172 Comments

The Left has succeeded ages ago in controlling the language. For example gay used to mean happy and woman’s health care didn’t mean abortion. By controlling the language they have succeeded in controlling the narrative. Don is doing an outstanding job trying to claw back the meaning of what the definition of is is.

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Yes. Their use of the word "controversial" especially. All the pantywaist leftist "journalist" has to do is ask his crazy best buddy for a different opinion, then he can say the issue is "controversial". But mostly, there is the issue of the use of empty words. As in calling abortion "choice". But almost mostly, there is the issue of not identifying the person in charge of the opinion holders. MSNBC "reporter" makes a ridiculous leftist statement...but nobody illuminates the boss, the gal who allows that. The CEO. Give her name, show her picture (Jones?).

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"Choice" is especially egregious since the left only like choices they can make for you. You can't choose to be a Trump supporter, be a black conservative, support 2A, believe men can't be women, be skeptical of climate alarmism, etc. or the left will try to destroy you. You can't even choose pregnancy counseling that may lead to an adoption instead of an abortion. The truth is, the left hate choices but love controlling them.

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Reminds me also of the “some people say” lie that so many media people use to create false impressions. Kitty Curick (sp?) comes to mind in her first interview with Sarah Palin, she used that “innocent” expression, totally a straw man tactic. I wouldn’t have thought fast enough at the time but the correct response would be “Kitty, exactly who are these people you’re talking about? And you need to expand the universe of people you talk to. Or, you need to find more informed friends!”

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The best retort of all time still goes to JD Vance to the CNN reporter:

“DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?!!

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Yes!

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Apropos of nothing much, my niece could be a stunt-double for Sara Palin. When we go out to lunch close to the "big city" people just embarrass themselves staring at her. They may be wondering what she sees in a hayseed from Muzak City.

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Katie Couric? She looks like she is demon possessed.

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The AP (All Propaganda) is the best at skewing stories using loaded language. Republicans are extremists and far right whereas Dems never get that treatment despite their positions on the border, abortion, gender issues, race issues, etc. Whenever I see a story by the AP, a large grain of salt is required.

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I just stopped reading the AP.

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And I'm never NEVER capitalizing Black if I"m not also doing it for White. How silly is that game?

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And I just sent AP Always Propaganda on it's way, deleted. yay!

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Then there’s those “unnamed sources “

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Everything is about choice. John Wilkes Booth made the choice to shoot Lincoln. Hirohito made the choice attack Pearl Harbor. Truman made the choice to drop the atomic bombs.

Hell, I made the choice to write a smart alec reply concerning how liberals destroy our language.

So everyone is prochoice. Mostly. Liberals are anti motherhood, anti traditional marriage, anti childhood innocence anti American and anti Christ.

The only time pro applies to them is professional liars.

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I am hopeful. And I, like Don, NEVER gave up the language. Even when they co-opted the rainbow of GOD and Hope from the jug eared traitorous bastard. Never quit fighting. :)

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Ditto.

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That the Left "succeeded ages ago in controlling the language", while true, may have become an overstatement. Don shows that semantic tricks and linguistic "controls" have expiration dates, the most upsetting one for Dems must be (taking Politico at its words) the "number of Democrats wondering if their party brand is so toxic that they should shed the label.”

In spite of Politico's blatant biases, they confirmed that the tide has turned: there's a critical mass of Americans whose attitudes toward the Dems could be expressed by that line from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid": "Whatever they're selling, I don't want it!"

Knowing full well that nothing lasts forever, let's stick to that rule that as long as we can.

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They've tried rebranding several times, progressive as in progressively more unhinged. Then there is liberal as they take indecent liberties with the constitution.

Really what they should use is KISS, kids in Satan's service.

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Nice work! You’re soaking in it. I just read another piece and the writer came up with the acronym “FOOLs,” which is someone who has “fear of other’s liberties.” That about sums it up for the elites who want to take away our gas stoves, etc.

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I will not give up my GAS stove, Gas Logs, Gas Water Heater or GAS HVAC. They can come try to take them or kiss my lily white.

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Like so many others who are completely red-pilled, I have friends and relatives who still swallow all the media pablum. It amazes me they seem incapable of detecting the nudge words in the stories they read. I assume it’s just because it’s reinforcing their instilled, preconceived bias so don’t pause to think about what’s going on. It takes me no more than one paragraph to write a story off and move on. Once you see the bias you can’t unsee it, and I think more people are waking up to how corrupt these institutions have become.

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"Nudge Words"-- that is good.

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Me too. I was getting so tired of people calling them "trigger words."

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Years ago my highly intelligent academic propagandized sister sent me an article she found powerful and convincing. I read it and found it to be an emotional screed. Your third sentence describes what is going on.

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“Abortion isn’t reproductive health care. It is taking the life of an innocent for the convenience of the mother.”

And that is why the left hates us. Because we dare to expose their sins which they are fully cognizant of. And it eats their soul.

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When a person no longer values all life, they are on the same level as communists. When I hear Bernie Sanders talk about his "good socialism" I get angry. We already have too much socialism in our healthcare system and federal entitlements.

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i'm not so sure of that greg. men and women see life differently and always have.

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Yes, we’re different from men and that’s why it’s so important that we get it right…in tune with natural law.

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i believe there were 1,100,000 abortions in 2023 (usa alone). 2024 was tracking 14% higher last i looked. someone isn't getting natural law.

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But I am my brother’s keeper. Just trying to save their souls.

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Just curious, from where do you conclude you are your brother’s keeper?

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From Scripture.

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Which scripture? Can you please cite it?

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But does your brother feel the same way about your life?

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Some, no. But still we are called to love, not hate. That has become more difficult lately.

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What Soul?

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Pretty much everything the Democrats do is scripted. It worked because of the mainstream media who all parroted the Democrat talking points. However, hardly anyone pays attention to them any more making it hard to maintain the narrative.

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Party of lies. Party of death. Party of sin. Party of Satan.

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To all the preceding sentences, I figured it was because there has NOT been an original thought from a sitting Democrat since the Truman era.

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Definitely a party of hate and division. A lot of people anymore are just plain mean and they don't care if you know it...that's really frightening. The fact that people run traffic lights that have actually been red for a few seconds and when I flash lights, etc., they just keep coming and give nasty signals hand or horn. Where are the police? They know it's happening. They don't care!!!

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This be true. And the best part is they still don't get it!

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The media has become the Democrat party's giant neon billboard in Time Square, with similar billboards thru out the country. Without those, and a fact-checking media, they never would have been successful at the mass propaganda campaigns that got us here. So the question is, just how much of a supporting role did the GOP play in all that? I have my suspicions more than we know.

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They’re not known as the uniparty for nothing.

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James Carville's piece in the New York Times yesterday dovetails with Don's column today. Carville has come to the "brilliant" conclusion that the Democrats lost this year because of "the economy". And, he also agrees with Van Jones that the Democrats "messaging" is the problem, and that the Democrats need to copy the Republicans move into the New Media environment, online, Twitter, podcasts, Substack, etc. Every paragraph of Carville's article is about managing the message, managing perceptions, how to phrase things, "finding ways to talk...that are persuasive", being "Vocal", "Repetitive", etc.

Words are important to Democrats, because they have pretty near zero ACTIONS or RESULTS to point to. The Democratic brand is toxic now because it has revealed itself as colossally incompetent to govern. All they can do is destroy and wreck things. We've all seen many long lists of their failures. The Democrats simply cannot "perform". So they have gone whole hog on the manipulation of language and turning biased news into an "art form". They are totally invested in distorted messaging.

But it shows the incredible value of the freedom of speech guaranteed in our First Amendment. Because even the fanciest tricky language cannot accomplish anything when millions of people can speak up and point out the falsity of the Democrats words and narrative. We call this process "red-pilling", and what the recent election showed was that millions of Americans have been red-pilled because they no longer are ignorant pawns of the old, legacy, "mainstream" media. There has been an incredible flourishing of the new Media over the last 20 years, with over 100 very prominent "first tier" new sources (Citizen Free Press, Substack, realclearpolitics, etc.) and a dynamic plethora of "second tier" emerging sources.

I used to respect Van Jones and James Carville, even though their politics was repugnant. But at this point, both of them have revealed that their intellect is really not very high after all. Neither has a clue why the election was lost. They lost because the Democrats have adopted an insane belief system that is unconnected to reality, and because when in office, they are incompetent to govern.

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Jimmy has been telling lies and spinning the narrative for so long he doesn't even know what the truth looks like. It is just a game to him because he doesn't have the skills or talent to do something constructive.

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i'm almost 77 and have been listening to the democrats use the messaging thing since i was in diapers.

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The irony in your note is it was James Carville who stated in the 1992 Bill Clinton run against George H W Bush, "It's the economy, stupid". The dems won that election because they were right. That was a long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_economy,_stupid#:~:text=%22The%20economy%2C%20stupid%22%20is,Bush.

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You're right, I remember that. It is ironic. Carville has not stayed abreast of the times.

I think both Carville (speaking for liberal wing) and Van Jones (speaking for the Marxist wing) originally were among the most astute advisors of the Left. I suspect that both of them were smart and savvy enough to recognize the strong points on the Right, but devoted their "cleverness" to painting the Right as stupid (Carville) and racist (Jones).

But over time, both men became so absorbed in the "spin" they were promoting, that they both became intellectually lazy and "caricatures of themselves". I recently saw a clip of Scott Jennings challenging Van Jones on CNN. Scott was landing zingers, and Van Jones was adamantly rigid and frozen in defiantly refusing to acknowledge even the slightest of Jenning's truths. Both Carville and Jones are now so heavily invested in the Left narrative they participated in crafting, that they both have a "wall" up in their psyche and won't let anything penetrate it--including Truth.

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I think you are right, Carville and Jones are now caricatures of themselves. I think their time of influence is over. Their party has changed too much.

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Carville didn't ever suspect his irrelevance. He didn't even see it coming.

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If the Dem strategists had listened to Carville in the 2024 election, they would have done remarkably better and may have claimed more down-ballot races.

Carville looks and sounds goofy as hell but his strategy has stood some tests of time but we'll never know since we can't prove something that didn't happen.

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Well put, TPG. Since the problem CANNOT be their policies, it must be their "message", or rather their sales pitch. Change a few words, change the tone, and Presto! Problem solved.

The best approach for us is not to fight such delusions: let it be, let them rant -- and the Dem/Progressive brand's market share will keep dropping toward the oblivion where it belongs.

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Amen.

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They are yesterday's men.

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And lest we forget, how about the names they assign to all their bills, which always reflect the exact opposite of what that bill will actually do:

“Affordable Care Act”

“Inflation Reduction Act”

…just to name two!

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I was involved in some lobbying on the "Affordable Care Act" and I was corrected for calling it "ObamaCare". I said I couldn't in good conscience participate in a lie by calling it the "Affordable Care Act". That was still early on in this political war, and I sensed people thought I was a bit odd for taking that position, but so be it.

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And you were correct in your nomenclature.

Obamacare is only affordable if you are unemployed.

On a related note: Obamacare only considers your current income in calculating your premium. It ignores savings and investments. I know two couples (with full retirement accounts ready to go) who quit their jobs so they could get Obamacare WITH a subsidy (ie) free health care and a stipend. They laughed about it - and admitted it was wrong - when they told me how they loved Obamacare. Meanwhile, a 23 year old kid just out of college is paying over a thousand dollars a month for basic coverage despite not ever getting sick or using it.

That is the 'Affordable Care Act' and the paradox describes the democrats perfectly. Democrats ≠ Democratic

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First news story I read after Don's proves the point: from ABC News: The man SUSPECTED of carrying out the New Year's attack in New Orleans, Shamsud-Din Jabbar,

SUSPECTED? 14 dead, 35 injured, came out shooting, 2 police wounded. What proof do they need? If he had been white wearing a MAGA hat, how would they refer to him?

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As the guilty perp no doubt.

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Suspected and are alleged are used in the media because the perp has not been convicted yet.

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If their worry is about the legal consequences of calling him guilty, they don't exist, 'cause he is DEAD. More likely they're afraid of the Muslim Menace.

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you gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes....

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Media have to use those words because the person hasn't been legally convicted. Fairness and especially lawsuits. Some accused are actually innocent.

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This article really got my juices flowing, as discerning the media’s messing with words has become practically a sport for me over the years! Don is clearly the Master of that sport.

This is just one of Don’s gems:

“ That so many of the people brushing him off as a reality TV show star did so while being on TV themselves always made me smile. As Madge the Manicurist said in those Palmolive commercials, you’re soaking in it.”

Priceless!

As to the wicked effects of their wordsmithing this factoid stopped me right in my tracks:

“ Canada has not executed a criminal in 62 years, but it killed 44,958 people in the name of health care from 2016 to 2022, the best statistics I could find.”

That is a startling statistic and the media is once again a co-conspirator with yet another killing machine, just as they have been for decades with the perversely named “pro-choice” mass murdering crowd.

The members of the media will all have a lot to answer for on their respective judgment days for having abdicated the true purpose of their profession, choosing instead to deform themselves into nothing more than state party propagandists and purveyors of lies, aiding and abetting the forces of evil.

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i believe (didn't verify because i'm simply making a point) the abortion count is nearing 70,000,000 and that would translate into probably 100,000,000 so if we extrapolated that across the world perhaps we wouldn't be talking about a population decline in such dire terms. just my two cents.

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They are merely political prostitutes.

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Hi Marlan! HAPPY NEW YEAR! ♥️🙏

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Happy New Year, Marlan.

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Missed you, Marlan!

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Think sexual dysphoria is a mental health issue triggered more by peer pressure than hormonal changes. Being one of the alphabet people is same as back in the 60's and 70's railing against the "man" with the leather jacket, the cigarette, the weed, sex, drugs and rock and roll. But boys were still boys and girls were still girls.

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I have to agree with that. Parents today are so busy they can't take the time to parent their children properly. Life is about priorities, not just compromises.

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My favorite is calling the Republicans the GOP (the grand old party). They don't change the name because Wimps was already taken.

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Comment of the day. We are going to come up short again and miss the opportunity of the century because of wimps. DJT is wrong about Johnson as speaker. He isn't going to get the job done because winning means big changes and Johnson is not comfortable with that at all.

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The symbolic elephant is key. It is said that an elephant never forgets. I would hope that's true. However, the DNC's symbol is a donkey, aka an ass. They bray loudly

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I take exception to that.

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i voted pager wearers but in retrospect they really didn't know any better where as the donors to harris with all that education, wealth accumulation and knowledge should be able to figure out the con.

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More like they are heavy into the Con.

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you're correct of course and it's a shame. i know many, women and men, old and young, wealthy and not so much who simply don't have a clue. my best friend is now going on 83 and a great guy but he gets his information from abc news and especially david muir. that and aol.com news! called him a couple of days ago and he was watching andrea mitchell. imagine listening to her for an hour then coming away with what you think is truth and usable information. then twenty years of that.

he's always a month behind the truth and reality. i remember he asked me early on "will you vote for nikki haley even though she is a women?" so i asked him why he thought i wouldn't vote for a women and he said muir had an entire segment on haley and men on the right and divorced men and how she was gaining ground on trump. plus he doesn't like sports so we don't talk about much at breakfast. old cars and money is about it. i can't abandon him now...i'm his only friend.

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Very kind; I'm glad he has you.

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we're 53 years and counting now. when we met he was 29 and i was 23.

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You are a good friend, Donald.

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awe shucks. we had one argument around thirty years or so ago. cleared it up and never looked back. marriages should be so lucky.

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So Democrats changing the sign on the door to “independent “ is going to make a difference.

Right.

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Like Bernie Sanders and Angus King are independent thinkers. As Indigo Montoya said "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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I'll believe they've changed when AOC is kicked to the side.

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Oh, she has company. That Jasmine Crockett makes AOC look smart which is hard to do.

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tlaib, omar, pressely, 10 dozen more i can't even name.

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Two of the gang lost re-election. But two more will take their place because they are so ignorant.

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There will always be a market for stupidity. The only question is how large.

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Only to themselves. It is far too late for them. They need to purge their party of the far left and embrace commonsense again.

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In Texas they just campaign as 'Republican'....

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Politico’s always been a leftist rag & as far as Liberace being “closeted”, that guy was so flamboyant he glowed brighter than the eternal flame. Have always been good @ imitations; cue the Liberace voice, “I wish my brother George was here.”

We inhabit The Age of the Euphemism where - as defined by Oxford Dictionary- “a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. "“downsizing” as a euphemism for cuts".

Know who perfected the use of them? The totalitarian states of National Socialist Germany & the Soviet Union. “Murder” was re-defined as “special treatment”.

That’s why right-thinking people should always call a spade a spade. Offended? TS. Get over your feelings.

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As I read the occasional articles from the main stream media or catch a news cast on TV, my eyeballs get the workout of a lifetime as they roll and roll and roll. Then I read your pieces and everything is in sharp focus again. Thanks Don!

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If I live to be 125, I doubt I will never understand how Democrats got so toxic toward their own humanity. They no longer frame an issue as being good for our country or bad for our country. It is all about class and division politics today even when something makes sense, and they know that to be a fact. That is irrational. They have taken identity politics so far left I do not see how it can ever be repaired or reformed. They went off the left side of the scale and broke the meter. I simply don't see how they can crawl back to the middle now due to all the hate they have generated along the way. It will take decades before most people trust anything they say or do. What Democrats never counted on was the public coming to a consensus that the government needs to be reformed, and at all levels. Whether anyone likes it or not, the debt and out of control federal spending is going to do what the GOP has failed to do; force a giant and painful reset of how we do business, how we live, and what we expect from our elected leaders. The Dems cannot get back to the center by simply buying their way there now. That time has passed. If the Dems are ever to return to power in any major form, they need to purge themselves of the Marxists, the ultra-leftists, and the communists masquerading as socialists.

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That's because they are evil . I am not jetting or being sarcastic.

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Bleeping spellchecker ! Jesting not "jetting " !

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Dems are toxic because they reject the idea of objective truth/reality.

Not to mention their hatred for our creator God.

When you put yourself on the throne of your ego, you are by definition proud, whom God resists. Not different than original sin.

Here is a link to Mantegna's sublime fresco depicting our Fall from grace

https://www.italianrenaissance.org/masaccios-expulsion-of-adam-and-eve-from-eden/

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