RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mr. Bush has shown that the Republican establishment, variously frightened, paralyzed, or rendered incapable of rational judgment by political correctness, can be every bit as damaging to the cause of freedom as the cultural Marxists are.

“We know that the desire for freedom is not confined to, or owned by, any culture; it is the inborn hope of our humanity.” (NPR, Oct. 19, 2017) So said former president George W. Bush in his recent criticism of fellow Republican, President Trump. The idea that, by their very nature, all human beings desire freedom is an unquestioned premise of modern liberalism. It underlay Mr. Bush’s efforts at nation-building in Iraq, and it has underlain a century and a half of U.S. immigration policy. And it is false.

According to Freedom House, 40 per cent of the world’s population today is free, while 60 per cent is only partly free or unfree. The Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, shows a map of the world in which economic freedom is confined to a just handful of countries, mostly in the English-speaking world and northern Europe. Freedom is the exception in the world today, as it has been throughout human history.

By “freedom” I mean the absence of physical compulsion—from three specific sources, foreign enemies, one’s fellow citizens, and one’s own government. As for the first, most peoples throughout history probably have resisted subjugation by other peoples. The desire for freedom in this sense is likely near-universal.

But when it comes to relations with one’s fellow citizens or one’s own government, the record suggests that many peoples have tolerated a great deal of physical compulsion—of women, for example. Saudi women are still prohibited by law from driving an automobile. It defies belief that Muslim women would have quietly tolerated subjugation by men for over a thousand years if the desire for freedom were inborn.

We are in a veritable war of competing visions. The strife inside the two parties is irrelevant—when compared to the larger existential war for the soul of America.

Like it or not, Donald Trump in fits and starts has chosen not to accommodate the progressive vision. But in most unlikely fashion he leads the fight against it.

Those who found him too crude, who saw his tweets as too adolescent, and who vowed never to vote for such an antithesis of conservative and family values have all weighed in.

So have those who are embarrassed that Trump—as did Obama during the Henry Louis Gates fiasco, the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case, and the Ferguson shooting and subsequent riots—quite inappropriately weighs in on current criminal investigations and trials.

And yet, warts and all, the Trump presidency on all fronts is all that now stands in the way of the completion of what was started in 2009.

The Age of Intolerance

We are no longer in the late 1950s era of liberal reform. It is now a postmodern world of intolerance and lockstep orthodoxy.

There are few Berkeley-like free speech areas on college campuses any more. Students charged with particular crimes enjoy little due process. There is no Joan Baez-style acknowledgement of the tragedy of good Southern poor men fighting for an awful cause. No one acknowledges tragedy anywhere at all; it has all become melodrama. We may yet see Joan Baez’s version of The Band’s ballad or Shelby Foote’s commentaries in Ken Burn’s epic Civil War documentary Trotskyized.

The media is not disinterested. Networks such as CNN see their role actively on the barricades, devoted to the higher cause of destroying the Trump presidency, not as reporting its successes or failures. The danger to free expression and a free media is not even Trumpian bombast. It is the far more deliberate and insidious transformation (begun in full under Obama) of journalism into a progressive ministry of truth. Even if he wished, Trump could not take away what the professional press already surrendered voluntarily.

Sociopaths and Leftists share a common behavior trait – projection – accusing someone else of doing exactly what you are doing yourself. The crucial difference between sociopaths and Leftists is that Leftist projection is conscious and sociopathic projection is unconscious. The sociopath has a personality disorder that manifests itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. Let’s compare and contrast the nature of psychological projection with political projection.

Sigmund Freud described psychological projection as the defensive mechanism of denying in oneself the existence of unpleasant behavior while attributing that exact behavior to others. (“Case Histories II, PFL 9, p.32) Accusing someone else of lying when in fact you are the liar is a prime example of projection. Projection is a characteristic blame-shifting defense mechanism for sociopaths – it keeps them from acknowledging and taking responsibility for their own behavior. The work of the sociopath’s therapist is to help the sociopath get in touch with the objective reality of his behavior so that he can change it.

Interacting with a sociopath is very confusing and creates cognitive dissonance in those unfamiliar with psychological projection. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological stress of holding two or more contradictory beliefs at the same time. Consider sociopath Bill who accuses his honest business partner Joe of embezzling money from their company. At first Joe is confused – he cannot reconcile being accused of stealing when he knows for a fact he did not steal anything. Joe is immediately put on the defensive by the accusation. Joe examines the accounts and sees that money is indeed missing – he is determined to discover who the thief is so he can be reimbursed and clear his name. It never occurs to Joe that it is Bill who is stealing because Bill is the accuser!

In a political context psychological projection is a deceitful conscious strategy to put your political opponent on the defensive. There are fair fights and there are dirty fights in politics. Fair fights are honest debates about the merits of opposing policies and ideas – dirty fights are deliberate, personal, and deceitful tricks designed to discredit your opponent and put him on the defensive. Political projection is a very dirty fight.

The following is an excerpt from a fascinating article written on the subject by Bill Federer. It exposes the staggering dishonesty of political projection and its source:

Karl Marx is attributed with saying, “Accuse the victim of what you do.” In the political context, be the first to accuse your opponent of what you are guilty of:

– If you are lying, accuse your opponent of it

– If you are racist, accuse your opponent of it

– If you are intolerant, accuse your opponent of it

– If you have something to hide, accuse your opponent of it

– If you or your spouse have been sexually immoral, accuse your opponent of it

– If you are receiving millions from globalist and Hollywood elites, accuse your opponent of it

They never ever counted on the one entity for which neither media hacks nor pollsters have any respect: the American public!

On Tuesday, American voters will once again go to the polls hoping that the candidate(s) they vote for will fulfill what should be their one and only mission, i.e., to serve the needs of We the People.

Republican, ahem, leaders are appropriately nervous that the phony so-called conservatives they’ve been foisting on us for decades will be replaced by authentic conservatives who will help President Trump fulfill his mission to Make America Great Again!

And––oxymoron here––Democrat leaders are even more agitated because looming over the entire election will be the initiative President Trump announced last May to investigate voter fraud, an issue they are all-too-seedily familiar with.

They are also in high anxiety about the inconvenient truth that, according to journalist Susan Jones, “There have been five special congressional elections so far this year, and in the four races where Republicans ran against Democrats, Republicans have won all four. (In CA, two Democrats vied for a House seat, so a Dem win was the only possible outcome).

VP Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach are leading the commission’s efforts to reassure voters about the integrity of federal elections. The president also appointed Hans von Spakovsky, a GW Bush appointee, to head the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.

The far-left Washington Post called his appointment “divisive,” which to most Americans meant that the president picked the perfect guy. In 2005, von Spakovsky led the Justice Department’s approval of a Georgia law requiring voters to produce photo ID, which was rejected!

Think about that rejection. You need a photo identification card to get a driver’s license, donate your blood, buy alcohol or cigarettes, open a bank account, apply for welfare benefits or food stamps or Medicaid or Social Security or unemployment or a mortgage or a hunting and fishing license, get on an airplane, rent a car, get a prescription, buy a cell phone, visit a casino and get married––and that is the short list!

But the initiative was rejected because Democrats object to any requirement that would prevent illegals and dead people and cartoon characters from voting and potentially swinging an election in their favor.

What do you think Sanctuary cities are all about? They are certainly not about the deep love and empathy leftists have for humanity, or the preference people who work 12 or 16 or 20 hours a day have for giving total strangers free housing, education, healthcare, and ongoing stipends into perpetuity. No no no….sanctuary citizens are all about Democrat votes!

Sure enough, the reliably cringe-producing Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called on the president to reject the embrace of “white supremacy” and the desire to “disenfranchise” voters that motivated such a commission.

The millions of rabid Trump-haters that the George Soros-linked group Refuse Fascism hoped would show up Saturday in cities across America to drive the duly elected president and vice president of the United States from office must have had other plans.

The so-called Resistance’s coordinated multi-city action failed despite oceans of favorable media coverage from the mainstream media and a full-page ad in the New York Times.

The plan was to occupy city centers and parks in around two dozen U.S. cities and not depart until President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were forced to flee the White House. The protests, Refuse Fascism boasted, would rage “day after day and night after night ─ not stopping ─ until our DEMAND is met.”

So this means they left a little over three or seven years too early. And the turnout on the weekend for the launch of their revolution was so sparse, no one will care if a few stragglers have stayed behind to “occupy” various cities.

The broader goal of Refuse Fascism is to overthrow the U.S. government through occupations and crippling strikes. Perry Hoberman, an associate research professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at USC and a member of Refuse Fascism’s national steering committee, had previously said Nov. 4 would be modeled on the Women’s March that took place the day after President Trump’s inauguration.

But the “Antifa apocalypse,” as some had termed it, a series of disruptive protests planned in 20 cities, failed to materialize on Nov. 4.

In moments of terror, the killer in black mowed down 26 victims in and near the small white church off Old Highway 87. The victims behind the church’s red door were as young as 5 years old.

And then the killing at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs stopped.

A neighbor had found his own rifle and opened fire on the killer. Devin Kelley, the 26-year-old man identified as the gunman, dropped his weapon and fled. And at least one local resident, if not more, followed in pursuit. Kelley was later found dead with his massacre cut short by a local hero.

Evil knows no geography. A mass murderer can take over two dozen lives in fifteen seconds. The worst humanity is capable of can appear in a tiny town of a few hundred. And another man can save a dozen more lives in even less time. And the best humanity is capable of can also come to life in that tiny town.

Sutherland Springs, a town hastily named when the post office came calling, is a reminder that the great dramas of human life don’t just happen in big cities where millions of people swarm the streets. They can happen in the smallest and the most overlooked places in the heat of a lazy Sunday morning.

History appeared to have passed Sutherland Springs by since its days as a resort town. But there is no place so forgotten that it cannot serve as the stage for a confrontation between good and evil.

Devin Kelley, the monster in black who came through that red door, had been court martialed by the Air Force for domestic violence. The man who had abused his wife and child thought he would show the world how tough he was by gunning down unarmed women and children. But once a few shots were fired in his direction, Kelley turned and ran. Mass shooters aren’t courageous, they’re cowards.

There is a reason that they choose targets that they expect will be unarmed and unable to fight back. Devin Kelley had spent a little time in the Air Force. And had then been locked away for a year for attacking his family. At First Baptist, Kelley thought he had his perfect target. He murdered children and the elderly. But when the gun swung his way, he fled and didn’t stop until he could go no more.

After this latest massacre, the discussion will inevitably turn to gun control. But it isn’t guns that need controlling. People either control their worst selves. Or they don’t. The First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs shootings showed us that in the brutal collision between two men.

Some men shoot the innocent. Others risk their lives to stop them.

In another bombshell from her upcoming book, Donna Brazile says that she was haunted by the mysterious murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in July of 2016 purportedly during a botched robbery. In her memoir, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, she describes how she became increasingly paranoid about alleged Russian interference in the election and elements within her own party.

According to the Washington Post, she said that after Rich’s murder, she shut the blinds to her office window so snipers could not see her. Brazile, who became interim head of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 after Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ousted, also installed surveillance cameras in her home and worried that the Russians might have bugged her DNC executive suite with listening devices.

Wasserman Schultz was forced out after WikiLeaks published emails revealing how she and other officials stacked the deck against Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary process in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Surprisingly, Brazile claims that top Democratic officials “encouraged” her not to talk about the hacked emails but says she was told to take the matter seriously. That message was made clear, she said, during her visit to the White House in August 2016 for then-President Obama’s 55th birthday party. She says then-National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice and former attorney general Eric Holder separately pulled her aside to caution her “to take the Russian hacking seriously.”

Her recollections about being spooked by Seth Rich’s murder are intriguing. If he was just a lowly IT staffer, killed in a random botched robbery, why would she be worried about snipers coming after her?

If the claim that he was the one who gave WikiLeaks the DNC emails is just a lot of alt-right nonsense, why would she feel the need to shut her blinds and install surveillance cameras?

What does Donna know?

Shortly after Rand Paul was attacked by some man who people had previously never heard of, news media reported that the senator from Kentucky had suffered some “minor injuries.” Well, unless having potentially life-threatening injuries is now classified as “minor,” those initial reports were somewhat mistaken:

A senior adviser for Rand Paul says the U.S. senator is recovering from five broken ribs following an assault at his home. Doug Stafford said it is unclear when Paul will return to work since he is in considerable pain and has difficulty getting around, including flying. Stafford said Sunday that the broken ribs include three displaced fractures, which can lead to life-threatening injuries. The severe pain can last for weeks or months.

When those initial reports were published, the overall impression people got was that although it was shocking that someone had attacked Senator Paul, he didn’t suffer serious injuries. Clearly, he did. His attacker, Bernie Sanders supporter and Trump hater Rene Boucher, not only tried to do some real damage here but actually succeeded in doing so.

Following the horrendous attack on Republican congressmen and staffers during a baseball game earlier this year, which left Rep. Steve Scalise seriously wounded, this assault on Sen. Paul proves that the demonization of conservative politicians by the institutional Left is causing serious problems. Yes, political debate is important, but there’s a difference between debating issues and routinely vilifying those who dare disagree with you. Democrats and their friends in the media have repeated for years now that Republicans aren’t merely people “with other ideas,” but evil. They’re purposefully trying to hurt Average Joe, we’re being told. This message is driven home day after day, week after week. It was always only a matter of time before some wacko bird decided to take “justice” into his own hands by “removing the threat” Republicans pose to him, to minorities, and to society at large.

There’s only one way to end these kinds of attacks: by putting a halt to the complete vilification and demonization of “the other side.” Sadly, chances are the Democrats aren’t willing to do so. After all, they clearly believe that polarization will help them win elections. It’s about strategy to them, not about actual principles. CONTINUE AT SITE

The gunman who killed 26 people Sunday at a Texas church was discharged from the Air Force for bad conduct, according to court documents.

Authorities identified Devin Patrick Kelley, 26 years old, as the shooter. He was clad in black and wearing a ballistic vest when he opened fire at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, authorities said. Twenty people were injured in the attack.

Kelley fled the scene and was later found dead in his vehicle, police said. Police were investigating the circumstances of his death.

Kelley served in the U.S. Air Force but was court-martialed in 2012 and ultimately received a “bad conduct discharge,” according to court records. He was sentenced to confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank to E-1.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek confirmed that Devin P. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of assault on his spouse and on their child, Ms. Stefanek said.

Kelley lived in lived in the New Braunfels, Texas, area northeast of San Antonio, where he graduated from high school in 2009.

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas—A young man clad in black and wearing a ballistic vest blasted his way into a Baptist church in this south Texas town on Sunday with an assault-type rifle, leaving at least 26 people dead and 20 others injured.

The gunman fled in a vehicle and died following a pursuit, law-enforcement officials said, adding that it wasn’t known whether he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or was shot by someone else. Wilson County Commissioner Ernest “Skip” Hajek confirmed his identity as Devin Patrick Kelley. He said Kelley lived in the New Braunfels, Texas, area northeast of San Antonio.

Among those killed were a woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy and the 14-year-old daughter of Pastor Frank Pomeroy, according to family members of the victims. Twenty-three people were killed at the church, two outside and one died en route to the hospital, officials said.