Thursday, February 13, 2020

Thursday Again Already?

     I’d swear we had to endure one of these only a week ago. Ah, well. One does what one must.


1. The Sanders Agenda: A Compendium.

     Emily Jashinsky and Madeline Osburn have kindly compiled the elements of Bernie Sanders’s agenda for the United States in a single, maximally convenient place. Rather than enumerate those elements here, I urge you, Gentle Reader, to read the cited article and try to imagine an America under such a regime.

     Now, the point of this citation isn’t that it’s newsworthy for an avowed socialist to have a lot of insane, destructive ideas. Sane people expect insane people to have insane, destructive ideas. No, the point of this citation is that certain persons who have styled themselves “conservatives,” – yea, even “principled” conservatives, unlike thee and me – have argued that it’s so vitally important to remove Donald Trump from the Oval Office that conservatives’ votes must go to whatever Democrat is nominated. That would of course include the Septuagenarian Leninist from Vermont, Senator Bernard Sanders.

     I forget who, but someone in my morning reading list has derided the NeverTrumper pseudo-conservatives aligned with Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David French as a dying fringe that “couldn’t field a full softball team.” Wait just a moment while I backpatch...ah, here it is:

     For the sake of the Republic, I hope that assessment is accurate.


2. “He’s Not Supposed To Do That!”

     But as Julie Kelly is here to remind us, that’s his prerogative:

     The mood on the set of MSNBC was grim.

     Rachel Maddow fought back tears of rage. Brian Williams struggled to make sense of it all. A former U.S. senator flailed her arms in frustration and indignation....

     Maddow and company’s hysterics centered around the news that Attorney General William Barr had intervened to reduce an egregious sentencing recommendation against Roger Stone, a former Trump confidant convicted of five counts of lying to Congress, one count of witness-tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice. (Otherwise known as a day at the office for California congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.)

     Read it all. Enjoy the fulminations.

     Attorney-General Barr intervened to alter a recommendation. As the nation’s highest lawyer-prosecutor, that’s his unchallengeable right. It does not infringe on anyone else’s authority. Moreover, Roger Stone’s four lead prosecutors have all departed from the Justice Department under fogs of varying densities. You’d think that for the AG to step in under those circumstances would be quite natural...if you'd think.

     But the Left had been slavering over this mini-victory. Now it will be at least partly ripped from their loving clutches. Poor babies.


3. “They’re Attacking Our Base!”

     In the North Central U.S., two key states of which went for Trump in 2016, the Democrats’ base is dead and fictitious voters:

     Liberal groups and high-powered New York attorneys swooped into Detroit this week to help the city fight a lawsuit over its voter roll irregularities, which included thousands of deceased individuals appearing on the rolls.

     The League of Women Voters of Michigan and its Detroit chapter filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey and Director of Elections George Azzouz. Winfrey and Azzouz were sued in December by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an election integrity group. The officials had ignored PILF's requests to inspect Detroit's voter registrations after the group discovered thousands of ineligible voters on the city's rolls....

     The liberal groups and attorneys are converging on Detroit as part of a broader campaign against alleged efforts to "purge" individuals from voter rolls. Democrats have built a massive network of nonprofit groups, funded by George Soros and other liberal donors, to oppose Republican-backed voting initiatives such as voter identification laws. Michigan is a significant target for such efforts given its "swing state" status; Trump won the state by just 10,000 votes in the 2016 election.

     "The national 2020 elections will be held in less than nine months," the League states in its motion. "If a resolution of this matter—whether by court order or through a negotiated settlement—results in an aggressive purge and a heightened standard for voter list maintenance beyond reasonableness, the League may not have significant time to remedy the issue."

     Never imagine that “reasonable” in the mouth of a leftist means anything but “do it my way” – and never imagine that the League of Women Voters is anything more than another left-wing activist group fueled by cash from the Soroses and Steyers.


4. From My Vietnamese-American Sweetie.

     Gentle Readers who remember the late, deeply lamented Eternity Road might remember my dear friend and shoe addict Duyen Ky. Duyen is now safely married, semi-retired from her marketing business, and struggling to grow bok choy in her back yard. However, she’s still something of a shoe fanatic. Yesterday she sent me this atrocity:

     I was...disturbed, to say the least. The following brief conversation ensued:

FWP: You aren’t planning to buy a pair of those, are you?
DK: Get serious, Flashy. I just thought you’d get a laugh out of them.
FWP: Duyen, the designer sincerely expects that women will buy those...things.
DK: I know. And some women will. We’re a little strange when it comes to shoes.
FWP: As if I needed to be told.
DK: So how many pairs of shoes does Beth own, eh?
FWP: Rather large weather we’ve been having lately, say what?
     “How interesting it must be to belong to a race of two sentient sexes.” – “Speaker to Animals,” in Larry Niven’s Ringworld.


     That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. Much work looms before me. I’ll see you tomorrow. Be here! Aloha!

1 comment:

NITZAKHON said...

RE the Deceased-American vote. Please note that, AFAIK, I've coined this - but please feel free to use it.

"President Trump could resurrect the dead, and not only would the Democrats complain about his hurting the mortuary business, they'd scream he was cutting into their voter base".

I'm actually tempted to see if my late parents are still on the FL voter roll.