Donald Trump

[Peter]

I am waiting for the big FBI selective leak. I also think a Presidential pardon is very possible, but if she has not yet been convicted, Obama can't PRE pardon her, can he? Maybe Trump will have her hanged. Woowie! Bring your picnic lunches and a blanket to watch her neck break on the National Mall. I know people who remember doing just that sort of thing in Delaware in maybe the 1930's.   

I was going to say Trump was beating Old Hickory in the polls by 2 percent but when I went to Real Clear Politics it has Trump losing badly in the Electoral College. He loses Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania by 4.3, 3.0, and 7 percent. Polling shows her 84 delegates ahead. Nationally, by vote, it shows Clinton beating Trump by 3.1 percent.

I think that 2 percent Trump lead was one poll about a week ago. Though I just saw Hillary has lost a chunk of popularity among Independents. I think she gets a 74 percent unfavorable with Indies.

So, now that the Never Trump crusade is over, is he going to do better? It really seems like he should but apparently not yet.

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Roger Bissell said:

I keep sayin' :

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/05/21/another-political-model-predicts-clinton-will-beat-trump/21381245/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D-194448326_htmlws-main-bb

http://videos.vidible.tv/prod/2016-05/19/573e445ae4b0af043d9fadb2_853x480_v1.mp4?MJw-P531d9Noyusm1Yh_6MjjlQSaqOPiew0P4HMTuGodrRddS88i4V7qP7lY4n9K

Roger,

Don't worry.

You won't have to keep sayin' too much longer. But you might have to start practicing the phrase, "President Trump," since you resist it so hard. No sense in getting it stuck in your throat when the inevitable happens.

 

btw - I couldn't get the video link to work. As to Moody's Analytics, I don't know if they made a projection about who would be the Republican nominee, but it would be very interesting to see if they did since the article says they are "remarkably reliable."

And when AOL says you're "remarkably reliable," well, then. That settles it.

 

I once heard Nate Silver, the election prediction wonder-boy, was "remarkably reliable," too. And he was, that is until he started feasting on Trump-cured crow. 

 

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Timing is everything. Even if Hillary is indicted, perhaps the indictment will not come until, say, November 10, after she is safely elected. Then, still-President Obama could issue a pre-emptive pardon, and all would be well for the third and fourth terms of Barack Obama.

As slowly as the wheels of "justice" turn in this country, that is what I see as the most likely scenario for Crooked Hillary's presidential aspirations.

REB

[Brant Gaede]

They "turn"?

--Brant

what about Bill?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For gotcha fans, here is a real good gotcha.

When I saw this video, I thought it was from last year, but noooooooooooo...

Cuomo's interview is from about two weeks ago, right before the West Virginia primary (May 8 or 9, the primary itself was May 10).

Cuomo didn't even have a fact-checker backstage buzzing in his ear, so he repeated the same blunder over and over. (Some say lie instead of blunder, but I'll attribute it to ineptness. ) 

Dayaamm!

 

Michael

[Guyau]

Michael: "But you might have to start practicing the phrase, 'President Trump', since you resist it so hard."

Why, no. I don't recall anyone at this site besides me ever using the respectful title President Obama. Perhaps William did. It certainly seemed that many citizens in the country at large could never really accept that he was President. It was a kind of psychological disowning of him, I think. 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Guyau said:

Why, no. I don't recall anyone at this site besides me ever using the respectful title President Obama.

Stephen,

I have said "President Obama" too many times to look them all up. I have no doubt many on OL have done the same. 

Here are a couple from me. (Google is your friend.)

"President Obama" is in the title of a thread I started in 2009: Swine flu and President Obama?

 

And it is in the title of an article I commented on in 2014 (see here).

The article by Allen Clifton is called: The Simple Truth: President Obama is Too Intelligent for Republicans to Understand.

On a simple Google search of my name and "President Obama" on OL, there are over 700 results. Let's lowball it and say that only 10% have an actual post where I wrote the phrase "President Obama" (I guarantee there are more). That's still over 70 times.

See? I've tried to be respectful of President Obama over the years by using his stage name.

Michael

 

EDIT:  Now that the OL search function works well, I decided to try. I got 29 pages of search results when I entered "President Obama" in the search field.

[Guyau]

.

Good for you, Michael.

Also evident in that search, using "President Obama" in their own address (not in quote from media): Peter, William, Ed, and Robert.

I'll definitely be going with "President Clinton" (not "Evita") or "President Trump," even "President Sanders." The derisive labeling can spill over into disrespect for this country. One's fellow-American opponents have more commitment to our constitutional process than one might like to admit in the heat of (now every-day-of-every-year) making propaganda against them. Not one of these candidates is anything remotely near the character and deeds of the elected leaders in Venezuela right now. That goes for President Obama too. All the Presidents as far back as I can remember have argued in court for increase in the powers of their office. But all of them and their attorneys have yielded and intended to yield to the constraints from the judiciary (it was not so smooth as that in the early years of this constitutional republic, but now it's deeply set).  

[Peter]

Good afternoon, President Trump and Vice Presidents AND/OR advisors (Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, AND Fiorina.) That move creating multiple Vice Presidents was initially a hard sell to Constitutionalists but by electing one official Vice President but with advisors who have equal access and status in your eyes . . . well Donald, that was a brilliant stroke. Convincing the American people that this was not a cynical, political ploy, was a job well done. As spokesperson for the Trump America Republican Party (TARP) I ask, “What is first on your agenda? And what will you specifically do about Islamic terrorism and Iran which may be soon armed with nuclear weapons?

 

From “Just War Theory:” Last resort. Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted or are clearly not practical. It may be clear that the other side is using negotiations as a delaying tactic and will not make meaningful concessions. end quote

 

We have been grievously wronged since The Twin Towers were toppled and The Iran Hostage Crisis. We cannot let Iran develop nuclear weapons. They have said what they will do with nukes. This is our last chance. You have also said you will not continue the policy of endless ground wars but are ground troops necessary?    

 

From “Just War Theory:” Military Necessity. Just war conduct should be governed by the principle of minimum force. An attack or action must be intended to help in the military defeat of the enemy, it must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This principle is meant to limit excessive and unnecessary death and destruction. end quote

 

Do you intend to use force as did President George W. Bush when he began, “Shock and Awe!” How much surety do Islamic civilians have that they will not be caught in the crossfire? Can you sell this to the American people? Before we militarily destroy Iran it would be good to hear some old fashioned oratory like Churchill’s speeches said during WWII; something inspiring and idealistic. Get hot and emotional like blood and guts General Patton (or at least the George C. Scott version.) Get all patriotic Americans roused up. But don’t fall into the trap of listing the reasons for destroying Islamic terrorism and Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities without stressing the clincher . . . that should have been used before we invaded Iraq twice . . . we don’t know everything but we know enough to say, “We cannot afford NOT to destroy them.” 

Peter Taylor, CEO of TARP. 

[Peter]

I started reading some old letters about Just War Theory. Here is one.

 

From: "George H. Smith" I have been captivated rereading the book by Francis Jennings (*The Conquest of America*) since I pulled my copy off the shelf yesterday to quote some passages. The following passage -- a statement made by a Lenape Indian to a Pennsylvanian during the 17th Century -- is a remarkable version of just war theory:

 

"We are minded to live at Peace: If we intend at any time to make War upon you, we will let you know of it, and the Reasons why we make War with you; and if you make us satisfaction for the Injury done us, for which the War is intended, then we will not make War on you. And if you intend at any time to make War on us, we would have you let us know of it, and the Reasons for which you make War on us, and then if we do not make satisfaction for the Injury done unto you, then you may make War on us, otherwise you ought not to do it."

 

[Peter]

Oh what the heck. Here are some more letters on Just War Theory by our own, brilliant Ghs.

Peter

 

From: "George H. Smith" To: "*Atlantis" Subject: ATL: Re: Intent, Warmongering, and Battle Hard-Ons Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 02:26:25 -0500. Tim Starr wrote: "However, all who love justice must love just wars, so there's no necessary conflict between a libertarian theory of justice and a love for war."

 

Jeff Olson replied: "This is news to me. I didn't realize that by loving justice I was logically obliged to love war."

 

Tim replied: "Just war, yes.  Perhaps you have difficulty imagining a just war, or perhaps you don't really love justice. Perhaps your approval of justice takes a different form.  I could see an argument similar to yours being made about the death penalty, with people claiming to love justice but not the death penalty.  However, most who would take this position would do so because they'd consider the death penalty unjust."

 

Like Jeff, I have serious problems with Tim's statement about "loving" a just war, even taking into account Tim's flair for dramatic aphorisms.

 

(1) It is not clear what Tim means by "love" in this context. I think of "love" as involving something more than "respect," "esteem," "approval," etc., because "love" implies an affective response or emotional attachment that, if it exists at all in the former evaluations, typically exists to a far lesser degree and may even constitute an emotional difference in kind. Since I do feel a strong emotional attachment to justice, I may be said to love justice. By this I primarily mean that I feel strongly about the value of voluntary social relationships that are based on a reciprocal respect for individual rights, i.e., relationships that do not involve the use or threat of physical force.

 

Tim, however, is speaking of a situation where rights have already been seriously violated, or where there exists a clear and present danger of such violation, and which would therefore justify a "just war" as a legitimate form of self-defense. (I would argue that only a clearly defined and delimited notion of self-defense, in contrast to retribution and even restitution, can ever justify a war, but this is a different subject.) From the fact that I "love" justice (i.e., voluntary social relationships), it does not necessarily follow that I similarly "love" the legitimate use of violence, including a just war, that may be necessary for the purpose of self-defense and the *enforcement* of justice. There is a significant difference here, in terms of my emotional response, between a situation in which force never enters the picture at all versus a situation in which the initiation of force, by violating justice, legitimates the retaliatory use of force in self-defense.

 

My response to the latter is tinged with a heavy dose of regret that such measures are even necessary in the first place. Hence, although I would intellectually approve of self-defensive violence, I would never use the concept of "love" to describe my feelings about it. At most I might feel a cathartic sense of vindication and even revenge if (say) an intended rape and murder victim manages to kill her assailant while being attacked, but in my lexicon this response would not qualify as "love" in any recognizable sense.

 

(2) We should keep in the mind that the concept of war, as commonly understood, refers to a major, sustained conflict between states – or at the very least between politically defined groups -- rather than a conflict between individuals. For this (and other) reasons, war has a collectivistic aspect to it that should make any individualist extremely uncomfortable, even if he concludes that war is necessary as a last resort. War should always be viewed as a measure of last resort, an activity that should be employed only when all other reasonable options have been exhausted. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that wars always have undesirable, and often disastrous, unintended consequences, such as the loss of innocent lives and the growth of state power. Even so-called victors typically pay an immensely high price for war in blood, money, and the loss of individual freedoms.

 

"Unintended" does not mean "unforeseeable." Even with the best "smart" weapons that money and technology can provide, we know, with as much certainly as we can know any future event, that innocent people will die during war and suffer for years after a war has officially ended. I simply cannot bring myself to "love" a situation that will invariable result in the loss of innocent lives, regardless of who may be deemed morally responsible for this consequence. I may feel that I have no realistic choice but to sanction a just war, and I may feel that the unintended (though foreseeable) loss of innocent life is justifiable in some circumstances, but my regrets will be profound nonetheless. My dominant feeling here would be one of immense sadness, not love.

 

(3) To declare a state of war is, in effect, to declare a state of emergency in which a respect for innocent life will not be the paramount concern (i.e., a concern that trumps all other considerations) until and unless a given goal is achieved, a goal that is often characterized as "defeating the enemy." Again, I can feel no enthusiasm, much less "love," in supporting what amounts to a suspension of individual rights, even if I should regard this war as necessary and justifiable.

 

In my book, to love justice is to hate war, since to declare even a "just war" is to commit oneself to the inevitable loss of innocent lives. I agree with Tim that some wars can qualify as "just." But love has nothing to do with it.

Ghs

 

From: "George H. Smith" <Jeff Riggenbach wrote: "A "war" is a campaign of mass murder conducted by a State in an effort to protect or expand its power."

 

Although this might serve as a normative analysis of some wars from a libertarian perspective, it is not a good generic definition. The American Revolutionary War, for example, was not a "campaign of mass murder," nor (from the American side) was it conducted to protect or expand state power. The dominant (though not exclusive) purpose of many Americans was to *resist* the encroachment of state power. Does this mean the American Revolution was not a true "war"? There are other examples as well, such as the Dutch revolt against a very oppressive Spanish regime during the late 16th Century. Moreover, there were wars aplenty during the Middle Ages, even though the sovereign political entities known as "states" generally did not exist at that time.

 

Jeff wrote: "Self defense" is all the actions one might resort to *while under attack* in an effort to kill, disable, or repel one's attacker."

 

Legitimate self-defense also includes anticipatory actions taken with the reasonable expectation of an impending attack. You needn't wait until an attacker pulls a trigger or explodes a bomb before you can exercise your right of self-defense.

 

Jeff wrote: "First of all, the "laws of war" are a set of rules drawn up by States to govern their campaigns of mass murder.  Their principal use is to provide a pretext for post-war show-trials of "war criminals" so as to better persuade the gullible that the wonderful State has vanquished and punished their common enemy."

 

Modern rules of war have their roots in theories of International Law, especially as these latter were developed by the late Scholastics and seventeenth-century philosophers such as Grotius and Pufendorf. These developments came on the heels of the 16th Century Wars of Religion, which were among the most brutal and horrific events in the history of Europe.

 

Theories of International Law were a systematic (and relatively successful) effort to minimize the horrors of war -- e.g., by condemning wars of conquest, wholesale looting and enslavement, and the massacre of innocent civilians  -- and to define and delimit the conditions that must be present for a just war. Their basic method was to apply the same moral principles of natural law that should govern individuals who live in the same country (e.g., freedom of conscience and respect for property rights) to the interactions of people who live in different countries, even though these people live under different governments and legal systems.

 

More problematic was the legal fiction of treating governments as if they are individuals who exist in a state of nature relative to other governments. (Both Hobbes and Locke made this point, though it goes back centuries earlier.) Moral principles and their relationship to collective entities (or "corporations," as they were commonly known during the Middle Ages) is a very difficult problem that, imho, even Objectivists and modern libertarians have not addressed in a satisfactory manner. (To what extent is a low-level bureaucrat morally responsible for atrocities committed by the government that employs him? Are those who vote for politicians who enact rights-violating legislation morally responsible for these invasive acts? Or, more generally, to what extent if any are citizens and subjects responsible for the actions of their governments? Etc., etc.)

 

Even granting these theoretical problems, theories of International Law (and their application to war) were a heroic attempt to *limit* the predations of governments, not to justify them. They most certainly were not a pretext for war-crime trials, which were a much later development. Rather, they grew from the recognition that the power of rulers is not absolute, and that all individuals, including those in government, should be judged by the same moral standards -- principles discernable by reason alone without recourse to divine revelation or the arbitrary decrees of rulers. It is scarcely accidental that America's founding fathers held thinkers like Grotius and Vattel in very high esteem (the latter was one of the most widely read authors of the colonial era), owing to their strong emphasis on natural law and natural rights..

 

Let us assume that the United States has become an anarchistic paradise in which voluntarily-financed defense agencies have taken over the quasi-legitimate functions of government, such as the protection of life and property. And let us assume that these private agencies must deal with hostile private agencies (or governments) in other countries that operate with different values and legal systems. Even in this unlikely

hypothetical we would still confront the same moral dilemmas of the sort that Tim has discussed. This is not to say that I agree with the details of Tim's analysis; I merely wish to point out that his *method* of analysis is a legitimate one, since even a private defense agency would have to deal with the proper limits of retaliatory violence, the problem of innocent shields in times of war, etc. (The only alternative would be to posit a world in which everyone is extremely nice and no one ever aggressed against anyone else, but this utopian fantasy does nothing more than evade the problems that will always plague humankind, so long as human nature remains human.)

 

Jeff wrote: "(Also, to some extent, as Tim has pointed out, these rules have been generated by private, charitable organizations like the Red Cross, which seek to find some way to limit the damage States do during their periodic murderous rampages.)  What these rules say about "acceptable" conduct by warring parties is *completely irrelevant* to a *moral* appraisal of such conduct, which is precisely the sort of appraisal Jeff Olson, Ross Levatter, and others on the list have been attempting to reach.  In response to the question: "Is it morally acceptable to murder fifty or a hundred bystanders in order to kill one enemy combatant?" it is *completely irrelevant* to reply, "Oh, yes, because, you see, the criminal gangs engaging in this mass murder and mass destruction in order to extend or protect their illegitimate power have said it is!"

 

This is not how I understand Tim's arguments. I do not believe he is defending the moral primacy of International Law or the rules of war. On the contrary, I suspect he would largely agree with my analysis thus far, according to which the rules of war are an attempt to apply the same moral standards to governments that we apply to individuals. In fact, given some of Tim's examples, I think he has made this quite clear. I would be *very* surprised to learn that Tim thinks governments are something more than associations of individuals with rights and legitimate powers that exceed those of individuals. But he is quite capable of speaking for himself in this matter.

 

Jeff wrote: ""Intent" is the one thing it is both theoretically and practically impossible to ascertain about another human being.  We can know what that human does, but we have no way of telling what he intended when he did it.  We can know what that human says or writes about his intent, but we also know that humans can and do lie, exaggerate for effect, and even change their minds."

 

This is correct only if we assume that reasonable conclusions about the intentions of other people require mind reading skills. But they don't, and no one (that I know of) has ever made this silly claim. Jeff is implicitly setting up an impossible standard of verification and then, after stating the obvious fact that this standard can never be met, he proclaims, in effect, that *all* reasonable conclusions about intent are impossible. This does not follow at all. Indeed, given Jeff's objections, I could never know even my *own* intentions, since people *sometimes* rationalize and deceive themselves. We *infer* the intentions of others from their statements and actions. Is this an infallible procedure? No, of course not. But "reasonable" does not mean "infallible." There are reasonable and unreasonable inferences. This is as true when reaching conclusions about the intentions of other people as it is in every other sphere of fallible human knowledge.

 

Regarding Tim's grammatical error, Jeff wrote: "If people are too stupid or too lazy to learn how to use the language in such a way as to make their ideas clear, if they are too stupid or too lazy to figure out that the meanings of words are relevant to their attempts to express themselves, just why do they think anyone else should pay any attention to their inarticulate grunting?"

 

Now let us look at the sentence by Tim that Jeff finds so offensive: "Ross is reading nationalism into arguments where they simply don't exist."

 

I don't see how anyone could take this as anything more than an incidental slip of the sort that often occurs in posts. Tim knows that "nationalism" requires a singular pronoun and verb, and it would be absurd to suggest otherwise, especially given the high quality of his writing generally. Like many other Atlanteans, I usually write posts quickly, and I don't bother to proof them very carefully. But this doesn't mean that I am "too lazy to learn how to use language." It simply means that I make mistakes from time to time. This is scarcely a hanging offense.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's some Sunday fun at a Trump rally.

Notice how the fence keeps the violence down.

Imagine a wall...

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, boy. Tim Starr. He loved that Iraq War of 2003. He even had a Yahoo Group for it filled with crap and nonsense.

After over a decade I stumbled on him again on the Internet posting on Bidinotto's Facebook. Just a couple of months ago.

--Brant

you enjoy your "just" wars sitting in your armchair drinking whiskey watching glorious reports on TV about American soldiers kicking ass--sort of like the purpose of war in Orwell's 1984--and cute little drones blowing up wedding parties

[Brant Gaede]

16 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here's some Sunday fun at a Trump rally.

Notice how the fence keeps the violence down.

Imagine a wall...

 

Michael

They're barking like dogs safe behind the fence so they let it max rip.

--Brant

take the fence down and they'll get a lot more polite (most of them)

who are those scrawny teenagers going to beat up anyway?

[Peter]

Brant, Tim Starr is an exceptional individual. And George is so brilliant I have to wear shades. I swear after reading the exchanges between Ghs and others I started to hear . . . . voices . . . chants . . . We will, we will rock you. Am I running a fever? I don’t think so. Oh, oh. Here it comes again. Here's Johnny! It’s a good day to die. Don’t tread on me you effing Muslims. Take that you cowards! Nuke the bastards. I know that voice. Trump! Get out of my head. Too late. This is for the twin towers, you pukes!

Peter

[KorbenDallas]

It's getting ugly...

Is Hillary really protecting women?

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on May 23, 2016 at 8:27am PDT

 

[Peter]

No one can look good with a cigar in their mouth, though the various, poor images differ. Bill looks mad and criminal. As Cervantes didn't say, A good cigar: it looks like a turd and it smells like shit.

If she wants to keep playing the woman's lib card she is going to need to do something about her past quotes about the women Bill, harassed, molested, or raped. She called them bimbos, etc. But my favorite is the one about if you drag a dollar through a trailer park, watch the whores come out. . . or something to that affect . . . they all are lying or they deserved it.

Peter

[PDS]

20 minutes ago, Peter said:

No one can look good with a cigar in their mouth, though the various, poor images differ. Bill looks mad and criminal. As Cervantes didn't say, A good cigar: it looks like a turd and it smells like shit.

If she wants to keep playing the woman's lib card she is going to need to do something about her past quotes about the women Bill, harassed, molested, or raped. She called them bimbos, etc. But my favorite is the one about if you drag a dollar through a trailer park, watch the whores come out. . . or something to that affect . . . they all are lying or they deserved it.

Peter

Speaking of matters scatological, if Slick Willie took plane trips to an island to meet teenage girls and left his secret service people behind than the Clinton campaign is in deep, deep Doo-Doo. If that happened, Trump is going to be running against Biden or Warren or even Bernie the Commie.   The recklessness of such behavior will amplify Hillary's recklessness with her server.    1 + 1 will equal more than 2 in that situation. 

I stand by my original prediction of a Hillary landslide, but I'm also becoming concerned that there isn't enough pepper in the world to make crow taste much good...

[PDS]

On 5/22/2016 at 9:26 AM, Guyau said:

.

Good for you, Michael.

Also evident in that search, using "President Obama" in their own address (not in quote from media): Peter, William, Ed, and Robert.

I'll definitely be going with "President Clinton" (not "Evita") or "President Trump," even "President Sanders." The derisive labeling can spill over into disrespect for this country. One's fellow-American opponents have more commitment to our constitutional process than one might like to admit in the heat of (now every-day-of-every-year) making propaganda against them. Not one of these candidates is anything remotely near the character and deeds of the elected leaders in Venezuela right now. That goes for President Obama too. All the Presidents as far back as I can remember have argued in court for increase in the powers of their office. But all of them and their attorneys have yielded and intended to yield to the constraints from the judiciary (it was not so smooth as that in the early years of this constitutional republic, but now it's deeply set).  

Stephen:

Although I see your point, this strikes me as pretty easy patriotism--if it can even be called that.

Thankfully, we still live in a country where people can simply refer to "Bush" for political purposes, but pretty much everybody knows that's he was "President Bush" the day after 9/11.   Same with Obama.   And President Obama too. 

[Peter]

Interesting tidbits. Trump’s thread is slow. I mean President Trump's thread is bare.

Peter

 

From: "Peter Reidy" < atlantis Subject: Re: ATL: Filming of ATLAS SHRUGGED:

Dagny Taggart mentions being 35 during her Wisconsin trip with Rearden, and the story says she's 37 when she goes to Galt's hiding place.  Thus 34 is her likely age at the beginning of the story.  Whoever plays her should look on the young side of that range, so as to sell the audience on both her sexuality and her business accomplishments. This is not to say that people past that age aren't sexual.  It is simply to say that the audience will buy both aspects of her character within her first two minutes on screen or it will change the channel.

Peter

 

From: "George H. Smith" To: "Atlantis". Ellen Moore wrote:

"I am aware of the passages you quote.  But I do not understand them to say that you think they mean.  Somewhere in the seminars, Rand said, " 'fact' is an epistemological tool."  Your quotes reinforce that meaning, i.e., when we say that something is a "fact", we are saying that our epistemological statement corresponds to the concretes in existence."

 

It has long been my understanding that Ayn Rand regarded "fact" as metaphysical concept, and "truth" as an epistemological one. A "fact" is that which is, regardless of anyone's knowledge. A "truth" is the identification (or "recognition") of a fact, and is therefore contextually dependent of a given state of knowledge. I believe Ellen is confusing the two concepts, as Rand used them.

Ghs

 

THE WITCH'S DAUGHTERS

Have no truck with the

daughters of Lilith.

Pay no mind the

red-headed creatures.

Man, be warned by their

sharp, white teeth;

Consider their skulls, and their

other queer features.

They're not of our tribe, with their

flame-colored hair;

They're no sib to us, with their

pale, white skins;

There's no soul behind those

wild green eyes.

Man, when you meet one

walk widdershins!

When they die, they pop,

like burst soap-bubble

(Eight hundred years

is their usual span).

Loving such beings

leads only to trouble.

By Heaven, be warned,

you rash young man!

Robert A. Heinlein August 1946

His wife Ginny was a redhead so he failed to follow his own advice. (Ginny is pictured on the cover of TRAMP ROYALE, and several photos of her appear in Robert's memoir GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE, which she assembled and edited.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

Trump’s thread is slow. I mean President Trump's thread is bare.

Peter,

Trump is winning so decisively, it's tough to get hot-button things to talk about.

Here's an example of the best his foes can do right now.

Jimmy Carter, Seeing Resurgence of Racism, Plans Baptist Conference for Unity

Jimmy Carter says Trump tapped into "a waiting reservoir" of "inherent racism."

That'll show him.

Take that, Trump!

Michael

[Peter]

I liked that Trump ad against Clinton protecting her criminal husband especially her witch's cackle at the end.

RCP has President Trump up by 2 tenths of a percent over Clingon Clinton. However the electoral college map is for Old Hickory Clinton 201 to 164 for Trump with 173 votes in the tossup column.

Trump falls to Bernie Sanders 246 to 163 with 139 votes in the Toss up column. I am glad Bernie’s campaign is a joke. Ex Secret Service guy Dan Bongino filled in for Mark Levin the other day and went through a list of changes that would occur if we REALLY went Socialist. It was horrible with one idea that stood out to me because it is occurring in Venezuela. People don’t use official currency for some purchases. They get ration cards and there are riots at the dispersion centers to get that loaf of bread. And that is a country that takes in billions from oil. Imagine that - no money – and no freedom – except on the illegal black market. And their road leads to North Korea.  

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike Lee is coming around.

He said Trump's short list for the Supreme Court is the best he's ever seen for any president. Coming from him, and vote-wise among those who think like he does, that is better than a formal endorsement.

Michael

[Guyau]

.

On a lighter note.

On the serious side.

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Trump wins Washington state 76% or so.

(Surprise, surprise...  )

Thank you Washington! #Trump2016#MakeAmericaGreatAgain pic.twitter.com/v9glTwj6gy

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2016

Michael