Dawns

     I can’t imagine a reason that you “should” know Evan Barker. She’s worked in left-liberal / progressive political circles for some time. That involvement recently soured on her, with unfortunate consequences.

     You see, Miss Barker committed a faux pas. She said something that made her friends and acquaintances – all left-liberal Democrats – doubt her fidelity to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Here’s the nub of it, in her own words:

     When I decided to go to the DNC in 2024, I wasn’t entirely sure if I was ready to move on from politics completely, or if I’d find myself re-inspired. After I got home, I went to a dinner party in San Francisco, and when a friend asked me how the DNC was, excited to hear about it, I decided to say how I really felt about the party, finally unafraid to do so. “I’m not sure if I’ll be voting for Kamala. I hated the DNC.” I watched as a familiar expression of moral superiority began to spread across her face. “You’re saying that from a place of privilege” she chided me.
     A lot of people have asked me what the exact moment was at the DNC that made me realize I wasn’t on board with the party I’d worked for nearly half of my life. The truth is, it was everything. The crowd that mindlessly chanted “joy”, the vasectomy van offering free tacos, the coronation of a candidate with zero policies or platform available, and the final straw: Oprah Winfrey. Her tone deaf lecturing turned me off so much, I left the building, getting an uber straight to my hotel, where I booked a flight home a day early, not even staying for Kamala’s acceptance speech.
     I left the dinner party early too, heading straight home, where I made a selfie video airing my true thoughts. On August 24th, 2024, I hit upload, announcing to my meager following of sixty people, many of whom were former colleagues and friends in politics, that I wouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris.

     Please read it all. It’s both eye-opening and heartbreaking.

     Miss Barker frames her decision in terms that we’ve heard from former Democrats before this: the party has “lost touch;” it’s “left its base;” and so forth. That treats the Democrat Party a bit too kindly, but it’s understandable: it also exculpates Miss Barker for her protracted association with the party. But as a certain writer I quote far too often wrote in a similar case:

     But it occurred to [Ransom] that this was possibly the first occasion in his whole life in which Weston had ever acknowledged himself in the wrong, and that even the false dawn of humility, which is still ninety-nine per cent of arrogance, ought not to be rebuffed—or not by him.

     [C. S. Lewis, Perelandra]

     So let’s be kind.

     The title of Miss Barker’s piece is most significant: “One Year Ago Today I Ruined My Life.” Ruined her life? Really? But what happened?

     In the past year, nearly all of my old political friends have stopped speaking to me. One of them said: “fascism doesn’t look good on you”, another said “why couldn’t you have waited until after the election?” The social ostracism has trickled out into my non political life, too. I’ve lost friends I’ve known for fifteen years. My toddler stopped getting invited to birthday parties. He was rejected from preschool. We even had to move to a new town.

     Those are all unpleasant and unjust consequences of her decision to disaffiliate herself from the Democrats. But properly regarded, they actually strengthen her case for having done so. A party whose members treat a departing member in such a fashion is diseased. It doesn’t represent anything that could be defended with reason and evidence. It’s a specimen of what Eric Hoffer called “a compact and unified church” – and outside that church there is no salvation.

     Miss Barker will surely reflect on that in time. So should we in the Right, for it shows us a pitfall we must avoid. Any of our fellows who announces that he’s moving to the Left should be treated courteously, however much we may deplore his decision. Political positions are not faiths, and political realignments are not some kind of secular apostasy.

A City In Insurrection

     I dislike being this exercised on a Sunday morning, but here it is:

New: illegal alien Tatiana Martinez is a TikTok influencer (tatianamartinez_02) with 30k followers was arrested today. This woman focused on alerting crazy protesters to disrupt, harass and disrespect ICE and law enforcement officers in California. She is also a nominee for… pic.twitter.com/PFJCvAkkt1

— hernando arce (@hernandoarce) August 16, 2025

     There you have it, Gentle Reader. The City of Los Angeles is towing the cars of ICE agents whenever they stop to make an arrest. That’s not accidental. That’s city policy. It puts Los Angeles, once a great city, into a state of insurrection against the federal government.

     So what now? Will this policy even draw a rebuke? Will the Department of Homeland Security send Mayor Karen Bass a strongly worded letter? And what about that blowhard in Sacramento? You know who I mean: the one who fancies himself a future president! What will he do to demonstrate compliance with federal law on immigration?

     There’s no chance of California “authorities” doing anything to comply with the law. California needs its illegals to retain all those juicy seats in Congress. Besides, they vote Democrat.

     Stay tuned.

Thieves’ Guilds

     If you’ve read any of David Eddings’s fantasies, you might have encountered the concept expressed by the title of this piece. And if you’re moderately well educated, you’re aware of the principal function of a guild. That gives Eddings’s notion a particularly piquant irony.

     Medieval occupational guilds existed to protect their members from occupational competitors. They often possessed a de facto legal privilege to use force to do so. That made them extensions of the State: a status for which they often paid a heavy fee to the “official” rulers.

     Today we don’t have guilds of that sort. Instead we have licensure: The State plays arbiter over who can offer what services to whom, and extracts a fee from those it permits to operate. In effect, it steals one of the peaceable man’s rights – the right to earn a living as best he can – and sells it back to him...or not. Over the century behind us, licensure has expanded to cover more than 1100 different occupations.

     Very few significant occupations remain unaddressed by licensure. However, there is one unlicensed occupation of massive significance...the most lucrative of all.

---

     No one needs a license to run for elective office. Whether it’s local, state, or federal, the requirements for assuming an elective office are spelled out in plain English in the relevant Constitution or charter. Normally, they reduce to three:

• The candidate must be at least X years old.
• He must be a citizen of the United States (to become president, a “natural born” citizen).
• He must reside in the relevant locality (and in some cases, must have done so for a minimum interval).

     A candidate who attains elective office can begin to steal at once.

     What’s that you say? A public office is a public trust? Such offices should be occupied solely by men of unquestionably high character? I can’t disagree. But all too often, it turns out to be exactly the other way around.

     Consider the percentage of our federal legislators that are exceedingly rich men. Many of them didn’t become rich until they were elected to Congress. And despite Honore de Balzac’s fervent declaration, while it isn’t quite true that “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime,” you could bet on it without going against the odds.

     The principal attraction of political office is power. However, more often than not those who acquire such power will use it to benefit themselves and their families materially. The corruptocrat who will be inaugurated into a stolen office tomorrow at Noon is only the most prominent example before us. His political mentor, who is likely to use him as a puppet, was himself no slouch in that business.

---

     Allow me to recount a tale from an old book: Quentin Reynolds’s book Courtroom, a legal biography of the great defense lawyer Samuel Leibowitz, who later became a judge in the Brooklyn courts. The segment I have in mind concerns the murder trial of one Joseph Scutellaro, a building contractor who operated in the 1930s and 1940s in Hoboken, New Jersey. At that time, political power in Hoboken was tightly gripped by the McFeeley family, described by Reynolds as follows:

     The McFeeley family represented the Hague machine in Hoboken. The McFeeley family? Well, there was Mayor Bernard J. McFeeley; his brother, Police Chief Edward J. McFeeley; Police Captain Bernard McFeeley Jr.; Police Lieutenant Dennis McFeeley; James McFeeley, contractor; and David and Joseph McFeeley of the Hoboken Law Department.

     Broadly, in that period you had to have the good will of the McFeeleys to get anywhere or do anything of even modest consequence in Hoboken. The demonstration:

     Joseph Scutellaro, a small, dark, intense-eyed man, also lived in the city of Hoboken. He and his father operated a small building concern. They were prosperous in a modest way and their future seemed assured. Then father and son made a grave mistake. Frank Barletta, a member of the City Commission, broke with the McFeeley machine and ran as a Republican. Both Joseph and his father campaigned for Barletta. But Barletta lost and so did everyone active in his campaign. Suddenly the Scutellaros found that they couldn’t get any contracts. If they did manage to pick up a small job here and there, the people engaging their services found they couldn’t obtain the necessary building permits at City Hall. Finally not a single vestige of a once-prosperous business remained. No other contractor would hire either of them.

     The story gets worse from there. Without going into details, the Scutellaros were even denied public relief. Poormaster Harry Barck, a loyal cog in the McFeeley machine, simply refused to disburse it to them despite repeated applications. In consequence the whole Scutellaro family, which included two minor children, neared death by starvation. When Scutellaro appealed personally to Barck, the Poormaster suggested that Scutellaro’s wife become a prostitute.

     The tale doesn’t end there. Joseph Scutellaro was arrested and tried for the murder of Poormaster Harry Barck. Despite Leibowitz’s efforts, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in prison. What became of his family is unrecorded.

---

     Sometimes it seems the world is wholly made of irony. As its substance is at least one-third nickel-iron amalgam, what remains is hardly an obstacle.

     These past four years, we have enjoyed the tenure of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. Trump is one of two presidents in the past century to attain that office without having held any other elective or appointive public office; the other was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He’s also the first man in at least a century to leave that office a poorer man than when he arrived in it.

     Trump campaigned as a political outsider, one who would “drain the swamp” that the federal government had become. He strove mightily to do so, and despite considerable opposition from the swamp-dwellers and their political protectors, he achieved a great deal. But he never had the allegiance of the political Establishment: the men and women who deemed federal power to be theirs by right. Given his outsider status, he could not have imagined that they would approve of him...and they did not.

     We have witnessed the Establishmentarian rejection of Trump and all he represents. The silent acquiescence of a great part of the Republican elite to the theft of the presidency makes clear that while there is no “official” licensure for elective office, the unofficial mechanisms of Washington were incensed by his rise and determined to see him fall.

     Trump ran for president knowing that it would be so. He knew that he, his whole family, and every element of his many enterprises would come under attack. He knew that should he win, the attacks would escalate to previously unimagined heights. He accepted that that would be the price.

     But the price might not have been levied in full quite yet. The Establishment doesn’t merely want to see Trump removed from office; it also wants to prevent, in perpetuity, any other outsider candidate from doing what Trump did: The privilege of stealing from the public must be reserved to us and us alone! The most effective way to deter non-Establishment candidates for high office is to present them with the prospect of paying an exorbitant price.

     What the thieves’ guild we call the political Establishment has in mind for Trump, his family, and his business interests once he’s departed the White House can easily be imagined, in magnitude if not in all its details. Pray for him.

Take Them Seriously

     I encountered the following over at 90 Miles From Tyranny:

     James Woods isn’t just highly intelligent; he’s also diligent and has a reputation for honesty. All the same, I decided to be diligent myself and check what he asserts in the above.

     And...weeelllll, it’s not quite right. Here’s the only thing I could find in the Dems’ platform that appears to touch on 401(k) and IRA accounts:

     We will also make it easier to save for retirement beyond Social Security. We will support approaches to retirement saving that enable workers and retirees to prepare for and prosper in retirement, including reforms that will allow states and municipalities to create public individual and pooled retirement account options that are easy for workers to access and understand. We will advocate federal legislation to make it easy for all workers to save, not just those in states or municipalities that have established their own programs. Democrats believe that when workers are saving for retirement, the financial advisors they consult should be legally obligated to put their client's best interests first. We will take immediate action to reverse the Trump Administration's regulations allowing financial advisors to prioritize their self-interest over their clients' financial wellbeing. And Democrats will equalize the network of retirement savings tax breaks so that working people can build their nest eggs faster, while also providing more equitable access to these accounts through automatic enrollment and relaxed contribution restrictions for unpaid caregivers. [Emphasis added by FWP.]

     That’s on page 26 of the 92-page Democrat Party Platform for 2020, which I downloaded from here. As far as I can tell, the platform makes no explicit reference to either 401(k) accounts or Individual Retirement Accounts. If a previous version of the platform did so, I can’t find it.

     Mind you, whenever a politician starts talking about “taxes” and “equality” or “equalization,” you should have one hand on your wallet and the other on your gun. “Retirement savings tax breaks” are principally implemented through the 401(k) and IRA systems. If the Democrats intend to “equalize” those things, certain questions arise:

• “Equalize” meaning what? Which rates would go up and which ones would go down?
• Would that “equalization” be with the tax rates on Americans’ Social Security benefits?
• Would the new rates apply to retirees currently supported in part by their 401(k)s and / or IRAs?

     I have an uneasy feeling that these are questions no Democrat currently in or running for federal office would answer honestly and explicitly. But then, they’re unlikely to answer any question in a fashion that would deprive them of finagling room later on.

     Take them seriously. They’ve been after your retirement savings for at least thirty years. The proposals have been several:

• To eliminate the “favorable tax treatment” of 401(k) and IRA accounts, as implied above;
• To make the purchase of T-Bills by pension systems and 401(k) account holders compulsory;
• To seize all pension accounts, 401(k) accounts, and IRAs and fold them into Social Security.

     I’ve noted these things before. Any of them would enrich the already bloated federal government and impoverish millions of current and future retirees.

     Please, if you have the stomach for it, read the entire Dem platform. It’s filled with horrors, though usually couched in language that permits endless quibbling about “what we really mean by that.” Here’s the section on guns, which proposes blatant violations of the Second Amendment’s guarantees in the name of “Ending the epidemic of gun violence:”

     Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States. Over 100,000 people are shot and nearly 40,000 people die annually from guns—devastating countless families, friends, and communities. We can and will make gun violence a thing of the past. Addressing the gun violence crisis requires supporting evidence-based programs that prevent gun deaths from occurring in the first place, including by making mental health care more accessible and supporting suicide reduction initiatives, funding interventions to reduce homicides and gun violence in neighborhoods, and strengthening protections against domestic violence. Democrats will also ensure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have sufficient resources to study gun violence as a public health issue, including the ongoing health care, mental health, economic, and social costs that can affect survivors and their families for years.

     Democrats will enact universal background checks, end online sales of guns and ammunition, close dangerous loopholes that currently allow stalkers, abusive partners, and some individuals convicted of assault or battery to buy and possess firearms, and adequately fund the federal 47 background check system. We will close the “Charleston loophole” and prevent individuals who have been convicted of hate crimes from possessing firearms. Democrats will ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines. We will incentivize states to enact licensing requirements for owning firearms and extreme risk protection order laws that allow courts to temporarily remove guns from the possession of those who are a danger to themselves or others. We will pass legislation requiring that guns be safely stored in homes. And Democrats believe that gun companies should be held responsible for their products, just like any other business, and will prioritize repealing the law that shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.

     If you weren’t outraged before this, I hope you are by now.

     Nota Bene: (For anyone out there who’s unfamiliar with this Latin phrase, it means “Heads up, doofus.”) There is no such thing as a trustworthy politician. Democrat, Republican, or other, it’s proper to suspect all of them, at all times, of:

• Wanting more power, prestige, and perquisites for themselves;
• Wanting more of your money.

     Both those statements are well supported by history. Ergo (another handy Latin word; this one means “therefore”), there’s no justification for just throwing out their rascals, replacing them with your preferred rascals, and sitting back satisfied that your job is done. Nor is it sufficient simply to watch them as they steal, resolving to turn them out at the next election; you have to keep the tar hot and the feathers handy at all times. Failure to do so this century past is why we endure the burdens of today.

     Which raises another question: Is there anything in the penal law – state or federal – that makes it illegal to tar and feather a politician? I mean, if we can’t recall them, which is not possible in most states, what recourse is left to us? Other than hanging them, that is.

     Something to muse about over your Cheerios^®.

A Wee Bit More Sadness

     Once again, from John Hinderaker:

     The most remarkable thing, to me, is that I am not aware of a single Democratic Party politician who has condemned the violence and grotesque criminality of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. As far as I can tell, the Democratic Party is on the side of the vicious criminals whom we see in the above videos. So the lines in November’s election are more clearly drawn than ever: Good–or at least normality!–vs. evil.

     The sad part isn’t that this is a unique, unprecedented insight. The sad part is that this is completely unconcealed: to use two of my favorite words, it “should” be “obvious.” But then, a fascist political party must have a military auxiliary. Hitler’s National German Socialist Workers’ Party had the Sturmabteilung. Mussolini’s National Fascist Party had the Black Shirts. Robert Mugabe has the ZANU-PF. And the Democrats have Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

     By their fruits shall ye know them...and those fruits are on garish display in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and elsewhere.

The Demise of Congress

     Congress no longer has any claim to dignity – nor any claim to moral authority – after this display of unlimited venality:

     The patent absurdity that these Democrats would demand that Attorney-General William Barr appear before them, face their harangues, yet not permit him to speak goes beyond anything in American politics to date, including the felonious farce that was the “Russian collusion” hoax. At least that was mostly a “Deep State” operation, with little participation by elected Democrats until it was plainly a failure.

     As usual, Ace has some penetrating comments:

     The Democrats shredded the social compact today.
     As they shred it every day, lately -- there's not much left.
     Today they shredded the social compact by defending and justifying terrorist attacks on law-abiding Americans.
     They also shredded it by holding a Stalinesque show trial of AG Barr.
     They would "ask questions" -- really lob unfounded accusations -- and then cut off Barr as he attempted to answer. They would shout "I'm reclaiming my time!" as a way of telling Barr to shut up, as they did not want his answers to count against their five minutes of time.
     I wondered why Barr didn't just walk out of the hearing.
     I think that obese malignant dwarf Jerry Nadler might have actually tried instructing the Sergeant of Arms of the House to put Barr under arrest if he tried to leave.

     John Hinderaker expands on the theme:

     [T]he Democrats were outrageously rude to the Attorney General of the United States. The hearing was devoted to their abusing him on various ridiculous grounds. He barely got a word in edgewise. At one point, he said something like, “This is a hearing. Aren’t I the one who supposedly is being heard?” Of course not. Whenever he got to mid-sentence, the Democrats interrupted him. “I’m reclaiming my time” was the theme of the day.
     I am not sure who the Democrats think is the audience for this sort of nonsense. Sentient voters watching on television couldn’t possibly have been impressed. Maybe they are just looking for sentence fragments they can use in fundraising emails.
     Then there is the larger point. The Democrats are committed to the view that what is happening in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta and other cities is mere “peaceful protest.” Thus, the Trump administration is unjustified in sending in federal officers to protect federal property, like courthouses. And to the extent that anything untoward happens, it is Donald Trump’s fault. This was the main theory that the Democrats tried to advance through their “questioning” of Attorney General Barr.

     Outrageous. Insupportable. If any of these vipers in human guise continue in office after the November elections, it will cast a final judgment of condemnation upon the Democrat Party.

     Was there nothing the Republicans on the committee could do to compel a degree of fairness (not to demand courtesy, which is plainly beyond any Democrat in federal office) toward the Attorney-General, who had appeared voluntarily before them? Are the “rules of the House” unable to compel fairness toward a Cabinet Secretary who has presented himself before a committee of his own volition?

     I’m more disgusted than I can say. Accordingly, I’ll stop here and fume silently, though I may be back later.

Masks Off Dept.

     The Democrat Party has officially declared itself opposed to the formation of the United States:

     In a tweet earlier tonight the DNC takes the official position that celebrating the fourth of July is the equivalent of celebrating white supremacy:

     Anyone who identifies as a party Democrat will now have to rebuke the fourth of July to retain their party position. Additionally, any democrat caught celebrating the Fourth of July holiday will now be joining a celebration of white supremacy.

     Are there any questions from the audience?

     Sarah Hoyt deposeth and saith:

     LET’S SEND THEM OFF TO THE COUNTRY OF THEIR CHOICE, ON CONDITION THEY RENOUNCE CITIZENSHIP AND NEVER DARKEN OUR SHORES AGAIN. YOU DON’T LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICANS BECAUSE YOUR DISEASED MIND SEES FUNCTIONING CULTURE AS “WHITE SUPREMACY.” VERY WELL. LEAVE. VAMOOSE. GET OUT OF HERE. AND LET’S PRETEND WE NEVER KNEW YOU.

     For a change, the Caps Lock seems warranted.

A Danger To The Public

     Wherever there are Leftists and Democrats, there is a citizen disarmament campaign in progress. It might not be well advanced. It might not have positive legislative prospects. But it will be there. Citizen disarmament and absolutely unrestricted abortion are the Left’s two imperatives, from which they will never retreat.

     And so, when the Democrats won the Virginia Governor’s mansion and majority status in both houses of the Virginia legislature, the very first thing they did was to prepare bills to effectuate a sweeping gun ban and confiscation. (Apparently, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s earlier endorsement of infanticide has made that subject a bit too warm for the moment.) Make no mistake: they want the citizens of the Commonwealth rendered unable to defend themselves – and without even the hint of a gun-related problem as a foundation for their proposals.

     It’s been said by others that when a politician wants to take your guns, it’s not because he fears for your safety but for his own. He’s got plans which, were you properly equipped, you’d shoot him for even contemplating. So you must be “dis-equipped,” that he might radically increase his power over you without a risk of armed resistance.

     The irony here is that those most alarmed by the prospect of a shoot-out over the right to keep and bear arms are those with the arms. We’re the ones most vocal about what a bloodbath would result. We’re the ones who fear for the lives of persons who might just be following orders, doing an unConstitutional job, out of fear for their careers in “law enforcement.” (As of today, none of America’s 88,000 governments have instituted agencies explicitly for tyranny enforcement, but give them time. It’s just semantics anyway.) It’s we in the Right who wring our hands about it.

     In response to the “Second Amendment Sanctuary movement” in Virginia, which has now swept over the great majority of the state’s counties, a Democrat legislator actually proposed employing the Virginia National Guard to enforce a confiscation law. More recently, the Legislature has considered a bill that would strip county-level “public safety” officers of their jobs and pensions for refusing to enforce a state-level gun ban or confiscation. A level-headed person then opined passionately:

     "They keep jacking this up, begging for war. Good Lord. Do they understand how awful this would be?"

     Some do -- but much, much more to the point, their tacticians know that gun owners know it would be a horror without precedent. That's what they're counting on: that gun owners and shooting enthusiasts, being decent persons who wish to harm no one, will submit to their tyranny rather than inflict that horror on the country we love.

     Nothing doing. Not this time around. This time, Virginians will fight. They must.

---

     It is well verified by the historical record that an armed citizenry that succumbs to political blandishments and agrees to give up its weapons will never get them back. Moreover, the political class almost immediately starts doing things that would provoke a revolt...if the public were still armed. The vector of oppression will point only forward from then on.

     Ironically, the American Revolution was triggered (pardon the pun) in large part by an attempt to confiscate the colonials’ weapons. Even more ironically, Virginia was one of the critical sources of pro-rebellion, pro-independence sentiment. That Tyrant Northam and his henchmen are attempting to subjugate the descendants of the Founding Fathers has great symbolic power: “If we can get away with it here, where couldn’t we?”

     If Virginians choose to fight, as I fear they must, there will be large-scale bloodshed. Indeed, there could follow a complete toppling of the state government. The lesson to America’s other anti-gun forces, wherever they are and however constituted, would be valuable. They would pull in their horns lest the assertion of the right to keep and bear arms encompass them just as bloodily. There would follow an interval in which our rights as armed citizens of a republic whose governments are responsible to us first and foremost would be respected...on the surface.

     But make no mistake: the determination to disarm us would not be extinguished. Aspiring tyrants know they cannot rule armed men. Like Tolkien’s Shadow, they would fall back to take another shape and resume their campaign.

     The central point here is simple and stark:

An armed citizenry can resist encroachments on its rights.
It possesses the means by which to defend them.
A disarmed citizenry cannot.

     We must hope that Virginia’s gun owners are aware of the danger to the public posed by the Democrats’ initiatives. My sense, from the swift progress of the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement, is that they are. What follows will tell us all what sort of future these United States will face.

     Have a nice day.

Narrative Engineering In Brief

     Via Mike Hendrix comes this beautifully compact exposition on what the Democrats are doing with their “impeachment inquiry:”

     Pretend you’re starving for food. You want to talk about getting yourself some food, but I take the conversation somewhere else by telling everyone you like to kick puppies. So you offer gobs of evidence that you don’t like to kick puppies and, as a result, everyone ends up believing you and thinking I’m a liar. Nice work. Now we can talk about getting you some food. Right?

     Wrong. Because next I say that I was mistaken about the dog thing, but I have good evidence that you like to step on cats. In a sane world, at this point people wouldn’t believe me and we’d all talk about getting you some food.

     But that’s how powerful the media are. Because now, instead of talking about getting you some food, we’re going to spend the next several months making you prove that you don’t like to step on cats. You might win that conversation also, but in the meantime you might die of starvation.

     That’s exactly how it works: pollute the national discourse sufficiently and the true difficulties and challenges facing us will be ignored in favor of “the Narrative.” The point isn’t argument. It certainly isn’t anything President Trump has actually done. It’s about denial by delay.

     C. Northcote Parkinson has told us that “delay is the deadliest form of denial:”

     Instead of saying “No,” the Prohibitive Procrastinator says “In due course,” these words forshadowing Negation by Delay. The theory of Negation by Delay depends upon establishing a rough idea of what amount of delay will equal negation. If we suppose that a drowning man calls for help, evoking the reply “In due course,” a judicious pause of five minutes may constitute, for practical purposes, a negative response....

     Where the urgent matter requires remedial legislation, delay takes on a dimension. The judicious pause will correspond, nevertheless, to the life-expectation of the man from whom the proposal originates....When a useful reform takes place, as must occasionally happen, this is the result of the Reformer’s living and working for years beyond the limits of reasonable expectation. The Reformer may thus outlive the Prohibitive Procrastinator, whose especial hatred is of reformers younger than himself....Delays are thus deliberately designed as a form of denial and are extended to cover the life-expectation of the person whose proposal is being pigeon-holed.

     Deep State bureaucrats, whose tenures in office are essentially infinite, have known this for a long, long time:

     [United States Senator from Oklahoma David L.] Boren, formerly a state legislator and governor, went to Washington expecting to make some changes. “What impressed me most is the great power of the bureaucracy compared to that of elected officials. All the talk about growing control by the bureaucracy is not exaggerated. The shift in power is very real.... There is almost a contempt for elected officials.”...

     Senator Boren found, to his surprise, that a Senator has great difficulty even getting phone calls returned by the “permanent” employees, much less getting responsive answers to his questions.

     The voters can’t “throw the rascals out” anymore, because the main rascals are not elected but appointed....

     Regulatory bureaucrats have extra power because they can outlast the elected officials. “Often,” Boren explains, “I’ve said to a bureaucrat, ‘You know this is not the president’s policy.’

     ‘True, Senator, but we were here before he came, and we’ll be here after he leaves. We’re not in sympathy with his policy. We’ll study the matter until he leaves.’”

     [Armington and Ellis, MORE: The Rediscovery of American Common Sense.]

     Is it really that surprising that Congressional Democrats, who are collectively the Deep State’s biggest supporters, should have noticed that tactic and elected to emulate it?

     If there’s an effective countermeasure, it would lie in nullifying the power of the Narrative. There’s only one way to do that, given the Left’s dominance of the major media. We must refuse it our attention:

• Don’t read, watch, or react to the major media’s stories about it;
• Don’t talk about it with others;
• When it comes up in conversation, do your damnedest to change the subject.

     The prerequisite for the establishment of a Counter-Narrative is to clear the nation’s conversational channels of the existing Narrative. Is that possible, or have we succumbed so completely to the grip of the media that there’s no longer any escape but bloodshed?

Quickies: A Political Fantasy

     Gerard Vanderleun drew my attention to this article by Edward Ring at American Greatness. The paragraph that most affected me was this one:

     What if a critical mass of independent voters were to conclude that, despite his pugnacity, President Trump cares about all Americans, and actually holds moderate, compassionate, common-sense positions? If these things happen, and they very well might, not only will President Trump get reelected, but control of the House of Representatives will return once again to the GOP. And if these sentiments sweep across the land, then politicians of both parties will realize it is time to stop fighting and get back to serving the American people. [Emphasis added by FWP.]

     Note two features of the above:

• The word if appears three times;
• The emphasized clause suggests an outcome antithetical to current political postures.

     As I’ve written before, if is the most important word in any sentence in which it appears. Of the three ifs above, the third is the most important one. It foretells an outcome of the political process that most Americans would find inexpressibly gratifying. But how accurate is Edward Ring’s prediction? How likely is it that those striving to obstruct, retard, and undo President Trump’s agenda would have the predicted change of heart?

     I can’t see it. The dynamic of politics has caused the Democrat Party to concentrate a critical mass of persons to whom the acquisition and retention of power, especially federal power, is the only thing that matters. Those persons are uninterested in anyone’s goals but theirs. Indeed, their goals require that our goals – freedom, prosperity, public order, and general security – be thwarted. A road-to-Damascus conversion into genuinely good and faithful public servants would overturn everything that matters to them.

     I find it more likely that those at the tiller of the Democrat Party would “push the big red button.” That is, they would exclaim Alea iacta est and strive to gain by violence what they could not win through politics. They’re already partially mobilized, as the “AntiFa” and “Black Bloc” disturbances should have demonstrated to all. Moreover, those forces have succeeded in silencing and scattering their opponents as often as not. Combined with “deplatforming,” “doxxing,” and a campaign of slanders and libels promulgated through their media handmaidens, they might have an even chance of prevailing.

     It’s important to win at the ballot box, but don’t neglect to keep the cartridge box full – and don’t let your skills lapse through desuetude.

Quickies: “Grounds For Impeachment”

     I found this in a discussion of the ongoing “impeachment inquiry” at Victory Girls:

     In other words, they know they don’t have enough evidence to impeach the president but they are so deep into their own fantasy world that they can’t admit they’ve failed, even to themselves.

     The fascinating thing about the discussions of impeachment / conviction / removal (of any official, not just the president) is that the same observation applies to it as to jury nullification. Indeed, the two subjects are on all fours with one another:

     Did you know that, no matter the evidence, if a jury feels a law is unjust, it is permitted to “nullify” the law rather than finding someone guilty? Basically, jury nullification is a jury’s way of saying, “By the letter of the law, the defendant is guilty, but we also disagree with that law, so we vote to not punish the accused.” Ultimately, the verdict serves as an acquittal.

     Haven’t heard of jury nullification? Don’t feel bad; you’re far from alone. If anything, your unfamiliarity is by design. Generally, defense lawyers are not allowed to even mention jury nullification as a possibility during a trial because judges prefer juries to follow the general protocols rather than delivering independent verdicts.

     Jury nullification is inherent in the jury system. It follows from juror’s immunity to punishment. Regardless of the offense charged, a juror cannot be punished for voting one way or the other. And so it is with impeachment / conviction / removal.

     The House can impeach arbitrarily, and the Senate can convict arbitrarily. They need no justification other than “We felt like it.” Just as with a juror’s vote, there is no way to hold them to any standard, whether it’s about the seriousness of the purported offense or the evidence for it, under the Constitution of the United States. The Representatives and Senators can proceed without having to justify themselves. The only comeback against them is at the following election.

     Impeachment / conviction / removal is therefore an entirely political procedure. The Constitutional phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is more decorative than substantive. We might like it to be substantive, such that an impeached official must be charged with a crime recognized by the U.S. Code, but in practical terms there is no standard for the procedure.

     But beyond that, does anyone familiar with this charade sincerely believe that Schiff and his sideboys would be stopped short by the absence of a recognized offense? The “impeachment inquiry” isn’t about anything President Trump has or hasn’t done. It’s a last-ditch attempt to prevent his re-election a year from now, which, on the strength of his record, could be as resounding as Reagan’s re-election in 1984.

“The Point’s Demon-Guarded”

     Remember this famous proto-prog anthem?

     Kansas was a trailblazing band in its day. The titans of Glass Hammer hold their music in high regard. Forty-two years have passed since “Point Of Know Return” was first recorded, and it remains striking and compelling far beyond the greater part of the popular music that’s followed.

     A point of no return is always “demon-guarded.” That’s why there’s “no return:” the demons forbid it. (Ever tried arguing with a demon? A word of advice: don’t bother.) In politics and public policy the demons are especially fierce:

1. They look human (some actually claim to be human);
2. They wield terrifying weapons (e.g., fines, imprisonment, seizures);
3. They can induce you to become dependent upon their demoniac emissions.

     For my money, condition #3 is the worst of the lot. If a policy can induce dependency in the populace, such that the people cannot imagine ever going back to its pre-enactment conditions, they’re in for the proverbial world of hurt.

     That’s the sort of condition politicians avid for increased power over you will strive with all their evil ingenuity to create.

---

     I’ve been sitting on this article for a while:

     While the Democrats continue their impeachment pantomime war dance in the mirror-clad corner in order to keep up their spirits, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is ginning up a much more fateful danse macabre on health care. He has promised to force a vote this week on various Trump Administration directives that have injected flexibility into Obamacare. As The Hill reports, “Senate Democrats plan to force vulnerable Republicans to vote on legislation that would overturn a controversial Trump administration directive on ObamaCare.”

     The idea is that Democrats can force besieged lawmakers such as Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Martha McSally (R-Arizona) to take a stand and make an unpopular vote on the issue that voters consistently identify as the most important: health care.

     President Trump and the genuine Republicans in the Senate have struggled to undo ObamaCare. (“Genuine Republicans” is meant to omit the late John McCain, who, unless he repented most fervently before his passing, is surely burning in Hell for voting to protect that obscenity.) They’ve chipped away at it with some measures, including the “1332 waivers” mentioned later in the article. But the Democrats are determined to preserve it. Why? Because government control of medical care is a point of no return: a measure that induces popular dependency upon the State. No nation that has enacted it has ever managed to repeal it. It quite literally gives the State the power of life and death over every man under its sway.

     Admittedly, ObamaCare – strictly speaking, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 – doesn’t go all the way. Doctors and nurses are still private citizens rather than involuntary employees of the State. Medical products are still made and vended by private companies. And citizens can still buy their own medical insurance. But it narrows the gap between the previous, largely free-market system for acquiring medical care and the Democrats’ ideal, in which the State stands between the patient and the provider in all things, including payment for services.

     ObamaCare achieves that narrowing by fastening D.C.’s claws upon the method by which most major medical expenses are defrayed: through insurance. The PPACA sets stringent rules upon what a legally permissible insurance policy must cover, under what circumstances, and subject to what limitations. It came close to giving an unelected, unreviewable bureaucracy the final word on what procedures an insurance policy is required to finance. (Remember the debate over “death panels?”) And it caused patients’ out-of-pocket expenses, both for premiums and for medical care, to shoot upward.

     But it also created an iron triangle: a subsector inside the Department of Health and Human Services, a cartel of major medical insurance providers, and a significant community of beneficiaries who could not previously afford medical insurance. And of course the Democrats purely love it.

     In fact, they want to go much, much further:

     I’m with Bernie on ‘Medicare for all.’ And let me tell you why. I spent a big chunk of my life studying why families go broke. And one of the number one reasons is the cost of health care, medical bills. And that’s not just for people who don’t have insurance. It’s for people who have insurance.

     “Look at the business model of an insurance company. It’s to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care. That leaves families with rising premiums, rising co-pays, and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. ‘Medicare for all’ solves that problem.

     “And I understand. There are a lot of politicians who say, ‘oh, it’s just not possible, we just can’t do it, have a lot of political reasons for this.’ What they’re really telling you is they just won’t fight for it. Well, health care is a basic human right, and I will fight for basic human rights.”

     That’s the Dishonorable Elizabeth Warren speaking. She’s currently a front-runner for the Democrats’ presidential nomination. And she’s not alone in her advocacy of government-controlled medical care.

---

     To the extent that the 2016 elections were about Supreme Court justices, the 2020 elections will be about medical care. The United States is an aging nation. Our national fertility rate has slipped below the ZPG level, which means the population is growing slowly older every year. That causes the subjects of medical care, its availability, and its affordability to become steadily more important.

     The Democrats want you to fear that you won’t be able to afford the care required to keep you alive without the supervision of the Omnipotent State. They want to persuade you that without D.C.’s close control of all things medicine-related, you’ll be left without medical care, whether because you can’t afford insurance, or because the insurance company will arbitrarily deny you coverage for your treatment.

     A lot of Americans have already bought into ObamaCare. Some of them probably believe that without it they’d be uninsured, and therefore helpless.

     The insurance companies that have labored to conform their offerings to the PPACA’a dictates have resisted the idea of going back. There’d be a lot of work involved. And they’d have to offer policies customers would purchase voluntarily. Unthinkable.

     And the bureaucrats in HHS can be counted on to favor it – and to vote Democrat next year.

     Be afraid.

Make This Go Viral

     Please watch this. Then get everyone you know to watch it. I can’t imagine a better campaign ad for the GOP:

     Get it circulating before the Left manages to suppress it!

Conclusion Time

     In every political controversy, one must ask oneself whether a conclusion is possible – conclusion being used in the sense of a firm conviction that one has reached the truth of the matter. Some controversies are not susceptible to conclusions; the motives of those involved are too murky. Others will allow for them, though it might be a while before sufficient evidence can be amassed. And in some, one can make use of “previous work.”

     Concerning the Left’s efforts to defame Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Brett Kavanaugh as a sexual harasser, considerable evidence has emerged in a very short span. Moreover, “previous work,” specifically the Left’s prior attempt to smear Associate Justice Clarence Thomas as a sexual harasser, points in the same direction as that evidence. On these grounds and others, I maintain that conclusion time is upon us.

---

     The current Justices of the Supreme Court, with their avowed religious affiliations or backgrounds:

• Chief Justice John Roberts: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Clarence Thomas: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Samuel Alito: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch: Catholic.
• Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Jewish.
• Associate Justice Stephen Breyer: Jewish.
• Associate Justice Elena Kagan: Jewish.

     Thus, the Court has six Catholics on it. I can’t recall a previous time when that was the case. Think hard, now: What specific doctrine of the Catholic Church comes at once to mind in reference to hotly debated public-policy issues and the Supreme Court?

     Kyle Smith has one in mind:

     The New York Times on Saturday joined The New Yorker and many other media outlets in upending a dumpster full of garbage on its own reputation in an effort to smear Brett Kavanaugh. After more than a year of digging, the Democrats and their media allies still have no supported allegations of sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh at any point in his entire life.

     Why would the media do this? Call it the asterisk strategy. This is a coordinated, full-on effort to undermine the legitimacy of Brett Kavanaugh’s work on the Supreme Court. The reputations of news outlets are so many eggs that must be broken in pursuit of this omelet....

     The hope of the Democratic party and most of the media is to delegitimize Brett Kavanaugh and hence any Supreme Court decision in which he joins a 5–4 majority. The ground is being laid to make the case that, should Roe v. Wade be overturned in such a manner, that decision would exist under a cloud. It’s a desperation move: The Democrats and their media allies, the Times and the New Yorker very much included, are envisioning some extralegal or extra-constitutional maneuvers to stop Roe from being overturned.

     BRAVO! Clarity at last! A firm conclusion reached on the basis of the evidence before us! That, Gentle Reader, is today’s political benison. Savor it, as we might not get another this week.

---

     At this time, owing to the election of 2016, the federal government’s executive and judicial branches are in Republican hands, albeit not by fat margins. Moreover, President Trump has openly criticized Roe v. Wade, though he’s avoided uttering a blanket condemnation of the practice of abortion. With the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, for the first time since 1973 there’s an appreciable chance, should a suitable case come before the Court, that the ruling in Roe v. Wade could be overturned.

     (No, there wasn’t much chance before Kavanaugh. Remember how squishy John Roberts has proved to be. The mutterings that the Left “must have something on him” might just have some substance. At any rate, he’d be an unreliable vote on this issue.)

     Yes, there are other aspects to Kavanaugh’s seating on the Court. Jodi Giddings of Victory Girls mentions a few. I trust Miss Giddings will allow me a great deal of snipping to stay within “fair use:”

1. They know they can’t beat Trump.
2. They know their extremist views on abortion are abhorrent to most Americans.
3. They are fearful that Ruth Bader-Ginsburg could be replaced by Trump.
4. They think impeaching Kavanaugh will bolster their goal of impeaching Trump.
5. Removing the focus from themselves (gun grabbing, tax increases, open borders, hatred of America, etc etc etc).
6. Cementing the women’s vote.

     All of these are plausible, but to my mind the lead item is the Left’s secular sacrament: abortion. The Left has gone all-out to protect that practice from having the mildest legal conditions placed on it. Indeed, the Left has agitated for government-funded abortion. Their argument seems to be that if it’s a “right,” then surely the Omnibenevolent State should pay for it. The possibility that a reversal of Roe v. Wade could return the question to the states, where popular sentiment has turned ever more definitely against unrestricted abortion on demand, is abhorrent to them.

---

     I’ve done this before, but, as the calumnies about my Catholicism and its relation to my politics have never abated, I’m going to do it again:

     "What did you think of the movie?" Celeste pulled Louis's arm against her and walked closely alongside him.
     He shrugged. "I'm not big on tearjerkers. It was pretty decent entertainment, but I have a feeling they distorted the facts of his life a bit."
     "Whose? C. S. Lewis's?"
     He nodded. "I have a hard time matching the character in the movie with the things he wrote."
     "You've read his books?"
     "All of them."
     He unlocked the passenger door of his pickup truck and helped her into it. Even with his assistance, her stiletto heels made it a challenge.
     When they were in motion, she asked, "Do you have any favorite hobbies?"
     "Hm? No, I read a lot, that's about it."
     "So, how do you pass the time when you're not at work? Just reading?"
     He guided the truck through the gate of her townhouse complex, wheeled into a convenient parking place, and killed the engine. "Well, I do a few other things, but nothing you'd call exciting."
     I've got to know before this gets any more serious.
     Trying to sound casual and failing completely, she said, "Any causes?"
     He turned and looked at her without speaking, then let himself out of the truck and went around to her side to help her out. She took his arm again as they began the walk to her door.
     "If you were to take Route 231 through the city, turn south onto Fullerton Boulevard, and stay on it for about half a mile, you'd come to a light industrial area. On the southern edge there's a medical park, just a few one-story buildings that share a parking lot. Most Saturdays when the weather is good, you'd find me standing at the entrance with a sign that says 'Pregnant? Please talk to me first.' "
     Katie was right.
     "Operation Rescue, Louis?"
     He shook his head as they mounted the short flight of concrete steps that stood before her door. "No, I don't much care for that bunch. When they're there, I'm not. This is just me, and sometimes another fellow who feels the way I do."
     Instead of unlocking her door at once, she turned to face him. He stood with his hands clasped before him. She could read nothing from his face in the dim moonlight.
     "And how is that?"
     He looked down briefly. "That abortion is a horrible thing. That it should be a last resort, to save a mother's life, not a first to spare her some inconvenience. That most women who have abortions wouldn't, if they knew how they'd feel afterward." He said it calmly, no strain apparent.
     "Are you a Catholic by any chance, Louis?"
     He stood a little straighter. "Not by chance, Celeste. By mature choice, and by the grace of God."
     Something in the words flicked her on the raw. Scorn poured into her voice. "I see. And of course that 'grace' gives you the right to interfere in the mature choices of women you've never met?"
     His eyes flared wide. "I interfere in no one's choices, Miss Holmgren. I force myself on no one. I present information and alternatives. Sometimes it seems as if the rest of society is practically shoving women into abortion clinics, rushing them in with no chance to check other options or think about what they're doing. I don't block the doors. I stand beside them with an offer of assistance. If that be interference, make the most of it."
     He started away, then faced her again. "By the way, you might have the wrong idea about something else as well. I'm not opposed to abortion because I'm a Catholic. Being opposed to abortion is part of what qualifies me to be a Catholic. Give that a spin on your mental merry-go-round and see where it gets off. Thanks for your company this evening. I'll see you at the office next week."
     He strode off into the darkness before she could reclaim her voice.

[From Chosen One]

     Louis Redmond’s convictions are mine as well.

---

     Abortion as a public-policy matter has been debated in the most strident tones imaginable, ever since the decision in Roe v. Wade was announced. As a cultural matter, it’s suffered quite a number of setbacks, most prominently the Kermit Gosnell atrocities, the revelation that major abortion provider Planned Parenthood has been selling fetal body parts to order, and the tide of former pro-abortion voices who’ve turned against the procedure out of simple humanity. The recent movie Unplanned dramatizes that last aspect of the thing.

     While the nation is dramatically divided about whether abortion should be legal and under what circumstances, the Democrat Party is not. Its coalition is already shaky. To keep it together, it must “hold the line” on a handful of issues. Abortion, which the Left regards as key to retaining “the women’s vote,” is probably at the top of that list. Thus, it will do whatever it can think of to obstruct any progress, whether legal or judicial, toward limiting abortions.

     The delegitimization of the Supreme Court, now populated by a Catholic majority, is a component in that effort. The attack on Brett Kavanaugh and the revived attacks on Clarence Thomas – remember the “high-tech lynching?” I do – are central elements in that effort.

     Let’s sum up. A political party that respects nothing but power and is determined to have all of it in perpetuity has committed the foulest imaginable libels against good and decent men who stand in its path. It’s degraded the nation, beclowned its media, and disregarded the sanctity of human life to gain its end. Would you say there’s any real surprise to be had here, Gentle Reader? Any uncertainty about the conclusions I've reached?

     Nope. Me neither.

Reaping What They Have Sown

     I’ve probably embedded this video before. It’s Nicholas Freitas’s declamation to the Virginia House of Delegates on firearms, gun violence in schools, and the attitudes of the Democrats. Even though my thoughts this morning are not about those subjects, Delegate Freitas expresses a point so pertinent to current events that I cannot imagine it being put better. Please watch it – and pay particular attention to Delegate Freitas’s statement about how the Democrats persistently compare Republican supporters of the Second Amendment to Nazis, and imply that they’re all being paid by the NRA:

     To his credit, Delegate Freitas merely demands that the Democrats display respect for Republicans’ integrity and sincerity, reciprocal to the respect Republicans have shown them. That’s the position of one who believes that civility can be restored to political discourse. As I haven’t acquainted myself with what followed Delegate Freitas’s statements, I can’t say whether his demand was met with respect or venom. However, I’d be surprised if the Democrats, who appear as firmly committed to disarming Americans as ever, were to change their tack at this stage of the debate.

     Many commentators in the Right have predicted that should the Left continue to assail the Right with Nazi comparisons and imputations of being boughten mouthpieces for the “gun industry,” we in the Right would abandon our hope for a resumption of civil discourse and would adopt the Left’s tactics for our own use. Note that Delegate Freitas says explicitly that he doesn’t assume pro-choice Democrats are in the pay of Planned Parenthood. Yet the case for such an accusation is at least as good as the Democrats’ accusation that defenders of Americans’ Second Amendment rights are in the pay of the NRA, an organization that has repeatedly betrayed its charter and its membership by lending its support to gun control measures of various kinds.

     As the Left has merely intensified its attacks on the Right – and has recently added physical attacks to its repertoire – the consequences predicted above have arrived.

---

     Please review the following recent articles:

• Beating The War Drums
• The Democrats Want You Dead
• The social-media tactical worm has turned
• Don Surber’s comments on social-media mining

     Is the pattern of events clear to you, Gentle Reader? It seems utterly pellucid to me. The Right hasn’t yet produced an equivalent to Antifa, but given recent events such as the savage beating and hospitalization of Andy Ngo, how much time do we have before one emerges – with or without anyone else’s approval? And when, not ‘if,’ that should come to fruition, can you foresee any outcome other than blood in the streets?

     America is gazing into an abyss.

---

     It brings me no comfort to predict that when the pustule of political militancy bursts, the Left will fare worse than the Right. I’d hope the prospect doesn’t please you.

     Today, reputations are being destroyed and careers are being ended. What of the day when life and limb are actually at stake? How far away is that day? What will we do when families are ripped asunder over politics, when neighbor is set violently against neighbor? Will anyone be able to stand aloof from the chaos?

     The fracas proceeds from the Left having awarded itself the palm of moral and intellectual superiority, on which basis they have exempted themselves from all moral constraints. Destroying us “deplorables” is quite all right; we’re obstacles to their notions of “progress,” so we have no rights in their eyes. If you doubt this, there are articles scattered throughout the Web that will enlighten you. I encountered one just yesterday with the charming title of “When is it Okay to Punch a Nazi?” Yes, really; look it up.

     Delegate Freitas demanded that the Democrats acknowledge Republicans’ sincerity and integrity. As matters stand, that demand has not been answered positively. Meanwhile, assaults on conservatives’ persons and property have been multiplying and intensifying. What will follow seems obvious. The only question that remains is when.

We met on the beach amid rumours of war,
Your head in your hand -- what you saw
You won't say --
As the newspapers flew in the wind
I can see you're one of that kind
Who carry around a time bomb in the mind
No one knows --
When you'll slip the pin

Rumours of war...
Rumours of war...

I see that your dress is torn at the edge,
You are lost, intense, like a man on a ledge
Waiting to jump --
As the waves break over the shore
You say there's a storm that can't be delayed,
And lately it seems to be coming this way
You can hear it break --
Like the slam of a door

Rumours of war...
Rumours of war...

You tell me, just look all around,
At the past and the present, the Cross and the Crescent
The signs and the planets
Are lining up like before
There are souls on fire in the day and the night,
On the left and the right, in the black and the white
You can see it burn
In the eyes of the rich and the poor

Rumours of war...
Rumours of war...

("Rumours of War," Al Stewart)

Scum’s Gonna Scum...

     ...and while there are plenty of scummy types on Capitol Hill, some definitely “outperform” the rest.

     It’s generally known that Ilhan Omar is in Congress solely because of the large population of Somali immigrants in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional district. Omar herself is a Somali immigrant. Given the state of affairs in that African sewer, one might reasonably imagine that Omar would be grateful to have been admitted to this country. However, when it comes to the behavior of a Muslim, reason seldom has a place at the explanatory table.

     The rumors about Omar having married her own brother to commit an immigration fraud have been circulating for some time. They’ve just acquired lots of additional substance:

     In the past three weeks I have circled back to interview sources whom I have found to be highly reliable in the Omar saga. They open a window onto the scandals from the perspective of Ahmed Hirsi, her long-time partner and the father of her three children. According to sources, Hirsi is telling friends:

• that he will not go to jail for Omar;
• that while Omar did indeed marry her brother (Ahmed Elmi) for fraudulent purposes, Hirsi did not know at the time that she had married Elmi;
• that Omar is threatening Hirsi he would be in trouble along with her if the truth were to come out;
• that Omar has asked him to state publicly that all is well with their marriage even though it is completely done and finished; and
• that in fact they are living apart and have been divorced under Islamic law (although they remain legally married).

     Having humiliated Ahmed Hirsi by her affair with Tim Mynett, Omar now wants Hirsi to perform public relations services for her to suppress the scandal. That is cold.

     Interesting, no? The hard-left Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which has treated Omar with unconcealed adulation up to now, is suddenly on the case:

     New investigative documents released by a state agency have given fresh life to lingering questions about the marital history of Rep. Ilhan Omar and whether she once married a man — possibly her own brother — to skirt immigration laws.

     Omar has denied the allegations in the past, dismissing them as “baseless rumors” first raised in an online Somali politics forum and championed by conservative bloggers during her 2016 campaign for the Minnesota House. But she said little then or since about Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the former husband who swept into her life in 2009 before a 2011 separation.

     The questions surfaced again this month in a state probe of campaign finance violations showing that Omar filed federal taxes in 2014 and 2015 with her current husband, Ahmed Hirsi, while she was still legally married to but separated from Elmi.

     Although she has legally corrected the discrepancy, she has declined to say anything about how or why it happened.

     The new documents also detail the Omar campaign’s efforts to keep the story of her marriage to Elmi out of the press, arguing that detailed coverage would legitimize the accusations and invade her privacy.

     The response from Omar? It’s all right-wing plotting and Islamophobia:

     Omar spokesman Jeremy Slevin issued a statement Friday asserting that the questions about her personal life are illegitimate:

     “Since before she was elected to office, Ilhan has been the subject of conspiracy theories and false accusations about her personal life. Emboldened by a president who openly treats immigrants, refugees and Muslims as invaders, these attacks often stem from the presumption that Ilhan — like others who share those identities — is somehow illegitimate or not fully American.

     “Ilhan has shared more than most public officials ever do about the details of her personal life — even when it is personally painful,” he continued. “Whether by colluding with right-wing outlets to go after Muslim elected officials or hounding family members, legitimate media outlets have a responsibility not to fan the flames of hate. Continuing to do so is not only demeaning to Ilhan, but to her entire family.”

     Imagine any Republican – imagine any white male Christian — attempting to deflect such serious and well-substantiated accusations in a comparable fashion. Imagine what would become of him.

     There’s been a lot of talk about a two-tiered justice system in this country: the powerful skate on even the most serious offenses, while the little guy suffers the full weight of the law. It’s demonstrably that way as regards the coup attempt against President Trump orchestrated from within the FBI and CIA. What underlines the scurrility is the likely success of the attempt by Omar to evade scrutiny for crimes that would get an ordinary immigrant deported. She’ll receive all the protective cover her Democrat colleagues can contrive.

     The Democrats always do that for one of “their own.” Look at the cover they’ve provided Charles Rangel. Look at how they attempted to protect Anthony Weiner. And do I really need to mention Ted Kennedy? Power is what matters to the Democrats. Indeed, nothing else does.

     Worse, the Republicans almost always yield to it. They can’t bring themselves to confront such arrant lawlessness. The press might say something unflattering about them. Not that the press won’t do so anyway. But the typical GOP public official has his spine surgically removed before taking office. Whether his conscience is left in place remains unclear.

     Yet there are still people who demand to know “how we could have elected Donald Trump.” How dare we choose a man from outside the political elite! How dare we opt for one known for brashness of statement and daring in action! How dare he defy all precedent by working to fulfill his campaign promises – and how dare we stand loyally by him as the rest of the mortally offended ruling class labors to bring him down! It is to laugh...hollowly, and with many a tear.

Quickies: Minimax And Mainchance In Political Strategizing

     Every course of action has a downside. Sometimes the likelihood of that downside is what matters most to the person(s) contemplating it. Sometimes, however, it’s the depth of the pit that matters most – or should.

     The Democrats based much of their 2016 electoral strategy on defaming Donald Trump. Part of the defamation was of course the allegation that he was colluding with the Russian government to tip the election in his favor. However, that didn’t prevent Trump’s election. That put the Democrats in the awkward position of needing to defend their allegations – and those who made and propagated them – both from legal redress and in the court of public opinion. As should be unanimously acknowledged at this point, they failed on both counts, such that today several high-profile persons stand disgraced and might even face prison terms.

     The above was the heart of a mainchance strategy: i.e., betting everything on the outcome that would produce the highest return, with no provision for the consequences of losing. Mainchance planning is uncommon, as most of us would like to be reasonably certain that no matter how the dice might fall, we’ll survive what follows. Concentration on the possibility of losing results in a minimax strategy: i.e., playing so as to minimize the maximum possible damage from losing.

     The Democrats’ strategists believed, probably correctly, that winning their bet would bring them full control of Washington while exiling the Trump-led GOP to the political margins. Today, they’re suffering the consequences for losing. Those consequences will thrust them into the political wilderness for at least an election cycle. (If you doubt this, ponder their slate of presidential aspirants.) The most they can do to mitigate their suffering is to have their media allies reframe the story or strive to deflect attention from it. So far, that’s not doing much for them.

     Perhaps they should have paid more attention to the probability of losing a slanderous campaign against a well-known figure whose entire life had been reported in large type, who had nothing to lose, and who was all but guaranteed to seek retribution from those who had defamed him.

Jealous Masters

     Masters never surrender power willingly. Ours won’t be an exception.

     The syndrome appears to have taken hold around 1913, which was a bad year for several reasons. It advanced “progressively,” tightening its hold over the major instruments of education, communication, and government until, in 1928, a man beloved for his relief efforts in Europe after World War I used them as a launching pad into the presidency...a post for which he was not even remotely equipped.

     Herbert Hoover, mistakenly celebrated by far too many today as a “conservative,” was in point of fact a progressive. Theodore Roosevelt had become the prototype for the progressive Republican while in the White House: one who believes that the weight of government can be constructively brought to bear on “problems” of any variety or magnitude. Hoover was cast from that mold, as his many “private-public partnership” initiatives indicate.

     The media megaphones continued to blare progressive bilge throughout the Thirties, the Nightmare Decade. America’s involvement in World War II caused them to switch foci, but the thrust remained the same: Trust the State. We know what we’re doing.

     In contrast with Hoover, FDR’s progressivism didn’t wait for a “problem” to emerge before springing into action. Rather, he institutionalized the processes that Hoover had invoked case-by-case, creating bureaucracy after bureaucracy with standing powers and a mandate to interfere in the American economy. Thus, the next Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, arrived to confront a “permanent government” firmly aligned with progressive thinking. That fourth branch of government was the de facto master of all American enterprise, capable of making or breaking any commercial concern it might choose for attention. So far, the three Constitutional branches have been incapable of reining it in.

     Longevity in power has produced in the Deep State the attitude characteristic of masters: the conviction that they alone are entitled to rule, and that no one may legitimately stand against them. That’s how the Deep State came to be the implacable enemy we face today.

---

     [United States Senator from Oklahoma David L.] Boren, formerly a state legislator and governor, went to Washington expecting to make some changes. “What impressed me most is the great power of the bureaucracy compared to that of elected officials. All the talk about growing control by the bureaucracy is not exaggerated. The shift in power is very real.... There is almost a contempt for elected officials.”...

     Senator Boren found, to his surprise, that a Senator has great difficulty even getting phone calls returned by the “permanent” employees, much less getting responsive answers to his questions.

     The voters can’t “throw the rascals out” anymore, because the main rascals are not elected but appointed....

     Regulatory bureaucrats have extra power because they can outlast the elected officials. “Often,” Boren explains, “I’ve said to a bureaucrat, ‘You know this is not the president’s policy.’

     ’True, Senator, but we were here before he came, and we’ll be here after he leaves. We’re not in sympathy with his policy. We’ll study the matter until he leaves.’”

     [From Armington and Ellis, MORE: The Rediscovery of American Common Sense.]

     It might seem that the Deep State, by its nature, would be apolitical, concerned solely with its own power and perquisites. However, the progressive ideology, inculcated in the bureaucracies from their inception by the presidents who oversaw their creation, causes the Deep State to be aligned with the Democrat Party. As we know, that ideology promotes unopposable power in the State. This is a condition the Democrats approve. They hope to use it to maintain their party’s grip on high office.

     Today, Karin McQuillan has a few thoughts on the subject:

     America cannot continue as a republic without the acceptance that one party routinely will be turned out of office. Democrats no longer accept that bedrock principle of American liberty. They see themselves as the only party entitled to govern. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and the Russian collusion frame-up are two faces of the same coin: Democrats now reject the orderly succession of power through duly constituted elections.

     Please read the whole thing. It’s an excellent explanation of why the Democrats hope it will return them to power – indeed, why no other available approach is more likely to do the job.

     The conviction underlying the Democrats’ promotion of Trump Derangement is what interests me most. They believe that they and only they are entitled to rule, and so are unwilling to tolerate any opposing force. That Trump, a political outsider, should have unseated them was bad enough. That he’s overturning all political precedent by keeping his campaign promises is salt in the wound. That by doing so he’s given the lie to all their propaganda about “globalism,” “transnationalism,” “the era of limits,” and “the new normal” might prove fatal to them.

     The masters of the Deep State see the current situation as a win-or-die dilemma. They believe their survival requires that Trump be brought down, in as garish and dramatic a fashion as possible – and they could well be right.

     The Democrats’ luminaries are wholly in accord with this aim. They see Trump as their mortal enemy. Simply by doing what he’s proposed to do, he could doom them to an obscurity like unto that of the Whigs. So they’ll keep the TDS carnival rotating until they’ve all been unseated. Unfortunately, given the power of incumbency, especially in states such as California, Illinois, and New York, that could take three decades or more.

     The thing for conservatives to beware is the Democrats’ accumulation of para-partisan allies, especially in Big Tech. This is already a subject for serious concern. The World Wide Web was critical to Trump’s 2016 victory. If his supporters are silenced it could badly reduce his chances to gain a second term. Worse yet, it could provide an avenue for the Quisling Republicans of the political Establishment, who’ve never approved of Trump and have opposed him both explicitly and implicitly, to regain the mastery of the GOP.

     It’s a time for vigilance, and for action.

WTF Department

     There’s ignorant, there’s seriously clueless, there’s terminally stupid, and then:

     The Border Patrol has already established that approximately 80% of supposed family members attempting to enter the U.S. at the southern border are not related to one another in any documented or otherwise detectable way. For my part, I would have no problem with separating those “families” even if one of their number could produce a green card. The operative concept here is trafficking. There’s a lot of it, it’s a criminal offense, and the border is exactly the right place to put a halt to it.

     Miss Omar is not a microcephalic idiot. She knows this. So we must look deeper for her motives in making so outrageously false and defamatory a claim. Surely there’s a logical reason a normally patriotic American Congresswoman would…

     But wait: what’s this? Ilhan Omar is a Muslim immigrant from Somalia? Then she very well could be an agent of civilizational jihad, couldn’t she? One of the folks who seek to suborn the Constitution by importing or otherwise producing a “replacement population” with no allegiance to American traditions and norms. Exactly how did such a person secure a seat in the House of Representatives?

     What’s that you say? Her constituency is overwhelmingly made up of Muslims and persons of African origin? Well, all stands explained, then. Except for the motives of American immigration authorities in allowing such a district to form in the first place, of course.

     The House of Representatives is currently under the control of the Traitor Quisling Democrat Party, so there’s little to no chance that Omar would be censured or otherwise disciplined for her lunacy. After all, the Democrat caucus also embraces such worthies as Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the truth-allergic Adam Schiff. So the only way to get Omar out of Congress is to vote her out…and given her constituency, that’s a longshot.

     In recent decades the Democrats have adopted a completely anti-American stance. They react to any policy that favors American traditions, norms, or interests just as a vampire would react to a crucifix. Get it away! The era when a John F. Kennedy would vie for the presidency on a platform of strengthened American defenses are long past. So the Omars, Tlaibs, et cetera in their ranks don’t disturb them at some ideological level. Only were those persons to become electoral impediments would the party reconsider allowing them to remain in its ranks, much less lending them its support.

     I sense the germ of an idea here. What if every Democrat who declares for the presidency were to face severe, unrelenting questioning about the statements and positions taken by Omar, Tlaib, and Ocasio-Cortez? Do you agree with these statements – yes or no? No other responses, no quibbling, qualifications, explanations, or exculpations shall be accepted!

     Remember: No one ever won a war by playing defense. Let’s get on the attack, early and often.

Quickies: A Is For Arrogance

     And certain Democrats and their fellow travelers have plenty of it:

     Several candidates were in San Francisco for the California Democratic Party convention and a slew of other gatherings -- including MoveOn.org's Big Ideas Forum. [Former Vice President Joseph] Biden, who has sat comfortably atop the polls with a message anchored in more establishment Democratic politics, opted to stay out of the fray, skipping the convention and instead headlining the Human Rights Campaign's annual Ohio gala….

     Biden's leading challengers won those audiences over by using him as a punching bag….

     "Some Democrats in Washington believe the only changes we can get are tweaks and nudges. If they dream at all, they dream small," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in her speech at the Democratic convention.

     "Some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses," she said. "But our country is in a time of crisis. The time for small ideas is over."…

     Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday continued the barrage of criticism aimed at Biden, casting his 2020 rival as pursuing a "middle ground" ideology and blasting him for skipping the gathering.

     Warren and Sanders are about as far to the left as anyone in the Democrats’ ranks. They do not hesitate to call for completely socialized medicine, confiscatory levels of taxation, and other horrifying, anti-Constitutional measures. Which has caused your humble Curmudgeon to ask: What are the odds that they and their supporters will ever come to their senses? And if they don’t, whence goeth the Democrat Party, in 2020 and beyond?

     Joseph Biden would never get my vote for any office, much less the presidency. However, when compared to Warren and Sanders he looks like a fount of reason and judicious moderation. What do the party’s kingmakers, strategists, and major donors think of it all? It will be at least a year before we have a clear idea.

     Meanwhile, Americans in the Right: Remember that crack about “Republicans coming to their senses,” and ponder what it implies about how the Democrats would use whatever amount of federal power they might obtain in next year’s elections.