The Left Loses Its Cool
Posted: June 26, 2018 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Activism, Bigotry, Democrats, Donald Trump, Global Panic, Marxism, Radical Left, Saul Alinsky, Violence 1 Comment
“When you’re violent and cursing and screaming and blocking me from walking into a movie, there’s something wrong,” said one top GOP official.
In the Donald Trump era, the left is as aggressively confrontational as anyone can remember.
Passers-by gather to take photos in front of the Red Hen Restaurant on June 23, in Lexington, Virginia. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday that she was booted from the Virginia establishment because she works for President Donald Trump. | Daniel LIn/AP Photo
What it means for 2018 — whether it portends a blue wave of populist revolt for Democrats or a red wall of silent majority resistance from Republicans — largely depends on one’s political persuasion. But there’s a bipartisan sense that this election season marks another inflection point in the collapse of civil political discourse.
Few disagree that Democrats are marching, protesting and confronting Republican officials with more intensity during the midterm elections than at any time in decades. The progressive fervor recalls conservative opposition to the previous president in his first midterm, when Democratic members of Congress were left running from disruptive town halls and ended up being crushed at the polls in November.
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet — in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station — you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” implored California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters at a Saturday rally, prompting an immediate conservative backlash on social media.
The intense, in-your-face approach toward public officials is only expected to intensify, fueled by social media and what appears to be an increasingly polarized and angry electorate. Read the rest of this entry »
The Woke Police Have Ruined Entertainment
Posted: February 12, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Activism, Global Panic, Mean Girls, Movies, Music, SJW, Tina Fey, Woke Leave a comment
Johnny Oleksinski When Tina Fey’s film “Mean Girls” came out in 2004, the comedy was lauded as a silly, satirical excoriation of modern high-school life and its cliques, cafeteria antics and materialism. “Mean Girls” was a “Clueless” for the millennial age. And it was so fetch.
Fast forward to 2018. “Mean Girls” is about to begin a new life as a Broadway musicalin March. But some Broadway watchers believe the subject matter is too mean for these kinder, gentler times.
“It just might not be the moment for ‘Mean Girls,’ ” one Broadway insider told me on the condition of anonymity. “It might feel stale and tone-deaf to the critics. And while this is something that could be critic-proof, maybe not.”
The fear of offending audiences isn’t limited to musicals about bratty teens. In this oversensitive era, TV shows, Oscar-worthy movies and pop music are all under pressure to be as nice as Betty Crocker. For millennia the best art has offended, tantalized, frightened, riled up and, of course, been life-affirming. But today the American public, looking more than ever like Soviet Russia, has just one rule for entertainers: Don’t rock the boat.
During last Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, singer Justin Timberlake barely rocked his hips. The former boybander is responsible for the most famous sex stunt in the history of the event — Janet Jackson’s 2004 nipple-baring “wardrobe malfunction.” Read the rest of this entry »
How Democracies Panic
Posted: January 21, 2018 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Autocracy, Barack Obama, Democracy, Democrats, Global Panic, GOP, Harry Ried, Newt Gingrich, Progressive 1 Comment
We are living in an era of political panic.
Yuval Levin writes: Some of President Donald Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters in 2016 were motivated to overlook his shortcomings by desperate fear that our system of government was near death and only the most extreme measures could save it. A poll conducted by PRRI and the Atlantic immediately after the election found that more than 60 percent of Trump’s voters believed the 2016 election was “the last chance to stop America’s decline.” As one pro-Trump essayist famously put it, things had gotten so bad that it was time either to “charge the cockpit or you die.”
” … Levitsky and Ziblatt essentially ignore core conservative complaints about the ways in which the left has undermined our constitutional norms and institutions. The progressive celebration of executive unilateralism, of the administrative state, and of a politicized judicial branch are left unmentioned. But even though they do not amount to autocracy, of course, these long-term trends are surely threats to American democracy and of at least the magnitude of President Trump’s tweets.
And yet to say so, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest, would itself amount to an attack on our institutions. Without a hint of irony, they note that one of the ways the Tea Party movement undermined political norms was that it lodged the accusation “that President Obama posed a threat to our democracy.” Later they say, regarding Republican critiques of Obama, that “such extremism encourages politicians to abandon forbearance. If Barack Obama is ‘a threat to the rule of law,’ as Senator Ted Cruz claimed, then it made sense to block his judicial appointments by any means necessary.” Presumably this means that if you write an entire book arguing that Donald Trump threatens to bring the death of democracy, you are similarly justifying resistance to his administration by any means necessary.
The Age of Outrage: What the Current Political Climate is Doing to Our Country and Our Universities
Posted: December 19, 2017 Filed under: Education, Mediasphere, Think Tank | Tags: Academia, Activism, Anti-American, Crisis, Global Panic, Hysteria, Jonathan Haidt, Manhattan Institute, Marxism, Microaggressions, Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, Trigger Warnings 1 Comment
Jonathan Haidt writes: Here is the fine-tuned liberal democracy hypothesis: as tribal primates, human beings are unsuited for life in large, diverse secular democracies, unless you get certain settings finely adjusted to make possible the development of stable political life. This seems to be what the Founding Fathers believed. Jefferson, Madison, and the rest of those eighteenth-century deists clearly did think that designing a constitution was like designing a giant clock, a clock that might run forever if they chose the right springs and gears.
Thankfully, our Founders were good psychologists. They knew that we are not angels; they knew that we are tribal creatures. As Madison wrote in Federalist 10: “the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” Our Founders were also good historians; they were well aware of Plato’s belief that democracy is the second worst form of government because it inevitably decays into tyranny. Madison wrote in Federalist 10 about pure or direct democracies, which he said are quickly consumed by the passions of the majority: “such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention . . . and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
So what did the Founders do? They built in safeguards against runaway factionalism, such as the division of powers among the three branches, and an elaborate series of checks and balances. But they also knew that they had to train future generations of clock mechanics. They were creating a new kind of republic, which would demand far more maturity from its citizens than was needed in nations ruled by a king or other Leviathan.
Here is the education expert E.D. Hirsch, on the founding of our nation:
The history of tribal and racial hatred is the history and prehistory of humankind. . . . The American experiment, which now seems so natural to us, is a thoroughly artificial device designed to counterbalance the natural impulses of group suspicions and hatreds. . . . This vast, artificial, trans-tribal construct is what our Founders aimed to achieve. And they understood that it can be achieved effectively only by intelligent schooling. (From The Making of Americans)
Thomas Jefferson wrote, in 1789, that “wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government;” he backed up that claim by founding the University of Virginia, about which he wrote, in 1820: “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error as long as reason is left free to combat it.”
[Read the full story here, at City Journal]
So, how are we doing, as the inheritors of the clock? Are we maintaining it well? If Madison visited Washington, D.C. today, he’d find that our government is divided into two all-consuming factions, which cut right down the middle of each of the three branches, uniting the three red half-branches against the three blue half-branches, with no branch serving the original function as he had envisioned.
And how are we doing at training clock mechanics? What would Jefferson say if he were to take a tour of America’s most prestigious universities in 2017? What would he think about safe spaces, microaggressions, trigger warnings, bias response teams, and the climate of fearfulness, intimidation, and conflict that is now so prevalent on campus? But first, let’s ask: How did we mess things up so badly? Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: New York Times Confesses to Causing Starvation in North Korea
Posted: December 19, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Foreign Policy, Global, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Anti-American, Anti-American Sentiment, Communist Sympathizer, Global Panic, Hunger, Marxism, Mass murder, New York Times, North Korea, propaganda, satire, Socialism, Totalitarian Leave a comment
America’s Neo-Victorian Future
Posted: December 19, 2017 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: #BelieveAllWomen, #MeToo, Feminism, Global Panic, Hollywood, Megan McArdle, Sex Panic, sexual harassment, Sexual Misconduct, Victorian, Washington D.C. Leave a comment
Megan McArdle writes: Last week I considered our culture’s vanishing burden of proof when a prominent man is accused of any sexual impropriety. Certainly I wouldn’t want the bad old days of sexual harassment to continue. But there must be some way to find justice for women who have been abused without rushing to punish men who may not have abused anyone.
You can think of crimes as a sort of pyramid: At the top, there are a relatively small number of actions that we can all clearly agree merit the severest sanction, if proven. And then, as you slide down the walls of the pyramid, a growing number of cases that are less and less bad. At the base of the pyramid is a gray area where reasonable people can disagree about whether the evidence is strong, or the behavior alleged merits any sanction.
What happens if we try to apply the sanctions that are clearly merited for the guys at the top to the guys in the middle? What happens if we try to move the line down until it encompasses more and more of the guys at the bottom? Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] #NetNeutrality Sign Falls Down and Knocks Democratic Congressman Off Stage
Posted: December 15, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: #NetNeutrality, Congress, Democratic Congressman, Democrats, FCC, Global Panic, Net neutrality, propaganda, South Bronx, video 1 Comment
PERVOCALYPSE: Dustin Hoffman Accused of Exposing Himself to a Minor, Assaulting Two Women
Posted: December 15, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Entertainment, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere | Tags: Cori Thomas, Dustin Hoffman, Global Panic, Ishtar, Melissa Kester Leave a comment
Cori Thomas was in high school when she says Dustin Hoffman exposed himself to her in a hotel room.
“He came out of the bathroom with a towel at first wrapped around him, which he dropped. He was standing there naked. I think I almost collapsed, actually. It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man. I was mortified.”
Speaking to Variety, the women described predatory incidents involving Hoffman that fit into a pattern of alleged behavior that has emerged in the wake of previous sexual-misconduct claims against the now 80-year-old actor.
“I didn’t know what to do. And he milked it. He milked the fact that he was naked. He stood there. He took his time.”
— Cori Thomas
Representatives for Hoffman did not make him available to provide comment for this story. In a letter to Variety’s owner Penske Media Corp., Hoffman’s attorney Mark A. Neubauer of Carlton Fields Jordan Burt called the accusations against the actor “defamatory falsehoods.”
Thomas was 16 years old and a high-school classmate of Hoffman’s daughter Karina at the United Nations International School in New York when she met the actor in 1980. An aspiring actor, she had spent a Sunday afternoon with Karina and Hoffman walking in Manhattan — visiting the Drama Bookshop, where, she said, Hoffman bought her a copy of Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story,” and eating dinner at Jim McMullin’s on the Upper East Side, where she had veal piccata for the first time. They also visited the San Remo on Central Park West, where Hoffman, in the midst of a divorce from his first wife, Anne Byrne, was buying an apartment. Hoffman showed Thomas and Karina the apartment, which was being renovated while Hoffman stayed at a hotel near the house that he and Byrne had shared.
Photo by Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock. Actor Dustin Hoffman poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film ‘The Meyerowitz Stories’ during the London Film Festival
“This was at first one of the greatest days of my life,” she said. “One of my idols was spending time with me and talking with me respectfully.”
[Read the full story here, at Variety]
Thomas’ parents — her father was the U.N. ambassador from Liberia — were supposed to pick her up at the restaurant. But, according to Thomas, Hoffman suggested that the three of them wait at the hotel where he was staying and leave a note for Thomas’ parents with the maitre d’ saying they had gone to the hotel. After the three arrived at Hoffman’s hotel room, “Either Karina or Dustin suggested that [Karina] should go home” to Hoffman and Byrne’s house nearby, Thomas said, “because it was a school night and she had homework. So she left, and I was left in the hotel room with him alone.”
Shortly after Karina departed, according to Thomas, Hoffman went to the restroom. She heard the shower turn on. “I was just sitting there waiting for my parents,” Thomas said.
After several minutes, “He came out of the bathroom with a towel at first wrapped around him, which he dropped,” Thomas said. “He was standing there naked. I think I almost collapsed, actually. It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man. I was mortified. I didn’t know what to do. And he milked it. He milked the fact that he was naked. He stood there. He took his time.” Read the rest of this entry »
VOUGE: HRC TEENOCALYPSE
Posted: December 14, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: Über Fashion, fashion, Global Panic, HRC, media, Teens Leave a comment
THE APOCALYPSE IS HERE: Matt Lauer Accused of Sexual Harassment by Multiple Women, Garrison Keillor Fired Amidst Allegations
Posted: November 30, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Garrison Keillor, Global Panic, Harrassment, Improper Conduct, Matt Lauer, NBC, Sexual Harrassment, Sexual Misconduct, Today Show, Variety 1 Comment
Ramin Setoodeh reports: As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.
On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
He would sometimes quiz female producers about who they’d slept with, offering to trade names. And he loved to engage in a crass quiz game with men and women in the office: “f—, marry, or kill,” in which he would identify the female co-hosts that he’d most like to sleep with.
These accounts of Lauer’s behavior at NBC are the result of a two-month investigation by Variety, with dozens of interviews with current and former staffers. Variety has talked to three women who identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment by Lauer, and their stories have been corroborated by friends or colleagues that they told at the time. They have asked for now to remain unnamed, fearing professional repercussions.
On Wednesday, NBC announced that Lauer was fired from “Today.” It was a stunning move for a co-host who was widely considered the crown jewel of the network’s news division, with a $25 million annual salary. The cause of his dismissal, according to sources, was a detailed complaint from another current NBC employee about inappropriate sexual conduct from Lauer that started on a trip at the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and continued for several months.
The employee met with human resources at NBC on Monday night … (read more)
Source: Variety
Minnesota Public Radio said Wednesday that it was severing all business ties with Garrison Keillor, the creator and retired host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” after allegations of “inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him.”
Over four decades, Mr. Keillor, 75, had created a financial juggernaut for the radio network with his weekly broadcast of songs, skits and tales of his fictional hometown Lake Wobegon, along with related books, recordings and other products.
In a statement he provided to The New York Times, Mr. Keillor said, “I’ve been fired over a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard. Most stories are.”
Effective immediately, MPR said, it will no longer distribute and broadcast Mr. Keillor’s remaining programs, “The Writer’s Almanac” and “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion Hosted by Garrison Keillor.”
Two MORE Women Accuse Senator Al Franken Of Opportunistic Ass-Grabbing
Posted: November 23, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Health and Social Issues, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Al Franken, Ass Grabbing, Buttocks, Butts, Global Panic, Leeann Tweeden, Lindsay Menz, Minnesota, Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus Leave a comment
One woman told HuffPost that Franken had grabbed her backside ass at an event honoring women.
Jenavieve Hatch and Zachary Roth report: Two more women have told HuffPost that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) touched their butts in separate incidents. These are the third and fourth such allegations against Franken in the past week. Leeann Tweeden, a radio host, wrote last week that Franken had kissed and groped her without her consent during a 2006 USO tour. On Monday, Lindsay Menz accused Franken of groping her at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010.
“My story is eerily similar to Lindsay Menz’s story. He grabbed my buttocks during a photo op.”
The two additional women, who said they were not familiar with each others’ stories, both spoke on condition of anonymity. But their stories, which describe events during Franken’s first campaign for the Senate, are remarkably similar — and both women have been telling them privately for years.
“My immediate reaction was disgust. But my secondary reaction was disappointment. I was excited to be there and to meet him. And so to have that happen really deflated me. It felt like: ‘Is this really the person who is going to be in a position of power to represent our community?’”
In a statement to HuffPost, Franken said, “It’s difficult to respond to anonymous accusers, and I don’t remember those campaign events.”
The first woman, who spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity because she’s worried she’ll be harassed online for making the allegation, said Franken groped her when they posed for a photo after a June 25, 2007, event hosted by the Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus in Minneapolis.
“My mother loves Al Franken. She listened to Air America every day,” the first woman said. ”I saw him and asked if we could take a photo together for my mother, and we stood next to each other … and down his hand went.”
“My story is eerily similar to Lindsay Menz’s story,” the first woman said. “He grabbed my buttocks during a photo op.”
The second woman told HuffPost that Franken cupped her butt with his hand at a 2008 Democratic fundraiser in Minneapolis, then suggested the two visit the bathroom together. She spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear that the allegation could affect her position at work.
“My immediate reaction was disgust,” the second woman said. “But my secondary reaction was disappointment. I was excited to be there and to meet him. And so to have that happen really deflated me. It felt like: ‘Is this really the person who is going to be in a position of power to represent our community?’”
The first woman, a 38-year-old book editor who was living in Minneapolis at the time, told HuffPost that she had just finished performing with a feminist choir at the Women’s Political Caucus event, which Franken and his wife, Franni Bryson, attended. After the ceremony, she and other members of the choir approached him for photos. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] FULL SCALE NONSTOP GLOBAL PANIC: Cable News Anchors Frrrrreak Out About North Korea
Posted: August 9, 2017 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Foreign Policy, Mediasphere, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: CNN, Donald Trump, Global Panic, ICBMs, media, MSNBC, news, North Korea 1 Comment
[VIDEO] Compilation of Liberal Media Freaking Out About Google Memo
Posted: August 8, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: ABC, broadcast news, CBS, CNN, Global Panic, Google, Google Memo, Groupthink, Liberal Media, media, MSNBC, news, Progressive, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Bill Whittle: ‘Bill Nye The Science Lie’
Posted: May 30, 2017 Filed under: Global, History, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation, Think Tank | Tags: Bill Nye, Climate change, Climate Change Alarmism, Global Panic, video Leave a comment
NEW YORK TIMES ENLARGES TYPE AMID MEDIA PANIC
Posted: May 9, 2017 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Global Panic, journalism, media, New York Times, NYT Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Jeffrey Toobin Goes on Full-Scale Global Panic Cuckoo Bananas Rant Over Comey Firing
Posted: May 9, 2017 Filed under: Law & Justice, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: CNN, Global Panic, James Comey, Jeffrey Toobin, media, news Leave a comment
[VIDEO] CHINAMAGEDDON: How That United Airlines Video Ignited Full-Scale Global Panic Fake Outrage in China
Posted: April 11, 2017 Filed under: Asia, China, Global, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Space & Aviation | Tags: Fake Outrage, Global Panic, United Airlines, video, Your World with Neil Cavuto Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Terror Groups Using Commercial Drones in Attacks
Posted: April 5, 2017 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, Science & Technology, Space & Aviation, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: drones, Global Panic, James Rosen, video, weapons Leave a comment
The Left’s False-Flag Conspiracy Panic
Posted: February 3, 2017 Filed under: Education, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: Alessi Brothers, Barack Obama, Berkeley, Breitbart News, Cenk Uygu, Conspiracy theory, Donald Trump, False Flag, Freedom of speech, Global Panic, Left Wing Activism, London, Marxist, Marxist Theory, Milo, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paranoid, Progressive, Protest, protests, Radical Left, Riots, Robert Reich, The Young Turks, Violence Leave a comment
Cenk Ugyur: ‘Riots Were Conducted By Right-Wingers’
“What a convenient Reichstag fire we just had.”
Alex Pfeiffer reports: Progressive journalist Cenk Uygur, who hosts the popular online news show “The Young Turks” with Ana Kasparian, suggested Thursday the Wednesday riot at the University of California – Berkeley was conducted by right-wingers.
Uygur and Kasparian addressed the riot in an episode titled, “Why The Media Is Wrong On Berkeley Protest.”
[Read the full story here, at The Daily Caller]
Ugyur maintained that there is no way to know who the protesters are even though anti-fascist “black bloc” protesters have essentially taken credit for the violence.
Kasparian chimed in that it could be a “clever strategy by the right.”
[ALSO SEE – Armchair Conspiracy Theorist Robert Reich Implicates Breitbart in False-Flag Operation at Berkeley]
“Could the right-wing come in masked? Could it be 4chan guys who come in to cause trouble so they can then turn around and do exactly what they did today, ‘Oh you have to take away the funding from Berkeley?,’” Uygur asked. Read the rest of this entry »
New York Times Horrified Trump Wants To End ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’
Posted: January 26, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, Religion, Terrorism | Tags: Barack Obama, Chicago, Donald Trump, Global Panic, Islamism, Jared Kushner, Jihadism, journalism, media, New York, news, President of the United States, Radical Extremist, The New York Times, Twitter, White House 1 Comment
‘Mr. Trump’s plans to eradicate violent extremists…’
Peter Hasson reports: The New York Times’ editorial board took a stand Thursday against President Donald Trump’s vow to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth.
“The emerging details suggest that Mr. Trump’s plans to eradicate violent extremists are not only at odds with Mr. Obama’s; they trample on American values and international law.”
The Times’ editors worried that Trump’s approach to fighting radical Islamic terrorism — which they referred to with scare quotes — is “more likely to further inflame anti-American sentiment around the world than to make the United States safer.”
“The emerging details suggest that Mr. Trump’s plans to eradicate violent extremists are not only at odds with Mr. Obama’s; they trample on American values and international law,” they wrote. Read the rest of this entry »
TRUMPAGEDDON IS COMING: Snowflake Preppers Panic, Stock Up On Guns, Food
Posted: January 17, 2017 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Communism, Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, Global Panic, Hillary Clinton, Liberals, Michelle Obama, Prepper, Progressives, Republican Party (United States), Snowflake, Socialists, Survivalist, United States 1 Comment
The survivalist movement is picking up paranoid progressive converts as Trump’s provocative posturing and unpredictability sparks a fresh wave of panic on the left.
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh reports: Colin Waugh bought a shotgun four weeks before November’s election.
An unapologetic liberal, he was no fan of firearms. He had never owned one before. But Waugh, a 31-year-old from Independence, Missouri, couldn’t shake his fears of a Donald Trump presidency — and all of the chaos it could bring. He imagined hate crimes and violence waged by extremists emboldened by the Republican nominee’s brash, divisive rhetoric. He pictured state-sanctioned roundups of Muslims, gays, and outspoken critics.
“We’re tired of being perceived as wusses who won’t survive when shit hits the fan. I, for one, don’t like to be thought of as some precious snowflake.”
— Stacy, a Texas Democrat who recently caught the prepper bug
“I kept asking myself, ‘Do I want to live under tyranny?’” said Waugh, who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and later backed Hillary Clinton. “The answer was absolutely not.”
“With the new administration I worry about Nazi-style camps that would include my wife, our twins and myself.”
— Melissa Letos, who lives with her family on a five-acre spread near Portland, Oregon
With Trump now days away from assuming the White House, Waugh’s preparing for the worst. He’s made “bug-out bags” stuffed with ammo, energy bars, and assorted survival gear for his wife and their three cats. He’s begun stowing water and browsing real estate listings in Gunnison County, Colorado, which he’s determined to be a “liberal safe-haven.” Last month, Waugh added a 9mm handgun to his arsenal.
His advice to others on the left fearful of the next four years? “Get ready. Pay attention. Keep your wits about you.”
Waugh’s not alone. He is among a new cadre embracing extreme self-reliance in the wake of Trump’s surprising victory. Long a calling among conservatives spooked by big government boogymen and calamitous natural disasters, the so-called prepper movement is gaining a decisively liberal following.
“Occasionally, posts on the Liberal Prepper seem to veer close to parody. One debate thread last week centered around the merits of stocking up on recycled toilet paper rolls versus buying Angel Soft, a brand produced by Koch industries, a notorious climate change foe.”
“We’re tired of being perceived as wusses who won’t survive when shit hits the fan,” said Stacy, a Texas Democrat who recently caught the prepper bug. She spoke with Vocativ on the condition we not publish her last name. “I, for one, don’t like to be thought of as some precious snowflake.”
“And in another discussion, vegetarian and vegan members talked about the best meat- and dairy-free food supplies to have during a sustained crisis.
After years cast as a fringe survival group, preppers entered a kind of golden age during the Obama presidency. A horrific housing crash and the spectacle of Hurricane Sandy helped give rise to reality television shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday Bunker, and fueled a multi-billion dollar survival industry. Branded by some as a foreign-born, gun-grabbing socialist, Obama aroused deep suspicion among the patriot groups, right-wing conservatives, and apocalyptic Christians at the center of the growing movement.
“It’s the nature of the political beast. Obama had many on the right really wound up. Now it’s the left’s turn.”
— Kevin O’Brien, a conservative prepper and realtor who specializes in off-the-grid properties in eastern Tennessee
Trump’s provocative posturing and unpredictability is now inspiring a fresh wave of panic on the left. Those who spoke with Vocativ have envisioned scenarios that could lead to military coups led by loyalists of the president-elect and internment camps packed with political opponents, bloody social unrest and an all-out civil or nuclear war. Sound bonkers? Perhaps. But, for many, so was the prospect of a President Trump.
“It’s the nature of the political beast,” said Kevin O’Brien, a conservative prepper and realtor who specializes in off-the-grid properties in eastern Tennessee. “Obama had many on the right really wound up. Now it’s the left’s turn.”
The signs of change are surely in the air. Groups that cater to gun-toting bleeding hearts — such as the aptly named Liberal Gun Club — say they’ve seen a surge in paid membership since the election. Candid talk of disaster preparedness among progressives is showing up on social media. Even companies that outfit luxury “safe rooms” — which protect their wealthy owners from bombs, bullets, and chemical attacks — attribute recent boosts in business to the incoming administration. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] George Stephanopoulos’ Wife Tells The View Their Daughters Are Scared Post Election
Posted: December 13, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Terrorism | Tags: George Stephanopoulos, Global Panic, media, news, Parenthood, The view, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] WAAAAAAAAAAAH! Social Justice Warriors React To Donald Trump Victory
Posted: November 13, 2016 Filed under: Education, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Crying, Donald Trump, Global Panic, media, Presidential Election 2016, SJW, Social Justice Warriors, video Leave a comment
‘Startling New Reality’: Media Meltdown
Posted: November 9, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, History, Mediasphere, Politics, The Butcher's Notebook, U.S. News, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Election, Apocalypse, Donald Trump, Global Panic, Hillary Clinton, journalism, media, Obamacare 1 Comment
FULL-SCALE NON-STOP GLOBAL PANIC: Freaked Democrats Lash Out at Media
Posted: September 15, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Barack Obama, Black church, Bob Schieffer, CNN, Commission on Presidential Debates, Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Fox News Sunday, Global Panic, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War, Jim Lehrer, Martha Raddatz, NBC, Republican Party (United States), The Washington Post 1 Comment
Hillary Clinton cannot seem to seal the deal with voters, and the left is lashing out at the media in frustration.
Noah Rothmans writes: For months, frustrated liberals have bemoaned the fact that Donald Trump receives any fair coverage at all. His xenophobic policies and racially toxic rhetoric, they contend, render him beyond the pale. To “normalize” him as though he were just another politician is irresponsible, and the press should not be giving him equal footing with a more responsible candidate like Clinton.
This view has recently received traction among liberal commentators and mainstream Democrats as it becomes ever clearer that Hillary Clinton’s post-convention halo is gone. Worse, Donald Trump continues to be mired in scandal, 
alleged misconduct, and potential fraud, and yet none of it seems to be affectinghis polling.
“He is playing you guys like a Stradivarius. Dominating news instead of Newsweek story, Trump Foundation. Pathetic.”
— the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza
Instead, superficial matters like the health of both candidates—propelled along by absurd displays like Trump’s apperance with celebrity physician Dr. Oz—are sucking up all the oxygen. These have been the prevailing conditions since Donald Trump entered the political fray, but only when Clinton became vulnerable did they become intolerable.
[Read the full story here, at commentary]
“He is playing you guys like a Stradivarius. Dominating news instead of Newsweek story, Trump Foundation,” perennial Republican critic Norman Ornstein barked at the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza. “Pathetic.”
“[Y]ou can ask any question about Trump, Trumpism or anti-Trumpism except the existential ones,” wrote newly minted GQ pundit Keith Olbermann, “because the existential ones could lead him to stop calling in to your morning show and providing you with your highest-rated hour for free.”
[Read the full text here, at commentary]
Even President Barack Obama has become a media critic. “We cannot afford suddenly to treat this like a reality show,” Obama said, lambasting the press for covering the 2016 campaign as though both candidates were acceptable alternatives. “We can’t afford to act as if there’s some equivalence here.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Trump Campaign Manager: It’s Good That We’re Behind in the Polls
Posted: August 18, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Campaign manager, CNN, Donald Trump, Election, Global Panic, Losing, media, news, Panic, propaganda, Spin Leave a comment
FULL-SCALE NON-STOP GLOBAL PANIC GRIPS THE GOP, NATION, WORLD
Posted: August 3, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Global, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Donald Trump, Elite media, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Business Network, Global Panic, Greta Van Susteren, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Khizr Khan, Mayor of New York City, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, Paul J. Manafort, Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee, Republican Party (United States), Rudy Giuliani Leave a comment
The Republican Party was in turmoil again Wednesday as party leaders, strategists and donors voiced increasing alarm about the flailing state of Donald Trump’s candidacy and fears that the presidential 
nominee was damaging the party with an extraordinary week of self-inflicted mistakes, gratuitous attacks and missed opportunities.
“A new level of panic hit the street. It’s time for a serious reset.”
— Veteran operative Scott Reed
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was described as “very frustrated” and stressed by Trump’s behavior over the past week, having run out of excuses to make on the nominee’s behalf with donors and other party leaders, according to multiple people familiar with the events.
“The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable. Trump is helping her to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”
— Newt Gingrich
Meanwhile, Trump’s top campaign advisers are failing to instill discipline on their candidate, who has spent the past days lunging from one controversy to another while seemingly skipping chances to go on the offensive against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
[ALSO SEE – Report: GOP Exploring Contingency Plan in Case Trump Drops Out]
“A new level of panic hit the street,” said veteran operative Scott Reed, chief strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It’s time for a serious reset.”
Trump allies on Wednesday publicly urged the candidate to reboot, furious that he has allowed his confrontation with the parents of dead U.S. Army captain Humayun Khan to continue for nearly a week. They also are angry with Trump over his surprising refusal in a Tuesday interview with The Washington Post to endorse House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) or Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — two of the party’s top elected officials — in their upcoming primary campaigns.
“The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable,” Gingrich said in a Wednesday morning telephone interview. “Trump is helping her to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”
Gingrich said Trump has only a matter of weeks to reverse course. “Anybody who is horrified by Hillary should hope that Trump will take a deep breath and learn some new skills,” he said. “He cannot win the presidency operating the way he is now. She can’t be bad enough to elect him if he’s determined to make this many mistakes.”
Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, recommended that Trump “stop doing silly interviews nine times a day that get you off message” and deliver a major address seeking to reset the campaign establishing himself as the change candidate. Read the rest of this entry »
Global Panic Update: Government Reveals Details About Energy Grid Hacks
Posted: April 5, 2016 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Science & Technology, Self Defense, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Alien (law), Barack Obama, Brussels, Donald Trump, Energy, EUROPE, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Gateway Pundit, Global Panic, Grid, Hacker, Jeh Johnson, United States, United States Department of Homeland Security Leave a comment
Hackers have stolen sensitive information from American energy companies — and have planted malware in the energy grid with the intent to turn off the lights in the future.
Jose Pagliery reports: They even managed to infect at least three energy companies with Cryptolocker ransomware, a particularly nasty computer virus that locks digital files and demands a ransom payment.
Newly released documents from the Department of Homeland Security are finally shedding some light on what exactly
hackers are doing when they sneak into the American electrical grid.
The DHS intelligence assessment — originally dated January 27, 2016 — was published by Public Intelligence, a research project that shares secretive documents to educate people.
Some of the attacks described in the report are potentially serious.
Aggressive foreign government hackers broke into American companies 17 times between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014, according to DHS. In two cases they snuck into U.S. petroleum organizations, and hackers are “suspected of exfiltrating data” from one of them.
It’s rare, but highly sophisticated foreign government hackers have gotten inside the energy grid, DHS said. They hack “primarily to conduct cyber espionage … to conduct a damaging or disruptive attack in the event of hostilities with the United States,” DHS stated in a recent internal “intelligence assessment.”
[Read the full story here, at CNNMoney]
That sounds alarming, but DHS is throwing cold water on any present worries. The agency concluded that damaging cyberattacks against the American energy sector is “possible but not likely.”
That calm demeanor doesn’t sit well with some cybersecurity experts. Ryan Duff is a researcher and former member of U.S. Cyber Command, the American military’s hacking unit. He warned that once a hacker gets into a computer — even if physical damage hasn’t been caused yet — the potential is there.
“While I agree with the DHS assessment overall, it’s still pretty frightening,” he said. “The fact is that the ability to cause destruction exists. Their assessment that attack is unlikely is based on political realities instead of technical realities. Attack is way more than technically possible.”
DHS prefers to label these cyber incidents as “espionage or some other activity,” rather than “cyberattacks.” To date, there have been “no damaging or destructive attacks against the U.S. energy sector,” DHS said.
“The majority of malicious activity occurring against the U.S. energy sector is low-level cybercrime that is … not meant to be destructive,” DHS analysts wrote.
Kyle Wilhoit, who investigates these types of hacks for Trend Micro (TMICF), said criminal hackers sometimes gain access to sensitive machinery by mistake.
“Most of the attacks that we’ve witnessed against this sector are in fact criminal in nature,” he told CNNMoney. “In some cases we even see criminals not realizing the importance of some of the machines [they gained access to.]”
The agency cautions against media using the term cyber “attack,” although it’s own 2013 advisory refers to cyber “attack” 56 times. Read the rest of this entry »
DRUDGE HITS PANIC BUTTON
Posted: March 23, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Entertainment, Global, Humor, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: EUROPE, Global Panic, Headline, ISIS, Matt Drudge, media, news, War Leave a comment
[PHOTO] ‘If you think Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are awful separately, try to imagine them as one person’
Posted: December 21, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Donald Trump, Global Panic, Hillary Clinton, Instapundit, media, news, Twitter 1 Comment
Source: Instapundit, Twitter
Belgian poster for The Deadly Mantis, 1957
Posted: December 17, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, Entertainment | Tags: 1950s, design, Global Panic, Horror, Illustration, Movie Poster, Movies, Poster Art, Science fiction, Thriller, typography, vintage Leave a comment
Belgian poster for The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Source: arcaneimages
IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Teen Stoner Says He Hacked CIA Director’s AOL Account
Posted: October 19, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, U.S. News | Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Global Panic, Hacker (computer security), James R. Clapper, Social Security number, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Intelligence Community, United States Office of Personnel Management Leave a comment
“I can’t believe he did this to the head of the CIA…the problem with these older-generation guys is that they don’t know anything about cybersecurity, and as you can see, it can be problematic.”
CIA Director John Brennan’s private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post.
“I think they’ll want to make an example out of him to deter people from doing this in the future.”
Other emails stored in Brennan’s non-government account contained the Social Security numbers and personal information of more than a dozen top American intelligence officials, as well as a government letter about the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects, according to the hacker.
The FBI and other federal agencies are now investigating the hacker, with one source saying criminal charges are possible, law enforcement sources said.
“I think they’ll want to make an example out of him to deter people from doing this in the future,” said a source who described the situation as “just wild” and “crazy.”
“I can’t believe he did this to the head of the CIA,’’ the source added. “[The] problem with these older-generation guys is that they don’t know anything about cybersecurity, and as you can see, it can be problematic.” Read the rest of this entry »
Is America is Due for a Revolution?
Posted: October 18, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Capitalism, Catholic Church, Che Guevara, Communist, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Free market, Global Panic, Havana, James Piereson, JFK, Jr., Lee Harvey Oswald, Manhattan Institute, Martin Luther King, Polarization, Pope, Revolution, Shattered Consensus 1 Comment
Here’s the good news: The chaos and upheaval we see all around us have historical precedents and yet America survived. The bad news: Everything likely will get worse before it gets better again.
Michael Goodwin writes: That’s my chief takeaway from “Shattered Consensus,” a meticulously argued analysis of the growing disorder. Author James Piereson persuasively makes the case there is an inevitable “revolution” coming because our politics, culture, education, economics and even philanthropy are so polarized that the country can no longer resolve its differences.
“How, Piereson wonders, was it possible that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara became heroes to the American left when it was a committed communist who killed the left’s beloved Kennedy?”
To my knowledge, no current book makes more sense about the great unraveling we see in each day’s headlines. Piereson captures and explains the alienation arising from the sense that something important in American life is ending, but that nothing better has emerged to replace it.
The impact is not restricted by our borders. Growing global conflict is related to America’s failure to agree on how we should govern ourselves and relate to the world.
[Order James Piereson’s book “Shattered Consensus: The Rise and Decline of Americas Postwar Political Order” from Amazon.com]
Piereson describes the endgame this way: “The problems will mount to a point of crisis where either they will be addressed through a ‘fourth revolution’ or the polity will begin to disintegrate for lack of fundamental agreement.”
[Read the full text here, at New York Post]
He identifies two previous eras where a general consensus prevailed, and collapsed. Each lasted about as long as an individual’s lifetime, was dominated by a single political party and ended dramatically.
“Piereson also deftly demolishes the myth of Camelot by recounting how a grieving first lady created the legend on a single weekend after the president’s funeral…White and his editors resisted the grandiose and sentimental story line, but finally relented to the grieving widow. White later expressed regret for helping to create the Camelot myth.”
First came the era that stretched from 1800 until slavery and sectionalism led to the Civil War. The second consensus, which he calls the capitalist-industrial era, lasted from the end of the Civil War until the Great Depression.
Author James Piereson
“That’s not to say he’s pessimistic — he thinks a new era could usher in dynamic growth, as happened after the previous eras finally reached general agreement on national norms. But first we must weather a crisis that may involve an economic and stock-market collapse, a terror attack, or simply a prolonged and bitter stalemate.”
It is the third consensus, which grew out of the depression and World War II, which is now shattering. Because the nation is unable to solve economic stagnation, political dysfunction and the resulting public discontent, Piereson thinks the consensus “cannot be resurrected.”
“The problems will mount to a point of crisis where either they will be addressed through a ‘fourth revolution’ or the polity will begin to disintegrate for lack of fundamental agreement.”
That’s not to say he’s pessimistic — he thinks a new era could usher in dynamic growth, as happened after the previous eras finally reached general agreement on national norms. But first we must weather a crisis that may involve an economic and stock-market collapse, a terror attack, or simply a prolonged and bitter stalemate. Read the rest of this entry »
Cybersecurity Expert Confirms Pundit Planet’s Full-Scale Non-Stop Global Panic Warnings
Posted: October 14, 2015 Filed under: China, Russia, Science & Technology, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Antivirus software, Computer crime, Cyber Warfare, cybersecurity, Global Panic, Grid, Hacking, Industrial Control Systems, Infrastructure, Internet Protocol, Internet service provider, Malware, Power Plants, Security, software 2 Comments
‘Be Afraid, America. Be Very Afraid’
Joseph Weiss writes:
…I’m talking about seizing control of industrial control systems. These ubiquitous hidden computers have gradually and quietly been put in charge of all manner of critical infrastructure—including nuclear 
power plants, the grid, water and gas pipelines, refineries, air traffic control, trains, factories, you name it.
[Also see – Cyberwar Ignites a New Arms Race]
Unlike the computers we use in our daily lives, these computers are largely invisible. They don’t have screens or keyboards. Most people aren’t aware that they exist. And yet they are embedded in low-level processes. They are everywhere because they create tremendous efficiencies and cost savings, and because they exist almost as an afterthought, they are often completely insecure. They often don’t run anti-virus software and by and large no one bothers to scan them to see if they might be infected with malicious software. And guess what? They often are connected to the Internet where a clever hacker half a world away can get access to them!
The threat is not hypothetical. There have been almost 750 control system cyber events (including both malicious and unintentional incidents). They’ve had a global impact. Industries have included power companies, pipelines, dams, planes, and trains. Why hasn’t the public heard about them? Most often because the victims didn’t realize it since they didn’t have the right forensics….(read more)
Source: The Daily Beast
Leading cybersecurity expert Joseph Weiss writes about how vulnerable America’s computer systems are. He features in the NOVA documentary ‘CyberWar Threat,’ premiering Oct. 14 on PBS.
It’s Real: Hillary Clinton is Collapsing
Posted: September 27, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: 2016 Presidential Campaign, Benghazi, Democratic Party, Desperation, Email, Global Panic, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Joe Biden, Joe Trippi, John Kerry, propaganda, Pundit, Spin, The Pantsuit Report 1 Comment
Has Joe Trippi Lost His Mind?
Source: LA Times
Dow, Nasdaq Plunge 3% into Correction
Posted: August 21, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Economics, Global, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Dow Jones Industrial Average, Federal Reserve System, Global Panic, JPMorgan Chase, Nasdaq, Nasdaq Composite, NetApp, New York Stock Exchange, S&P 500, UBS, Wall Street Leave a comment
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at session lows, off nearly 531 points and in correction territory for the first time since 2011 as all blue chips declined. The last time the index closed more than 500 points lower was on Aug. 10, 2011. In the last five years, the index has only had four instances with closing losses of more than 400 points.
“For investors the momentum and the drive of the market is now lower (than) it used to be because there’s no place to hide,” said Lance Roberts, general partner at STA Wealth Management. “Every time we hit the major technical points we kept selling.”
A trader noted that investors stopped looking at technicals and were plowing through them.
“It’s an expiration day and it looks like they’re to have for sale on the close maybe as much as a billion dollars,” said Art Cashin, director of floor trading for UBS.
The Nasdaq Composite lost 3.5 percent, also closing in correction territory and joining the other major averages in negative territory for the year.
Apple declined 6 percent, in bear market territory, and the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) plunged 3.1 percent.
“Right now there is a feeling of fear in the marketplace and all news is interpreted negatively and it’s interpreted indiscriminately,” said Tom Digenan, head of U.S. equities as UBS Global Asset Management…(read more)
Post-Apocalypse Instruction Manual
Posted: August 17, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor | Tags: Apocalypse, Bones, Fallout, Ghosts, Global Panic, Macabre, Photography, Skeleton, vintage, zombie apocalypse, Zombies Leave a comment
‘Critical Race and Legal Theory’ Duke Law Professor Renee Cramer’s Shameless Propaganda Defense of #PlannedParenthood
Posted: August 14, 2015 Filed under: Health and Social Issues, Mediasphere, Politics, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: Abortion, Color and Colonialism, Critical Race & Legal Theory, Critical Theory, Democratic Party, Eugenics, Global Panic, KKK, Malpractice, Margaret Sanger, Media bias, Media malpractice, Planned Parenthood, Political action committee, Racism, Renee Cramer, The Conversation, The New York Times, Time, Time Magazine Leave a comment
Dems Near Clinton Panic Mode
Posted: August 13, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Politics, White House | Tags: Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Bobby Jindal, Democratic Party, Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Strategist, Global Panic, Hillary Clinton, Jim Webb, Joe Biden, Joe Trippi, Martin O'Malley, Media Matters, New Hampshire, Pantsuit Report, The Hill, WMUR-TV Leave a comment
Clinton vulnerable, Democrats nearing full-on panic mode
Niall Stanage and Kevin Cirilli write: Democrats are worried that the furor surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private email server will be prolonged and intensified after her sudden move to hand it over to the FBI.
“I’m not sure they completely understand the credibility they are losing, by the second. At some point this goes from being something you can rationalize away to something that becomes political cancer. And we are getting pretty close to the cancer stage, because this is starting to get ridiculous.”
— Anonymous Democratic strategist, navigating through early stages of nervous breakdown
The Clinton campaign’s decision to give up the server and a thumb drive containing backup copies of emails left Democrats scratching their heads as to why the former secretary of State had resisted for months turning over the server.
“Concerned Democrats keep coming back to the same question: Why did the Clinton campaign not simply hand over the private server when the controversy first erupted in March?”
— Democratic strategist, whispering into mobile phone from locked bathroom
Coupled with new polls that suggest Clinton is vulnerable, Democrats are nearing full-on panic mode.
something that becomes political cancer. And we are getting pretty close to the cancer stage, because this is starting to
get ridiculous.”“The culture of secrecy that has surrounded the Clintons — understandably, in some cases — has now yielded a situation where she did something that wasn’t necessary and looks nefarious.”
“Look, this is a classic example of the cover-up being 10 times worse than the so-called crime — though in this case there wasn’t a crime,” said another progressive strategist.
“The culture of secrecy that has surrounded the Clintons — understandably, in some cases — has now yielded a situation where she did something that wasn’t necessary and looks nefarious.”
The former secretary of State remains the odds-on favorite the win the party’s presidential nomination. But the pattern seen in the email controversy — months of stonewalling followed by an eventual concession — has stoked worries about her flaws as a candidate.
“It’s bizarre…Let me give you some simple strategic communications advice: Put everything out first, on your terms. If you wait, or you are forced to do it, you always lose and look bad. … That is exactly what is happening here, and I find it inexplicable.”
— Democratic strategist, trying not to urinate in pants
The slew of unimpressive poll numbers is exacerbating the situation. Some have shown slippage against her main left-wing rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Others have indicated her losing swing states against Republican opponents. Still others have revealed continuing weakness in her ratings on trustworthiness and favorability.
Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic strategist who has worked with Clinton in the past, argued that the general suspicion that the former secretary of State is concealing something is much more damaging than the specifics of 
the email matter.
“The thing that’s hurt has been losing the ground she’s lost on trustworthiness and honesty. It’s on trust, not on the specifics of emails or anything like that.”
— Joe Trippi
“It’s hard to imagine Americans in the heartland wondering about whether Hillary Clinton gave up an email server or not,” he said. “But [it adds to] this constant battering she’s taking, which is that people don’t trust her. It increases the feeling that something is not being told to them.”
“If Hillary continues to sink in the polls and is beleaguered by all of this stuff, there will be more and more interest in other candidates — including and not limited to Sanders.”
— Democratic strategist, from ledge of tall building
Joe Trippi, who served as campaign manager for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, concurred.
“The thing that’s hurt has been losing the ground she’s lost on trustworthiness and honesty. It’s on trust, not on the specifics of emails or anything like that,” he said.
A new Franklin Pierce University poll from New Hampshire on Tuesday showed Clinton losing to Sanders by seven percentage points in the Granite State. Another survey from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP), also released Tuesday, indicated Clinton getting the worse of hypothetical match-ups with four separate Republican opponents in the swing state of Iowa, which President Obama won in both 2008 and 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
pundit from another planet 