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NeoNotes — Looking good

Unscientific test.

Two video monitors of equal size. A dozen people, some of who were Democrats. Both videos played side by side with the volume turned down. All but one person thought that Trump came across stronger, more confident, better body language, and more convincingly. One guy said that Pelosi and Schumer looked like high school student council candidates.

Again, I don't like Trump and I don't trust Trump. But compared to the Democrat leadership, well, there's no comparison.

Is anyone else reminded of the Kennedy-Nixon debate?

Kennedy vs. Nixon.

Regardless of what was said, visually Trump came across looking very well. Pelosi and Schumer came across looking like two high schoolers running for student council. That observation isn't mine, but I am caging it anyway. Why in the World were they sharing a lectern?

Trump came across as an executive with pictures of his loved ones in the background. And with only one American flag. Pelosi and Schumer looked like they got kicked out of the cafeteria and they dragged in flags to make the walls look good.

As an aside, the trend of using multiple flags behind you to show your patriotism is stupid.

Kennedy vs. Nixon.



If you'll remember, I told you before you need to focus on the things that Trump does that are actually wrong. I specifically mentioned his misuse of eminent domain in the past. Lo and behold, the key part of his emergency plan is eminent domain.

Peepers, you focus on the wrong things when you attack Trump. You have from the very first. And you continually mistake my not agreeing with you as support of Trump.

Trump has been making Democrats look bad since he announced. It doesn't help when Democrats continually underestimate him. Even if they ignore everything that Trump did before, there's not a one of the Democrat Congressional leadership who has ever negotiated anything outside government. Trump is playing this exactly right and the optics reflect that.

You want to take Trump down? I'll tell you what to focus on. Eminent domain. The volatility of the stock market. Not the direction, but how fast and how far it changes direction. There's some major instability there. His treatment of the EU, particularly downgrading the ambassador. National security, particularly spying on Americans. Healthcare. War on drugs. Prescription drugs and self medication. The Second Amendment. Social Security and pensions. The national debt. Military spending and accountability. Free speech. Protectionism. Start with those.

You can't treat him as a Republican politico because he isn't one. And don't forget that this man has been dragging his fights and negotiations through the press for forty years. Remember that exchange from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie about the worst pirate. Trump doesn't care if the press is good or bad, he just wants the press.



This came from an unscientific experiment that some friends and I did. And yes, some of them were Democrats. We ran the videos side by side on two monitors with the sound turned off.

Trump looked like he belonged. Pelosi and Schumer didn't. Their body language showed that they were unhappy, probably because they were sharing a lectern and neither wanted to share the spotlight. Pay attention to their hands specifically. Trump looked friendly, Pelosi and Schumer looked like they wanted to strangle someone.

I never have liked the multiple American flag thing, not even when it started with Bush League. I think it was him, he was the one I noticed using it first. Certainly the Democrats of that time were doing it. I think it is purposely distracting. Come to think of it, that's when I remember multiple Democrats sharing a lectern. Or at least all standing behind one person at the lectern.

As for the Z group, I adjusted my tactics accordingly. They wanted to ignore the political implications when those same implications were central to the argument, whether they wished to acknowledge that or not.

You on the other hand don't like to deal when facts or actions don't fit your script. You think that opposing someone means throwing every insult and accusation possible at them in the hope that something sticks. You're not willing to look the person's history and adjust accordingly. You let the labels control your expectations and then get frustrated when things don't turn out the way you want.

I was never against criticizing Trump. I was against criticizing Trump stupidly foolishly in ways that would make him look stronger and better. Throwing insults at him doesn't work, he just pushes back. Treating him as the typical Republican politico who will back down out of civility or for the greater good doesn't work because that is not what he does.

It's not that I support Trump. I just think you are attacking him in very stupid and amazingly ineffective ways.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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“Yep, a Trump Pet.”

People can do most things on their own without government help, direction, or control.

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NeoNote — Demonizing the press

Pardon, but the media set the stage for their own demonization well before Trump's election. No, not everyone of them and not most of them. But the shift from news to liberal-opinon-passed-off-as-news has been going on for decades now. In the mission to present "THE truth," the media has forgotten that there is often more than one truth and that truth needs something more than passionate writing.

Anyone remember supply-side economics? The common narrative is that it was a product of the Reagan administration and that it was a catastrophic failure. But truth shows that Kennedy tried reducing taxes and regulations first. And under both Kennedy and Reagan, it boosted the economy. But that is not what the media says.

The common narrative is that people of faith demand that minorities be suppressed. Unless of course you are a minority person of faith who depends on government protection. But truth shows that Christians (yes, Christians) made American pluralism possible and even to this day are among the strongest defenders of religious freedom. In some minority communities, local churches are bedrock. Good luck finding that in the news today.

The common narrative is that conservatives mistreat and suppress women. But one truth that #MeToo has demonstrated is that certain (scumbag) high profile liberal politicos and celebrities gave lip-service to feminism so they could take sexual advantage. Many more liberals than conservatives in fact. But the stories that we get are that liberals Are Taking Steps while conservatives could care less.

In all these cases and many more, conservatives and conservative ideas are disparaged while the press presents liberal ideas as the Only Practical Solution. Never mind that many of those liberal ideas don't work and make things worse. After seeing that happen again and again, conservatives naturally distrust the media. They don't see the stories where their ideas and beliefs are celebrated. Those stories with a NEUTRAL bias are hardly ever there. The press passes itself off as mainstream when it isn't, and goes out of it's way to avoid stories that show conservatism in a good light.

As for libertarianism (CLASSIC liberalism), we get labeled as the kookiest of the those scary alt-right types. Never mind that isn't who we are. Never mind the merit of our ideas. No, we're the dangerous nutcases that you dare not listen to.

When the press shows that it can't be trusted with even some truths, why should the press be trusted? They demonized themselves long before Trump did.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNote — SPLC

No one person and no one group has all the answers. No one group should be vested with THE moral authority to decide who is and is not a hate group.

The SPLC needs competition.

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Monday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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Wednesday roundup

Headlines that don't merit their own entry

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☆ Government should be governed

Last week I took on the press. This week I take on the politicos.

Government exists for one reason and one reason only. Government exists to protect freedom. Not to govern, but to protect.

That's a different way of looking at things, isn't it?

Take education. There is not one blessed thing in the Constitution about the Federal government controlling or influencing education. Which means under the Tenth Admendment, it isn't allowed to do so.

Marriage? Not one thing.

Approving of medicines and medical devices? Not one thing.

Yet our legislatures and our President think that it is within government's power.

There were 115 Public Laws passed by Congress in 2016. Do you know what they are? I don't. And by the way, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

I know that under Obama, there were more than 21,000 regulations added to the Federal Register. That's not pages, that's actual regulations. I don't know what more than a fraction of those are.

Do you think we might have just a little bit too much government?

According to politicos, every problem has a government solution. Including the problems caused by government. Yes, the Official® Solution to government power is More Government. More law! More rules! More technocrats!

Less liberty.

That's how it really works. Every time government acts, you are less free. Every time that government acts, it costs you money. Every time that government acts, government grows.

Every time. Every single time.

And when someone comes along and says government should be smaller, why, that is a Threat to the American Way of Life!

Except, when did more government become the American Way of Life?

Shouldn't we have smaller government?

Shouldn't we have more freedom?

Shouldn't we have more personal responsibility?

Your choice.


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☆ Media utopia

When I was a kid, I delivered newspapers. After school I read them. Oh not cover to cover, I'd skip the ads and the sports and usually most of the “lifestyles” stuff. It wasn't hard to spot a pattern. What appeared in the newspapers usually appeared on the local news within a day or so. By the time I hit high school, I had discovered the local and school libraries with their out-of-state newspapers. Once again, there was a pattern. Three papers would usually have the “important” stories first, the next day or so the major papers would have the stories, and then within a week or so the other papers and the local television news.

It wouldn't be every story. But it would be the big stories, the ones that everyone would be talking about. So if you wanted to stay ahead of the curve, you'd read those three papers every day you could. The three papers were The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Oh, The Economist was good too, but I couldn't always find that.

These papers set the agenda that the rest of the nation's press followed. Not always the opinion, but definitely Which Stories Were Worthy. Even newsweeklies and the television news magazines followed the stories that these three newspapers had pointed out.

Telling people what has happened, that's reporting. But the best reporters went beyond that, they put it into context. If the President rapped his knuckles on the desk, they'd tell you what his predecessors did, when, and why. You'd understood how it fit.

There never was journalistic objectivity, but that was okay. As long as some differing opinions made it to press, the public would learn what happened. Reporting was the priority.

Over the years, the Washington Post grew convinced that it had taken down a President. Maybe setting the agenda wasn't enough. Maybe they could shape world events with their reporting. If they said it happened, maybe enough people would believe and the Elected Leadership would react. It worked kinda-sorta with Ronald Reagan, and it worked well with George H. W. Bush.

Then came Bill Clinton who wanted to change the world. So he cultivated and seduced the press. He convinced them that his administration together with the press could change the world if they only tried hard enough. And before the press admitted that there were all sorts of juicy tidbits in Clinton's background, it worked out pretty well. It also cemented belief that the press had a Higher Calling, and it was up to them to turn ignorance into enlightenment.

After Billy-boy came George W. Bush, Bush the Younger. Or Bush League as I eventually called him. Bush the Younger would have been a tolerable President, but then we had 9-11. And the press didn't want a war. Or at least, they didn't want an Official War® with heroes and patriotism and Amazing America riding to the rescue. So they decided to control the agenda. Most of the heroism coming out of 9-11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never made the headlines. The failures, real and imagined, did.

Yeah, about that imagined bit. It was the Higher Calling. American ideas couldn't be allowed to succeed, especially on a world stage. America had to have more failures if only because America had more success. For most of his administration, George W. Bush could do no right according to the popular press.

And then came Barack Obama, the Imperious Leader, He Who Could Do No Wrong. The press loved this guy. For the first time ever, a president mostly played along with what the press said. The press didn't have to report it, they could create reality. That's what happened for eight years.

By 2016, the press had forgotten that their primary job was reporting what happened. No one realized that while the Grand Vision was put in place, they were losing Democrat lawmakers and elected officials to keep it into place. Meanwhile many people resented being dragged into a Utopia without their consent. Especially when Utopia was more expensive and more tyrannical.

So Donald Trump happened.

The press completely missed it. What happened wasn't nearly as important as what was supposed to happen.

The truth was a prison. The answer was to do what had worked for eight marvelous years. Reality had to change. Legality didn't matter. Morality didn't matter. Only the Utopia.

The untruths came fast. No one was going on record but it was obvious that Trump would fail if he got pushed. He couldn't hope to succeed. So stories of high-level meetings that never happened came out. Stories about sex orgies and golden showers in Russia. Stories about Trump hoarding the White House ice cream. None of these stories could be verified. The answer was to accelerate the news cycle. That was easy enough with the internet. Literally hours after each story was released came the debunking, new stories followed minutes after that.

We've reached the point where most of the “news” about President Donald Trump and his administration can't be trusted. The newspapers and news sources I used to trust can't be trusted.

I hate admitting it, but Trump is right about the press. And it's because the press won't report the news. The press wants the Utopia.

Truth doesn't matter.
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