Posse Incitatus

The globalist gods that failed

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

After Donald Trump's election, the leftwing media was positively falling over itself in admiration for Angela Merkel, Theresa May and their ultimate hero, Emmanuel Macron.

Yet one by one these towering figures have stumbled over the fruit of the seeds they sowed in hubris.

Merkel's migrant policy has crippled her party, forcing her resignation.  She continues on as a zombie chancellor, free to deliver empty broadsides but lacking any real power over the international scene.

Theresa May's government also has become a shambling, undead husk, waiting only for the final convulsion before it collapses in a heap.  Given that her minority government depends on Ulster loyalists to remain in power, it staggers the mind to understand why should would try to push a Brexit agreement that slices off Northern Ireland and binds it in the EU in perpetuity.

Finally, there is the great Macron, Savior of the West and Hero of Globalism.  His bizarre obsession with global warming - and resultant effort to impose crippling energy taxes on the French people - has led to a prolonged popular revolt that refuses to dissipate.  The latest development is that the police union has declared themselves to be in solidarity with the "yellow jacket" protesters and plans to go on strike in support of them.

We must note that like everything French, there are detailed regulations about how one gets permission and who actually can strike, but still, this is significant.  For now, the French riot police are playing by the rules, but a public statement of this sort is often the precursor to not playing by the rules, which is common in French history.

The Sixth Republic may only be a few weeks away.

These are the globalist gods that failed, each in their own way embodying the transnational elite pushing ever less accountability and ever more fluid movement of people.  They won over their electorates and then set out remake them. 

They tried to use the rules to stymie their people, creating "all party-alliances" to lock out the will of the majority, but the outraged populace is determined to have its revenge.

The funny thing is that we've seen this play before, during the initial spread of Marxism.   Attempts to create "class solidarity" across borders collapsed when it became clear that "foreigners" would gain from lost jobs and wages at home.

The left responded by imagining "national socialism," and we all know how that worked out.

The Global Warming racket falls into the same category.  Everyone wants to feel good about the environment, but it's telling how little even the elites are willing to do to stop it.

Instead of taxing automobile fuel, why didn't Macron but a surtax on private jets?  Perhaps a landing fee on all aircraft with fewer than 20 passengers. 

Ah, but that would harm the elites, and our current crop can't tolerate the slightest inconvenience, which is why Hollywood celebrities preach environmentalism while consuming more carbon than an entire midwestern suburb.

This transparent greed and hypocrisy would be bad enough, but it is the gross incompetence that renders it a lethal combination.  The globalists are losing not just because they are wrong, but because they are stupid.

 

 

George H. W. Bush and the collapse of conservative intellectuals

When I heard George H.W. Bush had died, I wasn't surprised.  His wife had passed earlier this year and couples who have spent a lifetime together literally can't live without each other. 

My esteemed co-blogger has offered a first-rate consideration of the man's life and legacy.  I have nothing to add to the topic, save to note the absolute collapse of the conservative movement's intellectual wing.

During the 1980s there were vibrant and spirited debates with a number of keen intellects arguing about the future of conservatism.  Most of those voices have passed on, and publications like National Review and The Weekly Standard have since become pale imitations of the Huffington Post.

I've noted before how the current crop of senior thought-leaders are not only incapable of an intellectual argument, but demonstrably incompetent. 

Someone like Max Boot howling about RUSSIA would literally have been thrown of the stage by William F. Buckley.  Henry Kissinger would dismiss him with a wave of his hand.  Thomas Sowell could crush him in less than a minute.

I haven't been paying attention to the news much, but I see over the weekend, NPR ran an article that collapsed almost immediately, yet the Quisling Never Trumpers fastened on it like a lamprey on a lake trout.    Jonah Goldberg in particular was on it.

This is remarkable given that Goldberg's parent publication has been calling for the abolition of public radio for decades.  The bias of public broadcasting has been a recurring theme of years, and yet here was a National Review stalwart now citing in his bizarre jihad against another Republican.

Of course, having been exposed as dupe of the left, Goldberg expressed zero remorse because he does what he's paid to do and he loathes his readers.

Thirty years ago, that wasn't the case, and the fact of the matter is that Bush the Elder was far more savvy and capable than his son - just as the previous generation of establishment conservatives could run rings around the legacy hires filling their seats today.

Hillary's latest idea: Maybe open borders doesn't work

 

In a functional democratic political system, ideology necessarily yields to the will of the majority.

This is how parties change their platform over time as new issues rise and old issues fade.  Unlimited silver coinage doesn't have much of a following these days, but little over a century ago it was a hot topic.

One of the signs that the US political system was breaking down was the fact that neither political party seemed willing to address the issues that actually mattered to the electorate - specifically outsourcing and immigration.

Donald Trump won the GOP primary and then the general election because he was the only one of 18 candidates to take on these issues.  His personal popularity was always secondary to the popularity of his issues.  It was a mark of how thoroughly dominated both parties are by business interests and ideologues that so few politicians were willing to co-opt his positions.

Yet that may finally be changing.  Via the Belmont Club we learn that Hillary is suddenly reconsidering her loyalty to open borders dogma:

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of imitation. Clinton's realization that mass immigration must be adapted to suit the actual conditions is a sign that the populist revolution, though it may be checked or superseded, has left an indelible mark. Trump may be impeached, though probably not convicted, in the coming months; certainly he will, like all mortal flesh, eventually fade away. But there's no denying time has moved the needle and there is no way back to the global world paradigm of 2016.

One would be tempted to cite this as proof that Hillary has no moral core, but that was never in doubt.  The fact that a major Democrat figure is now considering reversing what was a core tenet of the faith shows that America's political system may yet have hope.

The situation is Europe is not nearly so rosy.  In the UK, the establishment seems determined to fight to the death rather than implement Brexit.  Similarly, Angela Merkel has decided that she can finally sound off on the evils of nationalism since she's no longer accountable to voters. 

While the New York Times may run with these salacious Trump-bashing quotes, they are in fact the last whines of political has-beens.  Merkel was forced to resign as party head.  France's Macron may have gotten in "sick burns" over the Armistice Day observance, but his nation is consumed with riots against his policies.  Again and again, we see establishment figures cited as sources of wisdom at exactly the moment when their political careers are headed down the toilet.

Is it any wonder that the Clinton Machine might finally recognize the obvious?

To be sure, Hillary may yet be planning the classic double-cross of running on one issue and then doing the opposite.  This is, after all, a major part of the Democrats' strategy for many years.

The problem is that this will now open up a new fissure in the Democrat coalition and shift the political debate closer to Trump.  It's hard to see how this hurts him.  Indeed, the Clinton Machine endorsing less restrictive immigration might actually get that wall funded.

In any event, it will be amusing to watch the paid shills of the leftist press and their Quisling Never Trumper allies have to reverse themselves yet again. 

Veterans Day and America's role in the world

Normally I offer a Veterans Day greetings to our readers, but I was unable to get do so yesterday.  I offer my apologies to our veteran readers and also thanks for their service.

The 20th Century has often been called "the American century," but that isn't strictly true.  In 1901 (note: centuries begin on the "1" not the "0"), the United States was a growing power, but by no means preponderant.  If I had to rank the Great Powers of the day, the US would have been behind Great Britain, Russia, Germany and France.  The US Army was tiny and still largely based on volunteer militias.  The Navy was starting to stir, but it would take not only wartime construction but large-scale international disarmament (in some cases voluntary, in other cases not) to put it within striking distance of Great Britain. 

Thus the "American Century" really began on Nov. 11, 1918.  Not only was the German Armistice in response to an American peace overture, many of the clauses in the subsequent Treaty of Versailles were effectively dictated by Woodrow Wilson.

I mention this because liberal talking heads like Max Boot seem obsessed with keeping the United States locked into the strategic position of 1947 rather than understanding the many unique factors that led our formerly isolationist republic to reluctantly take the lead in world affairs.

RUSSIA poses a strategic threat only to those nations on its immediate borders.  This may come as a shock to those who don't follow military capabilities, but RUSSIA is in fact spectacularly weak.  Those who grew up during the 80s or before may think that RUSSIA still has the ability to mobilize millions of men and tens of thousands of tanks.

In fact, the United States can now match RUSSIA in terms of land power and given our superior training, technology, equipment and logistics, we could probably defeat RUSSIA in a land war if we had a mind to do it.

The closes strategic and military rival the United States faces is in fact China, which is building up its power by leaps and bounds and openly challenging free navigation of the western Pacific.  China has also made major efforts to burrow into US intelligence systems, managed to compromise millions of background investigations and also rolled up almost the entire CIA network within the mainland.

Boot and his ilk remain strangely silent about all of this.  It's odd that a man who fancies himself a deep thinker hasn't called on former intel chiefs to be subjected to probing and hard questions about how exactly this debacles happened on their watch.

It's also curious how the Obama administration downplayed these disasters and took zero retaliatory action.

I've seen a number of commentators insist that this was due to incompetence and ass-covering, but could it not also have been a "thank you" payment for the many millions the Chi-Coms have paid to the Democrats over the years?  Before RUSSIA became a thing, the Clinton White House was busy taking in millions of illegal Chinese contributions.

Diane Feinstein had a ChiCom spy on her staff for two decades and was remarkably untroubled about it.  You'd think her general election challenger might have hammered that point how, but you'd be wrong because he's also a Democrat.  Democrats only bring up "national security" as a club to beat Republicans and as an excuse to hide their abuses of power.

It's also worth noting that RUSSIA appears strong only because our Western allies insist on being pathetically weak.  Germany's economy dwarfs that of RUSSIA and could easily field a military force stronger than anything RUSSIA could feasibly send into the Baltics or Eastern Europe.

Instead Germany wants to get cheap fuel and posture against Trump.

France likewise talks about building a European defense force as a counterweight, but who will man it?  Who will pay or it?  How many divisions will it field?

The once-proud British Army is so crippled by political correctness and the elites' hatred of the traditional recruiting pool that they are reduced to hiring mercenaries from around the Commonwealth to fill out the ranks.  Apparently defending Blighty is a now considered a job ethnic Britons won't do.

None of this was foreordained.  None of this was inevitable.  Those that argue that World War I somehow culled the best and bravest of the West need to look eastward and see how nations that suffered far more serious losses have still retained their cultural identity and a willingness to fight for their nations.

Decline was a choice, and one repeatedly offered to the United States.  It remains to be seen whether the Trump revival is a true change of course or the last gasp before the fall.

That which cannot be controlled must be destroyed - a new theory of Never Trumpism

UPDATE:  I'm dubbing this the "war elephant theory" of Never Trumpism.

 

The ongoing ballot shenanigans in Florida, Georgia and Arizona are all too familiar.  What is new is the endorsement of this practice by people who nominally consider themselves conservatives.

These are the ones who keep chanting “rule of law” like a magic incantation, but they seem curiously aloof when Democrats blatantly steal elections.

I am referring of course to the Quisling Never Trumpers.

Long-time readers have seen me address these vile beings at length, but something occurred to me today that makes me think I had their motivation somewhat wrong.  To be sure, they are motivated in large part by grift, but upon reflection, they are also motivated by conviction, it’s just not the conviction they speak of openly.

That conviction is that the masses are superstitious, violent, bigoted and in need of constant control and supervision.  Essentially, they think the same thing about conservatives that progressives do, but instead of seeking the outright defeat or elimination of the GOP base, they see themselves as keepers of the beast.

Many of them are atheists, though they have kept this quiet until recently.  Moreover, they are the kind of atheist who feels utter contempt on those who take religion seriously.  This is why so many of them hector evangelical voters as being hypocrites for voting for Trump.  The vitriol comes from a place of hatred, not a desire to educate or persuade.  George Will is in this camp, as is the dolt still calling himself Allahpundit.

The religious wing actually shares the same loathing, but for different reasons.  They consider themselves more pure than the louts who soil the pews around them, and they believe that by constantly turning the other cheek (and thereby losing every political battle) they are demonstrating their superior piety and virtue.

The Protestants can point to their prominence and prosperity as evidence that they are in the Elect, while the Catholic and Orthodox liken themselves the martyrs of old.  This is why Ed Morrissey is all about selfless surrender on every issue.  Rod Dreher is even more extreme, pitching his ludicrous “Benedict Option” of simply ceding the world to leftist extremists and hiding out in the hills until someone else gets the moral strength to stop them.

One could write an entire essay on the Jewish faction, but David Horowitz pretty much nailed it when he described William Kristol as a “renegade Jew.”  Many of these ‘neocons’ are legacy members of the conservative establishment and never experienced the personal revelation that turned their fathers from the left.  Having been born on third base, they harbor a brooding contempt for those stuck on first.

All of these groups actually agree that “red America” is populated with hot-heads, who at any moment could launch themselves into violence on a regional scale.  This is why George W. Bush was so insistent on not mentioning militant Islam as an enemy.  He truly feared the overnight appearance of Klan militias.

It is also why these people  were always lukewarm of the right to life.  In fact, they are closer to Margaret Sanger than they’d like to admit.  Kevin Williamson gave the game away when he went on his infamous rant about rural white communities needing to die.

Ironically, Williamson has stridently defended the right to life, which cost him his gig at The Atlantic, but he clearly doesn’t like the people he’s supposed to be defending.  He’s also done nothing constructive for the cause he claims to hold dear.

Their deep dislike of the rural whites who make up their following is why they are so infatuated with immigration.  They long for the day that they, too can have a “diverse” following.  Even though it may be a permanent political minority, at least they won’t have to pretend to like NASCAR and guns.

Speaking of guns, there are few establishment conservatives who actually own them, let alone think anyone else should have them.  The Never Trumpers are almost uniformly in favor of sharp restrictions on gun ownership, precisely because they think their base is mentally unstable and could snap at a moment’s notice.

Some years ago when “The Walking Dead” was a new thing, a robust debate took place on National Review’s blog and a number of military members pointed out how a zombie outbreak would likely be contained quickly once the military got involved.

Combat Lawyer David French strongly disagreed, and his argument revealed he had nothing but contempt for the people he served with, regarding them as undisciplined, selfish and brutal.

All of these people see conservatives as essentially a monster to be tamed and controlled.  The propensity of conservatives to have religious faith, to own firearms and even to serve in the military are all reasons they need to be constantly policed and watched. 

To do that, they often affect a laid-back, devil-may care persona, such as the one crafted by Jonah Goldberg in the 1990s.  We should relate to him because he likes Star Wars and makes Simpsons jokes.  He likes to play the everyman who plays with his dog, savors spiced meats and drinks beer while watching movies.  He’s a true mench.

Except that he isn’t, and he’s always known that.  His job was to throw just enough snark at the left to keep his charges under control, and when they stopped listening to him in 2016, the mask fell away.  His true personality – insecure, status-conscious, arrogant – has come out at last.  The guy who wrote self-deprecating columns about sitting on a semi-sentient couch now wants everyone to know he’s a serious scholar and holds an endowed chair.

Ask yourself:  what happens when an animal disobeys its trainer?  Does the trainer use reason and persuasion, or does it impose sharp discipline and reassert dominance?

The Never Trumpers thought of the base as a pack of dogs for so long, they don’t understand why smacking us with newspapers and ordering us to heel isn’t working.

It’s also why their arguments are so devoid of any kind of persuasion.  After all, why waste logic on an animal?

The core belief in the propensity of conservatives toward mindless violence unless controlled explains a lot of the neocon obsession with starting wars abroad, doesn’t it?  Max Boot is probably convinced that absent some desert to fight and die in, the rednecks who make up the bulk of the Army may well turn on him.  Better to keep them busy chasing around the Hindu Kush.  Permanent war is a necessary safety valve to keep America’s Cossacks from descending on the Jews.

And yes, they do believe their base is both racist and anti-Semitic and when we stopped responding to the crack of their whip, they came out and said so.

In light of all this, it makes sense that these tools would parrot liberal talking points that voter fraud is a myth.  As part of their worldview, they believe that it’s more important that the masses be deluded and restrained than that system actually work.

Because once people stop believing that the elections are accurate, they might take matters into their own hands.  Again, the beast has to be kept sedated.  They can’t understand how their arguments are actually making rebellion more likely since the left is now so blatant in its cheating no serious-minded person can doubt that it’s going on.

Thus we come to the final step of their play, which is an overt, actual alliance with the left.  The monster they thought they controlled has slipped its chain and they will work with anyone they can find to bring about its destruction. 

And so, like a trainer who was watched their beast rampage into the circus crowd, they are willing to shed a tear as they try to put down the beast, but they have no doubt in their heart that the beast must die.

Trump's caravan plans

One of the difficulties in trying to predict President Trump's actions is the lack of complete information.  This is why I find so much of political commentary irksome - it's based on incomplete and usually biased data.

Readers will recall that I previously cast doubt on whether the caravan would even reach the US border.  That prediction has not yet been proven false, but it is clear that Trump is now looking at other options.

The military buildup is actually consistent with what I wrote in terms of deterring a mass border crossing.  All existing crossings are being "hardened" with walls, concertina wire and other positional defenses.  This will make the kid of "push your way through" tactics that seemed to work in southern Mexico non-viable.  The only way to get through concertina wire is to carefully cut one's way through, and this is not an activity accomplished with photogenic women and children.

I was interested to note that among the troops being said was a considerable contingent of Army aviation, which is to say reconnaissance.  These assets greatly aid in defeating attempted mass crossings on the more remote parts of the border.  They will also be able to provide lighting fast response in those same areas.

Finally, Trump's announcement that tent cities are being built indicates that the game has changed.  The concept of "catch and release" is dead.  All crossers will be detained and sent to the camps where a certain portion will immediately be identified as previously deported for criminal activity.

These individuals will separated and their presence highlighted.  This will utterly destroy the Democrat claims that Trump hypes the presence of violent criminals in the border crossings.

Women and children will also be processed and again, the Democrats won't like what happens when the truth is revealed that many of these "families" are actually women and children who have sold into sexual slavery.

Hitherto, MSNBCNNCBS have been able to hide this fact by simply not reporting on it.  They will be compelled to report it now.

What I want to emphasize is that Donald Trump is a deep strategic thinker.  He is capable of keeping multiple plans in play and adroitly switching between them.  This gives him multiple ways to win regardless of the opponent's moves.

If the caravan breaks up and none follow, his show of resolution will make him look strong and the Democrats weak defeatist.

If the caravan arrives but is turned back on the border by his defenses, again, he will look strong.  He will likely point out that Obama could have done the same but refused.

If the caravan arrives and attacks, he will now have proof that these are not peaceful refugees but a violent invasion.  His plan with the camps which I outlined above will then go into effect.

As you can see, every option the caravan takes gives him a win.

One might wonder:  Why don't the Democrats (and their globalist paymasters) understand this?

The answer is twofold:

1) The Democrats still think they control the information flow.  They don't understand how completely Trump is able to punch through their filters and highlight their transparent falsehoods.  Gone are the days when the Big Three networks could sustain the Big Lie.

2) The Democrats are prisoners of their own incompetence.  After spending years convincing themselves that they are the smartest people in the world, they lack the cognitive ability to question the effectiveness of their plans.  They have bred a generation of "yes men," who believe the path to promotion fawning submission.

Progressivism is inherently self-limiting.  Once a given opinion about any topic is given, it must be enthusiastically endorsed upon pain of excommunication from the hive.

Thus the Dems are incapable of self-examination or independent thought.  Hillary's master plan for her election was set in stone a year before it happened and nothing would make her change it.

Similarly, the "Blue Wave" was decided upon long ago and when the Kavanaugh gambit failed, the Dems were reduced a series of operationally incoherent (and arguably self-defeating) tactical moves that have only made the situation worse.

There is another factor at work, and this is that the Democrat cannot for deep-seated psychological reasons assign any kind of intelligent thought to Donald Trump's actions.  This is a combination of their limitless self-esteem, arrogance, inflexibility and groupthink. 

No sooner do they come up with a plan than they automatically assume Trump will do the one thing that will guarantee them total success.  Every time this belief fails, they attribute the result to the fact that they just didn't try hard enough.

The upshot is that Trump has many ways to win a border confrontation and the Dems are oblivious to all of them.

Russia's navy is screwed

Multiple sources are confirming that Russia's largest floating dry dock had a catastrophic accident and sank.  In so doing, it inflicted considerable damage on Russia's only aircraft carrier.

This represents a huge loss of repair and refit capability.  The dry dock was used by surface combatants and ballistic missile submarines.  Without it, some ships literally can't be repaired.  This includes the carrier.  It will likely take months before the dock can be salvaged and repaired - assuming that's even feasible.

This is yet another reminder that the RUSSIA of the neocon imagination is but a shadow monster projected on a tattered bedsheet.  Max Boot and other warmongers can rant about RUSSIA until they are blue in the face, the force projection capabilities they claim to fear just aren't there.

There are, of course, emerging threats to American security.  These come overwhelmingly from China, which the neocons seem reluctant to mention.  Certainly the Dems - who've been bought and paid for by the ChiComs since the Clinton Administration - don't care.

This unforeseen event is a needed reminder that media-hyped fears often mask the real ones.

 

 

The global center collapses

Does anyone remember how - after Trump's victory - Angela Merkel was hailed a the true leader of the free world?

Mutti Merkel had welcomed a million migrants into her unsuspecting and unprepared nation state, and every since has been enjoying a bountiful harvest of surging violent crime and domestic unrest.

Today Merkel confirmed the obvious - that her day is done.  She remains chancellor, but is resigning leadership of her party and will not run again in 2021.

She may not last even that long.

Germany has been radicalized from both the right and the left.  The nationalists of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have cut deeply into the old Christian Democrat voting bloc.  At the same time, the Greens are carving out a huge chunk of the Social Democrats' voting base.

The result is a collapse of the German center.  The Greens are poised to become the dominant party of left while the right ponders its own divisions.  Merkel might have formed a coalition of right, but doing so was anathema to her.  So now the withering moderate center clings together, united only by a desire to keep everyone else out.

The same story is playing out all over Europe.  In the UK, Theresa May's government is in a zombie-like state, devoid of energy or direction, surviving only because the Labour government looks even more radical.

Brazil's election confirms this trend.  The self-styled elites have failed, and their insistent denial of that failure will only make the reckoning that much worse when it happens.

And let there be no doubt: it will happen.

The thing is, it didn't have to be this way.  Parties are in theory supposed to look to their own survival.  When a burning issue arises, they are supposed to seize upon it and thereby gain electoral advantage.

Strangely, in nation after nation, establishment parties are refusing to do that, instead declaring that the only solutions on tap are what the existing parties have decided they want to discuss.  Self-determination, control of one's own borders, defense of one's existing ancestral culture - these are now off-limits, beyond even discussion.

Except they're not.  Because "respectable" people won't talk about them, less savory types are taking up the banner.

There's a joke going around that liberals won't secure borders, but fascists will, so why are liberals upset that people are turning to fascists to the the job that they won't do?

Of course "fascist" is a completely subjective term these days.  It currently means whoever the establishment doesn't like.

The fact is that no one has voted for the globalist project.  It was imposed by elites who lied their way into power, and then lied about what they were doing.  When their schemes were exposed, the establishment locked ranks to avoid any real choice.

As the levers of government power slip from their grasp, they turn to billionaire plutocrats to "de-platform" those who disagree with them.  No need for the rule of law, raw corporate power will do in a pinch.

Because creating a corporatist state that transcends laws and national boundaries can't possibly be anything like fascism.

The curious media obsession with smearing Trump as an anti-semite

The mad bomber was an object of mirth last week precisely because no one was hurt.  The same cannot be said of the dastardly synagogue shooting yesterday.

It is a sad feature of our world that those places once considered sacred are now looked upon as targets of opportunity by the vicious and evil.

We cannot cure the hearts of men (only the Almighty can do that) but we can take prudent steps for self-defense against known evil.  Taken on its own terms, gun control doesn't work.  The UK has the advantages of having a tiny gun culture (almost entirely in the landed aristocracy) and being an island, which should make gun-running very difficult. 

Yet despite its strict laws, similar outrages happen there, too.  In fact, violent crime is surging there to levels never before seen.

In addition to the usual calls for gun control, however, there are strange arguments that President Trump is somehow responsible for provoking the attack because he is an anti-Semite.

This is nonsense on stilts.  Trump is the most pro-Jewish president in US history.  He has never through word or deed taken an action against Jews.

His daughter is a convert to Judaism and his own grandchildren have been raised in the faith.  The notion that he would somehow harbor hatred against Jews defies logic.

Then there are his stridently pro-Israel policies, which are the strongest in defense of the Jewish State since its foundation.  These raging lunatics are actually arguing that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem somehow provoked this attack because shut up.

Much of the left's argument is guilt by association, which is to say they quote David Duke as saying he likes Trump, therefore Trump is now beholding to everything David Duke has ever said.

Strangely, this test is not used by Democrats in regard to the rabid anti-Semites in their own ranks, like respected media personality Al Sharpton.  We can also recall the media successfully hid a photo of Barack Obama warmly embracing Louis Farrakhan until after he was out of office.  Calypso Louie recently went on a Twitter riff calling Jews "termites" and calling for their eradication.

Twitter decided this was not hate speech, and Democrats did not scramble to denounce him because he's on their side.

This goes beyond hypocrisy and instead has its roots in the core leftist precept that the ends justify the means.  Political violence is always acceptable to the left.  Demonizing opponents in dehumanizing language is not only acceptable but the preferred tactic.

This is not to say that all leftists embrace this viewpoint, but the moderates within their ranks won't take concrete action to stop it.  At best they will cluck their tongues and shake their heads sadly.  "This wouldn't be necessary if the right wasn't so awful."

A number of psychological surveys show that the left literally doesn't understand the right, while the right understands the left perfectly.  This helps explain why even moderate, personally kind leftists can convince themselves that no matter how depraved the extremists are in their own ranks, the ones on the right are ten times worse.

Even though Al Sharpton incited a riot, he's okay because deep in its heart, the left has deluded itself to think Donald Trump is even worse.

Getting back to the dud bomber for a moment, enough details have come out to reinforce my skepticism of the media narrative.  The choice of targets (mostly Dems not running for office and important enough to have layers of security), the pristine van covered with so much right-wing nonsense to be a parody of itself (not to mention illegal to drive) and the fact that the FBI can't give a clear description of the bombs themselves leads me to believe something sketchy is going on.

Regardless of whether the guy was sincere or just a dupe, the left's reaction to make political hay rather than call of a de-escalation rhetoric is both expected and I predict will backfire.

The left's combination of mindless moral certitude and a propensity to violence make it the natural home of angry lunatics.  This dud bombing campaign combined with the synagogue will be seen by these people as an invitation to "retaliation."

This is particularly likely as the GOP looks like it will increase its hold on the Senate and perhaps cling to power in the House.

In imagining civil war, the left is making one happen.

God help us all.

The truth about the Catholic Church scandal that none dare to speak

This week Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano released his third open letter or "testimony." 

It is powerful stuff.  In his introduction he states plainly that he feels compelled to speak out because to do otherwise would put his soul in mortal danger.  He cannot go before God without telling the world all he knows about the evil lurking in the bosum of the Catholic Church.

The then goes on and rebuts the Papacy's talking points that his charges have been successfully disproven or refuted, noting that the Pope's henchmen are focusing on discrediting things he didn't say and ignoring the things he did say.

The conclusion, however, is even more powerful:

As to the second silence, this very grave crisis cannot be properly addressed and resolved unless and until we call things by their true names. This is a crisis due to the scourge of homosexuality, in its agents, in its motives, in its resistance to reform. It is no exaggeration to say that homosexuality has become a plague in the clergy, and it can only be eradicated with spiritual weapons. It is an enormous hypocrisy to condemn the abuse, claim to weep for the victims, and yet refuse to denounce the root cause of so much sexual abuse: homosexuality. It is hypocrisy to refuse to acknowledge that this scourge is due to a serious crisis in the spiritual life of the clergy and to fail to take the steps necessary to remedy it.

Unquestionably there exist philandering clergy, and unquestionably they too damage their own souls, the souls of those whom they corrupt, and the Church at large. But these violations of priestly celibacy are usually confined to the individuals immediately involved. Philandering clergy usually do not recruit other philanderers, nor work to promote them, nor cover-up their misdeeds -- whereas the evidence for homosexual collusion, with its deep roots that are so difficult to eradicate, is overwhelming.

He's absolutely right.  We live in a fallen world, and when a leader fails to live up to a moral code, it is a tragedy.

Given the size of the Catholic Church, such failings are inevitable.  They are to be expected and they happen in all faiths because all religious leaders in this world are mortals, prone to error by their nature.

What sets this scandal apart is that there is an organized faction within the Church hiding and enabling it.

Like most Catholics, I assumed Church leaders were simply unaware of the scope of the problem and had been duped and betrayed by canny and unscrupulous predators.  I believed that the payments and coverups were made out of a sincere (but flawed) hope that the individuals would repent and sin no more and the fear that the Church's reputation would so harmed as to damage its mission.

It goes without saying that I strongly disagree with the Church's actions, but I thought I could understand them.

I know know - the world now knows - differently.

These crooked priests and their degenerate bishops never meant to reform, they were only playing a game.  They victimized not just children, but also other priests in their depravity.

And they were overwhelmingly homosexual.

Indeed, they celebrated this fact and flaunted it whenever possible, only to play the victim card about Catholic "homophobia" whenever they faced exposure. 

But sexual predators are despicable whether gay or straight. 

The State of Michigan is now conducting on investigation and the dioceses are promising full cooperation.  Closer to home, one of the pastors in my diocese recently resigned his position after credible allegations of sexual harassment.  We've since learned that his target wasn't just a church employee, but another priest.

How often did priests keep this to themselves, fearful of retaliation or creating scandal?  It is sad that such things have happened, but also encouraging that good men are speaking out and stopping this behavior in its tracks.

Pope Francis has long frustrated conservative Catholics with this erratic utterances, obsession with trendy progressive causes and his constant flirtations with heresy, but his failure to address this situation directly has destroyed his moral authority.