The Memo is Released
The FISA memo bomb has been dropped. It pretty much confirmed everything Republicans had been talking about in interviews for the past two weeks. If you watched cable news last week you pretty much know everything that’s in the memo. Is that why the information was a little - I don't know - underwhelming? For being billed as a memo full of classified information, I struggled to find anything in it that could be considered damaging to national security. That makes the Democrats, FBI and DoJ look kind of ridiculous in trying to block it’s release.
But it also makes Republicans look a little ridiculous in all the build up and hype that led up to Friday’s release. Now, don’t get me wrong, the information within the memo is interesting. The GOP is accusing the FBI and DoJ of lying to the FISA court in order to get a warrant for former Trump advisor Carter Page. They claim that the Steele Dossier was listed in the initial FISA application, but the roles of Fusion GPS, the DNC and the Clinton campaign were never mentioned. If that’s true then the FBI and DoJ were knowingly trying to pass off partisan opposition research as actual intelligence, AND they hid the truth from the court, not once, but four times.
This all looks really bad, but it’s also only half of the story. Democrats have written their own rebuttal memo, and a vote for its release is expected later today. We can also expect to hear from the FBI AND DoJ at some point as well. Will The Great Memo Wars of 2018 reveal anything new, or will it descend into a giant “liar liar pants on fire” slap fight? Either way, more transparency is still the answer. So get ready for a flood of memos. This is either going to be very enlightening, or brutally painful.
Powerful Super Bowl Ads
A beautiful newborn baby cries and fidgets in her hospital bed. She is perfect. A nurse lifts her up to comfort her. It’s revealed that the child is missing both legs below the knee and one arm.
She is still perfect.
Toyota hit the ball out of the park with its compelling Super Bowl commercial about Paralympic Gold Medalist Lauren Woolstencroft. In 60 seconds, we saw her birth, her struggles to use her mechanical limbs, her failures, and her victories.
People who believe in eugenics see no quality of life for those born with deformities. How can they possibly think that after watching Lauren thrive and go on to win eight gold medals?
In that one minute, Toyota showed the world that all life matters. It’s important to note that no cars are mentioned in the ad, because that wasn’t the point. Toyota is transitioning into a “mobility company” and they wanted to show that the technology they are developing will help humanity.
Dodge also opted to showcase their new technology, but the carmaker was heavily criticized for their commercial.
The commercial featured a new Dodge Ram truck helping bring supplies and volunteers to communities hit by natural disasters. The controversial part? Dodge used Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech on serving in the background.
People were outraged that Dodge would use MLK’s words to sell cars.
I don’t see it that way.
I think anytime Martin Luther King Jr’s words are broadcast and remembered is a good thing.
We need to hear his words, especially now.
Yes, Dodge is selling their new Ram, but they are also selling what you can do with that vehicle: Serve others.
In 120 seconds, the Toyota and Dodge commercials conveyed the message that advancements in technology can be used for good—it’s up to us to use it that way.
The Gender-Neutralization of 'O Canada'
If progressivism is a disease, Canada is terminally ill with it. The U.S. prognosis is probably critical condition.
On Wednesday, Canada’s Senate approved changing a line in the English version of their national anthem, “O Canada,” to make it gender neutral. The second line of the anthem will now be “True patriot love in all of us command” rather than the oppressive, insanely offensive old version, “True patriot love in all thy sons command.”
Now that their anthem isn’t sexist anymore, Canadians can finally feel free to sing it again.
Somehow, I doubt the Canadian senators checked with the people because that’s not how progressives operate. I bet most Canadians would’ve preferred leaving the anthem alone. They’ve had the song that way for over a century and no one died of sexism because of it.
Canadian feminist author Margaret Atwood was one of the people behind this effort. She wrote the novel The Handmaid’s Tale. You can look that one up for insight into her feelings on tradition, faith, and conservatism. She’s real subtle.
This is the dark side of progressivism everywhere – it presumes to know what’s best for the people. But it’s always the agenda of a few, forced on the majority. Or sometimes the agenda, or feelings of just one individual. Progressivism thinks it is promoting more freedom, when often it is tyranny. So, you get things like Michelle Obama dictating to your local school what cafeteria food it can serve. Or one mother in Webster Parish, Louisiana who recently got student-led prayer banned at her daughter’s high school.
Respect for tradition as a stabilizing, enriching agent in society is one of the key diverging points of the Left and Right in the U.S. Decades of progressivism chipping away at things like religion, the flag, the Constitution, and patriotism in general, all the way to Obama’s apologizing tour of a presidency, has created an enormous backlash from heartland Americans. To the point that a whole section of Trump’s State of the Union speech was a lecture on respecting the flag, anthem, and motto. It’s just sad that we’ve sunk so low that the State of the Union has turned into a pep rally about who has more team spirit.
It’s easy to laugh at those Canadians for wimping out on their anthem. But progressivism is a persistent disease, so don’t think it can’t happen here.