Deepest ever warship wreck found on ocean floor almost four miles down

Ocean researchers have found what they claim is the deepest ever naval shipwreck, believed to be that of a US navy WWII destroyer.
Crews aboard the Vulcan Inc's research vessel R/V Petrel found the remains of the vessel at a depth of 6,220m (20,400ft) on the bed of the Philippine Sea.
 The ship is thought to be the USS Johnston DD-557, a Fletcher-class destroyer sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf off Samar in the Philippines on 25 October 1944.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf lasted three days and is considered one of the largest naval engagements in history, involving more than 200,000 naval personnel.
It was the last action between battleships in history and was the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organised kamikaze attacks.

The Japanese navy suffered heavy losses and did not put to sea again in any force for the rest of the war, trapped in base by a lack of fuel.
According to the US navy, the USS Johnston, under Commander Ernest E Evans, was deployed to Leyte Gulf in the Philippine Sea on 20 October 1944. On 25 October, the ship took on heavy fire during a surprise attack from the Japanese Center Force.
According to the navy: "One by one, Johnston took on Japanese destroyers, although Johnston had no torpedoes and limited firepower. After two-and-a-half hours, Johnston - dead in the water - was surrounded by enemy ships.
"At 9.45 am, Evans gave the order to abandon ship. Twenty-five minutes later, the destroyer rolled over and began to sink."
Of the crew of 327, only 141 survived.

Vulcan Inc said the remnants of the destroyer were found 6,220 metres below the ocean's surface, "making this the deepest discovery of any warship in history".
It went on: "As with all their expeditions, the crew aboard R/V Petrel hope this discovery will bring a sense of closure for the families of those lost during this battle."

https://news.sky.com/story/deepest-ever-warship-wreck-found-on-ocean-floor-almost-four-miles-down-11849812

Trump Awards Medal Of...

Source: The Babylon Bee

Trump Awards Medal Of Bravery To Chewbacca For Heroic Deeds
During Battle Of Yavin

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Trump has awarded galactic hero Chewbacca his long-awaited Medal of Bravery for his performance in the Battle of Yavin.

The Wookiee had been snubbed by other presidents, who turned him down for the award despite his being nominated numerous times.

"AMERICAN HERO!" Trump tweeted along with a pic allegedly showing the ceremony. "BEST WALKING CARPET MAYBE EVER!!!"

But not so fast, said some fact-checkers.

Snopes, The New York Times, and dozens of other unbiased, austere truth-tellers immediately debunked the image, pointing out that the Wookiee could not have been presented with the medal since Wookiees are not real. They also scoured charts of the universe but could not locate the gas giant Yavin or its fourth moon, suggesting that such a place may not exist.

"We contacted the White House, but no one has been able to provide historical evidence that the Battle of Yavin actually occurred," wrote one CNN journalist. "Also, we have traced the original image to the 1977 film Star Wars, and it appears that the entire thing may have been doctored."

Trump later fessed up that he was just having some fun. A court has ruled that having fun is an impeachable offense.

5 Practical Steps For Saving..

Source: The Federalist

5 Practical Steps For Saving America

By Building A Real-Life Community

It’s time for conservatives to stop lamenting our losses and start reaching out to our neighbors.

A recently released poll by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service had predictably bad news about civil society in 2019: “A majority of Americans believe political, racial, and class divisions are getting worse.” More disturbingly, “the average voter believes the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war.” While Democrats, Republicans, and independents blamed differing sources for the tension, all groups agreed on one: social media.

Indeed, the rise of online community and the erosion of real-life, local community have been favorite themes of lament on the right in recent years. In an insightful essay recently published here at The Federalist, the author confesses that Facebook “is what constitutes much of my community nowadays. I don’t know my neighbors … in spite of the fact that I work in buildings filled with people and live in a teeming city, I am often lonely.”

He goes on to argue that isolation has deepened our social and political divisions:

The decline of the community has led to a decline in our collective sense of principle and purpose. In a community, the deeply shared and intertwined histories of its people provide a presupposition of benevolence among its constituents. In other words, in a community, we know that those who differ from us are fundamentally good and decent people.

Of course, identifying a problem is always a simpler task than solving it — especially a problem that afflicts a whole society. But just as those of us who decry the broken American family must begin simply by loving our own spouses and children, it’s time for conservatives to stop merely lamenting the loss of community and start being intentional about loving our neighbors.

Since my husband and I married nearly 20 years ago, it’s been a project of ours to engage the people living nearest us. We’ve had varying degrees of success. As in any relationship, a friendship between neighbors takes two. Still, I am happy to report that even in 21st-century America, we’ve been able to build real local community, lasting friendships, and a healthy constituency from whom we might borrow a cup of sugar at a moment’s notice. Here are five things we’ve learned to do along the way.

1. Make Time

The most necessary — and most difficult — prerequisite for building local community is making a little space in your life. It’s become far too common for American families to fill every waking hour with activities, clubs, sports, and lessons. Gone are the days when kids roamed the neighborhood on bikes or played baseball on the corner lot; now they’re in far-flung cycling clubs or organized sports teams, with mom and dad as chauffeur.

If you have children, it’s unrealistic to expect to eschew all of this. Extracurricular activities can enrich your kids’ lives, and they often build community relationships. However, it takes a conscious and countercultural effort to avoid being sucked into the vortex of overcommitment. Saying “yes” to every good thing will overload your schedule and reduce your home to a mere waystation between appointments. To state the obvious, it’s hard to engage with your neighbors if you’re never home.

In this respect, stay-at-home parents can play a key role as “glue” for a neighborhood. As a homeschooling, work-from-home mother, my schedule is full but flexible. When my elderly neighbor has heart arrhythmia, I can drop everything and drive her to the hospital. When the single dad down the street needs someone to pick up his daughter from school, I can handle it.

This degree of flexibility won’t be possible for everyone, but it’s important to realize that authentic relationships require an investment of time. If we’re serious about building community, we need to be intentional about creating space for it.

2. Go Outside

I distinctly remember a day last year when I was driving my kids home from lessons (yes, I do it too), and we passed through a low-income community near the railroad tracks. On the front porch of one of these humble homes, I saw several generations sitting together: dad, grandfather, and child. They were all listening to Grandpa, who was strumming a guitar. It was such a rare and lovely vignette from another time that I was tempted to pull over and shake Grandpa’s hand.

Outdoor spaces are the communal spaces in a town or neighborhood. I’m convinced that second only to Americans’ overcommitted schedules, our propensity for staying indoors is a community-killer. It’s no accident that snowstorms are often great relationship-builders between neighbors, as weather forces people first to stay home and then to go outside.

Simply showing your face outdoors once in a while helps establish your presence and make you known to those around you, especially if you take the next step and strike up conversations when opportunities arise. If you aren’t ready to spend an old-fashioned evening sitting on the front porch, you could make it a regular habit to take walks around the neighborhood. Do some gardening in the front yard. Force the kids off their devices and onto their bikes. It’s healthy for your mind and body, as well as for your community.

3. Reach Out (the Holidays Are Perfect)

After you’ve laid the foundation of simply being around, it’s time to consider getting really bold and knocking on your neighbor’s door. The easiest time to do this is early in the relationship, shortly after one of you has moved in. Wherever we’ve lived, I’ve made it a practice to greet new neighbors with a plate of homemade cookies or a loaf of bread, along with a welcome card that includes our names and phone number.

If you missed the new-neighbor window, the second-easiest time for knocking on doors is during the holiday season. Although I have some discomfort with the gruesomeness of Halloween, I’ve allowed my kids to participate in trick-or-treating simply because it’s the only time Americans widely visit each other’s front porches. We’ve resisted the temptation to do trunk-or-treats or shuttle into a big development, choosing instead to stay in our own small town among our neighbors.

Christmas is another excellent, socially acceptable time for taking a plate of cookies to the folks next door. Many of my closest neighbor relationships started with Christmas cookies. If you don’t bake, try a tin of store-bought popcorn. It’s not about the offering so much as the gesture, and people notice.

4. Join a Local House of Worship

If your goal is to build local community ties, attending church close to home makes more of a difference than you’d think. I learned this the hard way: For years, my family drove 30 minutes to church across a state line.

Although the drive didn’t seem overly long in today’s commuter lifestyle, our church simply wasn’t focused on reaching the community and culture where we lived. Furthermore, there was no overlap between our church and community relationships.

When we finally made the switch to a church in our own county, 10 minutes away, everything changed. Suddenly, it became easy to drive the neighbors’ kids to church day camp, invite the folks next door to the Christmas Eve service, or tell the single dad down the street about Wednesday night supper.

A good church is a source of strength and help to the surrounding community, and its members connect their neighbors to its resources. Since we started attending church locally, three different families on our street have started attending with us (and two were newly baptized). There’s nothing better for a sense of belonging than worshiping alongside your neighbors.

5. Look for the Unlikely Relationships

When my kids were small, my closest neighbor relationship was with another young mom. She lived a block away, our kids were the same ages, and, like me, she was an avid reader with an interest in politics and culture. She was also a vegetarian, an environmentalist, and a feminist, with a car covered in Democrat bumper stickers.

Over the course of several years, we spent untold hours walking the town together, taking our kids on outings, and sharing home-cooked meals in each other’s kitchens. Our differences in politics and religion served as a springboard for many fascinating discussions. We often debated, found more points of agreement than you’d expect, and never once allowed our differences to turn into anger or disrespect. (She eventually moved away, but we remain friends — and she remains a staunch liberal — to this day.)

Another unlikely friendship I’ve formed is on our current street, with a crusty, 70-year-old immigrant from Eastern Europe. When we first moved here, several of our new neighbors warned us about the European lady and her legendary temper. However, all it took was one small gesture of kindness for us to melt the ice and reveal her true nature: fiercely loyal, overwhelmingly generous, and ready to love our kids as an adopted grandmother.

In my experience, people everywhere — yes, even in modern America — are hungry for genuine connection. Sometimes it’s the least-likely seeming candidates for friendship, in fact, who are the hungriest. It’s precisely these relationships across divides of politics, religion, age, and lifestyle which will bring strength back to our local communities and, by extension, our nation. You won’t be able to single-handedly change the culture of America, but changing the culture of your neighborhood is well within reach. It’s a place to start.

Trans Athletes Destroy The

Source: The Federalist

Trans Athletes Destroy The

Meaning Of Women, Then Ask

‘What Is A Woman?’

In the span of 1,100 words, this Wired author takes you from the claim that transgender athletes are achieving 'glorious' victories over biological females to a final question, posed in all seriousness: 'What is a woman?'

Georgi Boorman

“The Glorious Victories of Trans Athletes Are Shaking Up Sports” said the original headline for a Wired article published Monday under the “Science” category. The subhead read, “Some critics claim transgender athletes are ruining competition for cis women and girls, but they forget: Sports — and life — have never been fair.”

That wasn’t at all overstated, of course. As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland quipped, the first title must have been “Trans Victories: They’re Real. And They’re Spectacular.”

​​After a massive pile-on from the residents of reality, Wired demonstrated that it does, in fact, get mail in its fortified compound overlooking the social justice dreamscape. It changed the title to “Trans Athletes Are Posting Victories and Shaking Up Sports” and de-snarked the subhead to “Transgender athletes at all levels of sport are winning medals, spurring a contentious debate over the future of gendered competition.”

Wired deserves the public shaming for its first title, but the real scorn should be reserved for the content of this loathsome article, which, as far as I can tell, remains unchanged.

Transgender ideology is deleterious to the wellbeing of children and society as a whole. That much is obvious to the vast majority of observant parents, whether their children play sports or not. One may wonder how it has permeated all manner of information thoroughfares to the extent it has, from social media platforms to major news outlets, from college lecture halls right down to the brightly decorated play rooms of preschoolers.

Transgender Activists Change Language to Change Culture

The key to its successful implantation in the minds of citizens, young people in particular, is the skillful replacement of the semantic framework we all know and have, until recently, been very contented with: Boys and men are males, and girls and women are females. Women’s sports, men’s sports; women’s bathrooms, men’s bathrooms. Sex, not gender.

How did we come to the point where male victories over females in their own sports are not just “glorious,” but affirmed as the victories of women? The answer lies in the introduction and replacement of basic terminology, which is meant to break the reader’s grasp on reality. The argument of the author, Christie Aschwanden, that trans athletes pose no threat to women’s sports, and in fact that we should consider doing away with the men and women categories altogether, provides several examples of language manipulation, some more subtle than others.

Take, for example, the phrase “cisgendered girls and women” she used in her opening paragraphs. Are women and girls “cisgendered,” or are they simply women and girls? But if we are to believe that males can be women, too, then we need an adjective to demarcate the girls and women who identify with their biological sex from the ones who do not. So now “girls” is just an umbrella term that has nothing to do with biological sex, and beneath that umbrella are “cis” and “trans” girls.

By stripping the terms of their original biological denotation, Aschwanden has equalized biological and nonbiological “girls and women” in the reader’s mind. They are just different types of women and girls, you see, and that’s the important thing. Not sex.

But we can’t just pretend that males and females aren’t a thing, because we’re reminded of it every time we look in the mirror or go to the bathroom. So Aschwanden goes on to write, “Nowhere are the debates around transgender rights as stark as they are in sports, where the temptation [is] to draw a hard biological line.”

Biology Sets Many Needed and Useful Parameters

It’s just a social construct, you see, this idea of biological distinctions, and up to this point, we’ve been tempted to “draw” a line (where presumably there needn’t be any). That line isn’t “drawn,” though; it’s inherent to human anatomy. There are two sexes. They are physically distinct from one another, and the creation of new human beings by sexual intercourse between the two proves it.

If biology isn’t so clearcut, then obviously we need a “fair” way to organize athletes into competitive categories. Perhaps, as physiologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand Alison Heather argues, we need to “create a handicap system that uses an algorithm to account for physiological parameters such as testosterone, hemoglobin levels, height, and endurance capacity.” A new system, you say? We don’t have a way to account for these things? Well, that sounds like something we need in order to be fair and science-based, right?

Except we already have physiological parameters that work quite well: dividing sports by male and female. Aschwanden is apparently hoping you’ve forgotten that at this point in the article.

You’re not buying the dismissal of biological reality? Well, we need to take other important characteristics into account too, such as “social factors like gender identity and socioeconomics.” Or try this on for size: Men attempting to live as women are “a very repressed minority,” who “only want to enjoy the same things that everybody else does, including participation in sports.”

Are you beginning to see the strategy? Biological realities can be pushed aside to make gender ideology more plausible to the average observer. Some of the details must be nodded at, to be sure: a little talk about testosterone ratios here, a mention of bone structure there, and really, what’s all the fuss about? Just ignore the glaring disparities — for example, that “cisgender men typically have testosterone levels of 7.7 to 29.4 nano moles per liter, while premenopausal cis women are generally 1.7 nmol/L or less.”

What Is a Woman?

Whether you acknowledge the science or not, though, is not all-important because it can simply be subjugated to “social factors.” Men attempting to live as women are a repressed minority at a high risk of suicide. Are you so cruel as to deny them the joy of sports? Would you willingly perpetuate the matrix of oppression?

In short, peddlers of gender ideology can pretend it’s not a controversy, and then when it becomes a controversy, they can apply intersectionality to guilt people into accepting the dominance of men in women’s sports. Aschwanden’s final line essentially admits the real goal of transgender ideology. She says, “At some point the question of who is a woman becomes a cultural inquiry: How athletically outstanding can a girl or woman be before we no longer see her as female?”

In the span of 1,100 words, the author has taken you from the declaration that trans (male) athletes are achieving “glorious” victories over biological females, to a discussion and prompt dismissal of the scientific data that evinces the vast differences between men and women, to a final question, posed in all seriousness, of “what is a woman?”

The question of who is a woman has gone from a scientific finality to a “cultural inquiry,” because the end goal of gender ideology’s proponents is to separate identity as a whole from biology. You are what you think you are, not what physical reality reveals you to be.

Look, Men and Women Are Just Plain Different

The transition of terminology from “sex recognized at birth” to “sex assigned at birth” is clear evidence of this, as Stella Morabito has written. You’re not recognized as a girl (female) or boy (male), you’re “assigned” a sex, because that pesky word “sex” can’t be thought of as an indelible, inherent human trait.

The ironic thing is that as much as these postmodernists are frantically trying to build a dome around their fiction to keep reality out, as much as they assert this is all about deconstructing oppressive social constructs, the physical truth couldn’t be clearer. In the overwhelming majority of cases, men beat women in feats of strength, speed, and agility. Men are stronger and faster and have greater lung capacity. They have better muscle memory and bigger bone structures.

The most primal truth of human physicality, the one that helps drive the survival of the species, shows up again and again in the athletics and mock violence of sports: Men are the hunters, the aggressors, and the protectors. The more physically demanding the task, the more we look to men to perform it. The “triumph” of men in women’s sports, far from blurring the distinction between the sexes, instead sharpens the contrast.

We cannot transcend our bodies or change them into some other kind. Sex is an intrinsic aspect of our identity, and no amount of semantic meddling will change that.

Georgi is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist, host of The 180 Cast, and coauthor of "Clocking Out Early: The Ultimate Guide to Early Retirement." Follow her on Twitter.

The Coming War Over Kinky Katie Hill’s Congressional Seat

written by Kurt Schlicter at Townhall

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own 
and do not represent the views of Townhall

If you mixed together Cannae, Agincourt, Normandy (yeah, I went there), and Armageddon, then multiplied that battle by 100, you get some idea of the scale of the upcoming death match to be held just a few miles up the road from me in California’s 25^th Congressional District. Katie Hill, she of the bizarrely convoluted relationships and questionable hairbrush perch hygiene, got the ole heave-ho by Nancy Pelosi after Redstate reporter Jennifer Van Laar’s exposé of the up ‘n coming Democrat’s multi-faceted relationship choices, choices so icky that they even freaked out the Cali crowd. Now that her former congressional seat, snagged from the sleeping GOP in 2018, is going to be the subject of a special election of surpassing specialness. To get the House back, this swing district is a must win for the Republicans; to keep the House, it’s a must win for the Democrats. Every hack reporter yearning for a trip to LA during the winter is going to be out here reporting on the bellwether to ring all bellwethers.

And it’s all going down just up the road from me. It’s gonna be lit, as the hip kids say.

So, is the GOP ready for this fight? Well, it’s the California GOP, so the presumptive answer is “No.” California’s Republicans – all 12 of them – got brutalized in 2018 by a devastating combination of changing Golden State demographics, a flood of Dem dinero, and the legendary incompetence that has made my state’s GOP pretty much the French Army of modern American politics. There are plenty of excuses – oh, the Democrats ballot harvested (It’s legal in this banana republic, so why didn’t we?). Oh, the Democrats were more motivated (Gee, whose fault is that?). Oh, the Democrats had better candidates (How about not nominating losers?). But the time for excuses has passed. It’s do or die, and this election is a Katie Hill to die on.

The libs are not going to let this one go. The tech titans are ready to stroke their checks. The media will run interference for the left. Moreover, the district is in the north Valley, meaning it’s just a quick limo ride for the Hollywood not-so-smart set to cruise on up and do their thing. If you’re a 25^th District voter, be prepared to be accosted coming out of Trader Joe’s by the likes of Alyssa Milano begging you to vote for whatever near-commie the Democrats put forward. To the extent that washed up 80s TV stars constitute star-power, be prepared to be wowed.

Now, the national GOP is going to have to step in to help, both with money and infrastructure – a lot of money, and a lot of infrastructure. The former GOP congressman was napping last time and Katie Hill rolled him. She was able to win a seat that had always been ours and should still be ours, and that was on us.

The fact is that this is a GOP-leaning district that should go red in 2020. But why would the voters – as opposed to the ones who checked the box for the polyamorous pinko – support some soft Republican who will go to DC and do nothing? Why should they turn out on election day if they aren’t inspired? We Republicans have been burned again and again by GOP soy puppets who let overpaid campaign consultants who seem to know a lot about draining campaigns coffers but nothing about winning neuter them and turn them into human puffballs. Who needs a Jeb! clone who wants to “reach out” and “solve problems” and never, ever take a stand? This is kind of the butter-spined weakness that is supposed to appeal to the suburban wine mom set, but do women really want to support a sissy? Do the men of the district want to come out for a candidate who seems like he or she will break into tears if he or she ever found himself or herself microaggressed?

Conservatism, aggressively and unapologetically articulated, wins.

No, we are not raising your taxes to buy stuff for illegal aliens.

No, we are not making you ditch your Ford Explorer because a bunch of Bay Area weather cultists demand you sacrifice to Gaia.

No, we are not sending your kids to get killed in some border dispute between Whocaresistan and Bingobadoodle.

No, boys pretending to be girls are not going to take all the prizes in your girls’ sports leagues.

Yes, you are going to get to keep your health insurance and your doctor.

Yes, we are going to ensure your kids get taught to read instead of how to complain about their privilege.

Yes, we are going to stand up to China.

Yes, we are going to defend our border.

These are winning issues – you just need a GOP candidate who is woke and willing to take the heat for articulating them. Our candidate has to understand that, no matter what, the Democrats will call him/her a racist, sexist, transphobic, Islamophobic climate denier who supports hunting kids with AR-15s, and he/she has to not give a damn.

Our positions win. Infrastructure aside, our candidates often lose because they care what their opponents say and soft pedal our conservative message. Stop caring. Start making them take positions that persuadable GOP voters hate.

Fortunately, we have a Republican candidate in the 25^th with a proven track record of being tough. He’s Mike Garcia, and he’s a Navy fighter pilot who smoked jihadi dirtbags while whatever candidate the Dems put forward was wandering around some college campus introducing his/her/xisself with his/her/xis pronouns.

Mike is the real deal, with a solid civilian career, a beautiful family, and no throuple weirdness. He embodies the normality and the kind of forthright conservatism the 25^th needs. Check him out, and help him out if you are so inclined.

This is no time for shenanigans or vanity candidacies. This is the time to clear the field and rally around the guy who strapped himself to jet engines and took off to drop bombs on bad people over in the sandbox. We need a warrior. This fight will make all those other special election fights we’ve won lately look as peaceful and tranquil as one of Katie Hill’s naked hair brushing sessions. This is the decisive battle, right here, in the 25^th. This is where we turn it around and counterattack to take back the House.

Revenge Porn didn’t drive Katie Hill out of Congress

Katie Hill brazenly lies about her resignation. But rather than call her out on her lies, the corporate news media gives her a helping hand.

Patriot Retort

Up until now I haven’t written about Katie Hill, the horny freshman Congresswoman from California — mostly because creepy perverts give me the, well, creeps.  But now that she has resigned in the face of ethics violations, I decided to choke back the creepy feeling and write about her.

Well, not Katie Hill precisely, but the media’s all-hands-on-deck defense of her.

See, the media is claiming that “revenge porn” is the reason horny Katie Hill was driven out of Congress.

They’re using the same playbook they did during the Clinton impeachment.  Clinton faced impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice.  But the media pretended Clinton was being impeached for his cigar trick with Monica.

Amazingly, people today still believe Clinton’s impeachment was about having sex in the Oval office.  Just do a search on the phrase “impeached for sex” on Twitter.  You’d be amazed at all the idiots who actually, to this day, believe that’s why Clinton was impeached.

So, since the media can claim “mission accomplished” on that big, fat Clinton lie, are you at all surprised they’re trying it again by claiming Katie Hill was forced out of Congress because of revenge porn?

After all, the purpose of the corporate news media isn’t to inform the public.  It’s to frame the narrative.

And Katie Hill is the beneficiary of the latest narrative-framing propaganda from our garbage media.

But it wasn’t the revenge porn that drove Hill out of Congress.

She resigned because she violated House ethics rules regarding sex with staffers.

The “Me Too Congress Act” was Congress’ way of responding to the current climate on sexual harassment – especially given the fact that it came to light in 2018 that Congress was paying settlement claims (with taxpayer dollars) to Congressional staffers over allegations of harassment.

As Nancy Pelosi put it in her floor remarks about the Me Too Congress Act:

“The Me Too Congress Act is our promise in a bipartisan way to hold every person accountable to the rule of absolutely zero tolerance. No matter someone’s contribution to our country – harassment and discrimination are always unacceptable.”

By engaging in a sexual relationship with a subordinate, Katie Hill violated that rule.

And, hey. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance.

Did Hill’s ethics violation come to light due to the release of these creepy, inappropriate photos?

Yes.

But her resignation had nothing to do with those photos.

And yet.  It is those photos that the news media is focusing on.

Why?  Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?

Playing up the revenge porn aspect of this sordid tale successfully frames Hill as a Victim.

And trust me.  Katie Hill is enjoying the hell out of all this narrative framing.

In addition to painting Hill as a victim of Revenge Porn, the media is also digging into the background of the RedState writer who broke the story.

Because targeting journalists is an assault on our free press … or something.

And they’re going to keep on this revenge porn narrative come hell or high water.

Because the truth is damning for Katie Hill. So the lie needs to be pushed and pushed until it is accepted as truth.

Last night, the Washington Post tweeted out an idiotic “Analysis” piece titled “Revenge porn drove Katie Hill out of Congress. Would that have happened to a man?”

Not very good analysis if the writer is unaware of the fact that it wasn’t revenge porn that “drove Katie Hill out of Congress.”

Nancy Pelosi did … because Hill screwed a subordinate.

Zero tolerance!

And the nerve, the absolute nerve of the Washington Post of all outlets to float this ridiculous claim.

In November 2017, Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas was the victim of revenge porn.  A former girlfriend threatened him with nude photos Barton had texted her.

When he told her he’d call the police if she released them, she scampered to the news media claiming Barton was one doing the threatening.

And can you guess who gave this ex-girlfriend a helping hand?

Why, the Washington Post.

Barton did an idiotic thing.  As I pointed out at the time, if you do not want to be a victim of revenge porn, then don’t send out pornographic pictures of yourself.

But the Washington Post didn’t howl with indignation at how Barton was being blackmailed with revenge porn.  Nope.  Instead, they portrayed the ex-girlfriend as the victim.

What’s more, Mike DeBonis, one of the writers of this article, solicited other women to come forward.

Inappropriately propositioned? Barton and the vengeful woman were in a consensual relationship when he texted her that stupid picture.

But of course, the Washington Post has to turn the victim into some kind of monster while casting the monster into the role of a victim.

To answer the Washington Post’s question, yes, a man in Congress can have his life destroyed by revenge porn.  But unlike Katie Hill, the media aided and abetted his destruction.

And we all know why. Barton, unlike Katie Hill, is a Republican.

Though Barton didn’t resign, he did decide not seek reelection in 2018.

And had Katie Hill simply been a victim of revenge porn, she too would have no reason to resign from Congress.

It’s a shame that we do not have a Free and Independent Press in this country.

The lengths these propagandists will go to provide cover-fire for Democrats really is mind-boggling. And every single time I think it can’t possibly get more overt, these assholes prove me wrong.

Impeachment Poll to Democrats: Put Up or Shut Up

by Timothy Daughtry at Townhall

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own 
and do not represent the views of Townhall

If House Democrats in vulnerable districts are starting to worry that Nancy Pelosi’s shadowy, closed-door impeachment “inquiry” looks like a politically motivated witch hunt instead of a valid legal process, a new poll by McLaughlin and Associates isn’t going to brighten their day. 

McLaughlin polls are especially important because, unlike some recent polls that purported to show popular support for impeachment by heavily over-sampling Democrats, the McLaughlin polls use samples that mirror actual voter turnout.  Republicans can get useful information from McLaughlin polls without all the sampling bias favoring Democrats, and Democrats can hear what they need to hear and not just what they want to hear.

And the October McLaughlin poll of 1,000 likely voters makes it clear that the Democrats have over-played their partisan hand and they are running out of time to put up or shut up on the impeachment question.  

The first major finding suggests that Rep. Al Green (D-TX) spilled the beans when he recently admitted that the Democrats had to impeach President Trump to keep him from being re-elected.  When asked whether “Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are moving forward with their impeachment inquiry against President Trump mainly for political reasons to stop him from being re-elected or mainly for legal reasons,” 52 percent of respondents overall said the effort was for political reasons.  Only 36 percent thought the effort was motivated by legal reasons.

The deeper one looks at the poll results, the worse it looks for Democrats.  Not surprisingly, 81 percent of Republicans saw the impeachment effort as motivated by politics and only 13 percent saw the effort as legal in nature, so President Trump’s base is holding strong.  Though a majority of Democrats (62 percent) saw the impeachment inquiry as grounded in legal concerns, almost one in four Democrats (24 percent) and even one in three liberals (34 percent) saw it as politically motivated.  That is soft support among the Democratic base.  And other demographics needed by the Democrats weren’t buying the idea that the impeachment effort was for legal reasons.   Hispanics (48 percent to 41 percent); Independents (54 percent to 30 percent); and Women (45 percent to 38 percent) saw the impeachment inquiry as more motivated by political rather than legal reasons.

When politicians try for something as radical as impeachment – a move that in essence overturns an election – any whiff of self-serving partisan motives is going to turn off voters.   But Democrats have been talking openly since the day after the 2016 election about their intent to, in the words of California Rep. Maxine Waters, “impeach 45.”  The only open question was when they would make their move and what they would try to use as their cover story to justify impeachment.  So, with the Russian angle backfiring and the 2020 election bearing down on them, the Democrats are now running with the Ukraine angle and voters smell partisan desperation. 

Other findings in the poll should alarm House Democrats even further.  Voters overall agreed 59 percent to 33 percent Democrats should “focus on working with Republicans to solve our nation’s problems rather than trying to impeach President Trump.”  Once again, key demographics needed by the Democrats tracked with that overall trend toward problem-solving and away from partisan antics.  Independents (55 percent to 33 percent); Moderates (48 percent to 39 percent); Hispanics (50 percent to 40 percent); and Women (52 percent to 38 percent) all agreed that Democrats should be working with Republicans on the nation’s problems rather than trying to impeach the president.     

Furthermore, given that Pelosi and the Democrats have been conducting a partisan impeachment process and refusing to follow the historical precedent of public, open debate with an up-or-down vote in the House of Representatives, voters agreed 47 percent to 33 percent that “the President is right NOT to cooperate with this inquiry.” 

And now, with Democrats talking of holding some kind of House vote on an impeachment resolution on Thursday, Democratic consultants looking at these results should be talking to their clients with the blunt clarity of the proverbial Dutch uncle:  Anything that smells of partisan chicanery and stacking the deck is going to backfire with voters, and Republicans would be fully justified in opposing it.  Do a clean, up-or-down vote in a fair and open process and then be prepared to go home and justify your vote to your constituents.  And then start working with the Republicans on solving real problems.

And if the Democrats need any other indicator of voter mood, the poll asked “Should Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for erasing over 30,000 emails so that the FBI could not read them.”  Voters overall said “yes” 52 percent to 32 percent “no.”  

That is no climate in which to push the impeachment of a president who beat the most powerful and shady political machine in the country by campaigning against the self-serving corruption and abuse of power in the DC swamp.

True North: The Principles of Conservatism

From "The Heritage Foundation":

summary:

A guide to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

 

 

The Heritage Foundation formulates policies that promote free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Heritage does not support policies that deviate from these principles, nor are our recommendations ever influenced by donations or outside political pressure. 

1. The federal government exists to preserve life, liberty and property, and it is instituted to protect the rights of individuals according to natural law. Among these rights are the sanctity of life; the freedom of speech, religion, the press, and assembly; the right to bear arms; the right of individuals to be treated equally and justly under the law; and to enjoy the fruits of ones labor.
2.  The federal government’s powers are limited to those named in the Constitution and should be exercised solely to protect the rights of its citizens. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The government closest to the people serves the people best.” Powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited by the Constitution, are reserved to the states or to the people.
3.  Judges should interpret and apply our laws and the Constitution based on their original meaning, not upon judges’ personal and political predispositions.
4.  Individuals and families—not government—make the best decisions regarding their and their children’s health, education, jobs, and welfare.
5.  The family is the essential foundation of civil society, and traditional marriage serves as the cornerstone of the family.
6.  The federal deficit and debt must not place unreasonable financial burdens on future generations.
7.  Tax policies should raise only the minimum revenue necessary to fund constitutionally appropriate functions of government.
8.  America’s economy and the prosperity of individual citizens are best served by a system of free enterprise, with special emphasis on economic freedom, private property rights, and the rule of law. This system is best sustained by policies promoting free trade and deregulation, and opposing government interventions in the economy that distort markets and impair innovation.
9.  Regulations must not breach constitutional principles of limited government and the separation of powers.
10. America must be a welcoming nation—one that promotes patriotic assimilation and is governed by laws that are fair, humane, and enforced to protect its citizens.
11. Justice requires an efficient, fair, and effective criminal justice system—one that gives defendants adequate due process and requires an appropriate degree of criminal intent to merit punishment.
12. International agreements and international organizations should not infringe on American’s constitutional rights, nor should they diminish American sovereignty.
13. America is strongest when our policies protect our national interests, preserve our alliances of free peoples, vigorously counter threats to our security, and advance prosperity through economic freedom at home and abroad.
14. The best way to ensure peace is through a strong national defense.

https://www.heritage.org/truenorth

AG Barr Delivers...

Townhall

AG Barr Delivers A  Professional Knifing Of James Comey And His Tenure As FBI Director

Matt Vespa

The Russia origins investigation is ongoing at the Department of Justice. It’s now a criminal probe, and Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham are working to figure out how the country became engulfed in the collusion hysteria. For over two years, Democrats and their allies in the liberal media peddled the Trump-Russia collusion myth. It was a total hoax. And the basis for all of this rests with the debunked Trump dossier that was compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele after being contracted by the research firm Fusion GPS. And who hired Fusion to quarterback this wild goose chase? That would be the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrats. This unverified piece of political opposition research was viewed as credible evidence in securing a FISA spy warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

Since then, the FBI’s reputation as a professional and impartial investigative law enforcement body has taken a hit. Fired FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, bureau lawyer Lisa Page, were the focal point in the deep state antics that have been alleged throughout the Trump administration’s first term. The two exchanged tens of thousands of texts. All were anti-Trump. Strzok texted about how this little crew would “stop” a Trump presidency and referenced an insurance policy, which many have alleged is the Trump dossier. Strzok was a key person in both the counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign and the FBI’s analysis of the Hillary Clinton email server. This deserves all the scrutiny, especially after it turned out to be a huge nothing burger.

James Comey, the former FBI director, was fired for giving sensitive documents relating to his meetings with Trump to a friend with the intention of leaking them to the press in order to get a special counsel investigation going. And that’s exactly what happened.

The upper crust of the FBI was damaging the institution with its anti-Trump activities. It’s funny. This is what these clowns think is necessary to save…our institutions? With Comey and Strzok handed pink slips, and Page having resigned, Attorney General Barr decided to give props to the bureau now that the cancer has been excised. And by cancer, I mean James Comey (via Fox News):

Attorney General Bill Barr, in an interview with Fox News, defended the independence and integrity of the politically contentious probe being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham into the handling of the Russia investigation – while taking a swipe at James Comey’s past leadership of the FBI.

Fox News reported last week that the probe into the 2016 origins of the Russia meddling case has escalated from a review to a criminal investigation, a development that spurred Democratic claims that the department was becoming a tool for President Trump’s “political revenge.”

Barr, speaking Monday to Fox News on the sidelines of a law enforcement event in Chicago, rejected Democrats’ claims he is acting as Trump’s personal lawyer.

"That's completely wrong and there is no basis for it, and I act on behalf of the United States," Barr said.

The attorney general said that while he’s assisting in connecting Durham with countries that could have valuable information, Durham is running the show.

“He is in charge of the investigation, I’m not doing the investigation,” Barr said, while describing Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, as “thorough and fair” and saying he’s making progress.

Further, Barr took an implicit swipe at Comey as he maintained current FBI Director Christopher Wray is cooperating.

“I do want to say that one of the reasons Mr. Durham is able to make the kind of progress he’s making is because Director Wray and his team at the FBI have just been outstanding in support and responsiveness given to Mr. Durham,” Barr said. “As you know, I’ve said previously that I felt there was a failure of leadership at the bureau in 2016 and part of 2017, but since Director Wray and his team have taken over there’s been a world of change. I think that he is restoring the steady professionalism that’s been a hallmark of the FBI. I really appreciate his leadership there.”

That’s a very professional knifing, but also a nice hat tip to current FBI Director Chris Wray. As many already know, the FBI is also the go-to agency for domestic surveillance and intelligence. It has the power to ruin people, and the Trump White House and those in its orbit have been targeted in the past. Trump aside, you cannot have the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency behaving like Democratic operatives—and that can be applied to other institutions that are supposed to be apolitical. Enforcing the law and national security, two areas where this principle should be exhibited, have become a huge problem concerning the Trump White House.

Is California Becoming Premodern?

Article by Victor Davi Hanson in "Townhall":

More than 2 million Californians were recently left without power after the state's largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric -- which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year -- preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds.

Consumers blame the state for not cleaning up dead trees and brush, along with the utility companies for not updating their ossified equipment. The power companies in turn fault the state for so over-regulating utilities that they had no resources to modernize their grids.

Californians know that having tens of thousands of homeless in their major cities is untenable. In some places, municipal sidewalks have become open sewers of garbage, used needles, rodents and infectious diseases. Yet no one dares question progressive orthodoxy by enforcing drug and vagrancy laws, moving the homeless out of cities to suburban or rural facilities, or increasing the number of mental hospitals.

Taxpayers in California, whose basket of sales, gasoline and income taxes is the highest in the nation, quietly seethe while immobile on antiquated freeways that are crowded, dangerous and under nonstop makeshift repair.

Gas prices of $4 to $5 a gallon -- the result of high taxes, hyper-regulation and green mandates -- add insult to the injury of stalled commuters. Gas tax increases ostensibly intended to fund freeway expansion and repair continue to be diverted to the state's failing high-speed rail project.

Residents shrug that the state's public schools are among the weakest in the nation, often ranking in the bottom quadrant in standardized test scores. Elites publicly oppose charter schools but often put their own kids in private academies.

Californians know that to venture into a typical municipal emergency room is to descend into a modern Dante's Inferno. Medical facilities are overcrowded. They can be as unpleasant as they are bankrupting to the vanishing middle class that must face exorbitant charges to bring in an injured or sick child.

No one would dare to connect the crumbling infrastructure, poor schools and failing public health care with the non-enforcement of immigration laws, which has led to a massive influx of undocumented immigrants from the poorest regions of the world, who often arrive without fluency in English or a high-school education.

Stores are occasionally hit by swarming looters. Such Wild West criminals know how to keep their thefts under $950, ensuring that such "misdemeanors" do not warrant police attention. California's permissive laws have decriminalized thefts and break-ins. The result is that San Francisco now has the highest property crime rate per capita in the nation.

Has California become premodern?

Millions of fed-up middle-class taxpayers have fled the state. Their presence as a stabilizing influence is sorely missed. About one-third of the nation's welfare recipients live in California. Millions of poor newcomers require enormously expensive state health, housing, education, legal and law-enforcement services.

California is now a one-party state. Democrats have supermajorities in both houses of the legislature. Only seven of the state's 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans. The result is that there is no credible check on a mostly coastal majority.

Huge global wealth in high-tech, finance, trade and academia poured into the coastal corridor, creating a new nobility with unprecedented riches. Unfortunately, the new aristocracy adopted mindsets antithetical to the general welfare of Californians living outside their coastal enclaves. The nobodies have struggled to buy high-priced gas, pay exorbitant power bills and deal with shoddy infrastructure -- all of which resulted from the policies of the distant somebodies.

California's three most powerful politicians -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gavin Newsom -- are all multimillionaires. Their lives, homes and privileges bear no resemblance to those of other Californians living with the consequences of their misguided policies and agendas.

The state's elite took revolving-door entries and exits for granted. They assumed that California was so naturally rich, beautiful and well-endowed that there would always be thousands of newcomers who would queue up for the weather, the shore, the mountains and the hip culture.

Yet California is nearing the logical limits of progressive adventurism in policy and politics.
Residents carefully plan long highway trips as if they were ancient explorers charting dangerous routes. Tourists warily enter downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco as if visiting a politically unstable nation.

Insatiable state tax collectors and agencies are viewed by the public as if they were corrupt officials of Third World countries seeking bribes. Californians flip their switches unsure of whether the lights will go on. Many are careful about what they say, terrified of progressive thought police who seem more worried about critics than criminals.

Our resolute ancestors took a century to turn a wilderness into California. Our irresolute generation in just a decade or two has been turning California into a wilderness.

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2019/10/31/is-california-becoming-premodern-n2555588