Posse Incitatus

Happy (belated) Birthday, America!

As all normal people should, I took a break from the flickering screen yesterday and enjoyed Family, Faith and Freedom.

After a refreshing session of recreational firepower, it was time to fire up the grill and then set off some fireworks as the evening closed in.  The neighbors complimented us on our display, which was nice.

Seasoned readers have no doubt noticed that I'm not posting as often as I used to, and part of this is that things are getting too stupid for words.

Even the trolls are transparent idiots, on the one hand maintaining Antifa doesn't exist, and on the other claiming that no black businesses have been harmed in widespread rioting.

Given the prevalence of damage (and black-owned enterprises in city cores), this is not only patently false, but insultingly so.

It's on part with a Monty Python sketch in its absurd denial of observable truth.  With such people, discussion is pointless.

This blog has lasted far longer than I thought it would, and it provides a written record of the left's utter degeneration from credible political philosphy to a nakedly illogical movement bent purely on the seizure of absolute political power.

Gun control is a great example of this.  Back in 2004, there was still a serious discussion over whether it was necessary or effective.  This was based on actual evidence, and a particularly telling piece of it was that more and more states allowed concealed pistol licenses and yet the crime rate continued to fall.  Clearly the more guns = more crime theory had been disproven.

Tellingly, this is was the signal to move away from any association with logic and to pure insult and social punishment.  Gun control - like so much of the leftist agenda - became couched in moral terms and those who opposed it were evil.

So it is with Black Lives Matter, whose policies have destroyed lives and livelihoods.  Crime is soaring across the country and it is the black community in particular that is suffering.

The "autonomous zone" in Seattle claimed the lives of two young black men, but no one knows or cares about them, because their deaths don't advance 'the cause.'

Another example:  Remember when George W. Bush was a warmonger?  Remember the peace movement?

Where did it go?  Donald Trump is trying to pull out US forces from pointless and unwinnable wars and yet the Democrats are now demanding that they continue!  It's fascinating to watch the same people who denounced General Petraeus as "General Betray-Us" now quoting him as a wise sage who wants unending death and destruction.

Also disappeared - wrenching stories of civilians killed by US bombs, or the struggles of wounded veterans.  BTW, do those black lives matter - the ones in uniform being wasted in sandpits across Asia?

This is why I've cycled down, because arguing with idiots gets old.  I have not yet closed the comments, but I have blocked trolls and recently deleted a comment that violated our long-standing policy against substituting links for commentary.

If you have something interesting to say, say it, don't spam my comments with your links.

 

Satan's Having a Field Day!

It's been well-known for years that liberals, leftists and progressives tend to be atheists, agnostics, or persons of weak, if any, faith.

Just look at the policies they advocate, and it's easy to tell their respect for natural law and the dignity of life are practically non-existent: Abortion up until birth (with the added atrocities of organ harvesting and profiting from the sale of fetal tissue); a preposterous dogma that there are not two genders, but rather, 50 or 60 (and this coming from the same people who lecture us about "science"); government mandates trampling First Amendment religious rights; and in recent weeks, a shocking contempt and disregard for law enforcement.

Up is down; down is up; left is right; right is left. This Orwellian insanity is laced with a vicious hatred for authorities; the impatience and petulance of a two-year-old, and an anger that cannot be mollified. Hence the tearing down of not just confederate statues and monuments, but even those of abolitionists, Abraham Lincoln and Christopher Columbus.

It's a huge mistake to try to appease these people, because they're never satisfied with incremental progress or compromise. They want it all -- NOW! I'm not normally one to judge a person's spiritual condition, but when it comes to the anarchists plundering our cities, it sure seems like Satan is running the show. Yet there are politicians on both sides of the aisle who are quick to kiss the asses of these vermin. Ditto for many corporations that embarrass themselves with their obsequious behavior toward the raging mobs.

The cesspool of Seattle's CHAZ/CHOP compound, which thankfully was disbanded earlier today, shows what happens when the devil runs wild, nihilism prevails and people have contempt for the concept of a higher power and the accountability that comes with it. Two people were murdered in the past two weeks, and several others have been injured by gunfire. There were rapes, assaults, vile cursing at police and paramedics, rampant drug use, and a general fetid atmosphere (not just the feces, urine, syringes and garbage; also the horrendous demeanor of so many of the losers who occupied this encampment).

The Black Lives Matter Marxists are anti-family, anti-police, and full of distorted propaganda about police brutality. Many of the Antifa and other caucasian feral youth who join in on the marches and riots are spoiled rotten rich kids who need to virtue signal and fulminate in self-righteous rage just to rise above the self-loathing that plagues them deep down inside.

"Defund the police" has been the mantra, and New York City has done just that. Two weeks after the NYPD disbanded its 600-person plainclothes units, the New York City Council voted to cut a whopping $1 billion from the police budget. In the first six months of 2020, homicides in New York are up 21 percent compared with Jan.-June 2019, while shootings are up 46 percent. Those who can flee New York are doing so; the city is unfortunately headed for a dystopian future. This is what happens when gullible voters elect and re-elect a stone cold communist like Bill de Blasio. As the old song says, "When will they ever learn?"

Elsewhere across the nation, many cities are enacting laws prohibiting police officers from using a chokehold to restrain a suspect. This is a move that is rarely used, but in some cases may be necessary if the suspect is much larger and more powerful than the arresting officer. Incredibly, the Virginia Legislature is considering making it a misdemeanor rather than a felony to assault a police officer. And several cities are considering removing the longstanding protection of qualified immunity from police officers. If officers can be sued and risk financial ruin, this is just another reason why fewer and fewer people will want to be police officers.

Reducing funding, emboldening bad guys by changing assault from a felony to a misdemeanor, banning chokeholds, eliminating immunity... All of these steps are tying the hands of police, worsening police morale, and reducing the number of people who will choose law enforcement for a career. So Black Lives Matter thinks it's going to improve the quality of police? No; quite the opposite. The quality of applicants and recruits is guaranteed to go down. And when crime rises, it will be poor blacks who suffer the most. Do THOSE black lives matter?

Many of America's cities are going to become unlivable. It all starts with the gang bangers, anarchists and radical Black Lives Matter thugs, and is perpetuated by kid gloves treatment by the likes of de Blasio and Seattle's idiot Mayor Jenny Durkan (remember her inane "Summer of Love" comment?)

Let's hope voters remember this when Nov. 3 arrives. When it comes to the lunatic progressives and leftists, I'm going to quote scripture from Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Indeed. Who can understand it?

Super-Spreader of Bad News

The corrupt news media is gearing up for the final four months -- the stretch run in trying to take out Donald Trump.

For over three years, the media jackals have been giving 90 percent negative coverage to the Trumpster. Their raw partisanship, frequent inaccuracies, sensationalism, and utter lack of humility are appalling. Let's put it this way: They're quick to quote "anonymous sources" (made up sources and/or hacks with an ax to grind), but highly reluctant to run corrections when they report laughably inaccurate bullshit (which is often).

There's no doubt in my mind that Coronavirus, the lockdown and its economic damage, plus the riots & mayhem following George Floyd's death on May 25, have lifted their spirits considerably. I repeat: These people don't give a rat's ass how many people suffer or die from COVID-19, have their businesses destroyed, are assaulted or raped, or lose their jobs and face financial ruin --- AS LONG AS TRUMP LOSES HIS RE-ELECTION BID. 

So I turn to the question of motive, and how big a factor it is. Let me set this up with an observation on former President Barack Obama and his egregiously misguided foreign policy team. Obama's nuclear deal with Iran involved removing sanctions that had been imposed on the pariah nation, and sending $150 billion in cash to Tehran. So what if we were just releasing Iranian cash that we had been holding onto for decades; the Iranians used that money to fund their terroristic exploits worldwide. The Obama administration definitely had blood on its hands.

The president also agreed to a lax inspection regimen to supposedly monitor Iran's compliance. My question at the time was, are Obama and his people really this naive? Or did he deliberately do it to spite Israel and hurt America in the long run? The latter sounds entirely plausible coming from the Manchurian candidate whose anti-semitism was the world's worst-kept secret.

So that scenario is playing out in my mind as I see repeated overwrought news stories about COVID-19 making a comeback like a raging forest fire. The media gleefully reports on sudden spikes of COVID-19 cases in red states that had less strict lockdowns and re-opened their economies sooner than the rest of the nation.

But context is downplayed or not reported on at all. Of course there will be far more confirmed cases, simply because testing has dramatically increased since the early days of the pandemic. Back in March, under 1 million COVID-19 tests had been performed nationwide. Now, the total is over 32 million, and that figure promises to increase dramatically  in the coming weeks.

Having learned hard lessons about the insanity of sending COVID-19 patients to nursing homes and assisted living facilities, thus jeopardizing the most vulnerable among us, our nation is now doing a much better job of protecting seniors than we did a few months ago. But not without a heartbreakingly large number of deaths of senior citizens in states like New York and Michigan due to the ill-advised policies of misguided governors.

A huge portion of the positive test results now involve young people. Many of them are due to the young congregating in bars and at parties (social distancing is impossible for hormone-driven and alcohol-fueled youth looking to score some action). A bar right here in East Lansing, Mich., is now confirmed to have been the source for about 90 COVID-19 cases invovling people who visited the establishment during a 10-day period in mid-June. There's no question that the protest marches and riots of a few weeks ago also contributed to the spread. With that being said, the survival rate for people under age 50 afflicted with COVID-19 is still well above 99 percent.

This is not worth locking down the economy, which is doing grave damage to budgets, commerce and the mental and physical health of millions of people whose jobs were lost and livelihoods destroyed. It's difficult to quantify the extent of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, bankruptcy, despair, depression, and suicide that are ravaging the American populace. Many of the strictest lockdown advocates -- power-hungry dictators like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and their lemming-like followers -- have an Asperger-like indifference to the hideous fallout.

The press will continue with the hysterical drumbeat of "a spike in cases" and push out all sorts of panic about the infection rate. But the mortality rate is far more important, and it is declining dramatically. The COVID19 Tracking Project reported Saturday that our nation's daily death toll for June 27 (506) was the lowest since March 21.

Normally, I blame simplistic thinking, limited intellect and an absence of analytical skills / critical thinking among our rotten Fourth Estate. But something tells me they can't be that stupid. More than likely, it's a deliberate attempt to paint Donald Trump and Republican governors in the worst possible light. So typical for the vermin of the press, and unless America wakes up, a potential death blow to our nation's future.

John Roberts = John McCain / Jeff Flake / Mitt Romney

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts, he of the infamous Obamacare ruling in 2012, in which he found the mandate with a fine for noncompliance to be a tax, is up to his old tricks again.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (concerned with equal employment opportunity) bars discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation or status as a transgender person. Supposedly conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Roberts in ruling for the majority, a ruling that grossly distorts the original intent of the 1964 law, and effectively gives free reign to LGBTQ rights.

Then, just a couple days later, a double-whammy: The Supremes ruled that President Donald Trump cannot immediately overturn DACA (Deferred Action for Childhool Arrivals), which President Barack Obama implemented via executive order to provide legal protections and work permits to unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Once again, Roberts was the swing vote, going with the liberals to rule against Trump.

I used to say that retired justice David Suiter, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Looking back, Suiter wasn't nearly as damaging as John Roberts, who G.W. Bush appointed as Chief Justice. Roberts, it turns out, is truly a fox guarding the henhouse. (Thanks, Dubya! Heckuva job, fellah!)

Fortunately, the high court made clear that the Department of Homeland Security could rescind the program, but said it must offer well-supported and transparent reasons for doing so. I certainly hope  (and feel fairly confident) that the Trump administration will be up to the task. This unconstitutional law can be slapped down; a massive influx of Democrat voters can be prevented.

It is disturbing that so may Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican presidents have strayed toward the dark side. They seem addicted to praise from the establishment Democrats and mainstream media. But on the reverse side of the coin, it is almost unheard of for a Democrat-appointed justice to wander off the reservation and vote for a conservative position alongside conservative justices.

Frankly, we're playing small-ball here. My greatest fear is that if Joe Biden wins in November, and the Democrats take over control of the U.S. Senate, Biden will stack the Supreme Court with leftists. After that, we'll see the abolition of the Electoral College, and possibly the elimination of the First and Second Amendments (or at the very least flagrant, unchecked trampling upon these two crucial amendments.)

To paraphrase scripture, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the destruction, havoc and totalitarianism that will result when slappy politicians and judges seek to pacify the establishment and acquire plaudits from the mainstream media."

Conjecturing Sunday

A lot has happened in the past few day, including the "CHAZ" takeover in Seattle by Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other riff-raff, and the killing of a black man by a white police officer in Atlanta. I'll withhold comment on the Atlanta incident until more facts come in.

As for Seattle, I agree wholeheartedly with Michael Savage that President Trump should not allow them to bait him into sending in federal troops to take back the Seattle Police precinct and the six-block area in downtown that is being illegally held and occupied by anarchists. That would simply play in to the media/Democrat narrative that Trump is a dictator/fascist/Nazi. Besides, it's not necessary, as this little experiment in Alinskyism is destined to fail very soon.

Already, there have been tensions between blacks and whites inside the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone. They're disagreeing about who their leaders will be, the demands that must be met for them to move out and return the occupied blocks to the city, and basic strategy and tactics.

Basic things, like the need for food, showers, prescription drugs, personal hygiene items, porta-potties and laundry facilities, are already posing problems. Word is that police are reluctant to respond to any reports of crime inside Chaz, so it's a no-brainer that rapes, thefts, assaults and all sorts of illegal drug dealing/use are taking place.

This petri dish of squalor will implode in short order. The best thing for Trump to do is let the ugliness play out, so Americans can see what happens when the hateful, monstrous left gets its way. It won't quite be Stalin's Gulag, but this kind of insanity playing out nationwide is what eventually leads to mountains of skulls.

I'll have more to say on Atlanta and Seattle in the near future. But today I'm putting forth a few thoughts about an upcoming major shit-show: The 2020 presidential election.

If you believe the polls, Trump is in serious trouble in the swing states he must have to win re-election. Biden leads Trump in such states as Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan and Ohio. Biden supposedly leads Trump among women by 20 points. But then again, we all know how badly the polls did a face-plant in 2016, and who's to say the pollsters will fare any better this time around?

It's possible that so many millions are fed up with nonstop divisiveness and chaos (regardless of who's to blame) that they will vote for Biden in hopes we get back to relative calm. It also could be that millions are utterly alarmed and appalled by the lawlessness and mayhem we've witnessed in recent weeks from coast to coast, with spineless Democrat mayors, governors and police chiefs allowing animals to decimate their cities and victimize innocent people of all races. Therefore, they might favor keeping Trump in office, figuring he can restore law and order and hold things together.

A couple of things are guaranteed: Democrats will allege voter suppression, and Republicans will charge voter fraud. But what Democrats like Stacey Abrams call "voter suppression" is often just routine operating procedure, e.g., requiring picture IDs at polling places and cleaning up grossly inaccurate voter rolls that include names of deceased people and convicted felons. As I've said before, Democrats insult minorities when they imply that these voters don't have the gumption, intelligence or financial means to obtain a simple photo ID. This is one of the most preposterous positions I've ever seen, yet no one calls them on it.

Because of concerns about Coronavirus, many states are leaning toward mail-in voting and eliminating polling places altogether. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, five states currently conduct all elections entirely by mail, and three others allow counties to determine if an election will beheld entirely by mail. Michigan and many other states have sent absentee ballot applications to voters to encourage mail-in voting.

As an early warning sign, look at Wisconsin's election problems a few months ago. The Chicago Sun Times reports that three tubs of absentee ballots that never reached voters were discovered in a postal center outside Milwaukee. At least 9,000 absentee ballots requested by voters were never sent, and others recorded as sent were never received. Even when voters did return their completed ballots in the mail, thousands were postmarked too late to count — or not at all. Many voters who did not receive ballots in the mail elected to turn out at polling places (which themselves have been reduced in number, thus meaning more congestion and longer lines in the age of social distancing).

Ballot harvesting and other shenanigans have been documented as reasons why mail-in ballots are susceptible to voter fraud. Even liberal Jimmy Carter said this after he chaired a bipartisan commission on federal election reform in 2005: "Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” 

I can easily foresee election delays, multiple court cases and a knock-down / drag-out legal morass that will make Florida 2000 look like a cakewalk. Combine that with the feral youth of the Democrat Party raising holy hell out on the streets, and this fall could be like a warehouse full of fireworks going off.

Fasten your freakin' seatbelts!

There can be no discussion about race because progressives are dishonest

Recently I had to banish our remaining troll (who I strongly suspect was a sock-puppet of another troll) because the cartoonish parodies of actual insight it offered had become tedious.

Such nonsense is sadly all too common on the left these days.

The troll's last act of defiant stupidity was to insist that Antifa does not actually exist, and also to ask for specific links of minority-owned businesses damaged by Democrat-sponsored riots.

This willful dishonesty is what precludes any kind of intelligent politics.

Antifa is of course real, it has adherents, "liberated zones," and a number of partisans who boast of their strength.  It cannot be "legitimate protest" and also "a bugbear of the right."

Similarly, one can't keep going on about "mostly peaceful protests" and ignore the massive physical destruction they caused.

The media is now openly into Goebbels mode, pushing Big Lie after Big Lie, completely indifferent to the contradictions in their statements.  Similarly, Democrat politicians and their corrupt public health allies want to simultaneously emphasize the need for eternal lockdowns, but then make bogus exceptions ("racism is woth the risk").

Right now there is chatter hyping the growing number of "cases," by which they mean people who test positive for the Wuhan Virus.  This is meaningless.  There are a number of viruses that have almost universal spread, such as the herpes variant that gives one "cold sores."  None of these would justify an economic shutdown of indefinite length.

The reason for the shutdown was to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by sick patients.  That risk has disappeared.  Not only has the case load dropped, capacity has been increased in case there is a surge.  Responsible, non-partisan scientists would point this out.

But science also must serve The Party, so whatever The Party requires is now the new science.

All of this renders normal politics impossible.  I don't think the left understands that what comes next will be beyond the ability of their twitter accounts to control.