Lies for Me But Not for Thee

For whatever reason, lies attract more obloquy when they are perpetrated by Republicans than when they are perpetrated by Democrats.

by Roger Kimball for American Greatness

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

That obnoxious diktat uttered by obtuse authority figures everywhere is working overtime in the case of George Santos, the Republican Representative-elect from New York. 

Santos is scheduled to take his seat next week. As of this writing, however, his political future is mostly cloudy, with a distinct chance of stormy weather—not to mention the boot. 

Why? Because Santos was exposed as a liar, someone who (I am looking for the right word)—how about “embroidered”? Yes, let’s go with “embroidered”—his history. 

Actually, the emollient word Santos used when caught out was “embellished.” “My sins here are embellishing my résumé,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. “I’m sorry.” 

Among his “embellishments” was the claim that he held a degree from Baruch College. In fact, as he admitted, “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning.” You might think, as I do, that that is a plus since most so-called “institutions of higher learning” are moral sewers and left-wing indoctrination camps whose chief achievement is corrupting the young. Still, Santos should not have lied about this, just as he should not have said that he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs when, in fact, he did not. (Though, once again, asked to choose between two candidates, I’d be inclined to go with the one who never set foot in Goldman Sachs rather than the one who had worked there.) 

In an effort to display a little moral street cred, Santos claimed his grandparents had “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII.” Reading that, most readers would assume that Santos was Jewish. But no. “I never claimed to be Jewish,” he objected. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’” Not hungry, merely “peckish.” Not short, merely “short-ish.” And not really nice, merely “nice-ish.” 

But “Jew-ish”? 

Let us draw a veil. A year and a half ago, Santos tweeted that “9/11 claimed my mother’s life.” It must have taken a while, though, since, in fact, she did not die until 2016. I don’t advise trying to visit Santos at his Nantucket home, either. It seems he doesn’t own one, though he claims he did. 

That song from “HMS Pinafore” comes to mind: “Things are seldom what they seem/Skim milk masquerades as cream.” 

Naturally, there is general outrage directed at Santos, especially, but not exclusively, from the Democratic side of the aisle. Tulsi Gabbard, sitting in for Tucker Carlson, roundly condemned him. There is, she said, “no greater form of disrespect of democracy” than lying.

I don’t disagree. But if that is so, note how much of such disrespect there is to go around. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) once upon a time claimed to be part Injun—Cherokee, in fact—and even wrote that on a registration card she filled out for the state bar association in Texas. 

Now I have a certain sympathy for ordinary nonvictim folks who were born in the U.S. of A. and who put down “native American” on those ridiculous pigeon-holing forms. Having been born in Shaker Heights, outside of Cleveland, Ohio, I am tempted to indite “Native American” on all such documents myself, just as I glory in advertising that I am a “person of color,” pointing out to the skeptical that a pleasing pink is just as good a color as those darker, more fashionable hues. 

But I digress. Elizabeth Warren lied about her background, just as George Santos did. When she is hounded out of office, then I will line up and call for Santos’s ouster. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) used to claim that he had served in Vietnam for the same sort of reason that Santos said he had a college degree and worked at Goldman Sachs. He thought the voters would like it. Back in 2008, Blumenthal told a crowd of voters, “We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam.” The New York Times really outdid itself in the euphemism department when it reported on this. “His words . . . differ from history.” How delicately put! He “never served in Vietnam,” the paper acknowledged. In fact, “he obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war.” In other words, he lied. 

And what about Joe Biden? Here we enter the realm of target-rich environments. Biden claimed that he graduated “in the top half” of his law school class at Syracuse Law School. In fact, he graduated near the bottom, 76 in a class of 85. He lied about his house nearly burning down with his wife inside, about driving an 18-wheeler, about confronting that made-up “bad dude” “Corn Pop.” Biden said he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela during apartheid. No he wasn’t. He gave “his word as a Biden” that he awarded a navy hero a silver star in Afghanistan, but that turned out to be “an invented story.” And on and on. And on. We now all know what one’s “word as a Biden” is worth. 

Gabbard might be right that lying is a form of “disrespect” for democracy. But I can’t help but note that the lies attract more obloquy when they are perpetrated by Republicans than when they are perpetrated by Democrats. George Santos sounds like a silly, insecure fellow. It would be reassuring to think that he falls short of his colleagues in the U.S. government. Alas, there are many Santoses in that corrupt and irresponsible body. Making up things about your mother or your educational or professional background is merely beginner’s mendacity. If Santos manages to serve his term, he’ll find himself among real—and really disreputable—pros.

On the Fringe and Badlands Media- Jan 1st 2023

 

Been sniffly since last night, been stuck at home all day, and this is the week before the NCIS crossover, which means the boatload of whatever content is left to be included will be coming this week.

So, how's your day been? Here's tonight's news:

I Regret to Inform You That the Libs Don't Like 'Yellowstone,' and They Are Completely Missing the Point

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Amidst a wasteland of absolute trash coming out of Hollywood over the last several years, Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” has become a saving grace for television watchers everywhere.

It’s gritty, it’s visually stunning, it’s fun, and most of all, it’s not woke.

There aren’t any explicitly leftwing narratives being shoved down the audience’s throat when you watch “Yellowstone” or its equally well-done prequels, “1883” and “1923.” In fact, there’s a rather conservative bent at times throughout the franchise, though Sheridan is loathe to allow his work to be defined along political lines.

For example, the latest season of “Yellowstone” has the Duttons converting a rabid environmentalist from her misguided secular religion. There’s also a speech that John Dutton gives after being elected governor, where he proclaims himself the “opposite of progress.” When one watches the show, there’s little doubt about what political party he belongs to, in the alternate universe being portrayed.

Of course, because Sheridan values story-telling over toeing the left-wing line (and in many cases, doing the opposite), liberal elites have shunned it. Throughout its run, numerous complaints have been lodged, and the show has often been branded a “red state show.”

For example, there was this recent piece in the Toronto Sun decrying “Yellowstone” as a “love letter to lonely conservatives.”

‘Yellowstone’ is stupid. Like: really, really stupid. Like, soap opera stupid. Like, stupid enough that it makes ‘Dallas’ resemble Shakespeare……Among conservatives, ‘Yellowstone’ isn’t just a hokey TV show about cowboys and horses and the Wild West. To them, it is The Way The World Should Be. To them, ‘Yellowstone’ is the perfect antidote to the Deep State, woke folk, and liberal coastal elites.

To them, ‘Yellowstone’ is a love letter to lonely conservatives, who long for the return of their spray-tanned messiah, presently flushing the nuclear codes down one of the 1,000 toilets at Mar-A-Lago.

I mean, yeah? Though I’d quibble with the idea that conservatives put that much stock in any television show or that “loneliness” is an issue, certainly the fact that “Yellowstone” doesn’t spit in the faces of conservatives plays a role in its popularity among them. People do not typically enjoy having their whole worldview thrashed in the name of entertainment, and on that front, Sheridan has struck a balance, even if that balance upsets a left that demands total conformity.

Other critiques of the show tend to focus on the fact that the heroes simply aren’t diverse enough and don’t respect modern cultural battles, such as this line from an overwrought analysis by Looper.

Initially, the irony of rich, white landowners making a desperate last stand on stolen land — against, in part, the very people from whom it was stolen — was very present, and even integral to the story and its narrative tension.

Obviously, the Duttons are white, and yes, they are presented as having settled on land previously fought over for thousands of years by tribes of Native Americans. Are those stories supposed to be off-limits?

To be fair, the writer of that article does a better job of understanding the show, but ultimately still misses the mark. Why? Because in the end, conservatives aren’t drawn to Yellowstone for its lack of diverse female characters or even its beautiful landscapes. Rather, they like it because – and stick with me – it’s actually entertaining.

I know that’s a foreign concept to so many producing content in Hollywood these days, but properties that prioritize storytelling, world-building, character development, and entertainment tend to do well. “Top Gun: Maverick” was not explicitly conservative in any real sense. Yet, it turned into one of the biggest blockbusters in history because it was fun, well-done, and gave people what they wanted, which in its case was a pro-American, old-school action flick.

Still, “Yellowstone” scratches other itches already mentioned. The cinematography is epic, and yes, it’s refreshing to see a story told that doesn’t bend to every modern, leftwing trope.

For example, in Disney’s “Kenobi,” there was never even any question that The Empire’s Reva, a black woman, would end up with a ridiculous redemption arc. Why? Because Disney would never allow a black woman to actually have depth, mystery, and complexity outside of mainstream ideals. That kind of woke rigidness destroys any tension being built by the story because one knows how things are going to end from the word go.

In “Yellowstone,” an environmentalist wacko is portrayed as an environmentalist wacko. A power-hungry Native American remains a power-hungry Native American. Why? People are cardboard cutouts, and motivations and morality don’t sort themselves out strictly along racial lines. That’s not to say Sheridan doesn’t allow non-white characters to be heroes. He absolutely does (one of the best characters is Native American), but he doesn’t force the issue in ways that make viewers roll their eyes.

To summarize, what “Yellowstone” does most successfully is respect its audience. It doesn’t make conservatives feel dumb for liking horses, cowboys, and picturesque views. On the other hand, it manages to also give credit to more traditionally liberal views on land preservation and the unfair treatment of Native Americans. It’s a show that tells a good story while not becoming preachy and nakedly ideological along the way. That’s something in short supply in Hollywood these days.

Attack of the Megalomaniacal News Media

posted by Tom Keltner at American Thinker

The mainstream news media have mutated from providing useful information into multi-biased, overbearing, omnipresent purveyors of false, useless information that is critical for them to report and useless for us to receive. This must stop.

In the past, the metaphorical 100 pounds of available fact-based news (as opposed to opinion pieces) was reported through news distribution with a roughly 100-pound news distribution capacity. That is, there was relative equilibrium between “what news you needed to hear” and “what news was reported.” The components of this historical news distribution were:

• Three television stations. Each had about two-and-a-half hours of local news and only a half-hour of national news daily. A handful of weekend news shows (Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, etc.). Also, a few clearly marked “opinion” shows, such as Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, and others. So, let’s add an hour a day for that.
• Newspapers. You spent maybe one hour leafing through for “news,” along with classifieds, comics, and advertising.
• Magazines. Maybe 70% pictures, 20% advertising, and 10% informative reporting
• Radio. Maybe on your way to and from work for 15 minutes of news a day.
• No internet, no cable channels, no UHF channels, no “social” media, etc.

So, you probably received less than five hours or less of news daily, and that’s if you watched it all. More importantly, few people seemed to be “news starved.”

Journalists practiced journalism. They vetted information and corrected mistakes with full intent to inform. Was there media bias? Some. Were there reporting mistakes? Some.

For a deeper dive into how news delivery in America has changed, this article is helpful: How News Has Changed

So, what happened from then till now?

Maybe Alvin Toffler nailed it in his 1970 book Future Shock:

People of the future may suffer not from an absence of choice but from a paralyzing surfeit of it. They may turn out to be victims of that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: over choice.

Now, in addition to the five hours of news per day we used to have, we have the following additional “over choices”:

• 24-hour cable news services (MSNBC, CNN, Fox, Newsmax, BBC, etc.).
• Endless online news sites.
• Social media sites that purvey news.

So, using basic economic theory, we can figure out the value of today’s news with a simple calculation: Price (value) = Demand/Supply

When news supply grows exponentially, the value (price) of news plummets as demand has remained much more stagnate. And the real news becomes harder to identify amidst the content that fills the enlarged news supply capacity.

So that leaves us metaphorically having likely the same 100 pounds of news (even if legitimate news has doubled to two hundred pounds) but with 1,000 pounds or more of news distribution capability. So then, how do the excess 800-900 pounds or more of news distribution get occupied? With distortions. Let us count some of these distortions:

1.  News commentary in the form of space fillers telling us “what it really means,” usually with bias.

2.  News forecasting in the form of space fillers that forecast what will, or might, happen, again usually with bias.

3.  Panel discussions from self-ordained “experts” on endless subjects. Does anybody really know what constitutes a “Democrat Strategist” or “Republican Strategist”?

4.  Endless interviews of ancillary parties, politicians, and celebrities providing the usual bias.

5.  Fake news that results when, having exhausted endless ways to discuss what really happened or might happen, the camera continues to run. The outlets effectively make things up to fill that space with more bias.

6.  International news “crises” at thousands of miles distance presented as if the sky is falling here and now.

7.  Journalists risking their lives standing on camera in seaside hurricane-force winds to inform us that wind blows during hurricanes. Who would have guessed?

8.  24/7 banners on the cable stations, e.g., Fox insisting there is a continuous stream of important “Alerts” and CNN perpetually hectoring us with “Breaking News.”

Journalistic discipline has no place in this surreal barrage of often biased, often contrived “news.” If they got it wrong—well, that’s just a consequence-free cost of doing business—and, if your message does not fit their biased narrative, they will censor you.

The above dynamics serve to extend to overwhelming proportions the already damaging biases we hear. Biased actors can flood us with even more damaging tactics aimed at controlling our thoughts and influencing our beliefs based on disparate sets of carefully edited, overproduced, often wrong “facts.”

Moreover, we’re very vulnerable to these visual media. Brené Brown accurately said “It’s in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.”

Those born into this current “carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped” news world might not recognize it as such. However, they would be wise to reconsider what they are viewing.

So, what happens to us under this silly media game they play? For most people, stress. Another problem is ignorance. As Colombian philosopher and critic of modernity Nicolás Gómez Dávila explained, “In an age in which the media broadcast countless pieces of foolishness, the educated man is defined not by what he knows, but by what he doesn’t know.”

We must ensure that “what we know” is not a portion of the “countless pieces of foolishness” the media broadcast. We need to be responsible for identifying and ignoring those “countless pieces of foolishness” so that they were not part of “what we know.”

The challenge of the new world is adapting to a multiplicity of facts. Once, we basically had one set of facts that a few media outlets vetted and reported. The reporting might be subtly biased, but the facts were seldom in dispute.

That world is gone. Our news distribution over-capacity has created a political discourse that is not based on “different opinions” regarding the “same facts” but on “different opinions” based on “different facts.” This creates a much more dangerous, volatile, and passionate discourse that cannot be resolved through reason since the verbal combatants rely on different sets of contrived, unvetted “facts.”

In this world, each individual is responsible for teasing out the real facts from the overwhelming tangle of information before us. We can no longer take what the media says at face value. Instead, we must always do our own research, vetting sources and filtering out the biases. Only then can we be reasonably confident that we are reaching conclusions based on reliable facts.

Is this difficult and time-consuming? Yes. But it is our new responsibility. Reducing our media stress and eliminating useless and incorrect biased news information can only help us.

It’s time to stop falling prey to the news media’s overbearing, self-serving, ever-present, biased, and megalomaniacal game.

The Laughable Pivot Some in the Media Are Taking Over Trump's Tax Returns

Matt Vespa reporting for Townhall

They have wanted these sensitive documents for years. Donald Trump’s tax returns have been viewed as the Holy Grail of scandal for the Left. It’s the smoking gun they’ve lusted for, and now they came into possession of these documents after a lengthy legal battle between Trump’s lawyers and House Democrats. The Supreme Court failed to intervene after multiple lower courts had ruled against the former president regarding keeping these files under seal.

Spencer wrote about it first—and it was a nothing burger. It might have been an even bigger dud than the Russian collusion hoax. Trump’s tax returns from 2015-2020 showed what we all knew about the former president: he got poorer being president. The cost to his real estate and business empire is not a secret. Trump often joked that he could be doing something other than dealing with Democratic Party attacks and liberal media lies but wanted to save the country.

The liberal obsession with Trump’s tax returns did lead to media leaks. The New York Times and other outlets obtained past returns, with the Times proceeding to write lengthy exposes that no one read. It also found no ties to Russia, which further torched the collusion delusion that engulfed progressive America.

Now, with no evidence of felonious activity, the Times is pivoting to say that the latest trove of returns, the big reveal, showed that the former president’s business prowess isn’t what was advertised (via NYT):

House Democrats released six years of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax records on Friday, offering new insight into his business dealings that further undermined his long-cultivated image as a wildly successful businessman. 

The release on Friday morning contained thousands of pages of tax documents, including individual returns for Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, as well as business returns for several of the hundreds of companies that make up his sprawling business organization. It followed the release of reports from Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee that showed Mr. Trump had paid a total of $1.1 million in federal income taxes in the first three years of his presidency, but paid no tax in 2020 as his income dwindled and losses mounted. 

The document disclosure drew rebukes and threats of retaliation from Mr. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, who suggested that once their party takes over the House on Jan. 3, they may seek to disclose tax returns filed by Democratic politicians, Supreme Court justices and members of President Biden’s family, such as his son Hunter. 

The documents appeared to show that Mr. Trump violated his campaign promise to donate his salary as president, at least in 2020, when he reported no charitable giving of any kind. They also suggested Mr. Trump’s tax bill may have gone up because of a change in his signature 2017 tax overhaul: a limitation on the deduction of state and local taxes paid. 

[…] 

But the returns, which cover the tax years 2015 through 2020, do not show much success for Mr. Trump in his recent business dealings. They show Mr. Trump often reported heavy losses from his own ventures, even as he continued to cash in on assets he inherited.

You must roll over laughing over this because no one cares. There are buildings named after the president—everyone knows who this man is, so disclosing these little documents couldn’t have less significance to roughly half the country, especially Trump’s die-hard supporters. I didn’t see many liberals get excited about these records, at least regarding whether this could lead to criminal charges. Liberals thought they had Trump on Russian collusion, Ukrainian quid pro quo, January 6, and his tax returns—and ended up getting nothing out of it. Trump beat both impeachment attempts handily, he won’t be charged over a riot on Capitol Hill, and he’s running for president again. Even the FBI’s illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago revealed nothing concerning allegations that the former president mishandled classified information. The release of these documents was the most anti-climactic unveiling of all time. It certainly might be the limpest anti-Trump attack.

We’ve gone from ‘Trump is a sexual predator to he’s a Kremlin agent to he’s a tax cheat,’ and now—he’s not a good businessman.

Oh my—indict him now.

The GOP Has a Lot to Answer for in 2023

posted by Becca Lower at RedStateVIP

In the waning hours of 2022, it seems like a good time to do a little bit of review before 2023 rolls in. And it seems I’m not the only one on our side turning their attention to Republican Party over the past few days, in a sort of performance review of their efforts.

Many conservatives rightly gave the party pushback a few days ago, when the GOP tried to boast in a tweet that it’s the standard-bearer of “limited government.” This of course came after helping the Democrats pass the monstrosity of a budget, the omnibus bill, in the upper chamber.

My colleague Brandon Morse called out the hypocrisy of that. Meanwhile, Jeff Charles put down his own marker: across several opinion pieces, he laid out why he’s no longer supporting the Republican Party, writing in one piece that “….[a]t this point, [he believes] any right-leaning individual would be fully justified in giving up on the party.” (I encourage you all to read what he wrote, because you’ll learn a lot.) Then, in his piece after the Senate passed the omnibus bill, he described how the Republican leadership in the House was already preparing excuses on why they would do the same thing some Senate Republicans had done:

This is not anything new; the GOP has been hoodwinking its base for decades. They stood atop lofty pedestals preaching the virtues of limited government while helping Democrats turn the state into the leviathan it is today. Every election season, they use our fear of the left taking over the government in an elaborate con job designed to frighten us into granting them power so they can pretend to be working on our behalf.

When will enough be enough?

Good question.

Another sign the GOP, as currently led by Ronna McDaniel at the Republican National Committee (RNC), hasn’t been listening to the grassroots for a while came in a piece I wrote Friday, “RNC Reportedly Ignored Evidence of Fake Voter Registration in CA in 2018 Election.” A member of the grassroots talked about his experience trying to get serious help from the RNC to combat alleged election fraud.

To paraphrase the detailed story (which you can hear and read at the link, above), he was told that conservatives were on their own.

We have just a few hours to go until the clock strikes midnight and we’re living in 2023. But I noticed that it seems whomever’s running the Republican Party’s social media isn’t done with the self-congratulatory messaging for this year:

“We fired Nancy Pelosi this year,” it reads.

Someone might want to check with Pelosi on that. It appears to me that she “fired” herself (she didn’t retire from Congress). Even while doing so, she seemed to hand-pick her successor Hakeem Jeffries in the House to lead the new Democrat minority. If you can give credit to anyone on the right for “firing” the Democrats in the House, it’s someone like Scott Presler. Even on New Year’s Eve, he’s still inspiring people with improving stats on voter registration for Republicans:

God bless him!

Certainly, though he’s not overtly political, Elon Musk’s overhaul of Twitter since taking over control of the social media platform has hurt the machinations of the Democrats and their media allies against us.

Sadly, many of these efforts might be for naught. The Republican Party hasn’t shown they’ll give progressives like Jeffries and his caucus any more trouble in 2023 than they gave Pelosi as Speaker. They just haven’t learned a thing.

McCarthy Reveals 'First Thing We're Going to Do' — Assuming He Wins the Gavel

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

As the House Republican Caucus machinations over who’ll wield the gavel in the 118th Congress continue, a confident-sounding Kevin McCarthy talked about his immediate priorities to kick off 2023 on Friday’s episode of Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.” That is if the GOP Leader wins the gavel.

Guest host and former Republican Congressman Sean Duffy asked McCarthy how he sees the race for the speakership playing out on January 3. Again, McCarthy sounded confident:

Great question – the first thing we have to do is elect our Speaker. We can’t do anything until we elect that Speaker,” he said. “And if you watch, the White House is actually pushing back on our investigations, saying we’re not going to give you anything till you get this solved. So, we need to be able to move forward with that.

Then, on the very first day, the first thing we’re going to do is repeal the 87,000 IRS agents. Another reason why the Democrats are mad at me, I think – government should be here to help you, not to go after you, then we’re going to secure our border. You’ve got to secure this border, the millions of people coming across, the fentanyl that’s killing our children.”

No, Kevin, the Democrats aren’t “mad” at you; they want to destroy anyone who gets in the way of the policies of soon-to-be former, TDS-riddled Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and the soon-to-be Democrat minority. Now, as for repealing the 87,000 IRS agents, let’s hope Joe Biden doesn’t suffer an aneurysm when he loses his mind. I mean, from what I understand, the old guy can get pretty cranky at the drop of a hat.

Next up, McCarthy alluded to energy independence under former-president Donald Trump, with a not-so-subtle jab at Biden’s dependence on foreign oil production — which has left the hat-in-hand president begging the Saudis to bail him out of his intentionally-created oil crisis, along looking into the origin of COVID-19, and the FBI spying on Americans for noncriminal reasons.

We need to work on our economy. That means making us energy-independent. We need to hold this government accountable. Where’s the origin of COVID began? Find out what this Biden family had done in the process. Make sure the FBI is not going after Americans but actually going after crime. We’ve got so much work behind us, and we need to start on the very first day.

The “we” to which McCarthy alluded, of course, includes him as Speaker of the House.

As I reported on Friday, the Californian presumably believed at some point he would take control of the gavel, if the Republicans regained control of Congress, which at this point remains a question. As McCarthy continues to scramble to gain the needed 218 votes to win, he’s been engaged in a series of private meetings in which he reportedly pledged to reduce the required number of votes to call a floor vote to oust a sitting Speaker, in his latest effort to win over critics while maintaining support he has already garnered from elsewhere in the party.

The Bottom Line

McCarthy and his allies appear to have the right priorities, but the skeptic in me wonders whether the Republican leader’s words will be followed by actions and demonstrable changes. Yet, the optimist in me wants to believe that House Republicans won’t squander their slim majority and will undo Pelosi’s “accomplishments,” with full knowledge that they must deliver to conservatives over the next two years–if they are to retain the majority in 2024, not to mention regain control of the White House.

While control of the White House in 2024 will rest mainly with the GOP nominee, it will also be critical for the Republicans to knock off the circular firing squad over to Trump, or not to Trump.

That, my fellow conservatives, will be the tallest order of them all.

Neil Oliver, Leaders Bringing Groundhog Day This New Year

Neil Oliver looks at the current media headlines as the New Year approaches, noticing it’s Groundhog Day all over again.  The video is available on the GB News Website Here and the transcript is below:

[Video Here]

[Transcript] –  New Year incoming – and still we are being beaten around the head with the same old stories.

In a few hours, we welcome 2023, but as far as our leaders and their lackeys are concerned it might as well be Groundhog Day.

I look at the headlines on this last day of 2022 and what do I see? Covid, Ukraine and Climate Change. Folk nuttier than anything found in a selection box are talking about bringing back face masks. God help us. Let’s remind everyone for the umpteenth time that Covid is now no more dangerous to most than the common cold. But still, the talk is of the pandemic, same old, same old.

I speak to people every day and hear real stories about real struggles. At first, when asked, “How’re things?” most smile and say they’re fine. Spend a few minutes in conversation though and the stories come.

Real fears about making ends meet, keeping jobs, keeping homes, and businesses. The dreadful emotional toll on children, and so much of the suffering on account of our leaders prioritising everyone other than the people born and bred and living here today.

Uncounted numbers of the people of Great Britain are cold and hungry in their homes, without access to GP and hospital appointments, while billions of pounds are sent out of the country.

Workers of all sorts are striking for better pay and being pilloried by the same media that just as enthusiastically held them up as saints.

The very people we were encouraged to regard as heroes five minutes ago – nurses, delivery drivers, postal workers, supermarket workers and others who remained at the coal face of working life while millions were told to stay at home in their pyjamas – are now being maligned as virtual enemies of the state for having the temerity to ask for better pay and conditions.

All of it in the midst of a cost of lockdown crisis created and inflicted by politicians more interested in the bankers, the markets and the corporations than the plight of the very people they are elected to serve.

A blatant exercise in dividing the population yet further, keeping us at each other’s throats and too distracted to raise our heads and see the travesty of leadership all around.

If they can’t split us up on the grounds of race, or sex, then they seek to sow division among the working people.

Divide and rule, another story so old the pages are falling out of the book, while the real stories are largely ignored.

Uncounted numbers of the put-upon people of Great Britain – young and old, fit and infirm – are dying of causes unrelated to Covid. When deaths could be attributed to Covid, the death toll was counted daily. Those numbers were the foundation of the fear-porn concocted by government nudge units. It was a tolling bell of death to keep us apart from one another while the economy was ruthlessly trashed, the wealth shovelled upwards into the pockets of the already rich.

More recently the inconvenient public have been dying of something else, in greater numbers than during the pandemic. This is undeniable, based on ONS figures of excess deaths.

But hardly anyone in authority or in the media seems willing to mention this, far less to openly discuss what might be causing blood clots in veins and arteries, hearts abruptly stopping beating, strokes, all manner of fit young people face-planting on the field of play or dying in their beds.

Scores of us have said all of this over and over again, asked the same questions until we are blue in the face, and still no meaningful answers come, far less acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

The elephant has been in the room so long now, if it’s not careful it might die soon too – presumably of blood clots, or a swollen heart, or just the cold and the hunger.

A paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics has found that booster vaccine mandates are causing more harm than good for younger people and has called for the halting of the roll-out, and for payment of compensation to those who have suffered serious consequences. The authors describe,

“… a profound lack of transparency in scientific and regulatory policy making”.

The suspension of the roll-out and compensation for those injured or dead is needed, according to the authors,

To begin what will be a long process of rebuilding trust in public health.”

“… to begin what will be a long process of rebuilding trust in public health.”

Trust in public health? Too many are looking at that notion as it shrinks to a dot in the rear-view mirror.

And yet what do we see? Only the continued push for more jabs – for Covid, for flu and for God knows what next. Imminently anyone arriving from China must be tested for Covid – presumably using those same PCR tests that don’t actually find Covid – or else be fully vaccinated, whatever that even means these days. Have we learned nothing? Apparently not.

As I say, Groundhog Day.

And then there’s the so-called climate crisis, as 2022 draws to a close they’re calling it the hottest year on record. These claims are made by the government’s own researchers. The challenges from esteemed scientists disputing that orthodoxy fall on deaf ears, are silenced and ridiculed along with all the other voices the powers that be would prefer did not exist.

Studies estimate that 5 five million people die every year on account of climate – 500,000 from the heat and 4.5 million from the cold. Are we to assume the so-called experts would prefer 2022 to have been the coldest year on record?

I am sick and tired of the whole damned thing. On Hogmanay of all days, I only wish I could put the old news behind me and look ahead. And yet how can I? How can any of us that are wide awake to the evil madness around us – and I use the word “evil” deliberately.

I have said before that we are in an abusive relationship with our government, and so it goes on as far as I’m concerned.

I honestly feel the relentless push to keep us down, with fear of pestilence, fear of war, fear of the ending of the world, is the equivalent of a sustained beating designed, once and for all, to knock the last of the spirit out of us so that finally we shut up and do as we’re told.

But here’s the thing: that spirit is not vanquished. Instead, and on the contrary, in the hearts and minds of enough of us, that spirit has been ignited into flame.

I often mention the letters I receive from all over the world – but only because every one of them reminds me of all those whose lives have been turned upside down, and yet still remember what it means to be free people, and to have faith.

Yesterday alone I received 35 cards and letters from all over the world. From the state of Victoria, in Australia, Alannah wrote:

“It is difficult to express my frustration that there is no political leader who has the fortitude or will to stand up for what is right and to free us from the shackles I fear are getting tighter on our lives. My dear Mum passed away 4 months ago, and I am glad she is no longer here to bear witness to what is happening in this once-great country. I lost two years of Mum’s life before she passed away because she was locked up in a nursing home. She bore 7 children was married 52 years to our late dear Dad.

I will never, ever erase from my memory hearing her cry on the phone, wondering why we weren’t visiting her. Her mental capacity declined rapidly due to her isolation. However, my Mum was an astute lady and could see Marxism creeping into our schools 30 years ago. She saw this coming long ago. She instilled in us a deep faith in God, so I pray that things will be put right in this world. To the world, she was but one, but to us, she WAS the world. I wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas that brings light and hope for the New Year …”

Light and hope – that’s what the New Year, every new year, should be about.

The more each of us speaks to out in the world, the better. The more we share, the more reassurance we provide one another, and the stronger we are. That’s where the hope lies, and the promise of brighter days sooner or later.

Amanda from London wrote,

“Here I am, another one writing to someone I’ve never met but hope to one day … We will win, of that I feel quite sure. Good always triumphs over evil in the end. It’s funny … I’ve never used the word “evil” in my 64 years but find myself using it lately …”

Over and over the letters echo one another – talk of sensing evil, of light and dark and good and bad. One after another declares defiance over the years too.

Joan from Birmingham writes,

“I really hope you get this letter, Neil. We, as a family took no notice of lockdown rules and remained close. Nothing and nobody was going to keep us from our children and grandchildren. It was so heartbreaking to watch other families follow the so-called science … We are winning, Neil. The light is flooding the Earth each day. The truth will out …”

So many of us on this journey of waking up have described drifting apart from old acquaintances but making contact with a whole new tribe.

The Sims Family, from Canada, upped sticks all together in search of freedom – finding a new home in the state of Alberta.

“It’s great living in a freedom-loving province,” they wrote.

This is what gives me hope for the year ahead – because this whole bizarre experience has brought me into contact with people I would otherwise never have met. I am invited to share all manner of family news and so reminded that while we might be separated by thousands of miles, we are close in the ways that matter.

“We can go to restaurants and swimming pools and life is almost normal,” say the Sims family.

Imagine. That people in Canada have had to leave one home in search of another so that they might feel free, I can honestly say I never thought I’d live to see such times.

The Sims also sent me a postcard with a quote from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The books and movies have been dear to MY family for years. We visited New Zealand together several times – back in the days when NZ was a free country – and saw locations used for the filming. Our kids talk about them all the time. The quote is from The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Hobbit Frodo Baggins feels all but overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead of him and tells the wizard Gandalf,

“I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

“So do I,” replies Gandalf. “And so do all who live to see such times. But it is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Happy New Year, to all dear friends and fellow travelers.

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