The Other McCain

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

Trump vs. Boorda

Posted on | January 9, 2021 | Comments Off on Trump vs. Boorda

by Smitty

The Trump Administration has always seemed something of a barbarian flick. The hero enters the lair of the Great Wyrm, sinks some impressive cutlery into the monstrous head, and then tries not to die during the death thrashings of the beast. While our government may be a Great Wyrm, it’s certainly not living in any sense that an individual actor could fell it. It survived Obama, after all.

None of this post diminishes the glaringly obvious reality that 03Nov2020 was not a straight election. No amount of Orwellian cologne can get that dirty diaper to pass the smell test. Every little homo bureaucratus weenie at every level that rubber-stamped that steamer shall live in infamy. Lookin’ at you, Vice President Warmspitbucket. Little side-eye for SCOTUS, too: may it not prove the case that you’re shining the bright work on the Constitutional Titanic’s bridge as she converts to a submarine. And a ship’s a she, Princess Pelosi.

Yet, the tragedy of Admiral Mike Boorda came to mind lately, and may offer some insight into what’s gone on. Briefly, Boorda was a senior Petty Officer who took a commission and rocketed through the commissioned ranks, becoming the Chief of Naval Operations by the time I was ejecting from Sing Sing on the Severn (USNA). He always loved the Navy, deeply, as a large extended family. In 1996, a Newsweek reporter questioned the Combat “V” on his Vietnam-era Navy Achievement Medal, and he fatally shot himself.

There was a long New Yorker piece which I read with fascination. Boorda, apparently loved to tout his enlisted bona fides in front of the sailors, and chide officers as not knowing what’s really going on. He also liked to be the “Guy With The Magic Wand Who Fixes Stuff”.

According to the New Yorker, that reached a crescendo with a female aviation candidate who could not get through flight school, and had been set back at pretty much every stage of the training pipeline, but always managed to remediate, or get a pass, or whatever. Couldn’t answer a question on an oral board, always offered voluminous information talking around the answer without producing it.
Finally, her last appeal for pilot’s wings is with the Gray Eagle, the senior aviator of the Navy. He had the hard conversation with the Lieutenant, thanked her for her interest in Naval Aviation, but told her that she fell short of meeting requirements and would not continue as an aviator.

Not taking “No” from the Gray Eagle as an answer, she appealed to Boorda. Who blew it, and brought her on as an aide while he tried to “sort out” the whole situation. Being Mr. Fixit is one thing. Crapping on the Grey Eagle is another. The counter-crapfest saw the Navy flag officers close ranks and do an about-face on Boorda, not speaking to him personally, barbecuing on the weekends, calling him up, etc. If Boorda was the extrovert he sounded, this was a recipe for a deep depression. Also, the Navy was pretty much who he was, and that career was ending in his mid-50s. It’s unclear what he’d’ve done had he gone on.

This summary is corroborated by my own experience. I was an enlisted sailor, a little bit-chaser on a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, who took the commission. Boorda went from E-6 to O-9. I went E-4 to O-4. My excuse is that I “got caught telling the truth too much”, but a less flip point is that enlisted/commissioned is the same dichotomy as workers and managers. People get it done, or manage the getting it done. It’s cognitively challenging for most people to flip back and forth, and this point was hard for me to grasp.

As an Ensign serving in USS McClusky (FFG 47) , there was a Boorda anecdote that echoed the New Yorker piece, which I have second-hand, having predated my tour by a couple of years. He held an Admiral’s Call on the flight deck, and asked if anyone had any questions. A Torpedoman’s Mate, Seaman (TMSN) raised his hand and allowed that his chain of command wouldn’t let him take the advancement examination for Petty Officer Third Class. In phrasing it pejoratively, this young sailor stabbed his Chief, Division Officer, Department Head, Executive Officer, and Commanding Officer. Simultaneously. #GreatWork. Boorda sought no context for why this was the case (I gathered there were legitimate reasons beside the victimology on offer), and he got into Magic Wand mode, saying something like “You’ve got that exam, and you owe me a letter telling me how it went.” The body language was that Boorda was here for the sailors, and the officers were so much necessary baggage. On their better days.

Which brings to the swampy vistas of Donald Trump vs. The Great Wyrm. The shrill cries of “populism” have never made much sense, because, other than disdain for the elite, what is it? Recalling the tragedy of Boorda, if Populism means fancying the workers to the complete disregard of the management, then we may be able to understand something of the Deep State’s reaction to all of that brandished steel.

The Deep State is that management community, like that frigate wardroom that Boorda disdained. It is corrupt, as has been demonstrated at length and in detail, especially at the top. But it also has a vast swath of sincere, patriotic professionals. Trump had the annoying habit of being quite correct on many of his calls, e.g. the Jerusalem Embassy, peace overtures with the Norks, &c, but he did it at the expense of alienating much of the establishment. Whether or not that was needful or avoidable is ambiguous, but, if you’re in charge, you chop them all off at the ankle at your peril.

Where it comes to a head is in the context of an election that reeks to high heaven. Suddenly, Trump wants the organizations that he’s ravaged these years to come to his rescue. However, bureaucracy favors excuses over results. As long as there is some rule, precedent, or other organization at which to point, all you get is a shrug. Confronted with actual facts, a recent innovation has been to ignore the facts. For all the hue and cry about the sacredness of whistleblowers, blowing the whistle is typically targeting information. Just remember that bureaucracy is the antithesis of courage.

Nothing of this post should be seen as excusing what’s gone on. We’ve seen increasingly that rules exist to punish those retaining any sense of our Western culture in the face of the Orwellian collapse. Bureaucracy is plural, and courage is a singular function.

Nor am I blaming Trump. I think he’s done a needful job of exposing the state of our polity. If anything, it’s been this bad for quite a while, and he’s had a catalytic effect on getting us a point of recognition. Also, Trump isn’t superhuman: there may have been some management approach that could break through the neo-Con GroupThink of our foreign policy, but could that same personality have thrived in the mainstream media thunder dome?

On the balance, I’m pro-Trump. Trump has reflected to the elite the contempt that the elite reflect toward the populace. The truth is that we need to shrink the elite both in numbers and hat sizes by having fewer, simpler, more distributed institutions. Whatever requirement we may have had for all of the non-Enumerated Powers functions taken on at the federal level has passed.

This is posted as we seem to have gotten past the idea of a second Trump term, but still I sense another plot twist or two pending. As the Sanhedrin anoints President Barabbas, will there be a political crucifixion, I mean, impeachment, for the other guy? On what basis? Do the Woke need a basis? For anything? This is tantamount to Congress deciding to impose a one-term limit on an individual, isn’t it? Let’s terminate the rest of Congress at the end of their current terms, say I. Even the few I fancy. Cashier the lot. Do us a world of good.

Summarizing, two tendencies to minimize in our system are:

  • worship of the state
  • worship of individual figures

Bringing in outsiders to shake things up is something we should do regularly. But a more gentle hand with the staff at hand may prove beneficial, whether you’re Trump or Boorda.

Category: Uncategorized

No, Trump Did Not Incite Violence

Posted on | January 9, 2021 | Comments Off on No, Trump Did Not Incite Violence

Twitter banned President Trump last night, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Note the word “further,” an implied assertion that on some previous occasion, Trump incited violence.

If you have watched CNN or MSNBC the past few days, you know that this assertion has been repeated as a certainty multiple times every hour, 24/7, ever since the mob stormed the Capitol, as if there were no doubt that (A) the President’s speech caused (B) the subsequent riot.

This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy as “journalism.”

Ann Althouse — who, I remind you, is a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin — took the time to read the transcript of Trump’s hour-long speech Wednesday and found no such incitement. It simply never happened, no matter how often the media say it happened.

“It’s like they had the narrative ready to go regardless of the facts,” says Glenn Reynolds, professor of law at the University of Tennessee.

Do you think that maybe these law professors know something that the talking heads on CNN don’t know? The evident assumption by the anti-Trump media is that anything Trump says is bad and wrong, and that anytime something bad happens, Trump is to blame. But there were some 200,000 people in D.C. for the “Stop the Steal” rally, and only a small percentage of that crowd — perhaps 2,000 people — were involved in breaching the Capitol. If everybody heard the president’s “incitement,” why didn’t everyone storm the Capitol? Of course, you can’t expect million-dollar TV news anchors to be capable of logical deduction, but wouldn’t you think that someone in the media would become tired of the stench of bovine excrement exuded by their fact-deficient “reporting”?




 

Category: Donald Trump, Media Bias

Before Capitol Riot, D.C. Mayor Rejected Federal Law-Enforcement Assistance

Posted on | January 9, 2021 | Comments Off on Before Capitol Riot, D.C. Mayor Rejected Federal Law-Enforcement Assistance

If you’re wondering how a mob so easily overwhelmed security at the Capitol on Wednesday, look no further than D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

On Tuesday, Mayor Bowser sent a remarkable letter to Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, discouraging them from deploying security forces in the capital city:

As the law enforcement agency charged with protecting residents and visitors throughout the District of Columbia, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is prepared for this week’s First Amendment activities. . . .
The District of Columbia Government has not requested personnel from any other federal law enforcement agencies. To avoid confusion, we ask that any request for additional assistance be coordinated using the same process and procedures. . . .
To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD if such plans are underway. The protection of persons and property is our utmost concern and responsibility. MPD is well trained and prepared to lead the law enforcement, coordination and response to allow for the peaceful demonstration of First Amendment rights in the District of Columbia.

Well, how’d that work out, Mayor? After the chaos on Wednesday, Mayor Bowser denounced the protests as “terrorism” and said: “I think a more robust presence on the ground” would have maintained order. But she is the reason there was not “a more robust presence.”




 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 01.08.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | January 8, 2021 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

A cheerful Komi picture to lift your mood.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Not A Word About Self Defense
EBL: Conservatives – Learn To Ballot Harvest
Twitchy: Tariq Nasheed Just Got A “Violent Suspected White Supremacist” Fired For Saving A Black Woman At LA Protest
Louder With Crowder: Where Has This Confrontational Spirit Been These Last Nine Months?
Vox Popoli: RED1 Go, also, Boo-Freaking-Hoo
According To Hoyt: Attention Please!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: What I Saw At The Capitol Riot
American Greatness: The End, also, Political Theater Won’t Work For The Right
American Power: The Elites Have Unmasked Themselves & Declared War
American Thinker: Worrisome Signs The Capitol Breach Was Planned To Discredit Trump Supporters, also, Yes, It Was A Fraudulent Election
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Immortality Friday
Babalu Blog: “The Rice From The Bodega Is So Bad I Don’t Want It For Free – And It’s Six Pesos”
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For January 8
Cafe Hayek: Some COVID Links
CDR Salamander: Two Kinds Of Leaders
Da Tech Guy: 21 Basic Truths Worth Noting Concerning The Events In DC This Week
Don Surber: Oh No! We Upset People Who Call Us Deplorable!
First Street Journal: I’ll Take “Stories We Didn’t See Last Summer” For $500, Alex
The Geller Report: Watch Capitol Police Open The Doors For Protesters, Stand Aside, & Invite Them Inside, also, Intel Analysts Downplayed Chicom Election Influence To Avoid Supporting Trump Policies
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, It’s Not Easy To Become Sane
Hollywood In Toto: Indy 5 Director Calls For Boycott Of Fox & Fox News, also, The Secret Behind Crocodile Dundee‘s Shocking Success
The Lid: Occasional Cortex Demands Ted Cruz’ Resignation, Gets Rekt
Legal Insurrection: Trump Won’t Attend Biden’s Inauguration, also, Biden & Harris Inject Race Into Non-Racial Riot On Capitol Hill, Lie About BLM Riots
Michelle Malkin:
Nebraska Energy Observer: No One
Power Line: Tommy Lasorda, RIP, also, NBA Players Being Ignant (Again)
Shark Tank: Rubio Calls Left Hypocrites Over Support Of Media Riot Coverage
Shot In The Dark: Grabbing While The Grabbing’s Good
The Political Hat: The “Election Aftermath”…Aftermath
This Ain’t Hell: Last Civil War Widow Dies (Seriously), also, Valor Friday
Victory Girls: Biden & Harris Gaslight The Public Regarding Capitol Protest
Volokh Conspiracy: Can President Trump Be Impeached And Removed For Incitement?
Weasel Zippers: Another Antifa Goon Found At Capitol “Riot”, also, Apple Gives Parler 24 Hours To Conform Or Get Scrubbed From Apple Store
The Federalist: Ten Times Democrats Called For Violence Against Trump & His Supporters, also, Apple Prepares To Ban Parler From Devices As Big Tech Purge Continues
Mark Steyn: Potemkin Parliament, Pseudo-Legislature, also, The Right On The Ropes

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 01.08.21 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | January 8, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.08.21 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

The Big Tech/Democrat/media message going forward

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Hackers Just Want To Watch You Die
EBL: Most Of The Protesters Wednesday Were Peaceful & Law Abiding; Most Of The Media, Democrats, & GOPe Were Snakes
Twitchy: Glenn Greenwald Thread On How The Biden Administration Will Redefine Domestic Terrorism Is A Must Read
Louder With Crowder: Tucker Carlson Delivers Powerful Monologue On Wednesday’s Events
Vox Popoli: Give The Girl Her Props, also, Thirty Pieces Of Silver
Stoic Observations: Kludge Government
Granite Grok: Violence In DC – Momentary Flash, Or Ignition Point?
Gab News: NYT Blames Gab For Capitol Invasion
Monster Hunter Nation: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: A Heinous Day In American History
American Greatness: It’s Time For Mitch McConnell To Go
American Thinker: A Democrat-Controlled Senate Spells Doom For Kamala Harris, also, To The GOP – Trump You!
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily HOLY CRAP News
Babalu Blog: The Cuban People Are Going Hungry
BattleSwarm: Red China Calls Uighur Women In Concentration Camps “Emancipated”
Cafe Hayek: Saying Goodbye To Cafe Hayek Patron Mr. H
Da Tech Guy: Fight, Using All Methods Short Of Sin, also, Far Too Few Americans Realize That We The People Are In Charge
Don Surber: Storming The Capitol Was Cool In 2018, also, The Wall Street Journal’s Editor Should Resign
First Street Journal: I Think Joe Biden Is Too Smart To Try This, But…
Fred On Everything: Big Doings In Northern Guatemala
The Geller Report: Fascist Facebook Bans President Trump, also, NY Post Reports Known Antifa Members Posed As Trump Supporters To Infiltrate Capitol Protest
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Re-Funding The Police
Hollywood In Toto: The DIY Movie Experiment That Made All The Difference
JustOneMinute: That Went Well
The Lid: HuffPo Journalist Is Upset She’s Recorded Trying To Mask-Shame Men Drinking Coffee On A Train
Legal Insurrection: Video Of Ashli Babbitt’s Shooting Death Raises Deadly Force Questions, also, Facebook, YouTube, & Shopify All Moe To Deplatform Trump, Suppress Questions About 2020 Election
Nebraska Energy Observer: The Meaning Of Life
Power Line: The Pence Letter, also, Henry Clay, Trump, & Tyler Too
Shark Tank: Rep. Murphy Slams DeSantis – “He’s In Over His Head”
Shot In The Dark: The John Ireland Boulevard Speech, also, Just In Case Anyone Forgot
The Political Hat: When Some Races Are More Equal Than Others
This Ain’t Hell: After A Years-Long Fight, Veterans Will See New Medical Malpractice Protections, also, At The Pointy End
Victory Girls: Social Media To Mindwipe Capitol Events
Volokh Conspiracy: Incitement & Ordinary Speakers, Duty & Political Leaders
Weasel Zippers: President Trump Now On Parler After Twitter Locks His Account, also, ABC News – Time To Cleanse The Country Of Trump Supporters
The Federalist: 28 Times Media & Democrats Excused Or Endorsed Violence By Left-Wing Activists, also, Spare Me. Biden & The Democrats Never Cared About Law & Order
Mark Steyn: “This Is Not Who We Are”

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Category: Linkagery

Real Life Is Not Twitter or a Video Game

Posted on | January 7, 2021 | 2 Comments

Practically everybody on Twitter today is sharing their opinion of what happened Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Not only are Democrats using the mob scene at the Capitol to smear all Republicans as traitors, etc., but a lot of “conservative” are making a point of how much they deplore the unruly rabble. See, it is not enough — from the moralistic standpoint of political Twitter — that we refrain from bad behavior, but we are expected to ostentatiously proclaim how much we despise those who do. To maintain one’s status as a pundit, you must “distance” yourself from Those Deplorables Over There, heaping up a pile of epithets and pejorative descriptors, to make clear In No Uncertain Terms that you’re a Serious Intellectual, rather than part of the lumpenproletariat.

Homey the Clown don’t play that game, see?

However much I might ever have aspired to be a Serious Intellectual, I am at heart a redneck populist, whose chief claim to be heard in our national conversation is that I speak in defense of the dignity, and on behalf of the interests, of the Ordinary American.

Ashli Babbitt was the prototypical Ordinary American, 35 years old, a small business owner who had spent 14 years in the Air Force. She was an enthusiastic Trump supporter who sincerely believed the election had been stolen. There were some 200,000 Trump supporters in D.C. on Wednesday, although the crowd that breached the barricades to storm the Capitol was much smaller, certainly less than 2,000. Considering that 74 million Americans voted to re-elect Trump, 200,000 protestors was merely the tip of a massive iceberg of political disappointment, and the ones who overran the Capitol were the angriest part of the crowd.

It has been asserted that some Antifa radicals apparently played the part of agents-provocateurs Wednesday, inciting the pro-Trump crowd to violence in order to discredit the pro-Trump cause. Without regard to this, however, most of those who stormed the Capitol were, like Ashli Babbitt, sincere Trump supporters — too sincere, perhaps.

Politics is a cynical business, and excessive sincerity can be dangerous. As a professional journalist, I have to struggle to maintain the appropriate level of cynicism, lest I destroy my credibility by morphing into a wild-eyed fanatical True Believer. There is never a shortage of fanatics in the vicinity of politics, just like there is always a ready supply of opportunists looking to cash in. My job is merely to chronicle the passing political parade, a task that will neither make me rich nor change the world.

My efforts to maintain an appropriately cynical attitude toward politics have never been entirely successful. I am prone to enthusiasm, to act the role of cheerleader for Our Team in their constant battle against Those Other Guys. For three or four years, I zipped around the country on the campaign trail, covering every fringe-kook Tea Party challenger who seemed to offer the slightest hope of stopping the Obama machine. I ended the 2010 campaign at the Boca Raton victory party for Allen West, and then immediately jumped aboard the Cain Train for the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign. After the crushing disappointment of Obama’s 2012 re-election (“Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption”), I more or less abandoned politics, as such. It was better for me, from a standpoint of mental health, to devote myself to covering the cultural fringe, radical feminism and all that, than to let myself be dragged down into the depressing tedium of politics.

Meanwhile, however, Alex Jones had acquired a massive audience for his paranoia-inducing variety of populism, and Ashli Babbitt appears to have been part of the core InfoWars audience. She was all into QAnon and other conspiracy theories and you know what? That still doesn’t mean she deserved to get shot by a plainclothes Capitol Hill police officer.

Wednesday night, I watched this 44-minute video from an InfoWars cameraman who was part of the crowd that stormed the Capitol:

 

What is so sad about that video — besides, of course, Ashli Babbitt getting shot in the neck at the end — is that, having once breached the security perimeter and entered the Capitol, the protesters seemed to have no idea what they were there to accomplish. I saw a video of one woman claiming this was a “revolution,” but it was more like a bunch of unruly middle-schoolers on a field trip. The protesters wandered around, amazed at the glory of their sudden triumph, apparently with no clue what to do next. Almost accidentally, some of them ended up outside Speaker Pelosi’s office, which is where the armed officer decided that gunfire was necessary to prevent any further intrusion.

Real life is not a video game. You don’t get another life after you get shot dead. Real life is not cosplay. It’s not a Twitter argument.

This business of constantly escalating rhetoric, turning up the outrage meter to 11, and then declaring that anyone who isn’t 100% as angry as you is some kind of half-hearted sellout — well, there are consequences to this kind of attitude. Some of the people who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday will go to federal prison as a result of letting themselves be incited into this stupid and futile gesture. And no one will be able to speak out in their defense, because how can we be taken seriously when we condemn Antifa mobs if we defend mob behavior on “our side”?

So the people who go to prison for storming the Capitol will find themselves without defenders, simply because of the way the game is played. Those who insist on the Rule of Law — which is what conservatism means, if it means anything — are effectively powerless to help anyone on “our side” who decides breaking the law is OK. And certainly, we can do nothing to help you if you get shot dead amid the chaos. Nothing I write can bring Ashli Babbitt back from the grave.

People seldom ask for my advice — “Hey, Stacy, is it a smart idea to overrun a police barricade in D.C.?” — and when I volunteer my advice, people usually ignore me, so I’ve long since given up on the illusion that I can persuade people not to do stupid things. Republican primary voters made Mitt Romney the 2012 GOP presidential nominee despite me doing everything I could to stop them. The “Anybody But Mitt” (ABM) movement had my enthusiastic support, but when it failed, I made the best of a bad situation and tried everything I could to prevent Mitt from losing to Obama, but that effort was ultimately futile. We got here, at this dark abyss of desperate hopelessness, not because of anything I did, but despite everything I could do to avoid this situation.

Less than a month ago, I wrote “How to Maintain Your Sanity,” advising people not to let themselves be driven mad by all this political noise. How many people read that and took it to heart? Not enough, I guess.

No doubt many more people will go crazy and do violent things inspired by politically motivated rage and despair. There will be mass shooters and bombers and lots of “Lone Wolf” type terrorists. Nothing I write on my blog is apt to dissuade these kooks from their kookiness. All I can do is to try to keep the regular readership from flipping out, so that I never have to talk to an FBI agent after they discover that some crackpot bomber has cited me in the footnotes of his deranged “manifesto.”

Don’t go crazy, please? If I can maintain my grip on some semblance of sanity amid this whirling vortex of craziness, anybody can.

And if you’re ever in a crowd where somebody says, “Hey, let’s storm that police barricade,” maybe you should skip that opportunity.

Just a suggestion.




 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 01.06.21

Posted on | January 7, 2021 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Big mood.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1224
357 Magnum: I Thought Cooperation Was The Key To Safety
EBL: Mostly Peaceful Protests At The Capitol
Twitchy: Megyn Kelly Mixes It Up With Tom Nichols – “Your Sanctimony Is Repulsive”
Louder With Crowder: The Media Doesn’t Mind Electoral Objections When Democrats Are Doing It
Vox Popoli: You Won’t Vote Your Way Out, also, Pence Cucks And Runs
Stoic Observations: I Ching & The Jack In The Box Taco

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Republicans Blow It
American Greatness: Georgia Runoff Marred By Irregularities
American Power: Protesters Storm Capitol, Halting Electoral College Certification
American Thinker: Waving Goodbye To The America We All Knew & Loved
Animal Magnetism:  Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Cuba’s Slow Collapse – A Country Running Out Of Food
BattleSwarm: Too Much Stupid To Process
Cafe Hayek: “Protectionism Echoes Luddism”
CDR Salamander: On The Storming Of The Hill
Da Tech Guy: Shades Of Lunenberg At Pelosi’s House, also, Readin’, Writin’ & ‘Rithmetic
Don Surber: Condemn Protest? Naw, Dawg, I’m Good, also, Never Trumpers Got Their Wish
First Street Journal: Politically Correct Crime Reporting
The Geller Report: Photos & Reports Show It Was Antifa Infiltrators Who Stormed The Capitol, also, Unarmed 14-Year Air Force Vet Shot & Killed At Capitol Protest
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, In Re Yesterday & Today
Hollywood In Toto: Second Opinion – A Semi-Defense Of Wonder Woman 1984, also, The Timeless Virtue Of High Noon
The Lid: Electing Warnock Doesn’t Prove Georgia Turned Blue, It Proves They Turned Stupid
Legal Insurrection: Twitter Removes Tweets & Locks Trump’s Account While Facebook Removes Trump Post, also, Trump Tells Supporters He Won’t Concede, Wants To “Primary The Hell” Out Of Republicans Who Won’t Fight
Michelle Malkin: The Zuckerberg Heist
Nebraska Energy Observer: Stop The Steal
Power Line: The Left Claims Another Victim, also, After Last Night
Shark Tank: Rep. Greg Steube On 2020 Election – “Clear Violations Of The Constitution”
Shot In The Dark: Translation Services While You Wait
The Political Hat: Lizard Squad Drains The Swamp!
This Ain’t Hell: Watch Out, Hooters, There’s A New (Military-Themed) Breastaurant In Town, also, This Isn’t Good
Victory Girls: We Cannot Lose Hope In Our Republic
Volokh Conspiracy: Impeach & Remove
Weasel Zippers: Fox News Vote Totals Last Night Went Up, Down, Upside Down All Night, also, We Aren’t Going Away
The Federalist: Twitter Bans Users From Retweeting Trump’s Call For Peace, Rule Of Law, also, DC’s Mayor Bowser Told Federal Law Enforcement To Stand Down The Day Before The Violent Capitol Riot
Mark Steyn: The Madness Of Lockdowns

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Category: Linkagery

WTF Just Happened in D.C.?

Posted on | January 6, 2021 | Comments Off on WTF Just Happened in D.C.?

So, I was up late last night for the Georgia runoff election, then got up at 5:30 a.m. to write up the final result, after which I had some deadline project work to do until about noon. My grandchildren came over about 1 p.m. I had kind of noticed on Twitter some stuff about pro-Trump protesters breaching a security perimeter at the Capitol. But, OK, a few rowdy people got a little out of control, I figured. No big deal. And I was tired, so I decided to take a nap. My wife woke me up about 4 o’clock: “Did you see what’s happening?” Wow. Guess nap time is over:

Disturbing video captures the moment a woman was shot in the chest inside the US Capitol Building on Wednesday, as President Trump supporters intent on disrupting the certification of the presidential election stormed in.
The 30-second clip posted to Twitter captures the sound of a single gunshot, then shows the unidentified woman lying on the floor.
Blood poured from the mouth of the motionless woman, who was draped in red, white and blue, the video shows.
Fellow protesters can be seen tending to the woman, who was later seen being carried out of the building on a stretcher.
CNN reported that the woman was in critical condition.

I’m confused about what happened and why. Was she shot by police? What did she do? Did someone else have a gun?

Stephen Green at PJM nails my reaction:

Theory: My third cup of coffee was spiked with a small dose of LSD.

Except (a) I had four cups of coffee before 10 a.m. this morning, and (b) I am convinced that the acid dose was rather large.

UPDATE: Not making any excuses for anyone’s stupidity, but how could you not recognize the role of agents-provocateurs here?

Many years ago, an old police sergeant in Georgia told me, “If you ever go to a Klan meeting with five guys, one will be an undercover FBI man, and three others will be informants.” In other words, (a) extremist groups are so vigilantly monitored by law-enforcement that it is nearly impossible for kooks to get away with any serious violence, and (b) the use of undercover officers for such work is routine.

If you don’t know the story of Ruby Ridge, it’s this: An ATF informant asked Randy Weaver to saw off a shotgun to an illegal length. Weaver asked him, “You know this is below the legal limit?” And the guy was like, I don’t care, and Weaver — under the impression that he was doing a favor for a friend — did what his “friend” asked. This then became the pretext for a search warrant, and the rest is history. Think about it.

When I first started blogging, there was a big problem with so-called “Moby” trolls — left-wingers pretending to be conservative in order to spread disinformation and generally sow chaos. Because of that, and some subsequent experience with online trolls, I learned to be very careful about online behavior. Generally speaking, an agent-provocateur is the guy who is trying to convince you to engage in illegal activity, or trying to bait you into saying something you shouldn’t say. You have to beware of taking people at face value. Not everybody who says they’re your friend is actually your friend, and the easiest way to get deceived is to start thinking you’re too smart to be deceived.

There were almost certainly a lot of people on “our” side who willingly participated in that chaotic mob scene, but who were the instigators? At least one of the people involved was known to have attended climate change protests and Black Lives Matter rallies. So I don’t want to make excuses for any of “our” people who did the wrong thing, even if they were incited to illegal activity by agents-provocateurs. I just want to caution all my readers to beware of such false-flag operations.

UPDATE: News organizations are now confirming that the woman who got shot at the Capitol has died.




 

Category: Crime
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