The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | October 20, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

It’s a blast.

If I had any brains, I would be taking a long nap right now, but since I have three days of posting to catch up on…Huge thanks to my little brother (I have all the education in the family, but he makes all the $$$) and Stacy for helping me out this week when my finances got f’d up in Vegas; thanks to them, I didn’t have to sleep in my car Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum:  Sanctuary Is Great As Long As Northern Cities Don’t Have to Deal With the Issues
EBL: Double Threat
Twitchy: “Shut The Hell Up”, also, “Off The Charts Cringe”
Louder With Crowder: LOL: Fancy restaurant bans ‘tiny cretin of a man’ James Corden for life over being an entitled douche, also, Whoa: Former Democrat presidential candidate endorses Kari Lake for governor, will campaign with her
Vox Popoli: Excellence + Time = Greatness, Avoid Like the Plague, Chinese Flee Ukraine, and Meme of the Week

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Our Mercenary Retired Generals, also, Trans Propaganda, Blue And Red
American Greatness: Biden Regime Told El Paso Mayor to Not Declare State of Emergency Over City’s Migrant Crisis Ahead of Midterms, also, BlackRock Stock Downgraded Over Investments in ESG
American Power: Russia Nationalizes ExxonMobil’s Holdings in Sakhalin-2 Oil and Gas Project at Sakhalin Island, Russia, also, Kari Lake Pushes Back Hard on Leftist ‘Election Denier’ Smear
American Thinker: What You Need to Know About Fentanyl, also, Lee Zeldin and the Empire State Exodus: Is Sane Government Still Possible in New York?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Sardine Tin News
Babalu Blog: Another building collapse in Havana takes the life of a 5-year-old girl, Anti-government protests in Cuba continued Monday night, and Surprise! Cuban dictatorship sacks ministers in charge of energy, appoints new ones
BattleSwarm: Semiconductors: China Is Fucked
Behind The Black: Gemini/Apollo astronaut Jim McDivitt passes away at 93, Both the Pentagon and Europe are looking for ways to fund Starlink for the Ukraine, and Today’s blacklisted American: Students demand professor be fired for stating a fact
Cafe Hayek: Rue Britannia
CDR Salamander: The Baltic Nations are Subject Matter Experts Here, we Should Listen
Chicago Boyz: Worthwhile Reading & Viewing
Da Tech Guy:  The Tell on Democrats/Media/Tech and Stolen Elections, Report from Louisiana: 2023 Gubernatorial Election Early Outlook, and Five Patriots Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: Democrat coalition melting, 10 governorships that could flip red, and What they mean by democracy
First Street Journal: Credentialed media are finally starting to see the problems with plug-in electric vehicles, also, If you’re scared, say you’re scared!
Gates Of Vienna: Let Them Wear Sweaters, France: Culture-Enriching Child Murder in the Furtherance of Organ Trafficking, and The Greens Embrace Bans on Speaking
The Geller Report: MASS PROTESTS ACROSS EUROPE Against Food, Energy Prices, EU Green Edicts, Ukraine War, also, French General: People who resisted COVID jabs are ‘superheroes’ who ‘embody the best of humanity’
Hogewash: Don’t Get Cocky, But…, The Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Dear George Clooney: Hollywood Is Coarsening Our Discourse, also, What Issa Rae Misses About Ezra Miller’s MeToo Pass
The Lid: They’re Ba-a-a-a-ck: COVID Public Health Emergency Programs
Legal Insurrection: Alaska’s Bering Sea Snow Crab Season Canceled, Conservative Students at University of Iowa Complain of Repeated Harassment, America’s Next Supply Chain Crisis, and The Democratic Coalition Attempt to Smear GOP Rep. Dave Schweikert Backfires
Nebraska Energy Observer: What’s in a Name
Outkick: Chargers Kicker Proudly Shares Pro-Jesus Message After Beating The Broncos, Even Mike Francesca Is Calling Out Bob Costas, Tennesee Fan Tears ACL Celebrating Vols Win Over Bama – ‘I’ve Been Waiting On That Win For 15 Years’, and Bubba Wallace Suspended One Race For Pushing Kyle Larson
Power Line: The Daily Chart: Bidenflation, Biden Wrestles Teleprompter, Loses, and Dear Esme Murphy: Fact-check this [updated]
Shark Tank: Rubio Brutally Smacks Down Demings’ Voter Suppression Accusation During Debate
Shot In The Dark: That’s Saar, Folks, also, But Why Is Keith Ellison Running All Those Ads Portraying Him As Tougher On Crime Than Dirty Harry? 
The Political Hat: Public Schools: Where Public Masturbation Is Considered Normal
This Ain’t Hell: USAR Maj make porn to fuel his congressional campaign, also, List of 195 veterans running for Congress this year
Transterrestrial Musings: In Which Scott Dworkin Is An idiot (Again), also, Crushing The Gig Economy
Victory Girls: Eric Swalwell Airs Despicable Abortion Ad, also, Tim Ryan Race-Baiting JD Vance Backfires
Volokh Conspiracy: Tiananmen Square: An enduring symbol of the Chinese Communist Party’s illegitimacy
Watts Up With That: Why The Woke Create the Disasters They Warn Of, also, They Can’t Make Green Energy Using Only Green Energy
Weasel Zippers: PayPal’s Plan To Fine Users For “Misinformation” Tied To Chinese Contractor, This Is What Happens When Democrats Run A City For Too Long, Pelosi Officially Loses Her Marbles, and Trainwreck: Biden Says He “Pushed Hard” For Right “To Marry Couples In The Privacy Of Their Bedroom”
The Federalist: Va. Democrat Plotting To Take Kids From Parents Who Won’t Trans Them Just Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud, We Need The ‘Protect Children’s Innocence’ Bill, Here’s The Truth About Criminals Pouring Over The Southern Border That CNN Is Trying To Hide, and Leftist Dark Money Group Advises Volunteers On How To Target Voters In ‘Deeply Racist South’
Mark Steyn: Autumn Leaves, Hunt’s Red October, and Case Closed

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Category: Linkagery

What Radicalized Ace of Spades? (And Notes on the History of ‘Browderism’)

Posted on | October 19, 2022 | Comments Off on What Radicalized Ace of Spades? (And Notes on the History of ‘Browderism’)

We were in the car today and my brother Kirby was ranting about Putin and the war in Ukraine, but my mind was a million miles away, as I scrolled through an item at Ace of Spades HQ. Kirby kept ranting, and after a while, I interjected my thoughts, which involved the earliest dawn of the Cold War — Earl Browder and the “Duclos Letter.”

Students of the erstwhile Soviet Union (including our good friend Dianna Deeley) will immediately recognize this. During World War II, the West was more or less compelled into an alliance with Stalin, in order to defeat Hitler. Winston Churchill was always clear-eyed about the nature of this alliance — he was never deluded about Communism’s long-term menace — and it was he who described the new reality in March 1946:

“A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. . . . From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.”

This new reality had become apparent, to those who knew where to look for the clues, even before World War II ended. The American Communist Party (CPUSA) was, from the moment of its founding, an instrument of Soviet policy, answerable to its masters in Moscow through the mechanism of the Comintern. During World War II, when Stalin sought help from the West, CPUSA became an enthusiastic booster of Franklin Roosevelt and sought to portray Communism as wholly compatible with American democratic ideals. In a speech to the CPUSA’s national committee in January 1944, the party’s General Secretary Earl Browder proclaimed: “Capitalism and Socialism have begun to find their way to peaceful coexistence and collaboration in the same world.” Browder, who had been the CPUSA’s presidential candidate in 1936 and 1940, renamed the party as “Communist Political Association,” endorsed FDR’s reelection in 1944, and purged critics who disagreed with this stance.

A few months after FDR was reelected, however, there came a clear signal that “peaceful coexistence and collaboration” were not the postwar path being charted by Stalin. This signal took the form of an article in the April 1945 issue of the French Communist Party journal Cahiers du Communisme, which appeared under the byline of Jacques Duclos, a senior official of the French party who had also been a leading Comintern operative. The crucial paragraph of the so-called “Duclos letter” was this:

In truth, nothing justifies the dissolution of the American Communist Party, in our opinion. Browder’s analysis of capitalism in the United States is not distinguished by a judicious application of Marxism-Leninism. The predictions regarding a sort of disappearance of class contradictions in the US correspond in no wise to a Marxist-Leninist understanding of the situation.

Duclos did not write this article. Rather, it was written in Moscow and issued through the French party journal as a way of communicating Moscow’s repudiation of “Browderisim,” a deviation from party doctrine. Browder was booted from CPUSA leadership, replaced by William Z. Foster, and this episode in 1945 — before World War II ended — marked the true beginning of what became known as the Cold War.

This episode is crucial to understanding what happened in the postwar era. Leftists (including such CPUSA alumni as Howard Zinn) would blame the United States for the Cold War, but the “Duclos letter” and the repudiation of “Browderism” make clear that it was Stalin who dictated the anti-American party line taken by the Soviets and their Communist allies after WWII, a direction determined in Moscow before the war had even ended. Documenting the Russian origin of the “Duclos letter” in their 1998 book The Soviet World of American Communism, authors Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Kyrill M. Anderson write:

Why did the Soviets publish this article secretly in Moscow [in January 1945] and then send it to Paris for open publication as an ostensibly French essay? Perhaps they feared that publication in a Soviet source would be too blatant a signal that Stalin was preparing for a confrontation with the West. By arranging for French Communists to deliver the rejection of Browder’s policy of Soviet-American cooperation, the Soviets may have hoped to avoid alerting American leaders prematurely to the anticipated change in Soviet policy.

Exactly — the signal from Moscow was clear enough to American Communist leaders, and the subsequent replacement of Browder with Foster as CPUSA general secretary made it even clearer to any who had missed the signal transmitted by the “Duclos letter.” The era of Soviet-American cooperation had been merely a short-term tactical alliance, necessary to defeating Hitler and by early 1945, with Nazi Germany clearly on the brink of collapse, that era was over. Yet Stalin was canny enough to realize that he couldn’t announce this policy shift openly until he had secured the conquest of Eastern Europe which was described so famously in Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain speech.”

As I was recounting this to Kirby, it occurred to me that the history of the “Duclos letter” was actually quite relevant to the post I had been reading at Ace of Spades. Opening with a shot at the latest idiotic utterance from Stacey Abrams, Ace then swerves his rhetorical steamroller over onto the sidewalk to flatten National Review‘s Dan McLaughlin:

NeverTrump has long lied about not knowing that the Democrat Party had radicalized into socialist, anti-human totalitarians, because that, of course, is the only way to justify their frequent alliance with them and their sabotage of the Republican Party. They have to continue to pretend it’s 2003 and the most radical Democrat in Congress is corrupt Harry Reid — people “we can do business with.”
Either they’re lying, or they’re willfully blind to the fast pace of radicalization the left has gone through since 2008, or they’re just, as I say, forever frozen in The Last Year When Everything Made Sense of 2003, or they’re just fucking terminally stupid.
Or maybe NeverTrump never notices the radicalization of their Very Good Friends on the Left because they’re busy aggressively monitoring the truly dangerous radicalizing forces… on the right. Gotta “patrol the right.” Gotta purge ’em for anyone coloring outside the permitted neocon lines.
It doesn’t matter which — NeverTrump has forfeited any claim of leadership. They are stupid blunderers and fools at best, and nasty liars and traitors at worst.

Perhaps the link between this and the “Duclos letter” is obvious enough, but I’ll belabor the point in case you missed it: Like Earl Browder in 1945, the NeverTrump crowd has failed to realize that times have changed, and that there is no future use for the politics of the past. As Ace says, there was a time — and indeed, 2003 was about the peak of that rally-’round-the-flag moment of Patriotic Unity — when it seemed that Republicans might find some reasonable basis for bipartisan cooperation with the kind of Democrats “we can do business with.” But to turn this analogy to “Browderism” the other way around, the NeverTrumpers are more like the naÏve American liberals who, seduced by the “Popular Front” wartime rhetoric of Browder-era Communists, imagined that the Reds weren’t really so bad, an illusion that evaporated with the rise of the “Iron Curtain” in Europe, and postwar revelations about Communist espionage, the Rosenberg case and the unmasking of Alger Hiss.

Turn the TV channel and watch CNN or MSNBC for a while, and you see that from the liberal perspective, the problem in our current politics is that Republicans have become “far-right extremists.” But speaking for myself, and the Republican voters of my direct acquaintance, we are no further right than we were 25 years ago. The real problem — what has actually changed in the past two decades — is that the Democrats have become left-wing “extremists.” This is why Republicans can no longer play the “bipartisan” game, as if Democrats were still the party of Tom Harkin, Max Baucus and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Really, why do you think Hillary Clinton lost in 2016? Because she had to rig the party machinery to cheat Bernie Sanders out of the Democrat nomination, and lots of the Sanders voters either stayed home on Election Day or else voted for Trump out of pure spite. The idea that an avowed socialist like Sanders very nearly won the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2016, and put a helluva scare into the establishment before the Democrat powers that be orchestrated Biden’s nomination, tells you all you need to know about which party has been taken over by fringe “extremists.” The fact that the alleged “moderate” Biden has been pursuing such a radical left-wing agenda confirms the fact that, although Bernie didn’t win the nomination, it’s his “progressive” wing of the party that’s really calling the shots now.

The question in the headline — “What Radicalized Ace of Spades?” — is not merely rhetorical. If you went back to 2005 or 2006, Ace was a regular ol’ post-9/11 conservative, who had fun making sport of liberal silliness, and certainly didn’t spend much time criticizing neocons, RINOS and other treacherous GOP sellouts. He was a mild-mannered Ewok with a mischievous sense of humor, but the past 15 years have been a serious of battles that have hardened him. Well do I recall how Ace stood tough during the Charles Johnson/LGF Meltdown of 2009, and he fought fiercely during the Weinergate War of 2011, which was followed in 2012 by the Brett Kimberlin Crisis. Being in a few combats like that will teach you who your real friends are, and how many of those Professional Conservative™ types even noticed when Kimberlin came after Ace?

The elite class of Professional Conservatives™ are not much help when the going gets tough, and the defection of the NeverTrumpers from 2015 onward was therefore not really surprising to those of us (obviously including Ace) who had been paying attention to the modus operandi of Conservatism, Inc. Whatever the faults of Donald Trump, his ascent certainly helped clarify who could be trusted as a Team Player during an existential crisis for the Right. Because that’s what we were facing in 2016. If Hillary Clinton had won “Obama’s Third Term” — if the Democratic Party’s hold on the White House had been extended to 12 years, or maybe even 16 years — where would the GOP be now? And it is my belief that none of the other Republicans who sought the 2016 nomination — not Ted Cruz, not Marco Rubio, certainly not Jeb Bush — could have beaten Hillary. The GOP needed something different from its predictable Chamber of Commerce-approved brand of “conservatism” to beat Hillary, and Trump provided that crucial difference.

Times change, and circumstances change, and you can’t expect to keep winning by mindless repetition of the political formulas of the past.

How many more presidential elections were we supposed to let the Republican Party lose before they finally got the Travis Tritt message that The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Anymore? But the stubborn fools of NeverTrump didn’t want to sober up and hear that message, to let go of their commitment to Principles of Civility long enough to win an election.

That’s the damned thing about politics. It doesn’t matter how splendid your policy ideas may be, if you can’t win an election, and the GOP Establishment has been 0-for-3 since 2004. John McCain lost in 2008, Mitt Romney lost in 2012, and every possible alternative to Trump lost in the 2016 Republican primaries. Whose fault was that?

NeverTrump lost and, incapable of accepting responsibility for their defeat, instead declared war on the millions of Americans who elected the man who had beaten them. They endorse the liberal claim that the Republican Party has somehow been taken over by a dangerous cabal “extremists,” but in fact Trump expanded the Republican Party coalition — adding nearly 15 million more voters than John McCain got in 2008. How does a party become more “extreme” by adding voters?

They have no answers to these objections. They’re firmly committed to the idea of Making 2003 Great Again — a nostalgia for “bipartisanship” (and endlessly invading Middle Eastern countries). NeverTrump chose to become irrelevant (they’re just waterboys for the Democrats now) and I try my best to ignore them, a task made easier by my knowledge that Ace of Spades will keep mashing ’em flat with his rhetorical steamroller. He owns them. They’re his bitches now, and he’ll keep slapping them around on a regular basis, whenever it suits his fancy. God knows, they deserve it.




 

Category: Republicans

Denial Is Not a Strategy

Posted on | October 19, 2022 | Comments Off on Denial Is Not a Strategy

“I dismiss that,” Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday on MSNBC, when Andrea Mitchell asked about polls showing “rising inflation concerns along with crime, giving . . . new momentum to Republicans”:

PELOSI: First of all, let me say that I think much of what you have said I don’t agree with. That is to say, the New York Times poll, I think, is an outlier poll. You cited one poll.
ANDREA MITCHELL: It’s the RealClearPolitics average showing similar issues.
NANCY PELOSI: But that was one that brought down the average — it was an outlier. It wasn’t that big a sample. So I dismiss that.
I have been — since Congress adjourned, I have been in an average of five states a week. And I can tell you that women’s concerns about their freedom are very, very much still very significant in terms of how they will vote.
In fact, 80% of people who care about a woman’s right to choose say they will vote — it will determine who they vote for. . . .
I track these campaigns very carefully. I believe that we will have the mobilization on the ground to turn out the vote, the clear message we want to give women freedom of choice. [Republicans] want to have a ban on abortion.
We want to support and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, etc. They want to use a debt ceiling to cut that.
We want to — we have lowered the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. They want to reverse that.
We want to save the planet for our children and the future. [Republicans] say that [climate change] is a hoax and that’s the argument they used on the floor to oppose the Inflation Reduction Act, which made historic gains for fighting the climate.

She’s attacking the validity of a New York Times poll, arguing about sample size, and pretending that her anecdotal information — women who turn out at the Democratic campaign events she’s attended — is more useful in predicting what issues will motivate swing voters in the midterms. By the way, does anyone else remember that Pelosi’s last tenure as Speaker of the House only lasted four years, until the next midterm election in 2010, which produced a Republican landslide? There followed another eight years of Republican control, until 2018, but now, four years later . . . Well, good-bye, Nancy. Enjoy retirement with your “clear message” and “historic gains for fighting the climate.”




 

Category: Congress, Election, Nancy Pelosi, Polls

In The Mailbox: 10.17.22

Posted on | October 18, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This is going to be a busy week for me. Going to be down in Vegas for a couple of days doing the National Security Site (was Nevada Test Site) tour Wednesday and getting some tests in connection with a medical study on Thursday before I come home. All of this means I have to go down the day before the tour, so blogging may not be daily.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

…and the downside of this is what, exactly?

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum:  Hate Doesn’t Take the Sabbath Off
EBL: So who is next to get the boot at CNN?, Let’s Get Ready To Bumble!, and Russia Has Problems
Twitchy: Tim Allen Asks “Who Is The Face Of Woke?”, also, FBI Tweet Encourages People To Report Election Shenanigans, And Then It Gets Awkward
Louder With Crowder: Notorious ‘Defund the Police’ councilwoman demands police catch whoever is throwing poop on her house, also, Silly liberals glue their hands to the street in protest, cry when police aren’t gentle removing them
Vox Popoli: Boosted and Triggered, You Were Right, The Next Step for Red China, and Vaxx = Cervical Malignancies
Stoic Observations: Notes On Woke Racism

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: In UK, Cross Yourself & Go To Jail, The Dysfunction of Big Education, and Viktor Orban, Keeping It Realist
American Greatness: ‘Being an Eagles Fan Didn’t Save Her’, Hiding Hunter’s Laptop, and The Establishment is Still Terrified of Donald Trump
American Power: The Democrats’ Willie Horton Problem, also, Meet the Temporary Republicans Saving U.S. From the Left
American Thinker: Score One for True the Vote, also, The COVID Cult Proved How Desperate Westerners Are for Meaning
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: The religious in communist Cuba protest in Havana, launch campaign for freedom, Half the population of Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province still without electricity or water, and Democrats vehemently deny their party sympathizes with socialism, but a new poll says otherwise
BattleSwarm: Why Hasn’t Isopropyl Alcohol Gone Back Down In Price?, also, Drop Drones And A Blinding Flash Of The Obvious
Behind The Black: SpaceX successfully launches communications satellite, “Nice business you got here, shame if something happened to it.”, Red China launches military satellite, and Blacklisting in academia has been going on for decades unseen
Cafe Hayek: It’s Difficult to Believe That an Economist Can be So Terribly Clueless about Basic Economics
CDR Salamander: Can You be Realistic About the Real World?, also, So, we Have a National Security Strategy
Da Tech Guy: We won’t have quotas in the Navy…oh wait, I Guess We Skeptics Were Right, The Chosen Season 3 Disciple Pairings Some Thoughts, and Democrats’ inflation attacks ordinary Americans as Washington insiders are unaffected
Don Surber: Save the nation – MDTPA, “Trump is the first Hispanic president”, and The Dancing Vax media mocks the truth
First Street Journal:  2022 wins the Gold Medal in Lexington!, and Bad causes attract bad people
Gates Of Vienna: Pimpin’ for the New World Order, Losing Their Heads Over the Motoons (Again), A Vivarium for Jihad, and OSCE: An Organization on the Ropes After Failing at Its Primary Mission
The Geller Report: Vaccinated Suffering Strange, Terrifying New Illness, The ‘Best Friend Israel Ever Had in the White House’, and Obama Threatened Netanyahu With SLITTING THE THROAT Gesture
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Falling Into A Black Hole, and Which Side Is He On?
Hollywood In Toto: Shroud Doc to Merge Religion, Science, Is Tom Macdonald’s ‘Sheeple’ His Best Protest Song Yet? (Yes!), and Why Has Pop Culture Forgotten Dead of Winter?
The Lid: If Biden Cared About High Oil Prices, He’d Prioritize Additional Oil Drilling, also, We Are VERY Powerful- Ye Says So
Legal Insurrection: Gettysburg College Officials Organize ‘Solidarity’ Protest Ahead of Talk Critical of Transgenderism, Time To ‘Rebrand’ – Enthusiasm for ESG Crashing and Burning, Researchers at Boston U. Supposedly Claim They Developed a COVID Strain With ‘80% Kill Rate’, and Potential Candy Shortage Haunts This Halloween
Nebraska Energy Observer: Change is good, also, Prayer
Outkick: Tennessee Was Never Going To Lose After Vols Lineman Turned Mid-Game Vomit Into Savage Intimidation Tactic, Tennessee Finally Breaks The Curse And Beats Alabama For The First Time Since 2006, Bubba Wallace and Kyle Larson Get Into It After Crashing Out In Vegas, and  Boo Birds: Eagles Fans Let Jill Biden Have It
Power Line: Four Cheers for Tulsi, Truth & no consequences, and The Daily Chart: Long, Cold, Expensive Winter Ahead
Shark Tank: Parkland Dad Shames “Jerkoff” David Hogg & Other Antigun Activists
Shot In The Dark: Rochelle Olson – Still A DFL Flack After All These Years, also, Fake News
The Political Hat: Mandatory Racial Discrimination In Canadian Courts
This Ain’t Hell: Herky Bird update, Portland politician back in the news for Stolen Valor accusation, Raptor bites Army personnel, and DoD “Woke” School Administrator
Transterrestrial Musings: Our Mad Aristos, also, Getting Ready For Static Fire
Victory Girls: VA Democrat Wants To Criminalize Parents Opposed To Child Gender Transition, Democrats Realize Future Is Grim Post-Biden, and Boycott Ulta Trends After Trans “Girl” Podcast
Volokh Conspiracy: Sixth Circuit Rules Government Cannot Seize $300,000 in Home Equity to Pay $22,000 Tax Debt
Watts Up With That: Green British Academics Blast Politicians for Allowing Consumer Choice, Some Banks and Energy Companies Finally Starting to Get Some Backbone, and Robbing Grandma to Pay Gaia
Weasel Zippers: Biden Creeps On Another Young Girl, Fetterman Is Still A Mess, DeSantis Plans To Ship Illegals Off To Biden’s Hometown, Obama Rips Dems For Being “Buzzkills,” and California School District Fires Teacher For Refusing To Read LGBTQ Book To Children
The Federalist: Alaska Republicans Call On Kentucky GOP To Censure Mitch McConnell Over Party Interference, How Much Porn Do Libraries And Schools Have To Sponsor To Get Defunded?, WaPo ‘Journalists’ – The ‘Public Interest’ Isn’t The Same Thing As Your Political Preference, Fauci Can’t Whitewash His Disastrous Legacy, and Here’s A List Of Election Integrity Ballot Initiatives You Should Know
Mark Steyn: The Eagle Has Landed (in a Department Store), Low Dishonest Decade: Robert Aldrich, Hustle and the ’70s, and Naomi Wolf on Covid and Control

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Category: Linkagery

More Signs of a Midterm ‘Red Wave’?

Posted on | October 17, 2022 | 1 Comment

Ann Althouse captures Frank Bruni of the New York Times worrying that Joe Biden’s unpopularity may sink Raphael Warnock’s Senate reelection bid in Georgia. (Hat-tip: Instapundit.) The other big problem for Warnock is that the Democratic candidate for governor is Stacey Abrams, who is losing very badly to Gov. Brian Kemp.

Bruni is apparently trying to warn readers of the Times — trapped inside their liberal media echo chamber — that November 8 is starting to look like a complete wipeout for Democrats. Did I mention that Republican Kari Lake, a dreaded pro-Trump “election denier” is leading the governor’s race in Arizona? Although some polls in Arizona have shown the race a tie, or with a lead for Democrat Katie Hobbs, the RCP average has been in Lake’s favor for the past month. And if Lake is winning the governor’s race, isn’t it likely that Republican Blake Masters will upset Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona? Masters is scarcely more “extremist” than Lake, and how many split-ticket voters will there be in Arizona? If we are looking at a genuine “wave” election, the fact that Kelly has an enormous money advantage and has led all the polls won’t save him from defeat. And hey, what about Connecticut?

Yes, Connecticut — a state that Joe Biden won by a 20-point margin two years ago — may be in play on November 8. The latest Connecticut poll shows Democrat Gov. Ned Lamont with just a 6-point lead over GOP challenger Bob Stefanowski, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal is leading Republican Leora Levy by only 5 points. While I doubt that Republicans are on the verge of upset victories in Connecticut, the mere fact that the polls are this close speaks volumes about the general anti-Democrat mood of the nationwide electorate as the midterms approach.

Democrats are now sweating elections in places where Republicans haven’t won in years. Republican Lee Zeldin’s challenge to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is now rated a “toss-up,” in large measure because crime in New York has gotten completely out of control, and the blame goes directly to Democrats for passing “bail reform” laws.

If Democrats are fighting to keep their jobs in New York and Connecticut, how do you think the midterms are shaping up for Democratic congressional candidates in crucial “swing” districts?

There are 36 House races currently rated as “toss-ups” by Real Clear Politics. Thirty of those seats are held by Democrats. Five of them are in New York (the 3rd, 4th, 17th, 18th and 19th districts) and one is in Connecticut (5th District), so the fact that statewide races are unusually close in those states points toward the likelihood that at least some of those seats will end up in Republican hands. This is even more true for toss-up seats in the Heartland, like OH-9, TX-28, NC-1, MN-2 and MI-8. Keep in mind that Nancy Pelosi’s grip on the Speaker’s gavel rests on a razor-thin 222-213 majority, so that Republicans only need to flip five seats to take control of the House. Rick Moran breaks down the latest numbers from the CBS Battleground poll, which estimates the GOP gaining 11 seats — and that’s likely a lowball estimate.

CBS frames the story as Democratic “momentum has stalled, at least for now” — the Republican lead has “stabilized” after two months in which the Democrats had gained ground in the CBS poll. However, polls are a lagging indicator; what this actually reflects is that the Democrats got a bump in June because of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but that boost was only temporary. Economic reality has proven to have a more enduring impact, as might be expected.

The nationwide average price of a gallon of regular gasoline peaked at $4.84 in mid-June, then slid down all the way to $3.51 in mid-September, but it’s now back up to $3.72 and can be expected to continue rising, as the demand for home heating oil impacts petroleum prices. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was near $36,800 in January, closed Friday at $29,635 — nearly a 20% decline, which translates to a loss of more than $30,000 for the average 401(k) account.

Democrats have spent the past seven years chasing delusions — first the “Orange Man Bad” bogeyman, then the “Black Lives Matter” crusade, and now the belief that endless deficit spending and “Green energy” boondoggles can be sold as “inflation reduction” — and all those fantasies will collapse into a heap of futility once the midterms end Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker of the House. Frank Bruni’s column is his way of nudging the elbows of New York Times readers, telling them the jig will soon be up, so when the “Red Wave” hits on November 8, they won’t be so shocked.




 

Category: Congress, Election, Polls

Rule 5 Sunday: Caitlin McSwain

Posted on | October 17, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Texas native Caitlin McSwain started as a model in her teens, was voted Playboy’s Cybergirl of the Month for January 2015, has posed for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and has released her own calendar.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1869, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five World Ending Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA – Trump Subpoena, ABBA, William The Conqueror Bringing Sexy Back, Charissa Thompson, The Path, Angela Lansbury RIP, Maybe It’s Best To Stay Off Tinder?, Dinah Washington, Natalie Wood, Eraser: Reborn, and They/Them.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Julia Rose Paul Unhinged, Fish Pic Friday – Aquagirl SA, Drinking Games, Gabbard Goes Off the Rez, Warnock Attempts to Evict Poor, Walker Offers to Pay, FBI Offered Steele Cool Million, Some Wednesday Wetness, Sleepy, Sloppy Joe’s Slouch To ‘Armageddon’, Vance and Ryan Rumble, Murky in Trouble, Tattoo Tuesday, Election Deniers?, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Sunday Sunrise

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Category: Rule 5

How to Get Yourself Shot

Posted on | October 16, 2022 | Comments Off on How to Get Yourself Shot

Say hello to Steven Joaquin “Zhoie” Perez (a/k/a “Furry Potato”), a transgender YouTuber who specializes in “First Amendment audits.”

You may not have heard of this phenomenon: People who record videos in public places — post offices, municipal buildings, etc. — in order to test {“audit,” as they say) the police response. These self-declared “auditors” are deliberately non-cooperative when confronted by law enforcement, refusing to identify themselves and sometimes insulting the officers who usually show up in response to reports of “suspicious behavior.”

“First Amendment auditors” seemed to emerge into the news in 2017 when two Michigan men, James Baker and Brandon Vreeland, showed up armed at the Dearborn police station:

The two men wanted to file a complaint about being pulled over earlier by Dearborn police officers, but also saw it as an opportunity to test the suburban Detroit department to see if its officers “honored” the Constitution and their right to carry guns. . . .
“We audit police to see how well they honor the Constitution and people’s rights,” said Vreeland, who was free after posting $1,500 bond late Sunday night. “We showcase police abuse and abuse of police power in the totalitarian police state that we live in.”

Baker and Vreeland were subsequently sentenced to jail, but the “movement” which they represent has grown. I never heard of this until the other day when I saw a video by a guy named Abiyah Israel who calls his YouTube channel “We the People University.”

The doctrine being promoted — i.e., that you don’t have to cooperate with law enforcement when, for example, they ask to see identification — reminded me of so-called “sovereign citizens.” And as it turns out, I’m not the only one who sees this resemblance:

[C]ritics, including domestic terrorism experts, say the tactics are intimidating — sometimes downright scary — and that the “auditors” seem intent on inciting authorities. And they fear that it’s just a matter of time before one of the encounters turns violent.
“I am definitely concerned,” said Bob Paudert, former police chief of West Memphis, Ark., whose son and another officer were gunned down by anti-government sovereign citizens during a traffic stop in 2010. “These are the same tactics the sovereign citizens use. The language they use, going into city office buildings, refusing to give their names but demanding you give yours, videotaping everybody.
“They’re harassing city employees and government employees, and they’ve got no legitimate reason for being there other than just to film. They’re trying to provoke these people to make an arrest or hit them or whatever. The problem is, the employees don’t know how to handle it. They’re not sure what to do.”
Sovereign citizens believe the government is corrupt and out of control; therefore, they do not recognize local, state or federal authority or tax systems. Not all are violent, but in recent years they have come to be considered a top domestic terrorism threat by the FBI and other government agencies.

The “auditors” deny any connection to “sovereign citizens,” but their apparent intent to provoke confrontation with law enforcement is dangerous. Certainly, I value my First Amendment rights as much as any American, but I also value not getting shot by cops. Which brings us to the case of Steven Joaquin “Zhoie” Perez:

[In February 2019], Perez got into an altercation that provoked a security guard at a Los Angeles synagogue to fire a shot that grazed her leg.
It was a bizarre cultural clash between a social media provocateur and a community on edge since the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting in October and rising incidents of anti-Semitism.
Perez filmed for 40 minutes outside the gates of the Etz Jacob Congregation/Ohel Chana High School building in the Fairfax District. As the security guard grew angrier, he filmed Perez in return, then pulled out his handgun.
“Get away from the door,” the guard said in one of two videos Perez posted to her “Furry Potato Live” YouTube channel. “You try one more time and I shoot you.”
The gun fired, and Perez repeatedly shouted that he shot her in the leg.
Police arrested the guard, Edduin Zelayagrunfeld on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He could not be reached for comment Friday.
Perez was treated for her injury and gave a news conference later.
She is a self-proclaimed “1st Amendment auditor” — a phenomenon that started in the last two years. According to Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Center on Hate and Extremism, the “audits” usually involve people provoking police or others near sensitive locations who might challenge their right to assemble or film in a public space.

Prosecutors declined to file charges against the security guard, perhaps because if you’re hired to guard a synagogue, you get a lot of leeway when dealing with suspicious strangers:

Videos that Perez posted to her YouTube channel, where she is better known as “Furry Potato,” show the guard repeatedly telling Perez to leave the area and constantly moving his hand toward his firearm, even though she is standing on a public sidewalk.
At one point in the video, Zelayagrunfeld threatens to shoot Perez if she does not move away from an entrance. The guard appears to have his weapon pointed toward the ground when a gunshot is heard in the video.
Before the shooting, Zelayagrunfeld had asked school staff to move students to a safe location, triggering a lockdown, according to the memo filed by the district attorney’s office. Taken together with recent surges in anti-Semitic hate crimes and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh roughly four months earlier, prosecutors believed the guard’s “perception of Perez’s behavior as dangerous was reasonable.”
“Perez went to a Jewish school, and place of worship, dressed in all black and with a backpack secured to her body by a harness,” the document read. “As Zelaya told detectives, Perez’s backpack could have contained a bomb, and her attire could have concealed a firearm or other deadly weapon.”

See what I mean? The guard’s actions were “reasonable,” considering the circumstances. Perez is lucky to have been only grazed by a bullet.

Sooner or later, one of these “auditors” is likely to be a lot less lucky. Generally speaking, if a cop is going to shoot you, he’ll keep pulling the trigger until the magazine’s empty. Your “rights” don’t do you much good after you bleed to death. Your family might get a lawsuit settlement payoff, but you won’t be around to spend that money.




 

Category: Constitution, Crime

There Is No Joy in ’Bamaland

Posted on | October 16, 2022 | Comments Off on There Is No Joy in ’Bamaland

The headline at ESPN says, “Tennessee tops Alabama in epic back-and-forth thriller,” but please, spare me such “thrills.” Pardon my lifelong preference for the boring, easy, lopsided Alabama victories.

O, Lord, keep your “thrillers” far away from the Crimson Tide!

’Bama spotted Tennessee a 28-10 first-half lead, but then Heisman Trophy quarterback Bryce Young led the Tide back to tie it 28-28 early in the third quarter. Alabama only punted once in the second half, scoring touchdowns on three of its five possessions, and adding a defensive touchdown when linebacker Dallas Turner scooped up a Tennessee fumble and ran it in. That gave ’Bama a 49-42 lead with less than eight minutes remaining, but Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker then led the Volunteers on a 75-yard touchdown drive that included two pass interference penalties against Alabama. The second penalty saved Tennessee after a fourth-down interception that would have — should have? — clinched the victory with four minutes left to play.

Now the game was tied, but Young led the Tide downfield again, reaching the Tennessee 32-yard line with 34 seconds left. Alabama still had one timeout left, and you might think they could have RUN THE DAMNED BALL at least once, but instead they threw three passes, all of them incomplete. With 15 seconds on the clock, Will Reichard came on to kick what would have been the game-winning field goal, but it went wide right, and it seemed we were headed to overtime.

Alas, Hendon Hooker may be the best quarterback Tennessee’s had since Peyton Manning. He connected on two passes that put the Vols at the Alabama 23 with two seconds left and Tennessee won on a field goal.

It was the first time Tennessee has beat ’Bama since 2006. Their fans tore down the goal posts and, of course, UT alumnus Glenn Reynolds was celebrating. Someone in the comments at Instapundit said, “Imagine scoring 49 points and losing!” To which I replied, “Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine it.” A dreadful nightmare. “Thriller,” my ass.

Much of the blame for this defeat will fall on Bryce Young, perhaps unfairly. He threw for 455 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, spreading the ball around to nine different receivers. The real problem for Alabama was that they got 17 penalties for 130 yards.

And where the hell was the defense, huh? Since when does Alabama’s defense give up 52 points to anybody, let alone Tennessee? The last time the Crimson Tide gave up this many points was 1907.

If Bear Bryant was alive, he’d have them boys running wind sprints until they died. Fifty-two points! That’s not a defeat, it’s a humiliation!

One of the problems with being America’s Greatest College Football Team is that there are really only two kinds of seasons for ’Bama: National Championships and failures. Since Nick Saban became the coach in 2007, the Crimson Tide has won six National Championships and, in all but two of those years, they did so with at least one regular-season loss on their record. So it is too early to say the Tide can’t come back this year, although they face a difficult schedule down the stretch, with the Nov. 12 game at Ole Miss looking especially tough.

’Bama fans will therefore remain hopeful that somehow Saban can get the team back to the SEC title game and we’ll see how it goes from here. For now, however, a dark cloud looms above Tuscaloosa, and in the hearts of Crimson Tide fans everywhere. There is no joy in ’Bamaland.




 

Category: Alabama, Football
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