On Biden making the “fine people” hoax about Trump in Charlottesville one of the centers of his campaign
I’ve long been puzzled by the perception of many people that Biden’s most salient character trait is “likeability,” but then again I’m used to having different gut feelings than other people. And, as I’ve said before, I never thought that Biden was a good guy or a smart guy, even back when I was a Democrat and expected to remain one for the rest of my life.
And Biden has not aged like a fine wine, to put it mildly.
But I’ve said all that before. That’s not what this post is about. This post concerns a very specific thing Biden is doing, which is to repeatedly harp on what might be called the “fine people” hoax about what Trump said in reaction to Charlottesville. I’ve read many things about the incident, but haven’t written much about it. Fortunately, others have. I first direct you to Ann Althouse:
… I blogged in April 2019, “If Biden does not come forward and retract [a video relying on the Charlottesville hoax] and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified. He does not have the character or brain power to be President.” Now, more than a year later, Biden has done the opposite. He’s doubled down on the lie and he’s making it the centerpiece of his campaign!…
I can’t imagine what Biden could do to win my confidence. I’m not going to bother to put in a request this time, because I feel completely hopeless that he will try. He has decided to run on — his people have decided to run him on — fomenting racial division, fear, and hatred.
You probably all know the assertions made by the Trump critics, beginning with the claim that Trump called the neo-Nazi white supremacists “fine people.” He did not, of course; he specifically said he was not talking about them, but that part of the quote is often excluded by the Trump-haters. He was actually talking about people protesting the pulling down of the Confederate statues.
Then there is the MSM report that there actually weren’t people that day in Charlottesville protesting the statues being pulled down. But there had been, and other reports are that although they were there around that time police kept them away from the two main groups: white supremacists and Antifa, certainly a toxic mix. At any rate, Trump was certainly under the impression that the statue-protestors were also there, and he made it explicit that he was not praising the white supremacists in any way and in fact was condemning them.
But the duplicitous MSM has no trouble lying about what he said, nor does Biden.
Today I read a discussion by Scott Adams on Biden’s use of the Charlottesville hoax (hat tip: Scott Johnson of Powerline). Here it is, multiple expletives deleted:
“[Biden]’s basing his campaign on a debunked hoax,” he said. “What do people who believe the hoax say? ‘Oh, you right-wing crazy people are trying to tell us we didn’t hear it with our own ears. I saw it and I heard it and I can prove it. Here’s the video of what I saw and what I heard.’ And then, they’ll show the edited video — which is the hoax.”
“If they show the whole video, it shows Trump without prompting, and this is the important part, said he is not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists, ‘they should be condemned totally.’ If you leave that part out, it could be misunderstood that he was praising the people with the torches. So in order not to be misconstrued later, without prompting, Trump clarified to make sure you wouldn’t interpret it wrong, and they lopped that part off and turned it into the central part of Biden’s campaign.”
“And there’s a second lie,” he continued. “That it matters who was there. It doesn’t matter if there were any ‘fine people’ there… It doesn’t matter because Trump gave his assumption that he thought there were fine people, who fit the category of non-racist, and then he spoke to his assumption. Worst case scenario, he was mistaken about who attended.”
“The only way this hoax can exist is if you never talk to anybody who attended,” Adams said. “The people who are trying to say that the ‘fine people’ hoax really happened will only describe it from the perspective of the media reports of the time… But I talked to them, on the telephone, and they tell me the story about showing up. In one case they didn’t know who organized it at all, but they knew there was something going on about the statues. Were they marching with the racists? No, they never got close because the police stopped people from going in. And when it was over, they went home.”
“Do you know who else was incorrect about who attended? Everybody. Every person who thinks this hoax is real.”
“The f***ing ‘fine people’ hoax is the tentpole hoax that makes stupid people who believe the fake news believe that it is all true. It is the only one they think they saw with their own eyes because it got edited. And because they’re sure that one’s true, it makes all the other hoaxes seem true, and it makes everyone who supports Trump look like assholes,” he said a few minutes later. “Joe Biden, if you’re making your fellow citizens targets for violence and discrimination, and you’re doing it intentionally, you are not worthy of being a citizen of this country, much less a leader. You have not qualified at the basic level of understanding the Constitution.”
Nice guy, Biden.
From everything I know about Biden he has a long history of lying usually for political advantage. And he has never been seriously damaged by doing so, so he keeps on doing it.
What Kurt Schlichter said: every item in the Democratic Party’s rhetorical toolbox is a lie. George McGovern is dead, Nat Hentoff is dead, and Alan Dershowitz (among others) is quite dismayed because he’s old school – a Democrat who isn’t lying to himself or to others.
As for Biden, here’s a hypothesis: he’s ‘likeable’ to the Capitol Hill nexus, among them journalists. He’s ‘likeable’ to his clients in Delaware. No one else actually gives a rat’s a** about the man. Conjoined to that is another hypothesis: in Delaware politics insider politicians prosper because a dearth of people show up to run against them. Remember Christine O’Donnell? As a human being, she’s quite hopeless, but she was able to take down a colossus of Delaware politics, who gracelessly refused to endorse her for the general election. Hypothesis: she defeated him because she was – over a period of more than 40 years – the only person who put much effort into it.
Biden himself has been emblematic of a great many of the pathologies you find abroad in the Democratic Party, and in a healthy political culture he wouldn’t have gotten much father than the state legislature if that. At this point in his life, he’s a cipher. People react for and against the President and he’s the opponent.
Now, assess the intramural culture of the Democratic Party. In 2008, they had a terrible bench, and they nominated David Plouffe’s Spam-in-a-can. This year, they had a great bench. They ignored all of their good choices and eventually made the worst possible choice among the candidates they didn’t ignore. The Democratic Party is a deeply stupid social organism at every level.
he has a long history of lying usually for political advantage. And he has never been seriously damaged by doing so, so he keeps on doing it.
Appropriating Neil Kinnock’s family history (and continuing in public life after he was exposed) requires a brazenness most of us could never manage.
There is an independent report on the riots and the mayor and police chief were severely criticized. Virginia law prohibits the wearing of masks in public and it was obvious the law was not being enforced.
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/c869fb_a573de9ad4f04b0491b927ca9d48252c.pdf
Btw, the nice guys nominated for the position by the Democratic Party in the last 60 years have been George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. Michael Dukakis and Jimmy Carter might be described as men with a certain ethical anchor, but they’re not particularly pleasant people to those outside a discrete circle. Walter Mondale splits the difference between the two states.
Hello, Neo. I took in Adams’ monologue as well and he went absolutely multi-megaton thermonuclear on Biden. “Multiple expletives deleted,” you say? You did a lot of deleting. Adams did make clear that he took Biden’s hawking of the Charlottesville thing personally in the sense that, as Adams put it, by doing so Biden was painting a target on Adams’ back, and that seemed to be a large part of the reason for the personal reaction. I took it that Adams viewed Biden’s framing of the ‘conventional wisdom’ regarding Trump’s Charlottesville statement – the same way, word for word, twice in about a week’s time – as an implicit way of tagging anyone who’d tried to show the true context as an abetter of evil or something to that effect. I haven’t read Adams’ history of interacting with that story, so maybe he’s personally invested in it in a way I don’t understand at this point; but it seems to me that Biden’s way of putting it, while a terrible bending of the truth to be sure, need not be taken that way necessarily. Maybe someone can flesh out Adams’ thought process on that point.
and Daenty Barrie referred to jewish terrorism victims as ” random people in a deli”:
Philip Sells:
Actually, I didn’t delete the expletives. The transcript is from the link to RealClearPolitics – they did it for me.
It does seem like Adams was extremely angry, and took it personally, I think what he meant may have been the heightening of racial enmity in general, leading to possible violence, and maybe even for him personally because he’s been more or less a Trump fan from 2016 on, starting during the campaign. He’s a public figure, and has said good things about Trump, and that’s what I think he means – that he, personally, might be the target for someone who thinks all people who praise Trump are white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
And all based on a self-serving lie.
Adams has been railing about the Charlottesville hoax since last winter, at least.
Trump said there are very fine people on both sides and technically there are some friendly conservatives even though some are white nationalists. There are also friendly people who show up and protest for leftist causes even though some are Antifa. So, yes, Trump is correct. BUT if Biden said about protests in our cities today that there are some fine people protesting you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would howl because some of them think all Democrats are just Leftists, Antifa and BLM.
So this isn’t Biden lying so much as Biden finding an opening on an actual statement.
Trump often makes up lies completely. Here’s one:
“Joe Biden is absolutely on board with defunding the police.”
Here’s what Biden wrote in USA Today about that:
While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people’s rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,” he wrote. “The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.”
Trump wants to falsely equate the concept of ‘defund the police’ with ‘getting rid of the police’ because some do want that. But just as surely, some on the right are racists yet making the claim that Trump is racist is also false.
So, there are very fine people on both sides and there are politicians who lie on both sides. Welcome to politics. Nothing new.
Neo – I see. Yes, that could indeed be it; a more general personalization of it than I had in mind. Based on a lie, yes, but not only that – one that Biden has apparently repeated on several occasions, and obviously not only he, but various other people. Also that the press, I assume, generally sells it the same way and has continued to do so ever since the original incident, thus actively collaborating in spreading the lie.
I wonder if, thinking back, the media’s handling of that Charlottesville statement might have marked a watershed moment for Trump personally. Could it be that that was a moment when his attitude or approach toward the media changed noticeably in some way? That is, he makes the comment about the Charlottesville thing, then the media and the Left take the truncated version and run with it, and Trump sees this and the feedback and decides to adjust his approach accordingly. Possible?
Look frankly at this point. There are so few people undecided. Biden might as well just keep lying to his base. They hate Trump enough that they would forgive Biden any sin.
The Democrat playbook at this point is the most radical thing I have seen in US politics in my lifetime
1) Keep using arbitrary rules to extend the lockdown. Hurting the economy enough to try to deny Trump his clearest accomplishment
2) Simultaneously deny the riots and looting. But imply through surrogates that this will all stop when Trump is out.
3) Using both excuses above to continue to change voting laws to disguise all the impending box stuffing that will undoubtedly occur.
4) Use legal and extra-legal means to try to force Trump from office though a combination of ballot integrity issues, conflicting court cases. And of course more riots.
I fully expect states like Michigan to be late with their vote totals. And if its within reach for Biden. For his miraculous come from behind victory.
Sadly I think I am simply stating the obvious.The left always projects what they intend to do. And both sides can see this coming. Including the eventual Harris presidency 6-12 months later if they pull it off.
ArtDeco…”Michael Dukakis and Jimmy Carter might be described as men with a certain ethical anchor, but they’re not particularly pleasant people to those outside a discrete circle.”
Someone who knew Carter in Georgia, before he became politically prominent, said: “He used to stand at the back of the Rotary Club meetings, glaring at the rest of us because we weren’t as *righteous* as he was.”
If you are not watching Scott Adams Periscope you are missing out, its very good, it daily at 7AM PST on the periscope app for your phone, I listen to it in the afternoons on my drive home, the first minute have coffee or something ready and you can do a simultaneous sip with a ton of people. They are also uploaded to YouTube. He will be hammering this fine people hoax for quite some time. Here is the one where he went off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrpV8DnJeE
Its called “Coffee with Scott Adams”
Art Deco,
“What Kurt Schlichter said: every item in the Democratic Party’s rhetorical toolbox is a lie.”
The Left’s perception is that people are too stupid to grasp the correctness of the Left’s agenda, so being lied to is for their own good. And, as soon as the Left is able to fully implement their agenda, people will begin to see how much better things are for them.. Of course the Stalinists don’t believe that but the Trotskyites are fully convinced of it.
“Alan Dershowitz (among others) is quite dismayed because he’s old school – a Democrat who isn’t lying to himself or to others.”
Dershowitz is old school but he’s lying to himself as well, it’s just a matter of degree. Today, it’s not possible to be a democrat without either profound ignorance and/or self-deceit.
“This year, they had a great bench. They ignored all of their good choices and eventually made the worst possible choice among the candidates they didn’t ignore. The Democratic Party is a deeply stupid social organism at every level.”
Really? I can’t recall any dem candidate in 2020 who I’d rate as of “Presidential Timber”. So I didn’t see any good choices, no not even Tulsi Gabbard. Biden is the worst candidate that was most acceptable to all the power factions. Besides he’s the best at being manipulable and conveniently disposable when needed.
Montage,
“BUT if Biden said about protests in our cities today that there are some fine people protesting you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would howl because some of them think all Democrats are just Leftists, Antifa and BLM.”
That’s incorrect in that the norm on the right wouldn’t be twisting Biden’s words. Whereas, there are no democrats correcting the Leftist memes, stating “wait, that’s not what Trump said” your “moderate” dems just go along with whatever radical leftists state as fact..
“Trump often makes up lies completely. Here’s one:
“Joe Biden is absolutely on board with defunding the police.”
Spoken like a true “useful idiot”. Trump is stating what Biden will go along with which is whatever he’s told to say with of course the caveat of his minuscule attention span.
“Here’s what Biden wrote in USA Today about that:
While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people’s rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,” he wrote. “The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.”
News flash! Biden didn’t say that, he’s incapable of it. That’s the propaganda screen that his minders and water carrying media offer, ‘like a cuttlefish spraying ink to cover it’s getaway’.
“Trump wants to falsely equate the concept of ‘defund the police’ with ‘getting rid of the police’ because some do want that.”
If Biden is elected, the “some that want to do that” have the influence on the Left to make that a reality. But getting rid of the police really means replacing the police with the Left’s stormtroopers.
“So, there are very fine people on both sides and there are politicians who lie on both sides. Welcome to politics. Nothing new.”
Ah but this is very new. Not the lies but how close the left is to gaining full control of the Federal government and with what they want to do with that control.
Rhetorical question; Looking forward to being purged?
Of course not, “useful idiots” are always astonished when the Stalinists show up.
I am sure that Biden appreciates Montage attacking Trump in his defense. As is often the case with knee jerk attacks on Trump, he starts with a dubious premise.
The events in Charlottesville began with a protest demonstration for which a permit had been sought and approved. Fancy that. Then the civic authorities and the police changed the rules on the protestors at the last minute, with the immediate effect of forcing them into contact with–guess who–ANTIFA.
The people characterized as Skinheads and Neo-Nazis stated that they were there because ANTIFA had declared their intent to disrupt the demonstrations. (Those characterizations which are thrown around with reckless abandon may or may not be accurate because the people who made them routinely define any white person who opposes Leftist activities to be a White Supremacist or worse.) Granted, these chaps did not come for peaceful exchange of ideas; and they were probably not everyone’s kind of guy. They were no doubt hard cases. But, not all hard cases deserve the opprobrium directed at them; a high percentage also serve us on foreign shores at some point in their lives. At any rate, according to them they would not have been there if the Thugs had not advertised their own intent. The prelude to the violence conveniently gets lost in the narrative. I suspect that is in part due to the abysmal actions of the Charlottesville authorities. The eyewitness descriptions I have seen–not in the media of course–stated that the melee started after the original protestors, some of them elderly, were physically attacked.
In my opinion, Biden is not only playing his scummy tricks by falsely accusing Trump; the whole Leftist crowd has sold a dubious narrative about the episode. Unfortunately, since they control the media, it is scarily easy to do.
Who on the Dem side doesn’t say/ imply, “that there are some fine people protesting”?
“conservatives would howl because *some of them* think *all* Democrats are just Leftists, Antifa and BLM.”
Flatly false. Virtually NO conservatives think all Democrats are just Leftists, Antifa and BLM.
Indeed, very few alt-Righties think that.
Altho, seeing how much the Dem/ MSM brass now cover for BLM, many Righties may be tending, toward presuming that
*most* Dems will become BLM in short order, esp. if Biden wins.
Montage:
Despite hanging out here now and then, you either know absolutely nothing about how people on the right think, or you pretend you don’t know. Either way, your contention is false, as others have already pointed out.
So I wouldn’t suggest that YOU bet your bottom dollar on any such thing, because you’d go broke.
I see some of you have responded to Montage, and I’d like to have a say.
Montage, you’re not as fluid as you used to be. I’m sleepy, but I’ll have a go.
Your first segment misses the whole point. Trump SPECIFICALLY said nazis and white supremacists were horrible people. He said that there were some fine people on both sides of the issue of taking down statues.
In the second segment, you wrote: Trump often makes up lies completely. Here’s one: “Joe Biden is absolutely on board with defunding the police.” Here’s what Biden wrote in USA Today about that: While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people’s rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,” he wrote. “The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms.”
1. I saw on a video—and therefore it exists, and it can be produced when needed— that he was onboard with “redirecting” money from the police to other social issues. This is consistent with one of the protesters’ versions of what “defund the police” means.
2. Moreover, since the protesters say that ALL police departments violate people’s rights and/or turn to violence as the first resort, Biden was actually saying that he does believe that all police departments should not receive federal funds. Look again at his words.
3. Biden further says that the “better” answer would be to take the money that would go to the police, and give them some as resources to do the reforms you demand, and then condition the rest of the money on the demands being met. Okay, this is consistent with, for instance, being okay with giving the police 5%, make unfulfillable demands, and then keep the remaining 95% from them.
See how consistent everything Biden said was with the demands of the protesters? He just said it in a sophistical way.
Bah, humbug!!
I forgot to say, of course it is not Biden, himself, writing his responses.
That’s been obvious throughout his campaign.
Further, Montage’s first segment was Sophistical, too, but unlike the second, it didn’t cleverly recast the points, it missed them.
The Charlottesville Lie is unforgivable.
I’m even boring myself with the question of how many of those promoting any particular falsehood in this contest actually believe themselves.
Liars, by implication, believe what they’re saying and, at the worst, if caught, can claim to have been innocently misinformed.
I know innocent, goodhearted people who simply cannot believe what they are selling. One would not think that these people, some of them relatives or friends, would be okay with lying for The Cause. If The Cause took lying to succeed, one would think these innocent, goodhearted people would abandon The Cause.
It’s not solely the media or politicians. It’s people you’ve known all your life.
Going around on FB with an old college friend about dems disarming citizens. Demanded cites. I said I’ve done this before and the result of providing cites is….change the subject. “Evade,” he said. So I provided cites. Changed the subject. He lies and he knows he lies and he knows everybody else knows he lies.
Same is true of the Charlottesville issue.
Don’t get it.
OTOH, had dinner with some family and a couple we’ve known for a long time, she’s white, he’s black, politics didn’t come up. They had their 33d anniversary and I can imagine–have heard from mutual friends–that they had a tough time early on. So they’d be sensitive to various issues.
But if Floyd had come up…..
I dunno. I don’t get the math. Lie to people who know better and who know you know better and the result is…? Maybe the point is getting credit from similar people for effort.
Didn’t the Charlottesville hoax start the WalkAway campaign? People don’t like being told that they’re not seeing what they’re actually seeing, not hearing what they’re actually hearing.
The Left loves to throw around the word “gaslighting,” but that’s exactly what they do to the public.
At the time of the Charlottesville hoax – and I like that we’re calling it a hoax, because it really was – I happened to be staying in a household where the news was on every day. It was like pandemic-lite. Every show had to have a segment about it. It was in your face nonstop. I couldn’t take it. It was actually offensive to watch. How MORE people didn’t see it as an insult to their intelligence is… disconcerting. But it explains how the MSM got away with the 24/7 virus panic.
I really hope I’m wrong on this but the Democratic lies that have been told over the past four years, and repeated, and regurgitated and embellished (and refried?) do not seem to have made any difference whatsoever for “the faithful”.
(Though I suppose one could give “the faithful” benefit of the doubt by noting that they may not be aware of those lies because of consistently masterful efforts by the MSCM and/or they may not care a whit about those lies because, well, TRUMP…. To be sure the “because TRUMP” excuse has been manufactured and weaponized to a great extent by those same lies…. Let’s call it “The Great Trumpian Circularity”?)
Really? I can’t recall any dem candidate in 2020 who I’d rate as of “Presidential Timber”. So I didn’t see any good choices, no not even Tulsi Gabbard. Biden is the worst candidate that was most acceptable to all the power factions. Besides he’s the best at being manipulable and conveniently disposable when needed.
You’re not looking very hard. They had two men who have been phenomenally accomplished in the business world world (Bloomberg, Yang; not counting Steyer, who’s a crank), another man who is moderately accomplished and has some time in elective office (Delaney), and another with experience as a business executive and state governor (Hickenlooper). They also had a state governor who has managed to appeal successfully to a red state electorate (Bullock). All of these people are head-and-shoulders above Klobberherworkers, Booty-gag, Princess Spreading Bull, Comrade Bernie, and Sundown Joe.
you can bet your bottom dollar that conservatives would howl because some of them think all Democrats are just Leftists
The memes derived from the gaffes of Democratic politicos are few and far between and no one’s been building a campaign around them. One of the most prevalent (“57 states” is invoked for fun). Three others (“bitterly clinging” “basket of deplorables”, “you didn’t build that”) are quoted verbatim and in context and summarize the attitudes abroad within the Democratic Party quite well.
You’re stuck with a problem. You adhere to a political party with a rancid culture. You can do your part to propagate a better culture or you can continue projecting.
You people are so blinded by your right-wing hatred that you can’t see Biden’s true nature. If you met him in a person you would probably notice the faint but perceptible heavenly radiance that surrounds him. Don’t be like that gun-crazy auto worker who aroused his just wrath.
“He is a profoundly decent man: a man of faith, a man of compassion; a man who is willing to listen to different viewpoints, capable of evolving, and able to admit his mistakes. He is a man who loves deeply, mourns greatly, and gives fully. He is a man with actual meaningful, healthy relationships with other human beings. He is a humble man who sees others as more important than himself.”
Actually I agree with the headline of the piece from which that quote is taken (posted on Facebook by a progressive friend): “Joe Biden is not the lesser of two evils.”
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/08/20/joe-biden-is-not-the-lesser-of-two-evils/
What I don’t get is why Trump doesn’t use this hoax against them.
Since MSM is saying that with ‘very fine people’ Trump was referring to neo-nazis, Trump could just use and turn upside-down that very same argument.
Since according to both MSM and Biden, every person in Charlottesville opposing the statues being taken down was a neo-nazi, that involves that they are openly stating that from left’s point of view, anyone who doesn’t agree with those statues being taken down should be considered a neo-nazi, no exception.
Trump is free to assign those words to them, and actually he would be right. The ball would be in their court, and they would be the ones having to explain that this is not what they meant, which wouldn’t be easy, because that’s exactly what they meant.
There is no evidence that Trump is or ever did indulge diversity dogma (i.e. class-based taxonomic system, process, and belief), not limited to racism, sexism, genderism, that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, normalizes affirmative discrimination, color quotas, and color blocs.
While Antifa et al are toppling statues, the diversitists want us to forget indigenous nations, tribes, and people, the Turks are reusing, recycling churches in their own image.
see Biden’s true nature. If you met him in a person you would probably notice the faint but perceptible heavenly radiance that surrounds him
That would be the residual innocence of the youths he covets and the feminine virtue he has soiled. The tell-tale hearts beat ever louder. #HateLovesAbortion
Art Deco @
“You’re not looking very hard.”
“Andrew Yang is a big fan of Sen. Kamala Harris as a candidate, but more importantly, as a person … and says they bonded early, when he was a political unknown.”
https://www.tmz.com/2020/08/12/andrew-yang-kamala-harris-bond-friends-vice-president-dnc/
Bloomberg? Really? Surely you jest sir!
As for Delaney, does the below square with his claim to be a fiscal moderate?
“As a candidate, [John] Delaney has introduced a $2 trillion infrastructure plan as well as a $4 trillion climate plan that includes a carbon tax and a national-service “climate corps.” He supports comprehensive immigration reform and universal health coverage, though he’s pointedly said that he disagrees with making private insurance illegal.” https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/jun/24/who-john-delaney-bio-democratic-presidential-candi/
CO Gov. Hickenlooper,
“On March 20, 2013, Hickenlooper signed bills HB1224, HB1228 and HB1229. HB1224 created a limit of 15 rounds in magazines that could be bought, sold or transferred within the state.
Hickenlooper is a member of the gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Boston mayor Thomas Menino.
In 2018, Hickenlooper supported a Red Flag or Extreme Risk Protection Order Bill in the legislature that would have allowed judges to temporally restrict firearm access to those who were deemed a significant risk to themselves or others.
On May 22, 2013, Hickenlooper granted an indefinite stay of execution to Nathan Dunlap, who was facing execution for the 1993 murder of four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The decision came after victims’ families asked Hickenlooper to allow the execution of Dunlap to proceed as scheduled.[33] Hickenlooper stated: “It is a legitimate question whether we as a state should be taking lives.”[34] In Hickenlooper’s 2016 memoir, he came out against the death penalty.
After President Trump announced that the United States would leave the Paris Climate Accord, Hickenlooper joined more than a dozen other states in retaining the accord’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.”
FInally, Hickenlooper was such a political entity that he ended his candidacy before the first primary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hickenlooper#Political_positions
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock;
“The governor wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions on public land by 2030 and nationwide 10 years later.”
https://www.usnews.com/elections/climate-change-2020
So Bullock is a climate change nut or at least willing to pander to them.
News flash! Not only are the above candidates radical on several issues but you’re kidding yourself if you imagine they wouldn’t go along with the democrat party’s real radicals. So it really doesn’t matter how much ‘better’ they would be than Biden. No ‘semi-moderate’ has a chance today.
You’re confounding two issues: their preparation for the office and their preferred policy. I’m not a Democratic voter, so I’m not on board with their policies. I do credit their accomplishments over the course of their life. They’re not Capitol Hill slugs like Christopher Dodd.
Scott Adams may be so angry because as a prominent Trump supporter he has received death threats. He has also written that his income took a big hit because of his support of Trump. (I think because speaking engagements dried up.)
All my hard core Dem friends believe and endlessly repeat the Charlottesville hoax as proof of racism and antisemitism. That it was debunked hasn’t penetrated. If it does, they’ve got no case because that’s all they’ve got, beside memes about cages and Hydroxychloroquine.
Oliver, that’s not it. It is how this hoax supports all other hoaxes, a tent pole, and it will tear apart the country by putting a target on the back of every person that says anything positive about the President including his. I recommend you watch the video for the full explanation. He is very rarely this angry.
“He is a profoundly decent man: a man of faith, a man of compassion; a man who is willing to listen to different viewpoints, capable of evolving, and able to admit his mistakes. He is a man who loves deeply, mourns greatly, and gives fully. He is a man with actual meaningful, healthy relationships with other human beings. He is a humble man who sees others as more important than himself.”
The man who uttered this is a clergyman. Keep in mind that Fred Rogers was a clergyman. I demur about the value of Rogers’ vocation, but I never heard him say anything 1 / 10 th as fatuous as this. I miss my parents’ contemporaries.
Oliver & Darrell, while the stuff that Oliver mentioned didn’t come up in Adams’ video the other day, it does go some way toward answering my question from earlier about why Adams took it so personally, as I can well imagine that direct personal effects of that kind would be motivating factors – there was a history there of which I wasn’t aware, so I appreciate you pointing it out.
Ann Althouse is still buying the second Charlottesville lie. The white boys were marching and chanting “You will not replace us,” a theme of the march. The media and now Althouse, have reported that they chanted “Jews will not replace us” another slur. There was no theme that would involve a concern about Jews replacing white boys. I have listened to that video many times. I would warn those listen that that it has been edited since. Find a copy of the original.
Philip, I think what really hit home for Scott was one of his neighbors stopped their car on the street in front of his house and called him a racist when he was in his yard. The “any person that says positive things about the President is a racist” is extremely dangerous to society.
I listen every day even though I don’t always agree with him it is an entertaining and interesting take on current events.
Mike K:
Some people hear what they want to hear.
Art Deco: “The man who uttered this is a clergyman.”
Sort of. You can take the preacher out of the megachurch, but apparently you can’t take the megachurch out of the preacher. Note the the big chunks of simplification and undemanding platitude,
Darrell, aha. Yes, something like that would certainly make a man sit up and take note. And coming from a neighbor especially. The brainwashing is strong if that’s going to be the case.
In the last couple of nights, I’ve cycled through several of Adams’ coffee-chat videos from the last week or so. I’ve even got one on now while I type this. He does get me thinking. Like you said, one may not agree with all of his points, but he has a number of stimulating insights.
Well, what do you know….
https://disrn.com/news/the-atlantics-jemele-hill-calls-america-as-bad-as-nazi-germany
(No doubt this is why we must all support Antifa “resistance”. On the other hand, Antifa “resistance” is “a myth”. Unless the Democratic Party is the myth…. An example, perhaps, of implementing a strategy of “confusing the enemy” so successfully that you’ve managed to totally confuse yourself….)
@ Mac: “gun-crazy auto worker who aroused his just wrath.”
Do you know any gun-crazy auto worker?
” faint but perceptible heavenly radiance that surrounds him. ”
This was sarcasm, right?
“…auto worker…”
I don’t really know much about that…
…but I suspect that the Democrats are about to redefine (or perhaps “fine tune”) the meaning of “going postal”.
Montage says: “Trump said there are very fine people on both sides and technically there are some friendly conservatives even though some are white nationalists.”
Montage, are you clear about the identity of the 2 “sides” Trump was referencing when he said “very fine people?”
He was referencing those who were debating the propriety of removing statues memorializing Confederate soldiers from public lands. There are 2 “sides” in that debate: People who think it’s necessary to remove all such statues, and people who think it’s not necessary. Trump was saying that there are “fine people” on both sides of that debate.
20% of all African Americans, when polled, do NOT believe it is necessary to remove all statues of Confederate soldiers from public lands.
50% of all Latinos living in the U.S., when polled, do NOT believe it is necessary to remove all statues of Confederate generals from public lands.
Trump was saying that there were “fine people” among those Latinos and those African Americans (as well as some Caucasian, Indian, Asian, etc. people with the same views).
Montage, I don’t know whether or not you hold that the African Americans and Latinos who find Confederate war monuments acceptable can’t possibly be “fine people,” merely because they hold that view. Maybe you think such views prohibit “fine person status.” In that case, Trump disagrees.
But that’s irrelevant to the larger problem. The “Fine People Hoax” is the hoax wherein Trump’s words are taken out-of-context to refer to an entirely different clash; namely, the animosity between the 65-or-so remaining white nationalists in the country, and whoever they got into a skirmish with in Charlottesville. By intentionally deceiving the public about which debate Trump was referencing, the mainstream media sources tricked their viewers into thinking that Trump was calling white nationalists “fine people.” But he didn’t. On the contrary, Trump specifically excluded such racists from being considered “fine people.” (All one has to do, to see this, is watch the whole speech rather than relying on the decontextualized clips. The people debating statues were “fine people on both sides”; the violent racialists were “horrible.”)
So, Montage, why do you even mention “white nationalists” in the context of the “fine people” remark, when the “fine people” remark had literally nothing to do with white nationalists?
Are you trying to perpetuate the hoax? Or was the juxtaposition mere inadvertence?
It’s important for conservatives to not sink to the level of Leftists, who habitually deny the human dignity of their political opponents, or other inconvenient persons.
But sometimes it’s really difficult constantly having to remind ourselves that, yes, Leftists are people too, made in the image of God, and deserving of all the respect that they persistently deny to the unborn. It’s difficult, because so often they act just like Non-Player Characters following simplistic macros and reciting from a script.
Next time, Montage, please try a little harder to pass a Turing Test.
GRA: yes, that was sarcasm. I thought I had laid it on so heavily that it wouldn’t be mistaken.
“Going postal”, continued:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-the-postal-service-tried-to-swing-the-election-for-hillary-clinton
H/T Instapundit
Looks like Victor Davis Hanson nails it. Totally. And then some.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/23/from-dnc-irony-to-parody/
H/T Powerline blog
Though, as he writes in this masterpiece, the Democrats (and their supporters) will blithely—and threateningly—declare, “OK, we’re hypocrites, we’re liars, we’re deceitful, we’re disgusting, we’re led by a dementia-addled thug, we despise the Constitution and the American people, and we have the partisanly mendacious Media at our backs…all TRUE. BUT WHAT are YOU gonna do about it? There is, in fact, NOTHING you can do about it.”
…and THAT is the campaign in a nutshell.
Something terrible is and has been afoot in America.
Law and order are considered superfluous.
See yesterday’s events in Kenosha, WI, where a black man resisted arrest, went to his SUV door, opened it and reached under the front seat. At that point a cop shot him. Clearly, to thinking people, the chance of a pistol under the front seat was large. If they had physically restrained him sooner, there would likely have been a lawsuit against the police.
A large arson/looting riot by blacks followed.
None of the news I’ve read on this even mentions race. One has to get it from the videos.
NBA players, all black, are pontificating about political matters, all Leftist multimillionaires. The NBA is in bed with the Chinese Communists for financial reasons.
What does all of this add up to? In a patently non-racist country, blacks (always capitalized by the MSM, while “whites” is always lower case), have become the new elite class despite lower median incomes. Corporate CEOs and their ad agencies see this and act on it, as you know if you watch TV. Brooks Brothers features black models, pretending black men buy their suits. Bon Appetit’s current issue has a one flaming red page ad which reads only “NAACP.org: Donate”. In a cooking magazine!
The mayor of Kenosha sees this. Democrats know this, have made it happen.
Some people have become more equal than others. If treated with perceived disfavor, blacks are allowed to riot and loot and burn.
I have a hard time understand what’s so likeable about biden, even when i was a registered democrat back in the day in my 20s i thought he was an arrogant smug who had one of the most punchable face in DC.
As has been the case for several years now, President Trump and his Administration are being attacked from all sides.
The latest casualty?
Long serving Kelly Ann Conway, who has just announced that she is leaving her White House position as Senior Counselor to the President at the end of this month, to “spend more time with my family.”
This phrase is usually just an excuse–usually a fiction to cover up some other reason but, in this case, it looks like it may well be true.
First, there is her husband George, who for years—despite Kelly Anne’s very prominent position in the Trump Administration and the White House–has been a very public and vocal critic of the President. Ol’ porcine George is also stepping down from his position as one of the co-founders of the anti-Trump “Lincoln Project.”
This just as the news has surfaced that John Weaver, another of that organization’s co-founders, has just reportedly registered with the DOJ as a Foreign Agent, and will lobby Congress for Tenam Corp, a subsidiary of Russatom, the Russian State owned energy company–pulling down a fee of $350,000 plus expenses for a 6 month contract for his efforts, with a provision for extensions.*
Then, there is Kelly Anne’s 15 year old (from some of her pictures looking way too sexualized for her age) apparently very spoiled, anti-Trump, pro-radical Left daughter Claudia, who is very publicly, all over social media, moaning and blubbering about how her mother is a “sociopath” who has “ruined her life,” how she wants to intern for AOC, and how she wants to be “emancipated.” (It looks like Leftists on the Internet have gotten to Claudia, dumped a whole lotta propaganda on her, radicalized, and “turned” her.) **
Kelly Ann has been a fierce and omnipresent defender of President Trump, has –no doubt–routinely put in some insane hours, and has often looked haggard as a result.
So, it is probably and unfortunately true that her family has born the brunt of her schedule. That is apparently just the price you often have to pay, if you want to work in one of these high powered White House positions.
So, yeah, I guess it really is time for Kelly Ann to “spend more time with her family,” and see if she can somehow straighten things out.
https://bongino.com/lincoln-project-co-founder-registered-as-foreign-agent-of-russia
** https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8636493/Kellyanne-Conways-15-year-old-daughter-Claudia-wants-work-AOC.html and also https://www.dailydot.com/debug/claudia-conway-tiktok-kellyanne-sociopath/
OOOOkay. One of my relations…with whom I have decided not to discuss politics…just wished Howard Zinn a happy birthday.
I’ve given up on the distracted and misinformed excuse.
“The Outsiders,” a program on Skynews Australia, has an excellent video correction to the Charlottesville hoax; see 2 minutes to 5+ minutes, here, putting the record straight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENQlgoSbF60