Ask a silly question
Wayne Allen Root does it:
Is There a Democrat Running for President Who is a Criminal and Traitor?
Is there one who isn’t?
Cold Fury
Harshing your mellow since 9/01
Just another day in Leftopia
Cholera, typhus, TB, bubonic plague, and now this.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is rarely seen in the United States, but cases continue to emerge in Los Angeles County, a new report says.
“Hansen’s disease still exists, and we need to educate medical students and physicians,” coauthor Dr. Maria Teresa Ochoa from Keck Medical Center of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, told Reuters Health by email.
Dr. Ochoa and colleagues identified 187 patients with the disease in a review of medical records from their leprosy clinic spanning 1973 to 2018. Most patients were Latino, originating from Mexico, and they experienced a median delay in diagnosis of more than three years, the team reports JAMA Dermatology, online August 7.
Hoft sums up the whole oozy mess nicely: “Ahh, the joys of open borders and Democrat leadership.” Puts me in mind of the assessment of LA offered years ago by my old friend and LA native Chris Pfouts, may he forever rest in peace: “A suppurating boil on the landscape, with plenty of bad cops to keep anybody from stealing the pus.” He was even righter than he knew at the time, looks like.
The pseudo-science is SETTLED!
Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly “the weather”): all bullshit, all the way down.
“Discussions on global warming often refer to ‘global temperature.’ Yet the concept is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility,” says Science Daily, paraphrasing Bjarne Andresen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, one of three authors of a paper questioning the “validity of a ‘global temperature.’”
While it’s “possible to treat temperature statistically locally,” says Science Daily, “it is meaningless to talk about a global temperature for Earth. The globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average. That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless.”
A few years after the University of Copenhagen report was published, University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick, one of the report’s authors, noted in another paper that “number of weather stations providing data…plunged in 1990 and again in 2005. The sample size has fallen by over 75% from its peak in the early 1970s, and is now smaller than at any time since 1919.”
“There are serious quality problems in the surface temperature data sets that call into question whether the global temperature history, especially over land, can be considered both continuous and precise. Users should be aware of these limitations, especially in policy-sensitive applications.”
It’s all no more than arrant nonsense—a Progressivist subterfuge intended to establish and empower some form of global government with total control over First World capitalist economies with an eye towards redistributing their wealth to Third World ones—and has never been anything but. The entire history of the Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly “the weather”) scam allows for no other conclusion.
Prog-nosis: piss poor
More like an endlessly-metastasizing tumor, I think. Or a parasitical infection, like tapeworms, maybe. But still, the man…uhh, gorilla has a point.
I was thinking the other day that progressivism is like a virus. This is no doubt a bit of an oversimplification, but this is how viruses work: when they come in contact with a cell, they trick it into thinking it’s something they need, like a nutrient, so the virus gets pulled in. Once inside, the virus repurposes the cell’s DNA into making more viruses. The cell gets turned into, literally, a virus factory. Eventually, so many viruses will be manufactured that the cell will burst, releasing all of the new viruses to infect other cells.
You can see the parallels with progressivism. First, unlike a normal cell, which has a function as part of some larger organism and can reproduce itself, viruses can’t exist independently. They’re kind of like a parasite. Similarly, progressives don’t really do anything useful or productive.
Also, viruses don’t do anything except cause illness. I guess there are some viruses that have been indentified as beneficial, but not many. So, generally speaking, if you have a virus, it’s bad. And any time a progressive shows up and wants to do something or be in charge of something, it’s bad. When left unchecked, viruses will reduce healthy organisms to a sickly caricature of what they formerly were. Case in point: The Star Wars franchise. Or the State Department.
Second, progressives also gain entry into institutions and organizations by deception. They trick the unwary into opening the door for them by using words such as ‘peace’, ‘justice’, ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ as if they are actually interested in peace, justice, equality, and fairness. Which they’re not. Everything they tell you is a lie.
GP goes on to lay out several more good points of comparison, winding up with this:
Finally, like most viruses, science hasn’t really found a cure for progressivism.
Well, maturity usually does the trick. As Churchill put it (or, possibly, didn’t): if you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 40, you have no brain. Failing that, a single dose of lead in a copper or steel jacket, topically applied to either the head or the Sniper’s Triangle area, would work nicely too.
Less talk, more action
Julie Kelly loses patience.
While Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s name quickly has vanished from the front pages following his disastrous testimony before Congress last month, the investigation into “Russiagate”—how top officials in the Obama Administration fabricated the phony Russian collusion hoax and weaponized the country’s most powerful law enforcement tools against an American political campaign—appears to be moving at a snail’s pace.
The results of a long-awaited probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general into potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by Comey’s FBI has been delayed again until at least early fall. In a separate inquiry, Inspector General Michael Horowitz reportedly concluded that Comey illegally leaked classified information and referred the former FBI director to the Justice Department for possible prosecution, but Attorney General William Barr reportedly rejected that advice: “Prosecutors found the IG’s findings compelling but decided not to bring charges because they did not believe they had enough evidence of Comey’s intent to violate the law, according to multiple sources,” reported John Solomon at The Hill earlier this month.
Umm, forgive my ignorance in bringing it up and all, but wasn’t Comey’s transparently corrupt use of the spurious “lack of intent” standard to paint over Hillary!™‘s crimes something we were all making sport of not too long ago? And now BARR is resorting to it?
Sorry, y’all excuse me for a moment.
Okay, onwards.
The House Intelligence Committee last year asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify and publish depositions by dozens of people the committee interviewed about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. That request remains unfulfilled.
In May, the White House empowered Barr to declassify all materials needed to expedite his office’s investigation into Russiagate.
“Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions,” announced former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. Nearly three months later, the public has not seen one document.
In January 2018, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) referred Steele to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation for lying to federal officials. Steele has not been charged. In April 2018, 11 House Republicans sent a letter to the DOJ asking for criminal investigations into Comey, McCabe, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and others for various offenses. Comey continues to rant on Twitter and write anti-Trump columns for the New York Times; McCabe is a regular on MSNBC and now is suing his former employer for wrongful dismissal based on—get this—political reasons. McCabe also has been under grand jury investigation for at least a year.
The Mueller report concluded that Joseph Mifsud, the man who allegedly triggered the FBI’s probe into the Trump campaign in July 2016 after he met with George Papadopoulos, lied three times to investigators. Unlike several other Trump associates, including Papadopoulos, Mifsud has not been charged with perjury.
Alas, Kelly presents plenty more support for the depressing idea that the Deep State fix is well and truly in. Even my own hope of seeing justice done for the dastardly crimes against American self-government committed by the coup conspirators is beginning to fade. It all makes Sanders’ statement about “restoring confidence” in our tainted, toxic institutions sound like either pathetically naive blather or some kind of sick, sick joke. Lends considerable weight to that last post about the importance of resisting the gun-grabbers, now don’t it?
Resistance: not futile
Once again, responding to a horrendous crime by inflicting knee-jerk, authoritarian restrictions on innocent people proves to be an ineffective means of convincing people to obey. Specifically, New Zealand’s government—which also stepped up censorship and domestic surveillance after bloody attacks on two Christchurch mosques earlier this year—is running into stiff resistance to new gun rules from firearms owners who are slow to surrender now-prohibited weapons and will probably never turn them in.
Officials should have seen it coming.
“Police are anticipating a number of people with banned firearms in their possession won’t surrender them,” Stuff reported at the end of May, based on internal government documents.
As of last week, only around 700 weapons had been turned over. There are an estimated 1.5 million guns—with an unknown number subject to the new prohibitionon semiautomatic firearms—in the country overall.
That gun owners would, in large numbers, defy restrictions should have been anticipated by anybody who knows the history of government attempts to disarm their subjects—or who just glanced across the Tasman Sea to Australia.
“In Australia it is estimated that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been given up to the authorities,” wrote Franz Csaszar, professor of criminology at the University of Vienna, after Australia’s 1996 compensated confiscation of firearms following a mass murder in Port Arthur, Tasmania. Csaszar put the number of illegally retained arms in Australia at between two and five million.
Even here at home, gun owners in such presumably-cowed deep Blue states as Connecticut (15% compliance) and New York (5% compliance) raised a defiant middle finger and refused to stack arms when government demanded it of them, to their eternal credit. As Vox says:
The people of New Zealand have seen what has happened post-gun control in both Australia and England. The violence has gotten worse, not better. The governments have gotten more authoritarian, not less. And given the degraded demographic situation in all these countries, only a complete fool would comply with these intrinsically immoral laws and disarm himself.
Amen to that. The above article is over a month old; a commenter posts that the number of weapons turned in as of a few days ago is up to 15,511—still a paltry few, relatively speaking, most assuredly far less than the authoritarian authorities hoped and/or expected.
The dark cloud to this silver lining, obviously, is that those defiant gun owners are going to find getting themselves the requisite skill-honing range time a bit, shall we say, problematic going forward. A freedom that must be carefully concealed and never openly exercised ain’t no freedom at all. As Bracken always says, if you think it’s time to start burying the guns in the backyard, it’s probably time to start digging them up instead.
But still, resistance to the gun-grabbers is a good thing wherever and whenever it’s to be found, infinitely preferable to the kind of sheeplike acquiescence so disgracefully displayed by our once-doughty British cousins. So hats off to the good Kiwis; may the rediscovery of their balls not have come too late, and may their example provide a cautionary note to all those who would rule rather than govern.
RIP Wyatt
Peter Fonda, the son of Henry Fonda and the younger brother of Jane Fonda, has died, PEOPLE confirms. He was 79.
Peter’s family confirmed the sad news in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE on Friday and said that the two-time Oscar-nominee died after suffering respiratory failure due to lung cancer.
“It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that Peter Fonda has passed away,” the family said. “[Peter] passed away peacefully on Friday morning, August 16 at 11:05 a.m. at his home in Los Angeles surrounded by family.”
“The official cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer,” they continued.
Yes, I know he was pretty much your archetypical Hollywood limousine-liberal schmuck and all. Nevertheless, I still consider Easy Rider to be one of the damned greatest movies ever made, and it was Fonda that done it. Even though Jack Nicholson pretty much stole the whole show with his mesmerizing, too-brief turn as George, Fonda definitely had his moments too. Such as:
The bit I like most here comes at about 1:00 or so in, but of course one can never go wrong watching the whole thing. Fare thee well, Pete, and may you rest easy. If only for that one glorious moment, you done good.
The Costanza Principle
“Remember: it’s not a lie if you believe it.”
Two Democratic presidential candidates recently observed the fifth anniversary of Michael Brown’s death by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. — a case that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement as well as days of unrest locally.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., tweeted, “Michael Brown’s murder forever changed Ferguson and America.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted, “5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.”
Of course, being the reliably liberal propaganda outlet it is, Politi”fact” immediately gets to work weaving its rhetoricomagical smokescreen to obscure the hard truth:
After these tweets came out, PolitiFact heard from numerous readers who asked us to check whether Harris and Warren were correct in calling Brown’s death a “murder.”
There is no question that Wilson killed Brown, and there’s strong evidence that it was not accidental.
In discussing the case with legal experts, however, we found broad consensus that “murder” was the wrong word to use — a legal point likely familiar to Harris, a longtime prosecutor, and Warren, a law professor.
In fact, two other Democratic senators with law degrees now running for president — Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand — more accurately referred to it as a killing.
That said, experts who have studied police-related deaths and race relations said that focusing too much on the linguistics in controversial cases comes with its own set of problems.
It’s all just the usual mealy-mouthed bullshit, twisting and warping and dissembling in order to Keep Lefty Hope Alive. Just one problem (bold mine):
As discussed above, Darren Wilson has stated his intent in shooting Michael Brown was in response to a perceived deadly threat. The only possible basis for prosecuting Wilson under section 242 would therefore be if the government could prove that his account is not true – i.e., that Brown never assaulted Wilson at the SUV, never attempted to gain control of Wilson’s gun, and thereafter clearly surrendered in a way that no reasonable officer could have failed to perceive. Given that Wilson’s account is corroborated by physical evidence and that his perception of a threat posed by Brown is corroborated by other eyewitnesses, to include aspects of the testimony of Witness 101, there is no credible evidence that Wilson willfully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat. Even if Wilson was mistaken in his interpretation of Brown’s conduct, the fact that others interpreted that conduct the same way as Wilson precludes a determination that he acted with a bad purpose to disobey the law. The same is true even if Wilson could be said to have acted with poor judgment in the manner in which he first interacted with Brown, or in pursuing Brown after the incident at the SUV. These are matters of policy and procedure that do not rise to the level of a Constitutional violation and thus cannot support a criminal prosecution.
Because Wilson did not act with the requisite criminal intent, it cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt to a jury that he violated 18 U.S.C.§ 242 when he fired his weapon at Brown.
VI.
Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, this matter lacks prosecutive merit and should be closed.
Should be, right enough—but won’t, not as long as scurrilous, Democrat-Socialist hacks think there’s still a skoche of political mileage to be wrung from it.
The above lancing of this boil of suppurating Leftist falsehood is from the official DoJ report on the matter (PDF link). That, mind you, would be the Obama junta’s own DoJ, under the control of one Eric Holder at the time. Which matters greatly because, given what we’ve all now seen of how deeply the rot and corruption sown by Obama in those parts goes, it’s clear they would NOT have balked at using even the flimsiest pretext to have Wilson brought up on murder charges if there had been one to be found. And it wasn’t just the Obama DoJ that could find no “there” there, either:
A Missouri grand jury also declined to indict the officer for the shooting. Normally when you have not one but two investigatory bodies, one of which had political reasons to be skeptical, nonetheless conclude that a homicide was justifiable then by definition it’s not properly described as “murder.” But if PolitiFact took that view, it would risk being seen as insensitive to police shootings by people whose opinion it values.
AP is being way too gentle with the scoundrels, as far as I’m concerned. Fact is, Politi”fact” is trying to help their Democrat-Socialist partners in crime perpetuate a useful lie—a particularly destructive and dangerous one, at that. There’s only one possible thing to be gained from continuing to burnish this tawdry deception, and that only for those who consider advancing the careers of Democrat-Socialist political hacks by fraudulent means any kind of “gain” in the first place. For the rest of us, we’ll have to reckon with the likelihood of being burned by the flame they’re stoking for purely partisan purposes.
Van life: NOT for pussies
I dunno, I loved it myself.
The ultimate road trip had been our goal since we’d met during our senior year of college, in 2012. We wanted to explore the country in an authentic way, meet its diverse people, see both its ugly places and its beautiful ones. Our idea was inspired by #vanlife, the faux-bohemian, four-wheeled lifestyle movement. Why tour the country in a regular old car, camping in national parks and rooming in hotels off highway exits, when we could buy a cheap van and make it our mobile home?
There was an important caveat. We decided to reject the cushiness of #vanlife and skip the saccharine Instagram posts. This was partly out of necessity—we didn’t have the budget for a $10,000 vintage van and a $10,000 overhaul. But we also feared the Instagramization of our lives, seeing the mountains through the lens of our camera phones. I rolled my eyes (though secretly a little jealous) at the shirtless #vanlife guys whose long captions detailed the importance of learning how to fix a timing belt with a shoelace. Rachel damn sure wasn’t going to sit naked on the roof of the van for a photo shoot every few sunrises.
Dude, you started off doing it wrong. There are rules for this sort of thing, you know.
From the beginning, my anxieties stemmed from the van itself. On a steamy day in July, we left triumphantly from Philly, striking out from the same old ugly, crowded highways, quickly moving north on I-87, up into the green mountainsides of the Catskills of New York. But I couldn’t enjoy the views. My eyes were glued on the temperature gauge, which read “Cold N-O-R-M-A-L Hot” in an arc. In the fall and winter, when I’d been driving Little Honey, the needle got stuck, as if lodged between the leg of the R and the M. Now, in the 92-degree heat, it meandered up through the M and, to my horror, occasionally cut into the A. Every millimeter it rose made new parts of my body clench. What if the temperature spiked and the van died the first week of the trip, or the first day?
You quit whining and wringing your hands and FIX the damned thing, that’s what. This serves to illustrate the big mistake that doomed this guy: if you’re going to be traveling great distances in a motor vehicle, you are essentially putting yourself completely at the mercy of said vehicle’s state of repair and reliability. It therefore behooves you to educate yourself to the greatest extent you possibly can about how the thing works, what components are most prone to sudden failure, and how to repair them yourself by the side of the road, with the at least minimal hand tools you were hopefully smart enough to bring along. Anything less is asking for trouble. And on the road, you really don’t have to ask; sooner or later, it’s going to find you on its own.
We rode on, but my nerves were shot. I couldn’t seem to shake the little voice in my head that kicked in every day when I unchocked the wheels and turned the keys in the starter: If this van breaks down, you’re fucked.
You most certainly are, buddy. And there just ain’t no feeling in the world quite as stomach-churning as the one you get when you find yourself broken down on the road: stranded far from home, family, friends, and any possible help. Much, much worse if it happens to you at around 2 in the morning, too.
I’d always wanted to be handy like my dad and uncles and cousins—the kind of men with the skill to take something apart and put it back together again, repaired. I thought that owning the van would make me handy and mechanical by necessity, and in some ways, it had: I could change a tire, no sweat, keep the simple things lubricated and topped off, even tighten the oil pan with a socket wrench to try to stop an incessant leak. But beyond that, I had failed.
You surely did—because those things you listed do not in any way, shape, or form qualify you to undertake such an adventure. They are no more than the absolute minimum that every driver should be able to do, whether on a road trip or close to home. Although I do know that even that barely-adequate skill set ain’t nearly as common as it once was, and ought to be.
I still didn’t know how to diagnose a cracked head gasket or how to fix anything serious.
No need to, really. You ain’t gonna be fixing a “cracked” head gasket by the side of the road anyway, I promise you. And head gaskets don’t really “crack,” by the by. They blow. Which generally refers to tearing, ripping, or burning through in sections. No biggie, just sayin’.
When something bad happened (and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would), we’d be at the mercy of some wicked small-town mechanic.
Another real problem for sure. To my own eternal disgust, there exists in this country an entire class of villainous scoundrels who make their living exclusively off of victimizing helpless sad sacks in trouble on the road, many if not most focusing on truckers. These “people” set up shop in seedy, rundown corrugated-metal shops right off of interstate off-ramps. There’s a reason for that. Think of them as trap-door spiders on two legs, waiting to ensnare any hapless soul with smoke coming from under the hood in their evil web. Hours later, your wallet will have been exsanguinated, your humiliation at having been suckered by these swine burning your self-esteem to cinders.
Even then, your car may or may not have been properly repaired. Many of these grifters are skilled enough mechanics to know how to cobble things together just enough to get you a few miles on the down road before your jerry-rigged strugglebuggy judders to a costly halt all over again. Should you ever find yourself reamed, steamed, and dry-cleaned in such fashion, you’ll readily understand why I’ve always maintained that drawing and quartering for such foul skullduggery isn’t nearly harsh enough punishment.
The mishaps, traumatizations, and ruination all go on from there, but in the end everything comes out more or less okay. Personally, I really miss my old free-wheeling, road-tripping, van-dwelling days. Which probably just confirms I’m nuts.
Taking it to ’em
What fighting back looks like.
That one’s hilarious all right, but this might be even better.
#ShutDownICE Protesters Shocked When Pick-up Truck Drives Through Their Blockade
A pickup truck drove into a row of protesters who were blocking the entrance to an ICE detention center in Rhode Island, Wednesday night, forcing them to scatter. “The whole world is watching!” the shocked crowd chanted in response. The truck reportedly belonged to a guard at the facility.
To add insult to injury, guards from the detention center later came out and pepper-sprayed the protesters.
Alas, it ain’t all happiness and joy; as so often happens in this life, we must take some bitter with the sweet.
No one one was seriously injured, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported.
Well, that’s a damned shame. Better luck next time, I guess.
Video of the incident shows people screaming and running as the car moves slowly into the crowd. The crowd then broke out into a chant of “The whole world is watching.”
And pointing, and laughing.
“It was shocking, it was unexpected,” Rofeberg told JTA. “There’s some amount of risk when you go to an action like this. You don’t expect it to unfold like this.”
Not up until now you didn’t, more’s the pity. It is to be hoped your expectations will need to be adjusted accordingly from here on out. And the glad tidings just keep rolling in.
Proud Boys, Antifa Will Square Off in Portland This Weekend
If you’re going to be visiting Portland, Oregon, this weekend, the city fathers want you to know that despite Antifa and the Proud Boys confronting each other in rival demonstrations, you shouldn’t let that ruin your weekend.
If I’m in Portland, I figure my weekend is pretty much ruined anyway. A righteous PantiFa beatdown dealt out by the Proudies might be the only thing that could keep it from being a total loss.
DAMNED PESKY ((((JOOOOOZ!!!)))) STRIKE AGAIN!
Cavil and kvetch all you like about ((((DEM JOOOOOZ!)))) and Israel. I’m all for ’em myself.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
No country in the world respects America and the American Congress more than the State of Israel.As a free and vibrant democracy, Israel is open to critics and criticism with one exception: Israeli law prohibits the entry into Israel of those who call for and work to impose boycotts on Israel, as do other democracies that prohibit the entry of people who seek to harm the country.
In fact, in the past the US did this to an Israeli member of Knesset, as well as to other public figures from around the world.
Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar are leading activists in promoting the legislation of boycotts against Israel in the American Congress.
Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy.
For instance: they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel, and unlike all Democratic and Republican members of Congress who have visited Israel, they did not request to meet any Israeli officials, either from the government or the opposition.
A week ago, Israel warmly welcomed some 70 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, who expressed broad bipartisan support for Israel, which was also demonstrated a month ago in a resounding bipartisan vote against BDS in Congress.
However, the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it.
In addition, the organization that is funding their trip is Miftah, which is an avid supporter of BDS, and among whose members are those who have expressed support for terrorism against Israel.
Therefore, the minister of interior has decided not to allow their visit, and I, as prime minister, support his decision.
Ace helpfully provided the above transcription of Netanyahu’s most edifying Tweetstorm, which I fucking love every word of. For his own part Da Prez is fully on board too, bless his heart:
It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 15, 2019
Ace also chronicles the predictably unhinged reaction from the despicable Left and their #NeverTrumpTard rumpswabs, if you have a strong stomach. If I wasn’t firmly in the “I stand with Israel” camp already, the thought of being associated in any way with the whole clown-car full of such asshats would be plenty enough to drive me there all by itself.
Why trust the untrustworthy?
None but a fool would believe a proven liar, nor should trust ever be granted those who have proved themselves unworthy of it.
Suddenly, rather than focus its attention on the alleged suicide of one of the most notorious and politically connected sex traffickers in history, the media instead targeted those malicious “conspiracy theorists” who refused to accept as fact the questionable circumstances around Epstein’s death. The media’s collective attitude is best summed up with this tweet posted by Politico early Sunday morning: “Jeffrey Epstein’s death has brought conspiracy theories into the political mainstream, with some influential people unable to take the details at face value.”
In the accompanying article, without irony or a shred of self-reflection, Politico editor-in-chief John Harris lamented that “the signature of American politics in the Trump era is a conviction—shared initially by many people who backed Trump but now embraced with similar fervor by many who loathe him—that things are not what they seem, that the official version of events is sustained by lies, that the institutions of American life are not on the level.”
But Harris doesn’t explore the reasons why this is the dim lens through which millions of his fellow countrymen now view our country’s most powerful institutions. Harris doesn’t wonder aloud why people distrust the government, our political leadership and our national news media so much that they actually believe the Clintons or some other shadowy figures might be responsible for Epstein’s death.
Harris doesn’t raise the possibility that perhaps a litany of ongoing embarrassments for the news media coupled with the fact that the previous administration weaponized the country’s law enforcement and intelligence apparatus to sabotage a rival political campaign and then tried to cover it up are contributing to a general climate of hostility, rage, and doubt.
Harris has good reason to eschew any such quest for insight: Because it would lead him straight to a mirror. Harris’ own website and his media colleagues in general have lost all credibility with the American public. From assuring us the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election to reporting every unproven allegation of rape against Brett Kavanaugh, Politico and its brethren have fueled this crisis of confidence. (Harris authored an article in September 2018 with the headline, “Why God is Laughing at Brett Kavanaugh.”)
Pro-life high schoolers wearing Make America Great Again hats were “mocking” and “laughing at” a Native American elder, the media told us. Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. The stock market will tank after Trump is elected. Donald Trump won’t serve a full term. White supremacy is on the rise and poses a greater threat to national security that Islamic extremism because Trump and Republicans are using special “code words” to fan the flames of racism. There is no national emergency at the southern border. The Trump Administration is the first to lock migrant children “in cages.”
That is only a partial list of falsehoods, flat-out lies and legitimate conspiracies that the untrustworthy folks who populate our once respected institutions have told us in the past three years.
Meanwhile, the media continue to ignore or to justify what many Republicans see as the biggest political scandal in our history, which is the way in which the Obama Administration sought to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump by using the most powerful government methods—including secret surveillance tools—to do it.
This is nothing more than government and Enemedia reaping what they’ve so diligently sown—a planting that took place over many, many years. Harris’s lamentation about “the signature of American politics in the Trump era” is especially rich; the institutions of American life—having been co-opted, undermined, and perverted by a Left that is hostile to them—are NOT “on the level,” and “the Trump era” was by no means the beginning of our awareness of it, either. As always, Trump has merely spoken things Real Americans have been saying amongst themselves for years—giving full-throated voice to people and ideas that our would-be masters would much prefer remain voiceless.
These institutions not only forfeited our faith in them, they actively spurned it. Having expressed it a thousand times, in a thousand ways, their arrogant contempt for the Normals has now come back to haunt them. Mollie Hemingway says Enemedia’s abominable performance last week represents a turning point:
Host Howard Kurtz started the discussion by noting:
Mollie, there is no longer any pretense of a debate. Journalists, commentators say….President Trump is a racist, President Trump is a white supremacist. {And} maybe leap into charging that he is condoning, inciting, that he’s directly responsible for mass violence.
Hemingway agreed: “It was really horrible, what we saw this week. We had two horrible mass shootings, and we had people in the media kind of absolve both of the shooters of their crimes in order to blame President Trump and his voters for mass murder.”
“This is completely beyond journalistic responsibility,” she added, “and a real turning point for the worst in American discourse.”
Making note to point out how many primetime FNC hosts support Trump, Kurtz then asked if the media are at “a point where the President can do nothing right, and many journalists [have] basically become part of the Resistance?”
Hemingway pointed to the significant differences between the shooters, noting that one of them “had these anti-immigrant viewpoints, and there was a shooter who was very supportive of Antifa and Elizabeth Warren and what not it’s not like he was saying out of thin air.”
Kurtz then turned to a front-page report in the New York Times stating: “Trump uses day of healing to deepen the nation’s division” and “A day intended to show compassion devolved into anger-fueled broadsides at Democrats and the media.”
“As if all the partisanship in this matter comes only from Donald Trump,” he continued.
Hemingway responded by calling the situation “an amazing game that’s being played” and stated:
So you have days of blaming Donald Trump for mass murder and his supporters for mass murder and then, when he responds to any of these things, well then, he’s acting unpresidential.
There is now simply no way any reasonable, observant person can credibly dispute their bias and dishonesty. None. They long ago made their choice; hearing them whine now about having to live with the consequences, å la Harris’s self-serving bleat above, should be sweet music to every Real American’s ears.
Call to arms
As the Left’s desperation grows, their unhinged refusal to abide by the results of any election they don’t win becomes more frenzied; their resolve to overthrow the duly-elected President by any means at all becomes more mulish; and their calls to revolution, disorder, and violence become less subtle, more open, and more dangerous.
PARIS—From Algeria to Hong Kong, Sudan to Puerto Rico, people all over the world have been turning out in the streets this year to confront policies and regimes that previously seemed all but invulnerable. And through relentless, largely peaceful protests they’ve had amazing success.
“Largely peaceful.” Uh huh. You’ll squeal like stuck little piggies when Real Americans finally get themselves a bellyfull, and some of that same mostly-peacefulness that far too many of us have already experienced from your side gets unleashed upside your heads for a change.
There is a lesson here. Americans disgusted by Donald J. Trump, disheartened by his control over the Senate and Supreme Court, demoralized by the consistent support he enjoys from two-fifths of the population, and appalled by his incitement of gun-toting racists, might want to take note.
The examples of mass demonstrations that have taken on, and in some cases taken down, terrible leaders show there are formulas that can be applied in many places, including the mainland of the United States of America. There’s even an illustrative equation.
Why have we not seen this kind of concerted, continuous combination of mass and velocity in the United States?
Maybe the American opposition to the Trump regime really isn’t as impassioned as many rants on Twitter might suggest. Or maybe those are just onanistic ends in themselves. There’s been a lot of obvious passivity: waiting for Robert Mueller to take care of everything, or pretending that the symbolic act of impeachment will squeeze the sleaze out of office.
Certainly, by comparison with the demonstrators in other parts of the world there’s a hint of sloth and even of cowardice.
When I broached some of these ideas on Twitter (where else?) one tweep complained impotently that “we” couldn’t even get Twitter to take down the president’s account, as if that would solve anything.
More than one suggested fear of Trump supporters with guns acts as a deterrent.
Glad to hear it; that means the Second Amendment, against all odds, is still working as intended. It also suggests there might actually remain some small hope, however miniscule, of you frothing fascists coming to your senses and stepping back from the brink before it’s too late. People like you are precisely whom the Founders warned us about; the 2A was written not to protect anybody’s right to hunt but to act as a deterrent to your kind, a last line of defense should you fail to heed its warning at last.
Your fear is wise and proper. May God grant that you never lose or dismiss it—for ALL our sakes.
Gun Rights Cake
So in last night’s “die gun-grabbers die!” post, the Aesop excerpt included a link to LawDog’s classic “Gun Rights Cake” essay, one I’ve also mentioned here myself a time or three. But it suddenly occurred to me that some of y’all may not have seen it before, and probably passed Aesop’s glancing mention on by without a thought or care. And that’s too bad, because you’re missing out on a real standout of a gem of a prize: one of the most pithy, unusual, and well-put-together arguments against any further concessions to the maneuverings and manipulations of gun-grabbers who aren’t ever going to be placated no matter what we agree to give up—people for whom the word “compromise” has always meant “We win, you surrender.”
So as a public service, I’m gonna do y’all a solid and repost it again. There’s a comic-strip version which I’m all but certain I ran here a while back, and LawDog also helpfully provides a link to his own GRC repost which features some quite worthy additional material as well. But the Q&A discussion from the original text-only post is worth including a bit of, which I don’t believe I ever have put up here. So we’ll go with that one this time around.
Do you believe that a background check infringes on your constitutional right to “keep and bear arms”?
Yes.
Do you believe that I and people with whom I work intend to ban your guns?
Yes.
If yes to #4, how do you think that could happen ( I mean the physical action)?
The same way you banned guns in New York. The same way you banned guns in Chicago. The same way you banned guns in Washington DC. Duh.
Do you believe that all law-abiding citizens are careful with their guns and would never shoot anybody?
You mean never shooting anybody, or never shooting anybody who needs it? I believe that all law-abiding citizens are human, and thus, not perfect. That’s not a reason to ban their guns, though.
All good stuff, and there’s plenty more of it. And then comes the question that leads to the timeless and immortal “Gun Rights Cake” response.
Will you continue a reasonable discussion towards an end that might lead somewhere or is this an exercise in futility?
Since what you consider to be reasonable isn’t even in the same plane of reality with what I consider reasonable, probably not.
Allow me to explain.
I hear a lot about “compromise” from your camp … except, it’s not compromise.
Let’s say I have this cake. It is a very nice cake, with “GUN RIGHTS” written across the top in lovely floral icing. Along you come and say, “Give me that cake.”
I say, “No, it’s my cake.”
You say, “Let’s compromise. Give me half.” I respond by asking what I get out of this compromise, and you reply that I get to keep half of my cake.
Okay, we compromise. Let us call this compromise The National Firearms Act of 1934.
There I am with my half of the cake, and you walk back up and say, “Give me that cake.”
I say, “No, it’s my cake.”
You say, “Let’s compromise.” What do I get out of this compromise? Why, I get to keep half of what’s left of the cake I already own.
So, we have your compromise — let us call this one the Gun Control Act of 1968 — and I’m left holding what is now just a quarter of my cake.
And I’m sitting in the corner with my quarter piece of cake, and here you come again. You want my cake. Again.
This time you take several bites — we’ll call this compromise the Clinton Executive Orders — and I’m left with about a tenth of what has always been MY DAMN CAKE and you’ve got nine-tenths of it.
Then we compromised with the Lautenberg Act (nibble, nibble), the HUD/Smith and Wesson agreement (nibble, nibble), the Brady Law (NOM NOM NOM), the School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvement Act (sweet tap-dancing Freyja, my finger!)
I’m left holding crumbs of what was once a large and satisfying cake, and you’re standing there with most of MY CAKE, making anime eyes and whining about being “reasonable”, and wondering “why we won’t compromise”.
I’m done with being reasonable, and I’m done with compromise. Nothing about gun control in this country has ever been “reasonable” nor a genuine “compromise”.
Nope. It’s always been subterfuge, a diabolical stratagem that demonstrates what the Left learned from the unexpected failure of another of their pet projects, Prohibition. Incrementalism has been their preferred approach to stripping Americans of their freedom ever since, on just about any issue you care to name. The inch-by-inch, step-by-step approach ensures the frog stays in the pot, see, until he’s all boiled and done. But if there’s one core, take-it-to-the-bank truth about them, it is that they will NEVER stop. They will have to BE stopped.
Of field trips
And final solutions.
The Wire was a show with few moments of optimism. But there’s a very brief scene in episode 8 of season 3 in which the crime-ravaged sections of the city are portrayed as peaceful and thriving. Residents are shown painting their homes and sweeping the stoops, greeting the mailman and each other with hearty smiles. It’s the only time we see a Baltimore that doesn’t look like hell on acid.
Why the peacefulness? Because a well-meaning police major named “Bunny” Colvin has, in a highly unauthorized and unsanctioned “experiment,” moved all the dealers and users away, shuffling them off to a newly created “safe zone” called Amsterdam (misunderstood by the dealers as “Hamsterdam”) where drug crimes will be ignored, as long as the offenders stay in the quarantine zone. Former mayor Schmoke, who advocated drug decriminalization while in office, appears in a few of these episodes, such was the overlap between real-life Baltimore and Wire Baltimore.
The message of season 3 and the “Baltimore is now at peace” scene? There is only one cure for the city’s ills: physical removal of the bad element. This was the best solution Simon could come up with. The “Hamsterdam” story arc delivered the message loud and clear: The problem with Baltimore is the people. Specifically, the segment of the population that’s not salvageable. The “trash” that needs to be removed isn’t of the banana peel and dog poop variety. The trash is human.
Talk about a downer. Leave it to Simon to give the series’ one truly uplifting scene a terrifying undercurrent.
Soon enough, Colvin’s superiors get wind of what he’s doing. “Hamsterdam” is dismantled and the neighborhoods go back to the war zones they were. But for one shining moment, Bunny Colvin saved Baltimore via population transfer…the segregation of the irredeemable to a quarantined area in order to “salvage what’s still worth salvaging” for the “decent people.” Those are the exact words Simon put in the mouth of one of his most consistently sympathetic, even heroic, characters (Colvin is one of the few Wire characters without a dark side).
“Salvage what’s still worth salvaging” for the “decent people.” On The Wire, that meant Nazi-style resettlement and containment. Unworkable in real life, unthinkable in America. Simon may claim that Trump’s a Nazi, but he’s the one who dreamed up a “final solution.”
A “final solution” that will never and can never become policy.
More and more, I think the only “solution” to a problem like Baltimore is the one I outlined in arguably my grimmest column to date, back in February 2018. Mainstream conservatives will continue to spew their fairy-tale solutions (“Oh boy, Spanky—a scrap metal drive!”) and leftists will continue to spew theirs (“Reparations! More welfare!”). But in the end, like it or not, we’re heading for the age of the de facto “urban reservation.” The salvageable people will get out, the salvageable surrounding land will be gentrified, and the remaining detritus will be boxed in and forgotten. The fact that most Americans expressed outrage at the recent spate of mass shootings while continuing to ignore gun crimes in black inner cities shows the increasing popularity of “What happens on the reservation is none of my business.”
We can argue nature vs. nurture and American dream vs. oppressive racism all we want. The solution will eventually take shape in spite of our grandstanding.
I think Cole is on target overall with this. But if recent history is any guide, “the salvageable people will get out” all right—and then rapidly turn the places they flee to into the exact same kind of shitholes they contributed so much to fucking up in the first place.
Warning order
Strong message follows. STRONG.
Dear Leftards:
You irrepressible commie halfwits think you’ve got the cards. You’re the idiot talking tough with the shotgun in your hand, and you’re about to get comeuppance. In Louis L’Amour’s memorable phrase, you’re about to have your meathouse torn down. With a mere couple of nutbags (mainly your own nutbags, nota bene) doing what nutbags do, you imagine you’ve got enough pull now to leverage your way into more asinine abridgments of the Constitution.
You haven’t, you won’t, and you really, really need to knock it off.
We’re really not kidding.
You’ve had all the slices of our cake you’re ever getting.
A lot of people thought we’d be facing ramped up anti-gun legislation long before now, because Shrillary and the Clinton Family Crime Syndicate looked like a shoe-in…until she wasn’t.
And serious people were ready, then, to open the ball you’re itching for now.
If TPTB were to decide they could set the last vestiges of the Constitution on fire, there’s more than a few that would take it upon themselves as a point of honor, not to wait cowering inside their homes, but to go out hunting OPFOR, 24/7/365. And they’d get more than one scalp apiece.
In short, minions of Leftardia and Stupidia, you have blundered into a minefield, on a pogo stick.
Stop what you’re doing, tiptoe out, and pray to whatever deity you think appropriate that you get away with your skins.Because if you insist on pushing your revolution, you’re going to get the war of which you cannot grasp, and the results of which you cannot even conjure in your wildest fever-swamp nightmares.
And your opponents, who’ve been stacking in supplies and loading magazines, are shifting from backing away, and hoping the fight you long for doesn’t come, and instead coming to a feeling of thinking it’s about time to roll up their sleeves, and end you.
Not your party.
Not your progressive communist utopia.
You.
For all values of that word.Every goddamned traitorous last one of you. Followed by your spouses, your children, your pets, your semi-domesticated illegal alien hordes, your schemes, your putrescent institutions, your metastasizing socialist programs, and every festering vestige of pustulence you’ve spewed onto a country you do not understand, didn’t build, and over which you and yours will never rule.
The comments-section discussion goes in all sorts of directions one might not expect, including a fairly devious gun-grab proposal from someone claiming to be “military intelligence” (but probably isn’t) and another claiming to be a “Real Conservative” (but DEFINITELY isn’t). In response to both of those fantasy-fascist douchebags—along with every other half-assed pantywaisted gun-grabbing Stalin wannabe all the way down to the umpteenth generation of ’em—I’ll just repeat my usual offer: Come and take them.
Enough talking. It’s your move, Lefty asstards. So make it already. Let’s all see how that works out for ya.
More “nothing to see here, folks, move along”
Nah, THIS doesn’t stink to high heaven. Not. At. ALL.
The New York City medical examiner’s office said Sunday that it had completed an autopsy of the financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein but that it needed more information before determining the cause of death.
Now, forgive my ignorance and stupidity and all; I’m by no means an expert on these matters, I freely admit that. But isn’t “more information” to determine the actual cause of a death that occurs under suspicious, unusual, or criminal circumstances sort of…uhhh, well…y’know…WHAT A FUCKING AUTOPSY IS FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?
Okay, sorry, my bad. But wait, it gets even better.
Multiple people briefed on the investigation told NBC News that suicide remains the presumed cause of death and that no sign of foul play has emerged in the day and a half since Epstein, 66, was found unresponsive in his federal jail cell in lower Manhattan on Saturday.
Emphasis mine, just to help y’all conspiracy-theorizing lunatics understand all this. See, “more information is needed.” But there’s absolutely no reason—NONE NO NO SRSLY YOU GUYS—to suspect foul play. Guess they had information enough to clear that up for us, thank goodness.
No, really. Trust us. I mean, why wouldn’t all Americans have complete faith in the integrity and trustworthiness of their governmental authorities and institutions, anyway?
In December 2011, after police in Springfield, Mass., had arrested Renaldo Penate for allegedly selling heroin, the drugs from that case were tested at a state drug lab by technician Sonja Farak. The same day that she did the tests, Farak wrote in a diary that she “tried to resist using [drugs] @ work but ended up failing.”
About two weeks later, Farak subsequently acknowledged, she spent the morning smoking crack in various bathrooms of her lab building, while also testing Penate’s drugs a second time. That same day, she found that police had submitted tablets of LSD. She took it, and “the sensation of colors in the wind left her unable to function for work,” court records show. Her actions would be discovered a year later, and Farak admitted she had been stealing and using drugs from the lab since 2004.
But when Penate’s lawyers asked for any information about Farak’s drug use during the time she was working in the lab, prosecutors with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office repeatedly refused to provide it. And so Penate was convicted and spent more than 5½ years in prison. A judge who investigated in 2016 called the prosecutors’ actions “intentional, repeated, prolonged and deceptive withholding of evidence from the defendants” and wrote that one of the prosecutors had a “lack of a moral compass.”
Gee, ya think? What can one really say to all this but: sheesh.
That’s from an old behind-the-paywall WaPo article, and I have no wish to send traffic over to the “Democracy In Dumbass” people anyway, so the link is to Insty’s excerpt.
Republican pounces!
Lindsey Graham Politely Explains to Idiot Reporters Why He needs an AR-15
Sen. Lindsey Graham knocked down the idea of banning semi-automatic weapons nearly identical to those used by soldiers on the off chance a hurricane slams into his South Carolina town.“Here’s a scenario that I think is real: There’s a hurricane, a natural disaster, no power, no cops, no anything,” the Republican lawmaker told reporters aboard Air Force One.
A reporter asked if he meant looters.
“Yeah, people, they’re not going to come to the AR-15 home,” Graham responded. “Well, I think if you show up on the porch with an AR-15, they’ll probably go down the street.”
Good on Lindsey for speaking up and all, but it was a futile effort; not one mind will be changed, not one gun-grabbing shitlib will see the simple logic and pause for a moment’s reconsideration. There’s only one answer to give them, it should be delivered like a good swift kick right square in the teeth, and Stephen Kruiser knows what it is.
Although he can occasionally be a firebrand, Graham is still a United States senator and was flying with the president on Air Force One when asked about this. He remained very decorous and didn’t offer the answer that a regular, law-abiding gun owner might.
I sleep with a loaded Beretta on my nightstand and was once asked why.
“Because I (expletive deleted) want to.”
That’s really the only answer anyone needs in response to being asked why he or she is doing something perfectly legal that isn’t harming anyone else.
Fuckin’ A right, buddy.
Have I ever had to use a gun for self-defense? Thankfully, no. And I hope I never have to.
I am not, however, obligated to explain to anyone why I would prefer not to be killed.
You damned sure ain’t at that. Let Lefty huff and puff and beat and blow and weep and moan to his little heart’s content. Let him issue his demands and threats and be damned. More and more of us have reached the conclusion that we’ve conceded way too much ground already, and no matter how much we give it will never be enough. You don’t get another inch, gun-grabbers. Not just no, but HELL NO, with a big fat “fuck you” on top for garnish. That’s it—fini, omega, het-ay nde-ay. Come and fucking take them, you miserable worms. Do it, if you dare. Better bring help.
There’s another peril in play with this one, though, and it’s perched right on Trump’s lap.
Then there are the “red flag laws,” which is the left’s new approach to confiscating guns. These laws are unconstitutional three ways to Sunday, violating three of the rights within the Bill of Rights. These laws usurp the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Sixth Amendment’s right of the accused to a speedy and public trial.
My home state of Colorado passed such a law this past April, one of the consequences of voters giving Democrats control of the executive and legislative branches of a state. Other states have similar laws and there is now a push for a national red flag law. If President Trump is smart, he will see the color red before signing such a law, if it ever even makes it to his desk, as signing such a law may be a large red stop sign in his quest for a second term as president.
Red flag laws will have the effect of disarming those best able to stop a shooter. But that’s not the real goal of these laws. Instead it’s a new approach to thwarting the Second Amendment. President Trump is hopefully thinking long and hard about signing on to such measures, as this has the potential to be his “read my lips, no new taxes” moment.
Hopefully, he’s not thinking about it at all. If there’s any single unforced error almost certain to reverse Trump’s currently solid re-election odds, this is the one. As staunch a Trump supporter as I am and always have been, a needless cave to the Left on this would drive even me to the sidelines—me, and a whole hell of a lot of others too. No, I wasn’t happy about the noises he made in the aftermath of last week’s shootings. That said, I am also fully cognizant of Vox Day’s Two-Day caution: on any seemingly worrisome Trump statement, wait at least two days to see what actually transpires before deciding that all is lost.
Happily, that has proven to be sage advice time after time. Tossing a rhetorical hook out as bait to misdirect Democrat-Socialists into a false bargaining position based on anticipation of concessions he has no intention of making has been a useful enough ploy for Da Prez that I can’t quite see him abandoning it now. Nor do I think the record suggests that Trump is out of touch or naive enough to be unaware of how his most loyal supporters would react to a betrayal of that magnitude. Quite the opposite, actually; it would be completely out of character for the man to make such a boneheaded move.
But who knows, stranger things have happened. Only one thing is certain: should he falter this time, the cost of his blunder will be steep—not just for him personally, but for all of us.
Trump appeal update! Expanding the base. Note the final pic, which is what puts it into the “related” category for this post.
Shitlib has Teh Sadz update! Reassuring words of gun-grabber despair from the hoplophobic com-symps at the New Yorker. Naturally, it’s full of phony statistics, cooked polls, and outright fabrications, so I ain’t gonna recommend you read it all. But I can’t help but be encouraged to see that even these devious pissants aren’t holding out much hope.
Also, it is Trump we are dealing with, and he is notoriously averse to crossing rural and suburban gun owners, who make up a key part of his base. Even if the polls currently show overwhelming support for expanded background checks and other measures, Trump will be sensitive to a possible backlash, especially if the opposition includes some of his right-wing media outriders, such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
Furthermore, there is a possibility that Trump will try to tie any gun-control measures he endorses to immigration-law changes that Democrats oppose, such as lengthening the period for which asylum-seeking families can be detained after crossing the border. In a tweet on Monday, Trump suggested “marrying” immigration and gun control. On Thursday, the Times reported that he has toldsome advisers that he “would like a political concession in exchange” for acting on gun control. If he insists on this linkage, the chances of getting any legislation passed are slim.
From your lips to God’s ears, asswipe.
Fear the Bee!
How many liberals does it take to screw in a lightbulb? That’s not funny.
Progressives take their partisan comedy seriously. It helps that they have a stranglehold on the comedy landscape. When David Spade announced he wouldn’t attack President Donald Trump it made headlines.
Which brings us to The Babylon Bee.
For the uninitiated, the Bee serves up Christian satire with a heaping helping of political humor. Yes, the site often pokes fun at President Trump.
That’s what any respectable humor outlet would do, no matter who’s in the Oval Office. It’s also what comedians did prior to Obama’s election.
What the Bee produces that few, if any, comedy institutions attempt are stories that tweak the Left, often sans mercy.
Snopes rigorously fact checks Bee stories over and again that are obviously false, funny and targeting progressive stars like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Bee stories skewering conservative figures? Snopes.com leaves them unchecked.
Here’s why it matters.
Few comic voices are standing up to the Snopes.com bullies…yet. That’s not surprising. While Jimmy Kimmel laments Kathy Griffin’s struggle after posing with a president’s bloodied head he hasn’t, to our knowledge, rushed to the Bee’s defense.
Kimmel stands behind Griffin because they’re on the same ideological side. He wouldn’t dare mock Ocasio-Cortez, even if she’s the most mockable politician in our lifetime.
Why? Mocking her could ding her credibility and, by extension, hurt the Democrats. It’s why Snopes.com can’t leave The Babylon Bee alone. The outlet fears the power of their very funny viral jokes aimed at the Left. They may wish Twitter would ban their account already.
Given Twitter’s usual speedy resort to the ban stick for everybody else who isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool fellow traveler, it’s amazing they haven’t already. Must be time for me to post another Bee excerpt.
ATLANTA, GA – According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control released on Thursday, people with inside, compromising knowledge of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s financial and political dealings are 843% more likely to commit suicide.
“We’ve never seen a single risk factor cause a spike of this magnitude,” a CDC spokesperson told reporters. “Interestingly, in spite of their increased suicide risk, people with dirt on the Clintons rarely show any warning signs of suicide, and they never leave a suicide note.”
As always with the incredibly deft satirists at the Bee, it’s funny ’cause it’s damned near true. Their adroitness at skating along today’s increasingly rapier-thin line between the literal truth and the completely absurd makes their work all the more effective against the humorless Left. It’s a dead cert that many of them find themselves reduced to unmanned, spluttering discombobulation under the Bee’s withering assault on their lunacy, their hypocrisy, and their tail-chasing self-contradiction.
Laughter is not only the best medicine, it also makes a damned fine weapon too—especially when wielded against the scolds, killjoys, and whey-faced schoolmarms of the Left. Alinsky knew it:
Rule 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Rule 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
So nice to finally see their own Rules being used to shred the Radicals into bloody gobbets.
Dullards and dimwits and dolts, oh my!
Oh, how I love this one.
A case out of South Carolina is highlighting the fact once again the drug-testing kits used by local police officers can be wildly inaccurate. On Thursday, drug charges were dropped against Shai Werts, Georgia Southern University’s starting quarterback, after he and his attorneys battled against accusations from Saluda County police earlier this summer that a white substance found on the hood of his car was cocaine.
Okay, everybody, wait for it…wait for it…WAIT FOR IT…
It turns out, it was bird crap.
WHOOOAA, that’s good squishy! More details at the link, which lead me to conclude that the kid was probably lucky he didn’t get himself shot. But still: who on earth spends a wad of cash on blow, dumps it on the hood of his car, and then drives merrily on down the road that way? I mean really, people; cocaine is, y’know, a powder. You don’t foot the bill for that buzz and then just idly watch as the wind scatters your stash all over the friggin’ roadbed. Or not that I ever heard tell of, you don’t.
Again, though, there’s a more serious point to be made here about the incompetence and stupidity rampant amongst our authorities, wardens, and rulers. Which puts me in mind of an observation made in this Popehat Tweetstorm, via AP:
I get it. Epstein is one of the most famous and controversial prisoners in the world, a focus of immense media/political attention, and recently may have attempted suicide.
Therefore, you think, it is extremely implausible that jail officials would allow him to kill himself./1— WhatFreshHellIsThisHat (@Popehat) August 10, 2019
/3 You find it implausible because you think jailers would have to be freakishly incompetent to allow it to happen, and surely they aren’t. But they often are. You find it implausible because they would have to be wantonly indifferent to human life, and surely they aren’t. Dude.
— WhatFreshHellIsThisHat (@Popehat) August 10, 2019
/5 In short, you find it implausible because you’ve accepted the fairy tale version of the criminal justice system, one utterly divorced from the reality. And you’ve managed to convince yourself that your view is “sophisticated” and that thinking this could happen is “naive.”
— WhatFreshHellIsThisHat (@Popehat) August 10, 2019
/7 But if your belief is “it has to be murder, because nobody is this incompetent or indifferent,” you’re a willfully blind fool, a useful idiot for a despicable system. /endhttps://t.co/rzAnlNuknJ
— WhatFreshHellIsThisHat (@Popehat) August 10, 2019
I remain convinced that Epstein’s alleged “suicide” was something far more sinister than just that, mind. But in most cases, it does indeed pay to bear Occam’s Razor closely in mind, along with the corollary adage about not attributing to malice things that can readily be explained by incompetence and stupidity.
Ask a silly question
When did it become acceptable for politicians, and their media helpers, to target private citizens for their political opinions?
When those opinions diverged even slightly from Democrat-Socialist dogma, of course.
In the wake of the mass shooting in El Paso, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) released the names of a few dozen San Antonio residents who had donated to President Trump’s re-election campaign. (Castro is chairman of the presidential campaign of his twin brother, Julián.)
Castro was apparently unconcerned by the prospect that these people — retirees and small-business owners — would be inevitably targeted for harassment. They had voted the wrong way and donated to the wrong campaign, and they needed to be punished.
He wasn’t “unconcerned.” Harrassment and, ultimately, violent assault was the whole idea from the git-go. Unapproved beliefs, you see, must not only be punished—they must be suppressed.
Liberals view the election of President Trump as a monstrous anomaly, something that should never have happened. They view all Trump supporters, be they Acela Corridor denizens or car-dealership owners in suburban Texas, as complicit in this great evil and therefore fair game.
The media is only too happy to help. Everyone remembers what The Washington Post and The New York Times did to the Covington Catholic boys. Or recall the way CNN went after an anonymous tweeter after Trump retweeted an image he had created mocking the network.
The message to anyone who dares not march in lockstep with liberalism: You don’t matter, and we will target you for ruination whenever we feel like it.
NOW you’re getting it.
Liberals, in short, have resolved that anything goes as they seek to thwart and undermine democracy in the name of liberalism.
Sure, liberals always say they want more political participation from the masses, but it turns out the only participation they welcome is the kind that helps them win.
Hence, too, their efforts to use underhanded juridical means to undo the outcome of elections they lose, whether that’s the “collusion” probe in America or endless bureaucratic stalling aimed at preventing Brexit.
But the attacks on private citizens is a new low.
Perhaps. But rest assured: you ain’t seen nothin‘ yet. For the Left, the end of totalitarian tyranny justifies any and all means, and they’ll inflict casualties and stack bodies just as high as they think they need to so as to accomplish our subjugation irreversibly. When it comes to gaining, securing, and expanding power and control for themselves, the Left recognizes no limits whatsoever. That is the only rule they follow, the only morality they have, and the only rationalization they need.
They got him
Bill and Hillary a couple of weeks ago pronounced themselves “shocked and saddened by Epstein’s upcoming suicide.” Looks like the power of prognostication when it comes to their long string of highly expedient “suicides” remains strong with these ones.
Here’s what might be the most desperately silly headline you’ll ever read.
SHOCKER: Accused Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead in His Cell
“Shocker”? Really? For whom, pray tell? Sorry, but as UNEXPECTED!™ news developments go, this one would have to rank right up there with such earth-shattering blockbuster headlines as:
CUBS LOSE!
MAN FAILS TO GET RICH FROM PYRAMID SCHEME
UNPLEASANT ODOR DETECTED NEAR SEWAGE TREATMENT FACILITY
And…
ROOT CANALS QUITE UNPLEASANT, RESEARCHERS SAY
Apparently, at NYC’s Metropolitan Correctional Center the term “suicide watch” in practice translates to “we watch while you commit suicide.” But the real mistake was in putting him under “suicide watch” rather than “Arkancide watch.” Then again, with the Clinton Body Count now standing at 57 of their closest associates dying “mysteriously,” I’m not sure even that would have helped.
A commenter over at Aesop’s joint notes the gathering fog of FUD:
So far, I have heard reports that the convicted pervert was:
On suicide watch
Not on suicide watch
The MCC was normally staffed
The MCC was short handed and the required 30 minute checks didn’t happen.
The MCC cameras mysteriously malfunctioned.I don’t know what to think, other than this is the most widely expected, but not anticipated suicide ever.
Indeed. I saw somewhere or other, can’t remember where, that the handy Clinton Body Count reference website had its Twitter account deleted as well; just another of them there convenient “coincidences” that always seem to start rapidly piling up whenever the Clintons find themselves with a loose end that needs some urgent tying up.
Amusing as it is, though, there’s a very serious side to all this: with moves as audacious as Epstein’s ludicrous “suicide” less than a day after incriminating documents fingering The Creep specifically for his close association with Epstein and Kiddie Rape Island were released; Stroookkzzzokzzkk’s brazen defiance of his firing and the (supposed) loss of his security clearance; and the endless Mueller/impeachment/coup circus, among way too many other things, the PTB would seem to be just laughing in our faces now—daring us to do a damned thing about their flagrant criminality, openly ridiculing us for our impotence.
Next, we can look for hard evidence already secured by the FBI in the recent raid on Epstein’s home to start quietly going AWOL, with shrugged shoulders and “I ‘unno” being the only response anybody will ever get. Their confidence that the Deep State will ultimately prevail over the American people no matter what appears to be absolute. We’ll all find out soon enough if that confidence in their impunity is justified.
T’ain’t funny, McGee update! Nothing to see here, folks, let’s all just move along.
Jeffrey Epstein told prison guards and fellow inmates that he believed someone had tried to kill him in the weeks before his death, a source has revealed to DailyMail.com.
The insider, who had seen the disgraced financier on several occasions during his incarceration at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, also claims that the normally reserved Epstein seemed to be in good spirits.
‘There was no indication that he might try to take his own life,’ the source told DailyMail.com
‘From what I saw, he was finally starting to adjust to prison. I think he was comforted by the rigidity of his new life’.
The decision to remove Epstein, who was possibly the most high-profile inmate in the federal jail system, from suicide watch has both baffled and outraged former wardens and veterans of the federal prison system alike.
‘For them to pull him off suicide watch is shocking,’ Cameron Lindsay, a former warden, told NBC News.
‘For someone this high-profile, with these allegations and this many victims, who has had a suicide attempt in the last few weeks, you can take absolutely no chances. You leave him on suicide watch until he’s out of there.’
Well, hey, he’s “out of there” now, ain’t he? Barr’s reaction sounds good and all, but I’m way too cynical by now to find it all that reassuring.
Attorney General William Barr said Saturday that he is “appalled” by the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein – and said that he has spoken to the Department of Justice’s inspector general about opening a probe into the circumstances surrounding the apparent suicide.
“I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered. In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”
The New York City medical examiner’s office told Fox News that an autopsy is pending to determine the cause of death. But the death comes two weeks after the 66-year-old was placed on suicide watch after being found injured in his cell. Epstein was in his own cell at the time of his death and was no longer on suicide watch, according to the Associated Press.
Earlier, multiple outlets reported that Barr was “livid” at learning of Epstein’s death. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman described Epstein’s death as “disturbing.”
“To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the Indictment – which included a conspiracy count – remains ongoing,” he said in a statement.
Bill sees the same problem here I do:
So…the feds who were responsible for Epstein’s safety are going to be investigated by the feds.
Well, alrighty, then!
(I suppose it will take them a little while to find enough buried Clinton/Obama deep state feds to handle the investigation correctly).
Hold on a sec there, Bill; are you suggesting there’s any other kind? Elsewhere, Giuliani has a few questions, saving the most important and telling one for last:
What does the word suicide mean in the phrase suicide WATCH? Who was watching? Did they fall asleep? Did the camera malfunction? Was there camera surveillance? Who was he about to implicate? This is very questionable. Committing suicide on suicide watch doesnt happen.
— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) August 10, 2019
And it didn’t happen here, either.
Four more years terms!
Endorsed from here, because why the hell not.
Peter Strzok, the central figure in both the FBI’s burying of Hillary Clinton’s crimes and in carrying out the “insurance policy” of his lover, Lisa Page, to use the powers of the national security establishment to take out a U.S. presidential candidate, is strolling back in to FBI Headquarters these days as though it was just another day at the office.
I am not making this up.
“Strzok is in the (HQ) building all the time,” one FBI insider revealed, according to a recent media report at True Pundit. “He is taking meetings or part of meetings.” The article goes on, “FBI sources confirm Strzok has been granted access to FBI facilities in Washington, D.C. and its headquarters building on numerous occasions since he was sacked in August 2018.”
Strzok is the man who emphatically told former FBI lawyer Lisa Page that they would “stop” Mr. Trump from winning the 2016 election. And they would do that using a fraudulently predicated counterintelligence investigation based on “evidence” planted by one of their own assets, Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious Maltese professor widely linked to Western intelligence services, on a hapless Trump campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos.
Yet now we learn that not only is Strzok being permitted back into FBI Headquarters (perhaps as a paid contractor?), but he still holds his security clearances. “He (Strzok) is getting in with a visitor’s badge and is involved in meetings,” one FBI insider said. The same article notes, “Maybe they are all trying to get their story straight before things go public.” Moreover, it continues, “FBI sources said when Strzok is not at the Hoover building he has been holding meetings with high-level DOJ brass at a location across the street from the Bureau’s Pennsylvania Avenue base.”
One can only sit back and marvel at the churchbell-size balls on the guy. Strzzzoozzk’s obvious nonchalant confidence regarding his status and impunity doesn’t say anything good about the likelihood of Barr and Co’s investigations yielding much in the way of meaningful results, either. The entire cabal of seditious reprobates of right ought to be trembling their teeth loose at the prospect of a speedy trial, followed by a first-class hanging. That they clearly are not is disheartening, to say the very least.
Donald Trump’s presidency has revealed that our country is in the grip of an entrenched bureaucracy whose hold, I am of the increasing opinion, may take decades to break. This anecdote about Peter Strzok’s continued security clearances and access to a building that President Trump nominally controls illustrates the vicelike grasp that “Deep State” players continue to hold over our government. Presidents come and go, but the powerful, embedded apparatchiks remain, and protect their own.
This is why I say, figuratively speaking, that our country needs five terms of Donald Trump. President Trump of course is limited to two terms as president under the Twenty-Second Amendment, but if we are to break the incredible power of the Christopher Wray-types that populate the upper echelons of our government, we will need successor presidents with the same dogged mindset as President Trump to bring rogue agencies like the FBI to heel. It may take twenty years — a generation.
Gonna take a helluva lot more than that, I’m afraid. The Deep State was way longer than any 20 years a-building, and it was way more than just one guy a-building it, too. Even then, we’re assuming ridding ourselves of it can be done at all without violence, bloodshed, and national immiseration. As for “break the incredible power of the Christopher Wray-types” etc, a good start on that project would be for Trump to stop inexplicably hiring and/or promoting pernicious Deep State termites and Ogabe stay-behind saboteurs and start giving them the boot instead.
No consent from losers
While we’re re-running oldies but goodies from 2016 and all, have another. Might want to find some really dark goggles, even a welder’s mask, to read it with though; the irony is so blazingly, piercingly incandescent it could easily blind somebody.
Donald Trump likes to sort the world into winners and losers, which isn’t a bad way of thinking about democracy. Winners and losers of elections have essential responsibilities in functioning democracies. Winners do not exact revenge on their opponent by, say, abusing the powers of their office and jailing that opponent, as the Republican candidate threatened to do at the second presidential debate. Losers do not refuse to accept the results of a vote judged free and fair by a country’s governing institutions.
Yet the Republican candidate has spent the past week—really, much of the general election—strongly suggesting that he will not accept a loss to Hillary Clinton. He has repeatedly claimed that “Crooked Hillary” is “rigging” the election with help from the media and a global network of power brokers. The rigging, he says with certainty but no compelling evidence, consists of the coordinated assassination of Trump’s character, as well as looming voter fraud. And the rigging will, in Trump’s telling, produce nothing less than the dissolution of the republic; the United States will be overrun by immigrants and ISIS. Trump’s message is that the election will be stolen from his supporters, as will the country. Many Trump supporters expect this outcome; roughly half aren’t confident that ballots will be accurately counted on Election Day.
Donald Trump’s loose talk of imprisoning Clinton and his preemptive rejection of the election’s outcome pose one of the most serious challenges to U.S. democracy in recent memory. They endanger the “democratic bargain,” to quote the authors of Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. That study examines how losing works in democracies around the globe, and the bargain at issue “calls for winners who are willing to ensure that losers are not too unhappy and for losers, in exchange, to extend their consent to the winners’ right to rule.” This bargain is also one of the core components of democracy.
Of course, now we know that the conspiracy to rig the election went far, far beyond Her Herness, the media and “inaccurately” counted votes. Its tentacles extended deep into the Obama junta, the DoJ, the CIA, and elsewhere in the darkest recesses of the Deep State labyrinth. The investigation into the corrupt, seditious plot is only beginning, with no guarantee that we’ll ever see justice done. And that doesn’t even touch the subsequent soft-coup attempt by those same players, a desperate ploy to not only conceal their seditious crimes but to hinder and ultimately remove a duly-elected President under false pretenses.
All of this—ALL of it, mind you—because the Democrat-Socialist Party, NOT Trump, flatly and traitorously refuses to abide by the results of any election it can’t swindle its way into “winning.”
This is why the democratic bargain is so important: Winners do not suppress losers, which means losers can hope to be winners in the future. As a result, the losers’ doubts about the legitimacy of the political system gradually recede as they prepare for the next election.
But if the losing candidate doesn’t uphold his or her side of the bargain by recognizing the winner’s right to rule, that acute loss of faith in democracy among the candidate’s supporters can become chronic, potentially devolving into civil disobedience, political violence, and a crisis of democratic legitimacy. How the loser responds is especially critical because losers naturally have the most grievances about the election.
“[I]n the aftermath of a loss, there is plenty of kindling for irresponsible politicians to set fire to,” Bowler notes. “Most politicians who lose elections recognize this potential for mischief, and so they ordinarily make a creditable run at helping to keep matters calm.”
Ahh, but in this case it’s not just the losing politician acting “irresponsibly.” It is the entire party—along with its Praetorian Media allies; the overwhelming majority of its supporters; its already-elected officeholders in positions both high and low across the entire country; and the unelected officials seeded throughout the federal bureacracy who are either party members or sympathizers.
Then we come to a yearningly winsome recap of Honest Al AlGore and his forced “concession” after his loss in 2000. Yes, it’s every bit as full of shit as you would expect.
In December 2000, for example, Al Gore conceded defeat to George W. Bush after one of the country’s closest and most divisive elections. The Supreme Court halted the recount of votes in Florida and effectively handed the presidency to Bush, even though Gore won the national popular vote and had good reason to argue that the court’s decision was politically motivated.
The SC “halted the recount” after, what, six or seven previous ones had failed to gin up enough fraudulent ballots to convincingly hand the swine Gore the election. Inevitably, the Atlantic also trots out the good old “popular vote” hobbyhorse for another good flogging, the problem being that THERE IS NO RELEVANT “POPULAR VOTE” IN A US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION—as is explicitly mandated by the US Constitution for some very excellent reasons. The Electoral College, God willing and in defiance of the most devious efforts of those Constitution-loving Democrat-Socialists, will be with us for a while longer, for which everyone not interested in being governed according to the whim of the residents of the nation’s blighted urban areas should be deeply thankful. Yet more twaddlelicious bullshit then ensues:
By the time Clinton’s statement was delivered, all those bitter complaints had been removed from the text, save for brief mentions of disagreement with the court’s ruling and the need for bipartisan election reforms. Clinton’s team clearly recognized that it was time to put out fires, not to leave kindling lying around. “President-elect Bush and Vice President Gore showed what is best about America,” Clinton said. “In this election, the American people were closely divided. The outcome was decided by a Supreme Court that was closely divided. But the essential unity of our Nation was reflected in the words and values of those who fought this great contest.”
The SC, “closely divided,” yeah. As I recall, the vote that decided things ended up being 7-2. That, after our noble Albert “Arnold The Pig” AlGore had duly made his election-stealing preparations beforehand, by flying teams of lawyers out to certain places ready to contest the results by any grubby means necessary. Why, how very big of this noble Knight-Protector Of America Democracy to graciously concede after EVERY SINGLE LAST AVENUE likely to enable him to hoodoo his way into the Oval Office had been thoroughly exhausted, and not one moment before! Gee, what a guy!
Here’s the fact of the matter: Gore, his army of legal-beagle rumpswabs, and his criminal conspiracy masquerading as a legitimate political party happily dragged the country through every fetid puddle of lawyerized sewage they could find FOR MONTHS before finally backing down and slinking away. The Atlantic’s zealous attempt at turd-polishing aside, Al Gore remains exactly what he always was and always will be: a sleazy, slimy, duplicitous, dimwitted, professional-politician hack. Nothing less. And damned sure nothing more.
As for that “essential unity” bushwa, I suppose we must in fairness recognize a distinction betwixt Gore’s eventual if reluctant submission to defeat and the unhinged, delusional rejection of American electoral reality we’re being subjected to now. Bad as Gore and the rest of the Demonrat den of iniquity all were in 2000, their successors are unquestionably much, much worse. The distinction is one not of kind but of degree, yes. But at this point AlGore should at least have developed sense enough to take what he can get.
Fundamentally transformed
I’m having a VERY hard time not just throwing blockquote tags around this 2016 Myron Magnet classic and swiping it entire.
We have lost the government we learned about in civics class, with its democratic election of representatives to do the voters’ will in framing laws, which the president vows to execute faithfully, unless the Supreme Court rules them unconstitutional. That small government of limited powers that the Founders designed, hedged with checks and balances, hasn’t operated for a century. All its parts still have their old names and appear to be carrying out their old functions. But in fact, a new kind of government has grown up inside the old structure, like those parasites hatched in another organism that grow by eating up their host from within, until the adult creature bursts out of the host’s carcass. This transformation is not an evolution but a usurpation.
What has now largely displaced the Founders’ government is what’s called the Administrative State—a transformation premeditated by its main architect, Woodrow Wilson. The thin-skinned, self-righteous college-professor president, who thought himself enlightened far beyond the citizenry, dismissed the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights as so much outmoded “nonsense,” and he rejected the Founders’ clunky constitutional machinery as obsolete. (See “It’s Not Your Founding Fathers’ Republic Any More,” Summer 2014.) What a modern country needed, he said, was a “living constitution” that would keep pace with the fast-changing times by continual, Darwinian adaptation, as he called it, effected by federal courts acting as a permanent constitutional convention.
Modernity, Wilson thought, demanded efficient government by independent, nonpartisan, benevolent, hyper-educated experts, applying the latest scientific, economic, and sociological knowledge to industrial capitalism’s unprecedented problems, too complex for self-governing free citizens to solve. Accordingly, he got Congress to create executive-branch administrative agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, to do the job. During the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt proliferated such agencies, from the National Labor Relations Board and the Federal Housing Administration to the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to put the New Deal into effect. Before they could do so, though, FDR had to scare the Supreme Court into stretching the Constitution’s Commerce Clause beyond recognition, putting the federal government in charge of all economic activity, not just interstate transactions. He also had to pressure the justices to allow Congress to delegate legislative power—which is, in effect, what the lawmakers did by setting up agencies with the power to make binding rules. The Constitution, of course, vests all legislative power in Congress, empowering it to make laws, not to make legislators.
As these agencies have metastasized, they have borne out not a single premise that justified their creation, and their increasingly glaring failure has drawn citizens’ angry attention to them. Expert? As a New Deal congressman immediately recognized with shock, many of those who staffed the Administrative State were kids just out of law school, with zero real-world experience or technical knowledge. Efficient? Can-do America, which built the Empire State Building in 11 months and ramped up airplane production during World War II from 2,000 in 1939 to nearly 100,000 in 1944, now takes years of bureaucratic EPA busywork to repair a bridge or lay a pipeline, and who knows how many businesses never expand or even start because the maze of government regulation is too daunting and costly to navigate? Only last year, EPA “experts” fecklessly stood by as workers under their supervision accidentally dumped 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Colorado River, and the agency vouchsafed not a word of warning to downstream Colorado and New Mexico officials for an entire day before the poisonous, fluorescent-orange flood hit them. Over at Veterans Affairs, those who’ve fought for their country die in droves while waiting for medical care. But what’s the problem? asks agency head Robert MacDonald blithely. After all, at ever-popular Disneyland, “do they measure the number of hours you wait in line?”
Ensuring the citizens’ health and safety? Where is the Food and Drug Administration as counterfeit medicines and medical supplies from China infiltrate our hospitals? As for the infamously dysfunctional Transportation Security Administration, its Keystone Kops’ regularly reported inability to spot journalists carrying banned weapons onto airplanes, while they are too busy fondling travelers’ private parts or undressing grannies, is a standing national joke—on us. We lost our constitutional safeguards for this?
We didn’t lose ’em, exactly; we gave ’em away, sitting back and watching passively as, gradually, they were stolen one after another after another.
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