Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 12, 2021 | Sundance | 319 Comments

The NBC media panel for Meet the Press is absolutely apoplectic about their inability to destroy President Donald Trump and his supportive base of pragmatic, awakened Americans.   The pearl-clutching and fear are palpable, as the leftist roundtable contemplates future elections that may deconstruct decades of election control, manipulation, fraud and falsehood.

What the panel of John Heilemann, Marianna Sotomayor, Kimberly Atkins Stohr and Brendan Buck really fear is the pesky system within our constitutional republic we call ‘federalism’.   They need to keep their attacks against Donald Trump cast in the role of eliminating baby Hitler simply to avoid confronting the flaws in their own ideological arguments.  They fear freedom. They need the collective. Individual liberty is against their own sense of self and purpose.

If you listen through their nonsense (not for the faint of heart), all of the panel apoplexy boils down to individual states in control of their own elections.  What they fear is federalism itself, which makes sense when you remind yourself there are two generations of leftists who were taught that collectivism (the we are the world crap), where only one centralized federal government, of all consuming power and authority, should be allowed to make decisions.  WATCH:

While it would be fun to debate a group like this, the core of their fear is a diminishing ability to control.  As CTH reminds frequently, the need for control is a reaction to fear. This applies in all levels of social society from elections to COVID responses.  Elites need control, because at their core they fear the inherent inequity of freedom.

Sally Struthers pleads into the camera for donations to feed the starving child in her arms in Africa… leftists swoon, and the U.N. activates.  Meanwhile, some pragmatist watching the commercial leans over to her husband and says, “I wonder why the cameraman didn’t just give the kid a sandwich”?

Control is a reaction to fear. Think in terms of politics and society – the fear behind leftist politics is the fear that someone might withhold things (opportunities, money, whatever) from me.  Fear that if you live your life in a way I dislike that it might affect my life. Fear that if you get that job, there will be nothing left for me. Fear that if you make tons of money, it means there’s less money out there for me. So, people who believe in leftist ideologies seek control as a means of trying to create guarantees and safeguards against those circumstances they fear.

The DC UniParty knows exactly how to exploit that fear, and both Democrats and Republicans love to provide those guarantees and safeguards.

Modern “liberals”, leftists, try to control the world and people to enable their comfort and happiness. Which, as we know, is an endless quest. Trying to control others does nothing in the way of making oneself happy. By extension, voting in this mindset so that government can try to control others will also – shocking – not lead to a happier, more comfortable life.

The conservative (and moderate, independent, but for the sake of expediency, the conservative), on the other hand, relies on himself to meet his own needs. And the trade off of being free to live his life as he wishes, is also understanding that he has to make peace with how you live yours. By extension, aware that he wants to be able to hold onto this liberty and freedom forever, the conservative votes accordingly, so that everyone can remain free and in charge of his or her own life.

But here’s the crucial difference, perhaps, particularly where misery on the left stems: The conservative does not worry, so to speak, about you. The conservative knows that you were born with the same access to self-love, self-empowerment, self-determination and self-reliance that we all were, no matter the circumstances into which you were born. (Think about the millions of people this country has allowed to crawl up from poverty into prosperity – the conservative KNOWS this is possible.) And the conservative believes that if you want prosperity, or a good job, or a good education, you can make it happen – but you have to work hard.

The conservative hopes and intends that the free markets bring you all of the affordable and positive opportunities and resources that you need. The conservative also knows that on the other side of that hard work is great reward – material and, more importantly, emotional, spiritual and mental.

The conservative understands that not only is it a waste of time to try to control you, it’s actually impossible. Humans were born to be free. And if we put a roadblock in front of you, you’ll find another way around it. So we see attempts at control as a waste of resources, energy and time at best, and at worst, creating detrimental results that serve to hinder people’s upward mobility or teach dependence. We see much more efficiency, as well as endless opportunity, in leaving you to your own devices. And we want the same in return.

This is where modern democrats misview conservatives as heartless. But really, the conservative believes that there is one and one path only to sustainable success and independence – and that is self-empowerment. All other avenues – welfare, affirmative action, housing loans you can’t actually afford – ultimately risk doing a disservice to people, as they teach dependence on special circumstances, the govt, or arbitrary assistance (that can disappear tomorrow). And the real danger – they will ALWAYS backfire, and leave the recipient in equally or more dire circumstances. Any false improvement will always expire.

The conservative believes in abundance. The liberal believes in scarcity.

The conservative believes man is born free and will be who he is, no matter what arbitrary limitations or rules are put on him. The leftist believes man is perfectible, and by extension, believes a society at large is perfectible, and command and control is justified in the quest to a “perfect” utopian society. (Sounds familiar!)

The conservative tends to be more faithful – and not necessarily in God, but in the ability of the individual to find great strength in himself (or from his God) to get what he needs and to be successful. Therefore the conservative has an outlet for his fear and disappointment – trust and faith in something bigger.

The leftist believes the system must be perfected in order to enable success. Therefore disappointment is channeled as anger and blame at the system. Voids are left to be filled by faith in the govt, which they surely then want to come in and “fix” things.

And therein lie the roots of love and fear respectively. For the conservative, when life presents great struggles, he knows he has the power to surmount them. Happiness stems from internal strength and perseverance. For the modern leftist, when life presents great struggles, the system failed, therefore they were at the mercy of a faulty system, and they believe that only when the system is fixed can their life improve. Happiness is built on systemic contingencies, which they will then seek to control or expect someone else to.

One blames himself. The other blames anyone and everyone but himself.

And there it is. There’s where the meanness comes from. The leftist ideology causes that person to cast anger at the world when things go wrong or appear “unfair.” He constantly chooses only to see the “injustices” – and that makes for a very miserable, mean, blame-casting existence.

One last point that we have seen over and over and over with many (not all) of our leftist friends: Extreme stinginess and cheapness.

In our conservative community growing up, we were always taught that you give when people are in need – make donations to the Red Cross when there’s an earthquake, donate to charity when you can afford it, etc. Even if it’s just $50 here and there – it’s the right thing to do. Conservatives see this as the responsibility that comes with gaining from the capitalistic system; if you happen to benefit greatly from the system, it’s your duty to give back.

The liberal, on the other hand, does not seem to share this same viewpoint, at least not in my experience. They perhaps think this is linked to believing in scarcity, and that your dollar comes at the cost of mine. So it seems that liberals, on some level of consciousness, feel guilty about not being voluntarily charitable. Therefore, to write off their guilt, they outsource their “generosity” to the government by voting for wealth re-distributive policies. Thus, the liberal cheats himself of the joy and addictiveness of direct generosity. (Not to mention – redistributive policies ALWAYS end up disempowering those who they’re meant to help.)

We think the Treehouse is a good armory for those who are doing long distance walking for the sake of our nation. We hope you’ll think so, too. Find yourself a good branch….or just pull up a rock to the campfire.

Posted Originally on the Conservative tree house on December 12, 2021 | Sundance | 123 Comments

ABC/IPSOS are trying hard, very hard, to provide cover for Joe Biden. [IPSOS Release Here – pdf data Here]  However, even within what they call a “probability-based sample of pre-selected” Americans, aka “the knowledge panel“, the responses toward Joe Biden show a nationwide rejection of the White House occupant.

A heavily weighted sample of 28% support Biden’s efforts on inflation.  The rest of their pre-selected panel say he sucks.

Another weighted sample shows 36% think Biden is doing a good job on crime.  The rest of their pre-selected panel say no, Biden sucks.

(Via ABC) President Joe Biden is facing significant skepticism from the American public, with his job approval rating lagging across a range of major issues, including new lows for his handling of crime, gun violence and the economic recovery, a new ABC/Ipsos poll finds.

[…] More than two-thirds of Americans (69%) disapprove of how Biden is handling inflation (only 28% approve) while more than half (57%) disapprove of his handling of the economic recovery. 

[T]he survey also reveals weaknesses from Biden’s own party with only a slim majority of Democrats (54%) approving. Biden’s orbit is also hemorrhaging independent voters, with 71% disapproving of his handling of inflation.

[…] As the national murder rates see historic jumps, only a little more than 1 in 3 Americans (36%) approve of Biden’s handling of crime, down from 43% in an ABC News/Ipsos poll in late October. (read more)

The White House strategy to deny chaos created by their policies, and yet demanding that media report good things about Main Street collapsing, does not seem to be working.  Apparently, an overwhelming majority of Americans now believe what they see and feel for themselves. 

Armstrong Economics Blog/Middle East Re-Posted Dec 8, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

(Afghanistan-related designations are one of the few cases in which President Barack Obama’s administration imposed more economic sanctions (103) than President Donald Trump’s administration (24), which was publicly engaged in peace talks with the Taliban from 2018 to 2020 and issued fewer sanctions. (U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control; Sanctions Explorer))

When the US left Afghanistan at the end of August, they implemented harsher sanctions on the Taliban. Western aid to the nation vanished, and Afghanistan became isolated from the world economy. It was never America’s job to uphold Afghanistan, but the impact of abruptly leaving after two decades of occupation has caused insurmountable trouble to the people our troops fought to protect. Now, over half the country is likely to experience food insecurity and starvation this winter.

Of the 22.8 million Afghans facing food shortages, 8.7 million are expected to face famine. In addition to the Taliban’s utter ignorance on how to run a country, the nation has experienced its worst drought in decades that has killed off livestock and crops. The New York Times reported that Afghanistan’s wheat harvest will be cut by a quarter this year, and many rural farmers have abandoned cultivating their land entirely.

The World Bank recently voted to provide the nation with $280 million in previously frozen donor funds, but this is a small portion of the $1.5 billion in frozen assets. The US entered Afghanistan for 20 years and left without a plan under Biden. Over 7,057 servicemen and women have died in post-9/11 operations, and an additional 30,177 died of suicide. No one wins when it comes to war games

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 7, 2021 | Sundance | 119 Comments

The most notorious hate crime hoaxer in the past few years took the witness stand in his own defense to proclaim he didn’t do anything wrong, when he set up his own fake racial attack using two brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo.

The two brothers testified to being paid $3,500 to pull-off the most transparent and goofy hate crime in recent memory. All of the witness statements align with CCTV footage, cell phone records and other evidence that showed the trio even rehearsed the late night fake crime. There is not a shred of evidence that counteracts the entire fiasco as a ridiculous hate crime hoax. Yet for some insufferable reason this case reached a courtroom.

The police knew it was a hoax, yet they spent 1,500 hours investigating it. The two pretend attackers admitted it was a hoax, and gave details of how it was done. The direct and circumstantial evidence all shows it was a hoax. Everything about the entire series of events proves it was a hoax crime, and yet Jussie Smollet claims it was real.

This is silly.

Closing arguments are expected tomorrow, and if the jury needs to debate this one, well, the justice system is a parody of itself.

CHICAGO – A Cook County jury will likely begin deliberating Wednesday in actor Jussie Smollett’s trial on charges he lied to police about being the victim of an alleged racist and homophobic attack nearly three years ago.

The defense rested its case Tuesday afternoon after the actor spent a tense two hours on the stand, at times getting testy under questioning from Special Prosecutor Dan Webb.

Judge James Linn released the jury around noon, telling them they would return Wednesday to hear closing arguments and then to weigh a verdict on the six counts of disorderly conduct the actor faces.

During testimony that spanned two days of trial, Smollett forcefully and repeatedly denied that he was involved in planning an alleged hoax attack in January 2019 on himself with brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo. The pair testified last week that Smollett masterminded the attack as a publicity stunt. (read more)

In my humble opinion, the Smollett hate crime was planned as part of the Kamala Harris presidential candidacy rollout.  Jussie Smollett just did a terrible job at pulling it off and the entire operation went sideways…. All of this nonsense is an outcome of that.

Posted Originally on the conservative tree House on December 7, 2021 | Sundance | 230 Comments

A federal judge in Georgia has blocked the vaccine mandate for federal contractors nationally.  A previous court order from another judge in Kentucky blocked the contractor vaccine mandate in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee [link].  This latest ruling blocks the contractor mandate nationally [link].

This is the latest defeat for the Biden administration against all three facets of the federal vaccine mandate: (1) Federal Contractors, (2) CMS Healthcare providers, (3) private sector employers with over 100 workers.

All three prongs of the White House federal vaccine mandate are now blocked by federal courts.

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Georgia issued a nationwide injunction that prevents the U.S. government from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on federal contractors, temporarily shutting down the last remaining vaccine requirement by the Biden administration.

U.S. District Judge Stan Baker in Savannah, Georgia, said Congress did not clearly authorize the president to use procurement to impose a vaccine requirement on contractors that will have “vast economic and political significance.” (read more)