscience with conditioning.  Rather than encouraging moral behavior, it teaches adherence to the conventions of society.  (Sittlichkeit over moralitaet, you might say.)  Trump's abusive personal insults and dubious personal behavior are a fruit of demoralized American society.  This explains why his arguments against abortion seem so anemic.  Trump isn't arguing from his heart, but according to what he thinks he needs to say.
       Why would someone pretend to hold convictions when he has none?  Perhaps it is just another role;  Trump master of deals was followed by Trump, television star, which was followed by Trump University.  Next will be Trump, TV network owner!  His entire life has been a series of commercial moves.  How is this any different?
       The place of morality being the only check on nature means that lack of morality necessitates outside force to create order.  In the case of Donald Trump, he promises to be the autocrat molding America into his image.  If Trump believed in liberty, part of his message would be morality and self-regulation.
       Strength is a totem with Trump.  He clearly admires people who force their will on others.  This is another sign of Trump's deficit in benevolence and morality.  A politician within the Tao would recognize that he is, after all, only a man himself.  The fact that all men have a law written in their hearts should mean that there is no need for Strong Men.
       Donald Trump is what C.S. Lewis might have called a conservative without a chest.  He is a caricature of sorts--vulgar, selfish and crude.  There is no mediation of the emotions between his mind and the animal appetites of his belly and loins.  Thus, he knows only the self-interest of his mind married to the urges of his body.  Estase used to refer to the Clintons as mechanistic;  Bill and Hillary's politics were all about satisfying needs, with no element of the edifying or noble.  It is the opus magnum of Hillary's career that, at the crucial juncture where America could reject her and godless progressivism,  she managed to get a conservative without a chest as her opponent.

Mrs. Daesh

       Turkey is the land of destiny for the Middle East right now.  The Daesh will be reinforced or destroyed by Erdogan.  As of now, it looks like Turkey is intending to reinforce the Daesh.  The coup against Erdogan was likely a publicity stunt to serve as a prelude to an Islamist crackdown in Turkey.
       The fight against the Daesh by the U.S. appears to be a paper tiger.  When the Daesh attacked Paris and Istanbul, the official State Department mouthpiece, CNN, was sure to blame Bashir-al-Assad for the attacks.  Assad is one of the leaders fighting for his life against the Daesh, and somehow, he is responsible for the Daesh!  The same network that fed us a phony narrative of how the mean old Serbs were conducting a one-sided slaughter fest against the Bosnian Muslims (then, as now, on behalf of the State Department) is blaming Bashir-al-Assad for his own opposition.
        All the while, Hillary Clinton looks certain to be our next president.  This means certain war with Syria and Russia.  The irony of the current election cycle is that Trump, being an ignoramus and a brute, looks like a warmonger.  All the while, the pantsuited lesbian is the one who really means to start World War III.

Appeal to the Delegates

       Estase has been trying to get the attention of Republican primary voters since last July.  Now he is addressing the Delegates to the Convention.  Since my first post ("Price?  No Man Can Say"), proceeding through early posts ("The Trump Narrenschiff" and "Citizen Kane and the Constitutional Crisis"), and concluding with "The Trump Narrenschiff, Part Two," "Fear and Stasis," and "Fear and Stasis, Part Two."  The point of these blogposts has been to make four basic points.

                       I.  Trump shows no signs of being a conservative.  His record includes support for gay marriage, socialized medicine, abortion and gun control.  Any alteration of these historic Trump stances can be explained as political posturing.  Trump has personally supported liberal causes, giving money to the Clintons and Chuck Schumer.  Trump personally invited the Clintons to his last wedding, raising the very real possibility that this whole candidacy was a favor to Hillary Clinton.
                    II.  Trump is out of his depth.  Trump's positions are bumper-sticker slogans.  He has no political experience.  His promises include things that may not even be legal, like banning Muslims from entering the country;  or things that are absurd, like jailing women for having abortions.  Donald Trump appeals to Michael Savage because he has run a shock-jock campaign for president, where being abrasive and extreme has been seen as some kind of a virtue.
                   III.  Trump is dishonest.  Donald Trump made crazy charges about Ted Cruz having multiple mistresses and Rafael Cruz assassinating JFK.  He went from admitting Cruz was legally qualified to run for president to endorsing Lawrence Tribe's claim he was not.  Trump is a chronic womanizer.  Anyone who has practiced so much dishonesty in his life and in this campaign is not fit to hold high office.
                   IV.  Trump is incapable of being elected.  A candidate who has insulted Hispanics, Jews, Catholics and women is bound to be unpopular.  When that candidate only succeeded in garnering 39% of primary votes, how is he capable of winning a general election?

       If you are a Delegate, and are reading this, you are the last line of defense between Republicans continuing to exist as a reputable party, and being forever branded as George Wallace-style knuckledraggers.  I'm not even just worried about who wins the 2016 Presidential Race (although it's important).  Donald Trump being the Republican candidate for 2016 means the end of the Republican party representing optimistic conservatism and limited government.  He represents a radical break with everything Republicans have stood for since the days of Charles Sumner and Abraham Lincoln.  You cannot let this man destroy what so many have fought for.

Neither Here Nor There

    Not content to insult Hispanics and Muslims, or to have surrogates like Ann Coulter insult Jews and Catholics, Citizen Kane has now attacked Orson Welles.  You've got it folks, art reverses life.  The egotistical one apparently describes the man who depicted him several years before his birth as a brilliant wastrel.
       This election cycle has been too bizarre for words up to now, and it doesn't seem to be getting any more normal.  A longtime Democrat, and friend of the Clintons and Chuck Schumer with mob ties has somehow finagled his way into being the likely candidate of the Republican party through a mixture of cynical manipulation and gullible primary voters.  Estase isn't egotistical enough to think the Donald knows about the guerilla war he has been staging against his candidacy.  So it's really just a weird coincidence that Citizen Kane even mentioned Orson Welles.  Just like it's really a weird coincidence that a radical Muslim shot up a gay nightclub last weekend.