Obama Told Trump Not to Hire Michael Flynn, Joan of Arc Disrespected: P.M. Links

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  Public domain

  President Trump was apparently warned by the Obama administration not to hire Michael Flynn.

• What the media gets wrong about "fake news."
• Things are really bad in Venezuela. Why? Who knows. Totaly mystery.
• Somebody wrote "tear it down" on a statue of Joan of Arc in New Orleans. But Joan of Arc was a saint and heroine, not a slave-owning white male. (Full disclosure: I attended a St. Joan of Arc grade school.)
• Read my latest column at The Daily Beast, a round-up of the worst campus free speech moments of the 2016-2017 school year.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

President Trump was apparently warned by the Obama administration not to hire Michael Flynn.

Basically telling him he had to hire him.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

I've typed 'Obama' more than I care for.

Can he go away now?

[Domestic Dissident]

He will never go away any more than his fake libertarian idolators like Rico Suave will stop worshipping him and believing everything that comes out of his mouth.

[Rufus The Monocled]

There hasn't been a President more over praised for so little.

He's the classic empty fucken suit.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

Excellent description -- fits him to a T. Wish I'd remembered that phrase!

[MarkLastname]

Reminds me of that joke Churchill made about Attlee. 'The other day an empty cab arrived at Downing St. and Clement Attlee got out.'

[fdog50]

Wasn't it Atlee that Churchill described as "A modest man with much to be modest about"?

[BestUsedCarSales]

I would much prefer an empty suit in office.

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

Caption the photo:
"So then is it THIS stain that you believe looks like the Virgin Mary?"

[Chip Your Pets]

If only Bush had warned Obama not to hire Hillary Clinton.

[KDN]

Things are really bad in Venezuela. Why? Who knows. Totaly mystery.

Posted in the Venezuela thread. Where's my hat tip?

And to think, I only ever mocked you for your admitted inability to change a tire. Which you totally deserve.

[Zeb]

Has there ever been a hat tip in a links post?

[KDN]

Probably not, but I require validation. I work ever so hard stumbling through my WSJ app and occasionally posting the results here.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Things are really bad in Venezuela. Why? Who knows. Totaly mystery.

Pretty sure it wouldn't be so worse off than almost everyone else if almost everyone else wasn't some free market variant.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Somebody wrote "tear it down" on a statue of Joan of Arc in New Orleans.

Shouldn't that have been burn it down?

[WakaWaka]

If anyone was wondering whether or not these people are just historically ignorant kids, this about sums it up

[Not a True MJG]

Maybe it was just a proud Englishman.

[WakaWaka]

Curse those John Bulls

[Mickey Rat]

Round up all known Plantagenets for questioning!

[Thomas O.]

Heh... if anyone should be accused of disrespecting Joan of Arc, it's me. In my webcomic, she's living in present-day Texas as Joan Arquette.

[Fist of Etiquette]

"Wow. This is chilling. This kind of shit has to be fought hard at every turn," Silverman wrote on Twitter. And she was not alone in her analysis.

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe that the federal government can fall into the hands of someone like Trump might be reason to fight for a less powerful federal government.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I marvel at how celebrities must be surviving since Trump.

What a strong, courageous bunch.

[Not a True MJG]

The Kennedys should honor #TheResistance next year.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Coming to a theatre near you. I see a George Clooney-Matt Damon collaboration soon.

The Assassination of Donald J. Trump.

[Inigo Montoya]

By the Cuckholster Steve Colbert

I think you left out that part of the film title.

If it's a western, I will go see it.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I wonder if it has occurred to some people that if Obama had put through "single-payer" healthcare instead of the ACA, their healthcare decisions would now rest in Trump's tiny hands and the size and composition of the healthcare budget would now rest in the hands of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Let's get something out of the way up front: No, leftist college students are not the most serious threat the First Amendment is facing right now. That distinction belongs to President Donald Trump, who was abusing the law for the purposes of attacking his critics even before he became the most powerful person in the world.

Oh, Roberto.

[WakaWaka]

False equivalency much?

One used the legal system to sue people and the other uses brownshirt tactics to silence people from speaking on public property. Beyond dumb

[Not a True MJG]

Is one supposed to be obviously worse than the other?

[WakaWaka]

I tend to view someone who is pursuing legal action in a court of law where a case to be argued as better than one taking to the streets to pummel political opponents. Rule of law and all.

Otherwise, it is hard to argue that accusing someone of a crime is any better than meting out vigilante justice

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

So Hitler's Enabling Acts were better than a bar fight? Ok then.

[WakaWaka]

^ This is a good example of a false equivalency. Robbie is talking about Trump's lawsuits and this guy just compared it to Hitler's Enabling Acts.

"That distinction belongs to President Donald Trump, who was abusing the law for the purposes of attacking his critics even before he became the most powerful person in the world."

Yes, civil cases in court are just like Hitler's Enabling Acts.

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

You know what I meant, numbskull. If Hitler's Enabling Act are too triggering, how about John Howard Ferguson?

[WakaWaka]

No, I don't know what you meant, because it was moronic. Why not argue the topic at hand, rather than yelling 'Hitler'

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

I wasn't yelling. And I did bring up a point showing that your standard is foolish, which you failed to address.

[WakaWaka]

You didn't really make a point. If you are talking about legislation he's proposed about libel law (which is not what Robbie mentioned), yes of course that's bad. The likelihood of that being voted on in Congress or passing is as likely as you being killed in a terrorist attack carried out by a refugee. We don't declare an unlikely occurrence as the 'greatest threat' while a literal threat is currently occurring.

And yes your Hitler analogy had the logic of an eighth grader

[DenverJ]

Also, the most powerful man in the world is either Bruce Banner, Dr. Strange, or possibly Vladimir Putin.

[Not a True MJG]

"I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy about."

[WakaWaka]

I'm not defending his libel lawsuits. I'm saying they are not as dangerous as Maoist tactics currently occurring.

Why?

Because in a court of law you are allowed a defense and counter suits.

What is your recourse to brownshirt tactics? More violence, of course

[Not a True MJG]

I'll take a punch to the face over years of bullshit litigation.

I'm not saying one is "more dangerous" than the other. I'm saying they are both very potent tools at oppressing others, and one is not nicer or more civilized because it is done through legal channels.

[WakaWaka]

I obviously don't agree, but I do see your point.

Out of curiosity, what was your general opinion on the Gawker lawsuit. Not necessarily pertaining to this, but your general opinion

[chemjeff]

Why don't you agree?

What is the *principled* difference between the brownshirt thug beating up people trying to silence them, and the slick lawyer going to court, or the slick politician voting in the legislature, trying to use the violence of the state to try to silence them?

Oh oh wait I know: The brownshirts are TEAM BLUE therefore EEEVVIILL

[WakaWaka]

Why don't you read my rationale up above

[chemjeff]

You are just arguing over tactics.

On a principled level, there is no real difference. Both want to initiate violence in order to shut people up. It's just that in the case of lawyers and politicians, they want to outsource that violence.

[WakaWaka]

Quite an asinine point. How about this: when the bill to losen libel laws comes (which will never happen) I'll get upset. In the meantime, people are literally ising violence to silence speech on public lands.

Excuse me for getting more concerned over what is occurring over a hypothetical

[MarkLastname]

I dunno, have you ever read The Trial? Makes a compelling argument that legitimate processes can be manipulated into torturous farces.

[Not a True MJG]

General opinion was overwhelming schadenfreude. I didn't know enough about the legal merits to say if the decision was right, but it did not strike me as a frivolous suit. Quite the opposite; it looked like exactly the kind of question (freedom to publish information vs reasonable expectation of privacy) that should be figured out through civil suits and jurisprudence.

[Calidissident]

I think that's too simplistic a standard. While on the one hand it's easier to universally condemn vigilante "justice" than legal maneuverings, I would argue that in most cases attempts to legally undermine protections of civil liberties has far more potential to do harm at a societal level than occasional street violence. The Enabling Act is an extreme example of that, but that doesn't mean it has to be that bad for the point to stand.

[WakaWaka]

Ok, do you fear Citizens United being overturned by the legislator? No? Why? Because Democrats are out of power and it's unlikely to be voted on. Now what is the likelihood of Trump's libel law change being voted and passed? Less likely than a vote on Citizens United.

But, Citizens United was voted on by Democrats and it failed. Yet, I don't recall Robbie saying President Obama was a great threat to the First Amendment.

You can figure out why that is

[chemjeff]

So you get called on your argument, and your defense is more Obama whataboutism? Figures

[WakaWaka]

Perhaps you have trouble reading, because that wasn't the crux of the argument.

But, thanks for the comment

[Calidissident]

Citizens United was a court decision, nobody voted on it other than the justices. What?

No I don't fear Citizens United being overturned at the moment, but it could be in the future. Supreme Court decisions generally don't get overturned right away and they can't be overridden by the legislature without an amendment, but beyond that the Democrats haven't had anywhere near enough power to even make it feasible since 2010.

Again, I wasn't even talking about the libel laws. I'm talking about stuff like going after Wikileaks and journalists, etc. many of which were happening before Trump. I don't recall Robbie ever making Obama out to be a champion of the First Amendment (at most I think he may have referenced that even he criticized the anti-speech college kids) and I'm pretty certain he never argued that random conservative groups were more of a threat to any kind of liberty than Obama was, but I don't really care. My point isn't about Robby himself, it's about whether the government or idiotic college kids are the greater threat to free speech at the moment.

[Calidissident]

And honestly, the "What about Obama?" comments are getting just as old as the "But Bush!!" refrain from the left circa 2009.

[chemjeff]

But Cali, you have to understand. Obama was a Marxist Muslim Kenyan Traitor you see.

[WakaWaka]

Did you read the comment? Obviously, no, because that wasn't the argument.

[chemjeff]

In partial fairness to John/WakaWaka, there was actually a vote in the Senate on a constitutional amendment to overturn CU, which failed of course. So yes censorship of political speech could occur by a vote in Congress + votes in state legislatures.

But he's wrong in his implicit assumption that Republicans in Congress are some principled defenders of free speech and we can rest easy now that they are in charge.

[WakaWaka]

Apparently, you were not aware that the Democrats in Congress voted on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. She should learn what your discussing rather than talking out of your ass

[chemjeff]

The *mentality* of the censor is the same, even if the means are different.

You are arguing over which censor is worse. How pointless. Here is a clue: They are BOTH deserving of condemnation because they both have the censor's mentality even if their means of censorship are different.

And yes I think the politician who tries to use the power of the state to make this or that kind of censorship legal, whether it be "expanded libel" or whether it be campaign finance "reform", is more dangerous overall to the cause of liberty than the occasional thug who beats people up.

[WakaWaka]

So, allowing the government to censor political speech (the issue in Citizens United) is just as bad as the unlikely attempt to expand libel law?

That's beyond moronic, but considering the writer, that may be the most cohesive statement you've ever made

[chemjeff]

Hi John! I wondered what had happened to you.

And they're both pretty damn bad. And unlike you I am willing to declare an idea to be bad regardless of whether it emanates from Team Red or Team Blue. And BOTH the attempt to allow the government to censor political speech AND the attempt to allow judges to censor critics of public figures are worse OVERALL for the cause of liberty than the occasional thug who beats up people trying to silence them. For in the latter case, such censorship is illegal that all recognize, even the thug; but in the former case, it is an attempt to legalize and legitimize the censorship for all to partake in without disapproval.

Who is worse overall: the cat burglar who robs a few houses, or the politician who legalizes theft in the name of the state? The carjacker, or the lawyer who argues for case law making certain car thefts legal?

[chemjeff]

Hi John! How have you been?

Yes it is worse to to try to legalize censorship, than the occasional act of censorship that all understand to be illegal.

[WakaWaka]

You are mentally deranged. And not in the good Frank Zappa sort of way, more like the guy raving under an overpass kind of way

[chemjeff]

Whatever you say, John

[Zeb]

On the other hand, one has the power of the federal government behind him and the others are some shit head kids throwing tantrums.

I'm not going to pick one worst. They are bad for different enough reasons that the comparison is difficult. Though I do think that certain Reaons writers are probably overstating Trump's threat to free speech.

I think the worst threats to free expression are the people who calmly talk about "hate speech isn't free speech" and the people who think that Citizens United was a bad decision that needs to be fixed. Those are the people who will be taken seriously by the most people and actually seem to want to weaken the first amendment.

[WakaWaka]

Well, if we are talking about Trump's threat to expand libel laws (I thought the issue was his previous frivolous litigation) then surely that is bad. But, as you noted, such a threat is highly unlikely to ever materialize. No vote has even been taken in Congress and is unlikely to ever occur.

We should remember that these kids are silencing people with force on public land.

I agree that the 'hate speech' and Citizens United crowd are more dangerous. And I'm sure you would find a big overlap between this crowd and these Maoists on college campuses

[Calidissident]

I'll tend to always side with the government being the biggest threat to the First Amendment, regardless of who is in power. The college crowds are certainly a threat to free speech on college campuses and if they held all the power in society a whole lot more, but they don't. Trump has the executive branch behind him and his party controls the legislature. I'm not even talking about the libel laws, that's far from the only area the government is a threat to free speech, and that was true well before Trump took office. Obama may have criticized the excesses of the campus radicals, but his administration did more to harm free speech than they ever could.

I suppose there's also a semantic argument about free speech vs. the First Amendment. The campus crowd is certainly a threat to the principle of free speech, but they're not going to change laws or legal jurisprudence. But overall, if the laws aren't followed it doesn't really matter what they say or how they are officially interpreted.

[WakaWaka]

What section of the First Amendment do Democrats support anymore?

Off topic

[Calidissident]

Consistently? Not much. Generally speaking, they'll support things like freedom of speech, religion, and press in some instances, but mostly only when it aligns with their preferences. I do see actual consistent liberals from time to time in Internet arguments.

Honestly, I don't think the base of either party is particularly interested in consistency on these issues. At a party level, Dems have run campaigns on some of their anti-speech positions (such as overturning CU) because it plays well with a lot of people while the Republicans tend to push their anti-speech positions more quietly, often in the name of national security. Beyond that, a segment of the left-wing base is extremely intolerant of opposing views and thinks they're preventing fascism by preventing opponents from speaking, so that's more prominent in society than the opposite.

Reading a lot of conservative websites that aren't catered to the intellectuals of the movement, I see a lot of support for anti-speech positions like shutting up anti-American leftists and Muslims, in the more extreme places even support for "physical removal" but to the right's credit there's much less organized violence by random groups of citizens. You do get the occasional nutjob killing people, but there aren't groups of them going around trying to prevent left-wingers from speaking.

[chemjeff]

I agree. If you go to many of the non-establishment right-of-center websites, you'll see as a common sentiment there, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander". Meaning, that if the left is going to try to shut them up, then they will attempt to do so in return. I think a lot of them LIKED Trump because he was willing to try to use the courts to go after the media, which, they, like Sean Spicer, believe is the "enemy of the people".

[Rufus The Monocled]

I agree.

Robby is in full relativist mode.

[chemjeff]

I know, right? Why doesn't Robby just shut up? By not engaging in self-censorship, Robby is just providing ammunition to the pro-censorship left. How dare he!

[colorblindkid]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but didn't Flynn get fired largely for eventually being right about al Qaeda not being defeated, as Obama claimed, and opposing Obama's downplaying of the threat of ISIS?

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

No.

[WakaWaka]

No, 'yes' or Yes, 'no'?

[Not a True MJG]

No, you won't forgive him?

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

A WaPo article on his forcing out, before he became a political football.

Who knows the truth, but he has been known to rub many the wrong way, which he continued to do at DIA.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Soccer coach stabs her doctor father to death 'while re-enacting scene from The Mummy Returns'

'I thought he had to die,' she said. 'I got played by Hollywood. In a movie, someone who can't love someone else, they stab their father.'

When asked what movie that was, she said 'The Mummy Returns'.

It's unclear what plot point Christina was inspired by. In the original movie, The Mummy, an Egyptian pharaoh is stabbed to death by his concubine after he discovers she was having an affair with his priest.

I mean, Brendan Fraser is awesome, so I still would.

[Mickey Rat]

Trying to suss out logic from the rationalations of the criminally insane.

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Are People Who Defend Free Speech More Racist Than Those Who Do Not?

The ongoing debate about this stuff is as noisy as it is slippery. And it's given rise to a situation in which hardly anyone seems to be making principled arguments about these very important subjects ? rather, "free speech!" and its punny homophone "freeze peach!" are endlessly tossed around on an ad hoc basis in response to the latest outrage, or outrage at someone else's outrage.

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

I can't even, Crusty. Is this where we are headed?

[Crusty Juggler aka "Chad"]

Things are really bad in Venezuela. Why? Who knows. Totaly mystery.

Uhhhh, the answer is capitalism, smart guy.

[Chipper Mourning Somali Roadz]

I guess no Lena news today.

[Kicks pebble]

[SIV]

The alt-right, of course, is no better behaved. Pro-Trump white nationalists recently held a rally near Berkeley; when anti-fascist demonstrators appeared, some of the alt-right members actually attacked them.

Here Robby is using Nick Gillespie's trick of linking to something that in no way supports his claim. Even the commies at Mother Jones insert this disclaimer:

There is no evidence to corroborate her account or the alt-right's.

right after they use her account to establish that she was anti-fa, came to fight, advanced to the front line of an ongoing fight, armed herself with a bottle standing alongside comrades launching gas/irritant grenades/projectiles at the alt-right.

The "attack" referenced in the article isn't the violence, it is the insults hatemail, memes and "threats" that came after the cunt's riot video-infamy.

So what Soave is actually saying here, assuming he read his own fucking link, is that frog memes are no better than violent physical assault and the destruction of public and private property.

[DRM]

Even if we assume the alt-right actually used physical violence first, there's still not an actual equivalency here. If people with a history of engaging in anti-speech violence show up carrying weapons to "counter-demonstrate", there's reasonable grounds to fear imminent attack, and you don't have to let someone with a weapon strike first for it to be self-defense.

[SIV]

Yes

My point though is Comrade Soave's "equivalency" linked to an article where the attack-in-question was words. So he's either part of the speech IS violence crowd, or he was too lazy to read his own damn hyperlink. My money's on "both".

[JFree]

The cartoonist who created Pepe the frog killed it off yesterday.

http://www.mattfurie.com
http://mattfurie.tumblr.com

Shame that the asswipes of the assright had to steal someone else's creation and turn it into a racist shit symbol. I never realized where that cartoon came from until yesterday. But it makes me hope that really ugly things happen to the alt-right shits.

[Number 2]

Shame on you, Robbie. You stereotypically assume that a 14th century French fearless girl cannot be a slaveowning white male. Shame on you for being such a bigot.

[chemjeff]

With or without a penis?

[Jerryskids]

Mythology is necessary to blunt the violent nature of state power in order to maximize the plunder of property ? and, most importantly, provide an aura of legitimacy. The perception of legitimacy "is the only thing distinguishing a tax collector from an extortionist, a police officer from a vigilante, and a soldier from a mercenary. Legitimacy is an illusion in the mind without which the government does not even exist."

[Agile Cyborg]

A thousand tongues broke through their basements
and foreheads broke out with skateboards and corners
flecked with awkward penny candy where
time got flustered and pennies
decided that time is flustered in
the time of Maria's and Fountains lost on
weakened brains cast from scholars so
empty of beauty

[Agile Cyborg]

IF one thousand old dimes marching down the roads
of straights created on Perky Harvard Boulevards
get to smash a super Shiba winging about the place
...no one told these motherfuckers my goddamn furry
space alien dog is not going to get his dick sucked by
communists and/or socialists from Cornell

[Ken Shultz]

"President Trump was apparently warned by the Obama administration not to hire Michael Flynn."

Who believes anything Barack Obama says?

Anybody who's ever done anything because of something Barack Obama said is an idiot.

[Agile Cyborg]

the old Cato scowl once rooted the genius of so fucking old
Ludwig Von Mises a Superman of mind and country
Not a single voice echoes in these halls so adept and agile
...
always keep in mind once Mises DID state that immigration can change
a country but in economics sensibility immigrants are
bologna sandwiches for neighborhood people....

But no one eats bologna sandwiches unless they are retarded...

[Agile Cyborg]

bologna in today's world of science means that your fucking
dumb mouth ingests alley cats and screw presses of entrepreneurs meat
jerking stacks of dead old tar babies called hogs mashed into
neon lights between buns.

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[Agile Cyborg]

Obama once ate a white bread dream of electronically smashed in the head sweet cow
and he also poured sunshine on the dead once robust thing
while serving his progressive every day world unto his soldiers
Obama once ate a horrible fucking diet of killed creatures..
Obama once ate shit dead and mangled....between the buns of his wife....

[witavakad]

??????O My last month paycheck was for 11000 dollars... All i did was simple online work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day that I got from this agency I discovered over the internet and they paid me for it 95 bucks every hour... This is what I do. ..??????? ?????____BIG.....EARN....MONEY..___???????-