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FEC Democrats vote to punish Republican for a political joke

Fascists: Two Democrats on the Federal Election Commission have voted to punish a Republican presidential candidate for cracking a joke.

Over mocking objections from their own staff, two top Democrats on the politically divided Federal Election Commission voted to investigate one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for joking that he hoped supporters would shower him with million dollar contributions.

In the latest display of FEC Democratic efforts to regulate speech and target Republicans, Commissioners Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub backed a complaint against Huckabee, who made the joke during his May 2015 presidential candidacy announcement.

The vote failed, because all three Republicans and one Democrat on the commission voted to dismiss the complaint. However, the vote does tell us that two-thirds of the Democrats on this government panel — designed to regulate federal elections — believe it is proper to regulate the actual words of candidates.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

22 comments

  • Cotour

    Here’s another practical joke to think about:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

    I had heard this being seriously discussed by some leftist / socialist genius a while ago and I just now heard people discussing it on the Larry Kudlow show, not so seriously, but discussing it with the future in mind. Instead of thinking about ways to dis-incentivize the culture of dependency they now aspire to grow it and make it a universally permanent right upon being born!

    The culture of dependency is almost complete! When the government, any government, can design a system like this they are creating the ultimate parasite sucking the life force from the productive and redirecting it to the ever dependent and ever growing Nancy Pelosi, “you can not see it until you pass it” kind of life.

    (Is this the pre Star Trek social experiment that after being proved to be soooo successful that it lead to the warp drive, Lithium crystals, the transproter and the exploration of the universe? That’s another joke. There are jokes flying all over the place.)

    Yet another reason to not allow either Sanders or Clinton to become the president.

  • Edward

    Cotour wrote: “Yet another reason to not allow either Sanders or Clinton to become the president.”

    Since Trump’s ends are the same as Sanders’ and Clinton’s — it is his means that differ — it is yet another reason to not allow Trump to become president, either.

  • Cotour

    Then who shall become president in 2016?

    Notice I did not mention Trump.

    Who shall it be Edward? Please reveal here and now your plan for the presidency. What will you do, not what you will not do.

  • Edward

    Cotour,
    As I mentioned before, there are others who are running. Check them out and choose for yourself. This is how the US election system works. This was in your civics textbook in grade school — or should have been.

    I have already explained on multiple occasions what I will do. You do not pay attention. Perhaps because I do not say what you want to hear, what pleases you, but the attitude of hearing only what you want to hear (and disregarding the rest) has made you vulnerable to Trump’s tactics and strategy. On each topic, Trump says something that you want to hear, but you disregard all the contradictory things that he also says.

    As I have also said previously, you have more resources than you are willing to admit. You keep saying that you are working with what you have, but you only admit to having Clinton, Sanders, and Trump.

    You have fallen into a trap, and you need to get out in order to help save the United States from liberal Democrats like Trump.

  • Cotour

    Condescension and sarcasm is new for you, I did not think you had it in you. (no sweat)

    I am asking you to please guide me to a reasonable alternative, who in your opinion has a chance of actually winning other than the three candidates leading in either the Democrat or Republican party at the moment? Lets not be so mysterious and withholding.

    If you (or anyone else) can not offer me and everyone else who is reading this exchange, because we really have to know, a reasonable alternative then I will have to continue on the road that I am currently on.

  • Cotour

    Follow up on the guaranteed income for drawing breath, Swiss style :

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-pay-idUSBRE9930O620131004

  • Wayne

    “Fallacies of the Negative Income Tax”
    https://mises.org/library/fallacies-negative-income-tax
    (Henry Hazlitt)

  • Cotour

    Apparently the Swiss and the people who promote such crap have not heard of or read your sited work. This is not rocket science, more like alchemy.

  • Edward

    Oh, dear, Cotour. I thought I had used sarcasm several times, in other posts, in the past. Perhaps I need to start giving sarcasm alerts, too.

    As for telling you who to vote for, that is not how democracies are supposed to work. My point has been if you vote for Trump, you will not get what you hope to get, so you should consider voting for someone who will give you what you hope for (I am sure that I have said so on several occasions). If you vote for Trump, you will get what you deserve rather than what you want.

    There is no mystery here, unless you do not know how to seek candidates who match your values. These are the resources that you are unwilling to admit to having, and once again you refuse to acknowledge them. Once again, you have only heard what you wanted to hear and have disregarded the rest.

    On the other hand, not knowing that you should seek alternate candidates may be why you favor Trump in the first place — you have disregarded the rest. Therefore, check out the candidates running on the Libertarian and American Freedom tickets. You have to wait for the general election to actually vote for them, but right now you can get a flavor for which party’s candidate you may go for over Tyrant Trump — whom you already think is unelectable.

    Perhaps you have not looked into these candidates because of prejudiced opinions that you have of these parties (you have complained in the past that some people commenting on this site sound like Libertarians, so you apparently think that is a bad thing). You may also have prejudiced opinions that anyone who is on the Republican ticket must be an actual Republican rather than a liberal Democrat fooling voters into voting for him, as Bloomberg did in NYC.

    As I have said before, it is not about winning. If it were, then selling out your values in order to be on the winning side should have informed all of us to vote for Obama. Twice.

    Indeed, it seems that we get Obamas, Clintons, Sanderses, and Trumps *because* people sell out their values in order to be on the winning side. Otherwise you (and many others) would have voted for Cruz, and we would have had the reasonable alternative that you didn’t vote for in the first place. [Sarcasm alert! for the previous sentence. Rationale for sarcasm: If you had *wanted* the reasonable alternative, you would have taken it when it was offered during your primary. I do not actually believe that I can convince you to choose an alternative, reasonable or not — you are too emotionally committed to Trump, and to abandon him after all the arguments we have had would embarrass you. But wouldn’t it be nice if I did convince you?]

    The road you are currently on is counterproductive.

  • Cotour

    1st. I do not hope, I demand!

    2nd. This sentence “As I have said before, it is not about winning.” is incorrect, its all about winning and then, again, demanding / forcing what needs to be forced should it need to be forced.

    3rd. While I certainly like and respect you (no sarcasm) your idealistic naivete on this subject of acquiring power and manipulating it in order to achieve what must be achieved in the interests of our country worries me. There are no political, idealistic white knights that comfortably parallel your ideals. They do not exist.

    4th. Your inability to name a name and describe how they actually get to the election and actually win is again concerning to me because it demonstrates that IMO you are again naive and idealistic about our political system. If you can not provide the name and the path then what you are saying is entierly worthless and hollow and is of consequence only to you (it makes you feel warm, fuzzy and Righteous? This is murder ball!). There IMO are few reasonable people reading this that agrees with you. Provide the person, the party and the path to success. If you can not then you must reassess your position.

    While you play checkers your opponents are playing three level chess, and kicking your ass.

  • Garry

    Cotour wrote, “1st. I do not hope, I demand!”

    Unfortunately, power is so concentrated in politicians these days (and Trump, regardless of how late he started, is now as much a politician as anyone), that the only significant power we citizens have is our vote.

    When my kids were toddlers they often made many loud demands, and when we voters demand things, to politicians’ ears we often come off as shrill and weak as my kids did back in the day.

    Which makes our votes, be they in primaries or actual elections, the only powerful tool we have these days.

  • Cotour

    Garry:

    The term “hope” as you so wisely point out are the ruminations of children, our votes and the feedback that they represent with the addition of real time feedback on specific issues are the actions of adults exercising their rights directed at those who would aspire to govern.

    Trump has now transmuted himself into a candidate / politician who is yet to be empowered by the people, and if and when he is empowered by the people he will become the natural enemy of your rights and freedoms, who you must find a way to reasonably deal with. Upon his empowerment he joins a special club, and no one who is a member of that club is to be trusted.

    Upon empowerment the only pressure that can be exerted upon them is through the many means that are provided in our system, I suggest that we all forcefully use those means to direct all empowered politicians when they need our guidance.

  • Garry

    Cotour wrote, “Garry:

    The term ‘hope’ as you so wisely point out are the ruminations of children,”

    I wrote no such thing, although that would be a fair interpretation of what I wrote about the term “demand” in this context.

    Just what are the “means to direct all empowered politicians when they need our guidance,” beyond voting them out, that the politicians would be likely to pay attention to? I’m all for protests, and will participate in some of them when warranted, but with the full knowledge that they will probably not have any influence on empowered politicians.

  • Cotour

    After the people have empowered an individual that individual remains empowered until such time that they legally surrender that power. Understanding that there are risks to empowering anyone in such a manner.

    The means of giving feed back in order to influence who has become empowered? Email, letters, phone calls, protesting, video, news papers, TV and in the end their removal from office using the proscribed methods when necessary.

    “power is so concentrated in politicians these days ”

    Our system has always fully empowered our elected officials, that’s why they are so dangerous related to the peoples freedoms and rights, that’s why every person empowered MUST rise above their basic human motivations and become more than they are and not less.

    They all have great potential upon being empowered, how many are strong enough to lead with the wisdom and vision to keep America America? We know the answer to that question for past occupants of the presidency, it remains to be seen if whom ever is the next occupant of the White House can rise above their own limitations.

    Who will that next person be given the choices being offered?

  • Edward

    Cotour,
    You demand that Trump does as you hope? You might as well demand that Clinton or Obama do as you hope. You keep trying to suggest that your actions are based upon the reality of the situation, but here you are living in fantasy land (except that Snow White’s Scary Adventure isn’t scary and that Captain Hook and the crocodile are friendly.

    In fact, since you believe that it is all about winning (although, winning what is a mystery), then you might as well vote for the likely winner, Clinton, and demand that she do as you hope. You are just as likely to get your way with her as with Trump.

    Really, Cotour, you don’t seem to be thinking through this election. You strategy is to vote-in a liberal Democrat and then change him later (don’t many marriages based upon that strategy end in divorce?). That is an excellent way of suffering from disappointed expectations. And it didn’t work with Obama, either. Instead of the Democrats changing him, he changed the Democrats into quickening their pace into tyranny (I know, you don’t like that word, because you can’t imagine that it could ever apply in the good old USA, but these aren’t the good old days but the evil new progressive days of tyranny, where the government demands under pain of punishment that you spend your own hard-earned money as *they* see fit, not as you do).

    Who is being naive? How do you propose to change the leopard’s spots after you have given him a mandate to do as he pleases? This is what politicians actually think: if you vote for them, you must have liked the policies that they want to implement. After he is in office, it is much, much harder to convince a politician that he is wrong — because you told him that you think he is right when you voted for him. It is far, far better to elect the right politician than to work your fracking butt off trying to change the wrong politician. It isn’t as though you are some political White Knight who can save the day, after the election is over, by demanding the winner go against type. You have to know that, otherwise you are the naive one in this conversation.

    You complain that the candidate that I will vote for cannot win the election, yet you insist that I vote for your candidate specifically because you believe he cannot win the election. What’s up with that? You seem to be the one who thinks he is in a game of checkers, where if you can get your guy to the right place his powers and policies magically change to what you want them to be.

    You assume that my refusal to tell you how to vote is an inability to name names. Unfortunately, you are projecting your insistence on telling others how to vote onto me. As I repeatedly say, I think you should vote as you wish, but I want you to understand that you will be disappointed with your choice. In *my* philosophy of free elections, I do not insist that someone else vote the same way that I do. Others, such as you, Cotour, are free to vote as you please. I only point out that you very obviously refuse to consider the other alternatives that are offered to you, and you insist that there are only three candidates in the race, all of whom are the worst choices. My point is that you should expand your horizons and come to grips with the fact that there are other candidates who think more like you do, who do not need to be reeducated/retrained/respotted later.

    You wrote: “The term ‘hope’ as you so wisely point out are the ruminations of children …”

    You, Cotour, are the one who used the term “hope” in an earlier thread. You said that we should elect Trump and hope that he does as we wish rather than as he said he would do.

    You wrote: “Who will that next person be given the choices being offered?”

    Once again, you make my point that you reject all but three of the resources that you have at hand, and these three just happen to be, as you admitted, the worst choices. Go ahead and elect Clinton by voting for Trump, since that is your choice, but remember that it was your choice to ignore the candidates who think more like you do (unless you actually think like a liberal Democrat). I gave you the names of two alternate parties that are non-liberal, non-progressive, and pro-liberty. I mentioned that they have not yet chosen their nominees for the general election.

    You don’t hear what others are saying to you.

  • Cotour

    I am re-posting this from another thread, this boils it all down for me, Hillary Clinton must not become the next president of the United States. Since you are unable to offer no other pathway for anyone else then I and many others will be on this path. Should this situation change in the future in a way that I think significant I will reconsider.

    Related:

    Read below and understand the extreme connection between Hillary Clinton, Goldman Sachs and the internationalist / Bilderberg movement that threatens America’s sovereignty and the American Constitution.

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bilderberg-2016-we-can-expect-desperate-lobbying-against-brexit-big-business-1563898

    Now read how deep the connection (read claws of power) are buried deep into Hillary’s soul through Goldman Sachs. This has been carefully engineered by Goldman and its CEO and Hillary and Bill are both very much on board with the agenda, bought and paid for.

    “Goldman Sachs has two senior representatives on Bilderberg’s steering committee: James A. Johnson, a board member of the bank, and Robert Zoellick, the chairman of Goldman Sachs’ board of international advisors. We know from Charity Commission accounts that Goldman Sachs, along with BP, is one of the key funders of the group, and we also know that they’ve been pumping “a substantial six-figure sum” into the Remain campaign. And Goldman Sachs doesn’t spend money lightly. The Remain campaign is clearly close to whatever they have instead of a heart.”

    From another article: ” The decision for Blankfein to invest in Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law’s company is just one of many ways Goldman Sachs has used its wealth to forge a tight bond with the Clinton family. The company paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 in personal speaking fees, paid Bill Clinton $1,550,000 in personal speaking fees, and donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. At a time when Goldman Sachs directly lobbied Hillary Clinton’s State Department, the company routinely partnered with the Clinton Foundation for events, even convening a donor meeting for the foundation at the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan.”

    Understand where America is going unless we all work together to stop it together in this next election.

  • Wayne

    Edward:
    Good stuff.

    As for the FEC, I believe (?) we have a similar situation over at the Federal Communications Commission. A bare minimum of Republican Commissar’s & at least 1 is a RINO.
    > The same people that determined your cable/internet wire is subject to common-carriage rules & in their ideal world, regulated as a utility.

  • Edward

    Cotour,
    I have more reasons to not vote for Clinton than that she likes one company. BTW: Trump likes more than one company, as he has major ownership in them, not just “a tight bond.” So, if this were really your reasoning for not voting for Clinton, then you would not vote for Trump, either.

    I *have* offered other pathways, but you refuse to acknowledge them. You hear what you want to hear (e.g. “yay Trump, boo Clinton”) and disregard the rest.

  • Cotour

    Your minimizing Clinton “liking” one company and Trump “liking” more than one company is overly simplistic, overly simplistic to the point of being ridiculous as my documentation of Goldman’s activities demonstrates. That one company has paid very big money to several key people in her immediate family over a long period of time. If you do not think that the internationalist agenda (Bilderberg) of diminishing Americas sovereignty and our Constitution is not of consequence then we really are on very different pages.

    Do you really think that Goldman is just “A” company ?

    If you have stated the name of some other candidate that is currently running or might be running that has a realistic path to the presidency and winning in this cycle then I apologize I must have missed it, please state it again in one or two sentences for myself and others to consider.

  • Edward

    Do you really think that Trump has no feelings whatsoever for the companies he started and runs? Cotour, you are exhausting. You have one set of rules for those you prefer and a different set for anyone you aren’t already set on. Go on and elect Clinton via your vote for the unelectable Trump. As I said before — and you won’t hear this time, either — You will get the tyranny that you deserve. It is just too bad that you drag the rest of us along with you.

  • Cotour

    Read and understand what the bigger picture actually is:

    http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2016-to-talk-trump-riots-migrants-brexit/

    “The attendance of anti-Trump Senator Lindsey Graham is an obvious sign that Bilderberg will be scheming on how to prevent Trump from defeating Bilderberg’s chosen candidate – Hillary Clinton.”

    Maybe you should attend the FOREIGN meeting where they are attempting to decide who OUR president will be.

    Do I think that Trumps “feelings” for his American company’s that he personally built and Hillary’s being bought and paid for because she is projected to be the next president by foreign interests as well as the lead actor, Goldman Sachs, are different?

    YES I DO, AND SO SHOULD YOU!

    I welcome any other comments from others on this subject.

  • Edward

    Of course the feelings are different. Trump is more emotionally committed to the companies that he built. Duh. This “so should you” statement was my point, before. Your point is that Trump’s conflict of interest is less than Clinton’s, but Clinton has far less emotional commitment to some financial company than the builder of a company has to his. Again, duh. Indeed, Trump would have the government unconstitutionally and tyrannically steal property from people in order for him to profit from it.

    As for the bigger picture, I have been telling you the bigger picture all along (but you haven’t noticed; can you hear me now? I didn’t think so.): Trump is the same kind of tyrant as Clinton. He just has a different way of going about it. That picture is much larger than the strategy for getting someone elected.

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