Kellyanne

I think Kellyanne is a great gal so I was pleased to see the backgrounder on her below.  It does take various potshots at her but brings out a lot of facts too.  And the fascinating thing about the article is that it completely misses out something essential to her:  She is a happy person.  She is having a ball. That is a large part of her being conservative.  Conservatives don't have the fires of anger burning inside them that Leftists do so they can go through life in good cheer.  But to expect a mainstream journalist to even notice that is a big ask, of course

If you do a Google image search on her name you will find heaps of photos of her in a happy mood but the two photos I like best are below. The first one below is from a post election debate with Hillary's campaign manager and the second is at the time of the inauguration.





And even the famous sofa picture shows her as completely relaxed and smiling despite the grand occasion




The career pollster and Donald Trump’s self-described right-hand “man” is front and centre on the biggest stage in professional politics. It’s good and it’s bad. It presents a dilemma.

On the one hand she is an example for young girls; a champion for woman proving it is indeed possible to succeed in a world dominated by men.

On the other hand she is a mouthpiece for a man whose track record on women — “grab her by the p***y”, anyone — speaks for itself.

She has been upfront and outspoken, but not always honest. She pushed the notion of “alternative facts”, claimed microwaves were spying on people and created the Bowling Green Massacre — an event that did not take place — to prove a point about how the media treated Barack Obama one way and Donald Trump another.

It’s a style that’s got her to where she is today. But it’s a style political experts say could be her undoing.

For now, the child of divorced parents, raised by her mother in Atco, New Jersey, appears immune from any real consequences of her slip-ups, intended or otherwise. Part of that is because people are “rooting for her” to succeed.

“She seems to have come up from the bottom and she’s a woman who’s made it ... we want to root for her,” Dr Rolfe said.

“She doesn’t count herself as a feminist, she despises femininity but can still admire a woman who makes it in a man’s world. And she can mix it. She’ll have admirers of her as a scrapper.”

He said she is a help to Mr Trump “for the moment”, but her loyalty to the President could be her downfall.

“She’s always on the defensive for Trump and he’ll love that. It suits his style and his intense focus on loyalty. We’re seeing that with his practices at present and Conway fits in that style as well. But in his way of not backing down, (Conway) may deplete her public credibility for him.”

CNN made strong moves to deny her airtime, citing issues with credibility in February. On Twitter, the network wrote: “CNN is clear, on the record, about our concerns about Kellyanne Conway’s credibility ... We have not ‘retracted’ nor ‘walked back’ those comments. Those are the facts.”

Then, just like that, she was back on CNN for a heated one-on-one interview with chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper. For all her questionable traits, there’s no disputing she is resilient.

Ms Conway’s path to the White House is one she made on her own. She never asked for handouts or favours. She has always been talented and always come first.

For eight summers growing up, Kellyanne Elizabeth Fitzpatrick packed blueberries at a farm not far from the family home. The Atlantic reports that she drew onlookers “with her remarkable, automaton-esque speed and ability to work for long stretches without a break”.

In 1983, aged 16, she won the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant. Four years later, she won the World Champion Blueberry Packing competition, NJ.com reported.

“Everything I learned about life and business started on that farm,” she said.

She was first in her class at the Catholic school she attended, too. Her mother told The Atlantic reporter Molly Ball that “I always told her ‘you have to do your best’ ... but she had to be the best.”

She studied at Trinity College in Washington DC and at George Washington University. She served as a clerk in the DC Superior Court and founded her own firm, The Polling Company, in 1995. She married a lawyer and stayed in New Jersey, where she lives in a $6 million home in Alpine.

She worked with Congressmen and Senators and in 2016 endorsed Ted Cruz. When Mr Cruz was dropped out of the race for President, Donald Trump pounced. On August 17, 2016, she was named the campaign’s third manager.

Dr Rolfe says Ms Conway and Mr Trump are now inseparable.

“Going back to the 1990s, the spinning that she does is well practised. In that respect she’s been very valuable to Trump, she now seems so essential to him. She is a masterful reader of Trump’s personality and style that you’d think she’d been around him forever.”

She’s been around men like him long enough to know how it works. And she considers herself one of them.

To The New Yorker in October last year, she had this to say: “I’ve been living in a male-dominated business for decades. I found, particularly early on, that there’s plenty of room for passion, but there’s very little room for emotion. I tell people all the time, ‘Don’t be fooled, because I am a man by day’.”

She belongs as much as anyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She should be admired and looked up to for how far she has come. She would be easier to root for without the spin, but the truth is a fluid concept when you’re speaking for Donald Trump.

SOURCE

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No court challenge?



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Political Labels Aren't Always What They Seem

We all know people who describe themselves as centrists, yet their ideals skew toward one end of the political spectrum. Or maybe your left-wing family member is a pro-life Catholic and your right-wing acquaintance promotes expanded entitlement programs. While not all-inclusive, most people fall into one of two categories: Republican/conservative or Democrat/liberal. But you’re right if you think this delineation doesn’t always put you at odds with a superficial political rival.

The Washington Post dissects this phenomenon. Using two studies as a foundation, the Post found, “Political identity does not mean the same thing from place to place.” It continues: “Not surprisingly, people who call themselves ‘conservatives’ tend to have more conservative issue positions. Similarly, self-described liberals tend to have left-leaning views. And moderates tend to be somewhere in the middle. As is well documented, ideology and issue positions are highly correlated. But it turns out that the strength of that relationship depends on where people live.”

Of course, we already, perhaps subconsciously, know this. A hardcore liberal from California or New York is most assuredly on the extreme end of the spectrum when compared to most Mississippi or Louisiana liberals. Yet a Mississippian or Louisianan who considers himself a liberal is probably much more akin than they think to Republicans in California or New York. The Post attributes this to “what we call ‘the political reference point.’ The basic idea is that where we live, and the people around us dictate what’s seen as politically ‘normal.’”

The authors conclude by saying “the complex social geography of the U.S. makes it difficult to accurately reduce Americans' political views down to positions on a scale, or binary labels of ‘liberal’ vs. ‘conservative.’” But maybe that’s the problem. Elitists have been playing this game for a long time. Politics has devolved to the point where friendships and even emotional behaviors are based entirely on how people label themselves. This form of identity politics has done more than anything in recent times to divide the nation over ideological differences — even when those differences are often conceptual. Yes, Americans do have fundamental disagreements. But cynicism doesn’t have to be included, especially when labels aren’t always so clear-cut and often depend on personal environments.

That’s why this statement from Donald Trump’s inaugural speech is so powerful: “It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.” What matters is the truth. And the truth is that we live in a nation afforded unparalleled Liberty. And millions of Americans defied their political labels and voted for Trump because they don’t take it for granted.

SOURCE

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Russians, Hackings and Allegations

The favorite conspiracy narrative peddled by Democrats and their Leftmedia allies after Donald Trump's historic election victory was the baseless theory of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia in order to throw the election to Trump. After months of the intelligence community conducting investigations, no evidence has yet been found to substantiate the Left's claims. And the narrative seems to be quickly dying. On Thursday, Barack Obama's former CIA director, Mike Morell, threw more cold water on the collusion narrative, stating, "There's no little campfire, there's no little candle, there's no spark. And there's a lot of people looking for it." As Trump has been saying, there is simply nothing there.

But there also appears to be little evidence to support Trump's claim last month that Obama "wiretapped" his Trump Tower headquarters during the campaign. This bomb shell announcement was effective in that it brought back to light other instances in which Obama targeted journalists and others for surveillance. It also served to effectively counter the mainstream media's meritless accusation against Trump and his supposed Russian connections. While there seems to be little evidence in support Trump's claim, questions still abound as to whether Obama may have ordered some sort of surveillance of Trump or of his associates. Trump hasn't backed off his accusation.

This week, a much more substantive Russian spying story came to light. Four Russians were arrested and charged for the massive criminal hacking of Yahoo in 2014. Two of the Russians are agents of the FSB — the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, equivalent to our CIA. These agents were part of Center 18, which was a unit that had been working with the FBI in helping to catch cyber criminals. The creation of this cooperative cybersecurity task force was Obama's brain child.

But here's the rub. A report from the Justice Department states, "Instead of working with the FBI and CIA to catch hackers, the FSB officers were actually working with hackers themselves." Isn't that what one would expect spies to do? To put it bluntly, Obama wanted to play nice with Moscow and foolishly invited the foxes into the hen house. This is the real story that should have Americans seriously worried, not some unsubstantiated story of Trump colluding with the Russians.

SOURCE

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