Politics – Page 41 – MILESFORTIS

A Time of Chaos Upon Chaos Atop Chaos
There is a series of battles to come in January 2021, in 2022, and in 2024 that will be definitive, if the chaos of 2020 does not become even more chaotic.

America will weather its current hysterias.

But the tensions and furor are reminiscent of the last generations of the Roman Republic. In its last century, Romans began to adjudicate politics by obsequious partisan town criers (their version of our media), mass demonstrations, and freelance street gangs. Looters, arsonists, and demonstrators did pretty much as they pleased in the streets of Rome without fear of legal consequences.

In our time, the media has now vanished—kaput, no more, ended.

Within a few hours, it goes from a Ministry-of-Truth love session with Joe Biden to a steaming verbal assault on the president’s press secretary—without a shred of awareness how ridiculous they appear in their passive-aggressive schizophrenia. The only constant is that reporters unapologetically seem to jettison their principles and professionalism to calibrate what they say and do by whose politics they support. They would prefer to be entirely discredited under a Biden presidency than be real journalists during a Trump Administration.

The current unspoken subtext of the media-progressive party fusion line is the following: It would be a felonious crime should conservatives now dare to disrupt a transition in the manner that the Left did in 2016. They should not dare to sue about voting machines in key states as did the Clinton surrogate Jill Stein. They would never attempt, in 2016 fashion, to sabotage the Electoral College voting by appealing to constitutionally appointed electors, or surveille top Biden campaign and transition officials and coordinate such monitoring inside the Trump Oval Office.

The point of the Steele dossier, the Russian collusion hoax, the calls for future impeachment even during the Trump transition, the abuse of the foreign intelligence surveillance courts and the weaponization of the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department was to weaken the Trump campaign, to disrupt the Trump transition, and to wound fatally the Trump presidency. For the architects, abettors, and enablers of those past efforts now to accuse Trump officials of adhering to what they created on a massive scale is comic. Continue reading “”

Revenge of the Republicans
Political turnabout is fair play

The 2020 election has provided fertile ground upon which Republicans can spend the next four years doing to Joe Biden what the Democrats did to Donald Trump and George W. Bush.

For four years, Democrats and their media allies trumpeted every claim, no matter how baseless or crazy, that Trump’s 2016 election win was illegitimate and fraudulent. Despite zero evidence that so much as a single vote was interfered with, Democrats peddled the hoax that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to elect Trump. Even after the Mueller investigation exonerated Trump and his campaign from the collusion canard, Democrats, led by the shameless Adam Schiff, continued to allege collusion. Their simple goal was to undermine and delegitimize the Trump presidency. It clearly worked to the degree some voters turned their backs on Trump even as they voted Republican down-ballot.

As Biden’s razor-thin win in a handful of states that pushed him past the 270-electoral vote threshold needed to win the presidency, Trump and his allies claimed that voter fraud and other Democrat-led schemes stole the election. Unlike the bogus Russia bunk, however, there are documented voter fraud issues and other unexplained results that call into question the election. For example, one analysis found that Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in every major city except, conveniently, Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta. Because of this and other election oddities, a significant chunk of voters don’t believe Biden actually won the election. He’ll now spend four years governing an America in which just under half of its citizens believe he wouldn’t have won had everything been done fairly and squarely.

Though he managed to get far more done than people give his team credit for, Trump governed under a dark cloud for most of his presidency. His team had to waste precious time and energy defending him against the Mueller investigation with its phalanx of Democratic hitman lawyers and corrupt FBI personnel. The media aided this assault by running stories over the last four years based on anonymous sources, several of which ended up being false. No president has had to undergo so thorough an investigation on such thinly-sourced claims. Trump may be lots of things, but he is as patriotic and faithful to America as any man who ever occupied the Oval Office.

Continue reading “”

Larry Elder: Don’t Expect Trump Supporters To “Heal” After 4 Years of Being Called “Nazis”

After four years of attacking President Donald Trump as “illegitimate,” “fascist,” “Nazi,” “tyrant,” “dictator,” “racist,” “anti-Semitic,” “Russian stooge,” “traitor,” “grifter,” “xenophobe,” “sexist,” “homophobe,” “ignorant,” “fat” and “lazy,” Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive president-elect, now says, “Let’s heal.”

In his “victory speech,” Biden said: “And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand you’re disappointment tonight.

“I’ve lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance.

“It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again.

If Biden wins his court challenges and becomes President while capturing both Senate run-off seats in Georgia, you can expect him to pursue a scorched earth pattern of retribution as he tries to remake America. On the other hand, if Republicans still control the Senate and can block everything other than executive order, we’ll get old smiling Joe, calling for everyone to be best pals. Of course, when liberals call for unity, what they inevitably mean is, “Unity is doing whatever we want. Let’s do that while we try to destroy you.”

For example, while liberals are out there making “lists” of Trump supporters they want to ruin, here’s what we’re hearing from Joe Biden right now.

So, what are we working together to do, Joe? How about working together to build that wall and stop illegal immigration? Do we want to work together to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with a free market alternative? Can we work together to reduce the deficit and kill wasteful programs? Oh….we can’t, right? What Joe Biden means is we all need to “deliver results” when it comes to getting rid of guns, producing open borders and beating the police down to make it easier for rioters to do what they want.

No thank you, Joe. Here’s a better idea. How about we block everything you want to do legislatively, file court challenges against every executive order, investigate you, take the House back in 2022 and then beat Kamala Harris in 2024 after you become too feeble and senile to continue on? Unity sounds nice, but to have unity, you need people that have some type of barebones agreement about whether America, Christianity, Capitalism, the Constitution and small government are good things or not. Until we can square that circle, there is no unity to be had.

Well, if you haven’t figured it out already, there’s a simple solution for her and her komrades. I’m not saying it’s an easy solution, just a simple one.

Don’t blow off AOC

One of the things I try not to do is make the same mistake the other side made. The Establishment blew off Donald John Trump only to watch with jaw agape as he was sworn into office on January 20, 2017.

Let’s not blow off Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You may not see her appeal, but millions of Democrats do. She is the soul of the soulless Democrat Party.

AOC’s danger is that unlike Obama, Manchin, and the rest of the 50 and older crowd in the Democrat Party, she does not seek power. She seeks a revolution.

Oh, that does not mean she won’t pocket campaign contributions. She sees them as overdue tributes owed by the White Patriarchy that has kept her down for 31 years. Under 50 (year old) Democrats view theft as reparations.

As comical as some of her beliefs may be to us, they are very valid to the majority of Democrats. Regulating cow farts is a joke made by conservative skeptics of the global warming concoction. The AOC crowd has no sense of humor. If CO2 must be regulated then so must methane, which means cow farts.

When it comes to taking her racist and anti-capitalist dogma seriously, AOC is not kidding around.

Her call for a “Trump Accountability Project” is mainstream Democrat thinking because theirs is a religion, and we are all infidels unworthy of any rights. Robert “Third” Reich — Clinton’s labor secretary — forwarded last month the idea of blacklisting and punishing President Trump’s supporters. Continue reading “”

Against ‘Unity’

Political unity is an ugly, authoritarian idea. No free place has domestic political unity, nor should it aspire to it.

What “unity” really means, of course, is capitulation. America is once again being subjected to the inane brand of pseudo-patriotic sloganeering we saw during the Obama years. Now, as then, the media will pretend that the moral fabric of the nation must be mended after Republican rule. It’s pretty transparent. When Democrats win the presidency, we are treated to solemn calls for national restoration and political harmony, and to the expectation that, for the good of the nation, the opposition will embrace decorum and pass legislation they oppose. When Republicans win elections, grown women put on knitted hats depicting their reproductive organs and stomp around Washington protesting, all to a hero’s welcome.

Time magazine, the same publication that helped erode trust in our electoral system with conspiratorial covers of the White House morphing into the Kremlin, now offers a commemorative cover featuring Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with the words, “A time to heal.” Unlike some of our progressive friends, I don’t believe in enemies lists or censorship, so my healing process is simple: It involves playing whatever small part I can in extinguishing the political fortunes of those who want to weaken the Constitution. I’m not at all interested in finding accord with those who want to overturn the Hyde amendment, thereby making late-term abortion a state-funded practice, or with anyone who wants to “reengage” without any genuine preconditions with Holocaust-denying terror regimes such as Iran, or with anyone who wants to further socialize our health-care system by adding a “public option.” Like many others, I find disunity quite therapeutic.

I suspect that, in a few weeks, “political polarization” will once again become an existential crisis of American governance. My favorite post-election headline came from the social scientists at Pew Research Center, who informed us that the “2020 election reveals two broad voting coalitions fundamentally at odds.” Two broad coalitions, you say? Fundamentally at odds? What are the chances?

Michelle Obama says we can overcome our divisions, but that Democrats must first remember “that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division.” She suggests that there is “a lot of work to do to reach out to these folks in the years ahead and connect with them on what unites us.” It’s somewhat difficult to process this level of obnoxious sanctimony. Here is a list of demands you divisive Republicans must embrace for the country to “unite.” Get on with it.

Anyhow, I reject this false choice in the name of patriotic disunity.

Not one of those 71 million agents of chaos lied to millions of Americans to strip us of our health-care insurance plans. Not one of those voters has attempted to force nuns to buy contraception — or sued them when they refused. One day I hope Michelle will stop defending the lies, hate, and division that her husband inflicted on this great nation. Until then, though, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Continue reading “”

BLUF:
If you believe that Biden, after his presumptive victory, and the Democratic Party actually want unity, you’re a fool. The only kind of unity they want is where we bend the knee. They don’t want unity, they want submission.

If they think they can spend four years calling me a sexist, a bigot, a Nazi, and get away with it, they’ve got a surprise coming. Don’t forget what they did to you, because the moment their power is threatened, they’ll do it again.

Democrats Labeled Me and Now They Want Unity? No Way.

After spending twenty years claiming that Al Gore won in 2000, four years claiming that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and two years claiming that Stacey Abrams is the actual Governor of Georgia, the mainstream media continued to demonstrate a rejection of basic reality when they unanimously declared that Joe Biden – on his third attempt – is now president-elect of the United States. The fact that the Trump campaign is actively challenging some results, or that recounts are also scheduled to occur, or that the media are not endowed with the ultimate authority to erase electoral procedure with their enthusiastic projections are irrelevant details.

On the back of this media-endorsed “victory,” Joe Biden took to the stage and delivered what the Left are describing as a “call for unity.” Continue reading “”

This is the ‘revenge politics’ the demoncraps want. It’s exactly the same thing that the marxist/socialist dictators have done since the early 1900s.
As biased as they already are, I’m actually surprised twitter did this

Twitter Removes Lincoln Project Tweet With Trump Lawyers’ Contact Info

Twitter has removed a tweet from the Lincoln Project that exposed the contact information of two attorneys who are currently representing President Donald Trump, a practice known as “doxxing,” the Washington Examiner reports.

The official Twitter account for the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action group created by several former Republicans, posted the phone numbers and emails of two lawyers with the law firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, who are both representing Trump, with the message: “Here are two attorneys attempting to help Trump overturn the will of the Pennsylvanian people. Make them famous.”

The Examiner notes that “doxxing” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”

A spokesperson for Twitter told the Examiner: “The account owner will be required to delete the violative tweet before regaining access to their account.”

Biden Vows Swift Action On Gun Control

According to the media, Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States. Who knows, maybe when all is said and done, he actually will be. Regardless, there are legal challenges to the election outcome in enough states that you just don’t know how things will shake out in the end.

Regardless, Biden is acting like the president-elect. It’s not like the media will call him on it, to be sure.

So what precisely does Biden have in mind for his first days in office? Oh, nothing much.

Joe Biden has a lot of plans for his first day as president, and some of it can actually happen in a single day — a fair amount of which he can set in motion right away even though Democrats have so far fallen short of capturing the Senate.

Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, reverse President Donald Trump’s rollbacks of public health and environmental rules and call allies worldwide to reassure them, all on his first day in the White House. Before that day is done, he says he will put in place a national strategy for containing the coronavirus pandemic, rejoin the World Health Organization, end the ban on immigration from several predominantly Muslim nations and expand rights for Latin American asylum seekers.

Biden has also promised swift action on housing, labor, gun control, LGBTQ rights and government reform.

Yep. Old Sleepy Joe has his sights set on our guns, the same as always. Continue reading “”

Ten Big Takeaways From The 2020 Election.

It appears that the Democrats’ fevered dreams are going to become a reality: they have replaced one old white man as president whom they alleged had a history of racist comments, self-dealing with foreign countries to benefit his family, and major cognitive issues with an older white man with a more clear history of racist comments, stronger evidence of self-dealing with foreign countries to benefit his family, and a much more severe case of cognitive decline.

In all seriousness, this is why many people consider our political class to be so farcical.

I’ve read all your questions, emails, and comments about the 2020 election and rather than respond to them individually, on this Friday, I’ve laid out my ten biggest takeaways and thoughts from the election results so far.

Here we go: Continue reading “”

In Championing the Goodness of America, Trump Defines the Choice in This Election.

Étienne de La Boétie, who graced this planet from 1520–1563, may have died young, but he made his mark, mostly because he was best friends with Michel de Montaigne.

It was Montaigne who helped assure the literary and political immortality of his friend’s most important work, an essay called “Discours de la servitude volontaire” (“Discourse on Voluntary Servitude”).

La Boétie’s curious work has been an arrow in the quiver of anarchists and libertarians as well as classical liberals for centuries. It is an impassioned attack on tyranny, longer, perhaps, on denunciation than prudence but nevertheless a tonic reveille.

Among other things, La Boétie points out that even those who are duly elected can be tyrants, a fact that was pressed home upon me from a recent visit to the state of Michigan, whose governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is the very model of the modern major mandarin.

Whitmer has issued hundreds and hundreds of executive orders that impinge on the quotidian freedoms of the people she was elected to serve (how ironic that sounds: they also serve who only play the scold).

Whitmer was recently upbraided by the Michigan Supreme Court for exceeding her authority.

Her response was to transfer that authority to the state public health establishment, which set about enforcing her edicts about mask-wearing, “social” distancing, communal gatherings, quivering in place, and kindred impositions on liberty.

‘Voluntary Servitude’

“Voluntary servitude”: isn’t that where we find ourselves now? This is no “social contract,” wherein we implicitly pledge allegiance to a regime in exchange for an escape from a sanguinary “state of nature” and entrance to a realm of law and order.

On the contrary, we find ourselves more and more subject to the extraordinary whims of those—and they are legion—who would be our masters, for our own good, we are told, but we can’t help noticing it is also very much for their good, or at least their profit.

Continue reading “”

80% Silencers, the Political Ramifications of Mass Ownership

In the first two parts of this on home made silencers series, I wrote of how we arrived at the current situation, historically, and what exists today, in terms of the technology and legal system, for individuals to make their own silencers utilizing the ATF Form 1.

Because of the tremendous bureaucratic and monetary infringements imposed by the National Firearms Act (NFA), very few form 1’s (required to legally make your own silencer, short-barreled rifle, or shotgun) were processed as late as 1990.

In the year 1990, only thirty years ago, a total of 399 Form 1’s were processed by the ATF. In 2000, the annual number had more than tripled, to 1,334. In 2010, the annual number had continued exponential growth to 5,169. By 2013, it was almost doubled again, at 9,347. In 2014, it had more than doubled again, to 22,380.

It took two more years, to 2016, to more than double again, to 49,985 Form 1s per year. That was the peak, so far. Record firearms sales in 2020 lead to the prediction over 50,000 Form 1’s will be processed this year. The figures for 2019 Form 1’s have not been released at this time, but should be out soon.

About 120 times as many Form 1s are being processed each year, as were being processed 30 years ago. Entire forums on the Internet trade information on what works and what doesn’t.

Forums such as silencertalk.com are potent places for political organizing.

Analysis of the ATF figures shows about 75% of the current Form 1s are for silencers. Most of the rest are for short-barrelled rifles (SBR). SBR Form 1s have probably dropped off as pistol arm braces gained popularity.

The vast increase in the number of legal silencers is altering the political and judicial landscapes.

Such visible numbers are a sign of political and judicial strength. Second Amendment supporters have every logical argument to repeal the National Firearms Act. They do not have the political support in Congress to do so…yet.

The inclusion of silencers in the NFA may be the worst public health blunder made by the Federal Government. Tens of millions of gun owners’ hearing has been adversely affected.

Two million legal silencers are merely the start. There are about 100 million firearms owners who could benefit from owning inexpensive and effective silencers in the United States. Market saturation of silencers in the United States might top out in the area of 200 million. Continue reading “”

Is Biden Coming For Your Guns? To Quote Beto, ‘Hell Yes’ — It’s Right There On His Website.

All the focus has been on Biden’s mask use, his ridiculous rhetoric, his personal attacks on Trump, and his various Bidenisms. What we should REALLY Be looking at is his platform.

He can duck and weave in debates and townhalls all he wants, but his platform is there for all to read.

Mark Levin calls it their Manifesto. We have referenced that previously.

He picked as his running mate the furthest left Senator of the bunch, whose record is literally further left than Bernie Sanders. But we’re all supposed to blindly accept that Joe is a ‘moderate’.

He was part of legislation pushing a gun ban before, and it should surprise nobody that the guy who pledged to put Beto ‘Hell Yes we’ll take your AR-15s” O’Rourke in charge of gun policy is pushing gun confiscation.

Of course, the kind of legislation he is pushing does nothing to target the places where gun crime is a real problem… places like the mean streets of Chicago for instance.

That doesn’t stop him from demagoguing the issue. From his website:

It’s within our grasp to end our gun violence epidemic and respect the Second Amendment, which is limited. As president, Biden will pursue constitutional, common-sense gun safety policies. Biden will:

Hold gun manufacturers accountable. In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will prioritize repealing this protection.

Get weapons of war off our streets. The bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that Biden, along with Senator Feinstein, secured in 1994 reduced the lethality of mass shootings. But, in order to secure the passage of the bans, they had to agree to a 10-year sunset provision and when the time came, the Bush Administration failed to extend them. As president, Biden will:

Ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Federal law prevents hunters from hunting migratory game birds with more than three shells in their shotgun. That means our federal law does more to protect ducks than children. It’s wrong. Joe Biden will enact legislation to once again ban assault weapons. This time, the bans will be designed based on lessons learned from the 1994 bans. For example, the ban on assault weapons will be designed to prevent manufacturers from circumventing the law by making minor changes that don’t limit the weapon’s lethality. While working to pass this legislation, Biden will also use his executive authority to ban the importation of assault weapons.

Regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act. Currently, the National Firearms Act requires individuals possessing machine-guns, silencers, and short-barreled rifles to undergo a background check and register those weapons with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Due to these requirements, such weapons are rarely used in crimes. As president, Biden will pursue legislation to regulate possession of existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act.

Buy back the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines already in our communities. Biden will also institute a program to buy back weapons of war currently on our streets. This will give individuals who now possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines two options: sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act.

Reduce stockpiling of weapons. In order to reduce the stockpiling of firearms, Biden supports legislation restricting the number of firearms an individual may purchase per month to one.

We notice it doesn’t say what will happen to someone who says that they do NOT want to participate in a government buyback. Continue reading “”

Gun Control Absent From Presidential Debate

With last night’s debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, it seemed likely that gun control would be a topic of discussion. After all, it was a driving issue during the Democratic primary, one at least two candidates decided to make a focal point of their campaigns. It was a recurring theme during Democratic debates as well.

However, now, things are different. It seems that everyone is trying to pretend that gun control was never a topic to begin with, from the gun control groups and now, even the presidential campaigns.

Oh, guns weren’t absent. It seems that gun violence was a major topic of debate. Especially in places like Chicago.

With the surge in violence we’re seeing all over the nation, that’s hardly surprising. It’s an alarming development in a year of alarming developments, to say the least. Yet this one, at least, feels like something people can turn to politicians to solve, so they have.

But absent from any mention of the debates? Gun control.

This issue that seemed poised to shape at least part of the presidential election has largely fizzled out. Oh, Biden still wants gun control and we know that if he’s elected, we’ll likely see it, but no one wants to talk about it, apparently.

Why?

Following the shooting in Marjory Stoneman-Douglas Highschool in Parkland, gun control was all anyone could seemingly talk about. It made gun control fashionable.

What’s more, gun control didn’t fade into the background like it normally does following a mass shooting. The media made it a point to push people like David Hogg in our faces to keep gun control in the foreground. It couldn’t die if the media kept focusing on it.

Then COVID-19 hit.

At that point, the media had more important things to talk about. Further, millions upon millions of Americans went out and bought guns. After all, a deadly pandemic was here. People were going to die and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for there to be some real problems with our supply chain. In fact, there was, and no one had any reason to believe it couldn’t get worse. What happens when people can’t get food?

For times like that, you need a gun.
Continue reading “”

It’s almost like they know it’s a losing argument, so they have to obfuscate it? Strange.

Gun Control Group Opts for Healthcare Push in Swing States

Michael Bloomberg-founded Everytown for Gun Safety is opting to push healthcare instead of new gun laws in swing states as the November election approaches.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that Everytown launched an ad campaign in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, Arizona, and Minnesota, and there is zero mention of gun control. Instead, the ads make allegations that Republicans want to take away healthcare.

The NRA’s Amy Hunter responded to Everytown’s decision to forego a gun control push, saying, “This Bloomberg-funded organization knows Americans don’t want gun control and are less likely to vote for candidates who promise to impose it. That is why they have to engage in tactics like this — and also bribe felons to vote — to get their gun-control candidates elected. They hope these tactics will fool swing state voters but we hope voters will see right through their deception.”

On September 21, 2020, Breitbart News reported there was a 139 percent increase in ammunition sales nationwide during the first six months of 2020, when compared to the same time period in 2019. Those ammo sales were coupled with a 95 percent increase in gun sales, as compared to the same time frame in 2019.

Moreover, there was an 80 percent surge in gun sales in seven swing states. Those seven states include the five in which Bloomberg’s Everytown is forgoing a gun control push.

The new anti-Semitism

Ocasio-Cortez withdraws from Rabin memorial event after backlash
Democratic congresswoman pulls participation from Americans For Peace Now commemoration for assassinated Israeli premier, after pro-Palestinian activists call move ‘disgusting’

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday withdrew her participation from an event commemorating former prime minster Yitzhak Rabin on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.

The decision, which came after backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, was confirmed to The Times of Israel by a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Continue reading “”

Ohio lawmakers pass bill making gun stores an ‘essential business’ even amid a pandemic

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — The Ohio Senate recently passed a bill that would ban the closure of licensed firearms dealers, even during a pandemic. Gun store owners are now behind the legislation and hope it reaches the governor’s desk. However, other groups against the bill now worry about the bill saying it could do more harm than good.

Eric Delbert, the owner of LEPD Firearms, says in the eight years he’s been running the store gun sales have never been higher.

“At the height of COVID and at the beginning of the civil unrest, we went from selling 10 firearms in a day just in a day just some days selling over 100,” said Delbert.

Governors of several states excluded licensed firearms dealers from the list of “essential” businesses. Recently, passed Senate Bill 360, backed by Republican Senate President Larry Obhof, would ban any public official from closing down gun stores, even during a pandemic……..

I wish

Some Senate Democrats Consider Boycotting SCOTUS Confirmation Hearing

At least two Democrats on the powerful Senate panel that will soon oversee the confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s forthcoming Supreme Court nominee remain on the fence about whether they’ll attend the televised meetings.

Senate Judiciary Committee members Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told Newsweek they’re uncertain if they’ll participate in the several days of public hearings expected for mid-October, signaling they may boycott the confirmation process in an apparent snub to Republicans moving at breakneck pace to fill the vacancy on the nation’s highest court before Election Day.

“We’ll see,” Coons said. “My gut inclination is this is the shortest time in American history, the closest to an election—ever—that there’s been a nominee, and we’re given just two weeks to do what should take a month

Naked Power Plays
The McConnell hate is palpable right now. If you don’t think the Dems would have done the same thing if the situation were reversed, I have a bridge to sell you. They would be fools not to.

Most of politics is slinging bs. You weave a narrative for the rubes to rally around.

“Let the next President fill the seat!” “Do your job!”
“It was her dying wish!” “Mitch is a hypocrite!”

It’s all nonsense that will be repeated mindlessly by partisan cheerleaders. If the Dems had been in charge of the Senate, Merrick Garland or someone more liberal would be on the court right now, and to me that’s a consequence of losing elections. If Hillary had won and the Dems won back the Senate in 2018, no one vilifying Cocaine Mitch right now would be complaining about Schumer allowing a vote on RBG’s replacement. What surprises me is how many educated people fall for “The Narrative.”

This is raw, naked, political power, as our system is designed to allow. Anyone who thinks higher principles are involved here is a fool. Mitch McConnell is doing exactly what Chuck Schumer would be doing if the party was reversed. When the party in the White House, controls the Senate, they can put whoever they want on the federal courts without compromise. That’s how the system is designed to work. If you want a check, the party that doesn’t hold the White House needs to take the Senate. If you fail to do that, these are the consequences. Continue reading “”

They should be careful if they really want to ‘go there’. They just may walk into something that does more than bite back.

Democrats Promise to Be Sore (and Violent) Losers
They know that the media, corporations, schools, and even churches will cheer them on.

Writing in The Atlantic recently, the sober-minded commentator Shadi Hamid says, “I struggle to imagine how, beyond utter shock, millions of Democrats will process a Trump victory.” For Democrats, having failed to cope with the 2016 election, and believing the polls that show a solid Joe Biden lead, another shock Trump win would “provoke mass disillusion with electoral politics as a means of change — at a time when disillusion is already dangerously high.” And it would lead decent folks astray. They would seek remedies “outside the political process, including through nonpeaceful means,” though, “not necessarily out of hope but out of despair.”

Don’t notice the gleam in the arsonist’s eye, he’s really just heartbroken over the fate of the Biden-Harris ticket!

Given Hamid’s premises, why bother even having the election? Why not find a peaceful but extralegal procedure to make Joe Biden president right this second? We could relieve the whole nation of the suspense of what Democrats will do if once again they’ve nominated someone who can’t beat one of the most broadly unpopular political figures of modern times.

For what it’s worth, like Hamid, I’m worried about post-election violence. But my view of the causes is slightly different. Hamid says, “Losers of elections need to believe that they can win the next time around. Otherwise their incentives to play the spoiler increase.” Okay, true enough.

He also says that “the anxiety gripping the two parties is asymmetric.” Joe Biden is a moderate Democrat, he says, and therefore theoretically more acceptable to Republicans, whereas Donald Trump “represents the nativist wing of an already nativist Republican Party.” His conclusion: Biden should win for reasons of civic peace.

Now leave aside the claims of leftists, including Obama, that Joe Biden has become much more progressive in his current campaign. And let’s leave aside the question of whether Donald Trump is actually a moderate or liberal Republican on issues such as federal welfare spending. Hamid fails in his analysis because he is unwilling or unable to see things from the other side. Maybe it’s time to practice empathy.

What if the anxiety gripping the parties was asymmetric in the other direction? Conservatives don’t see politics as just a matter of elective office, but of power generally. And they notice that the major corporations, Hollywood and pop culture, academia, what’s left of mainstream media, most local institutions, the leadership class of their own movements through the years, and even their own churches are substantially to their left politically. They also notice that progressives notch major political and cultural wins even from conservative elites, and even following conservative victories.

Hamid might have noticed that conservative activism was born over “despair” of the sort he describes. It was born of the observation that even winning elections wasn’t enough to secure political victories. Instead of the Electoral College or the Senate, conservatives had to face the more inscrutable Supreme Court, which for years overturned conservative legislation and enacted progressive victories that had no chance of receiving a democratic mandate. Conservatives’ response was to double down on electoral strategies, making an explicit case that they needed to win elections to reform the judiciary. Why didn’t conservatives simply pout and threaten to abandon the democratic process altogether, as Hamid admits liberals are wont to do?

Perhaps because conservatives then, as now, knew on which side of the divide the institutional and oligarchic power landed. Progressives feel secure in making all but open threats of violence and revolution because they know that the heads of domestic security agencies are on their side, they know that the most powerful voices in media and academia are at the ready to craft apologies for their violence. And they know that their reputations will be restored or even burnished after committing violence on behalf of their causes.

The modern American conservative movement was a populist and democratic movement because it had to be. The modern Left knows where its power lies as well — with the already powerful.

He knows if he tells the truth, it’s over and he probably knows he’s not a good enough liar to get away with it if he lies, and it’s over. That’s when you wind up getting this ‘non-answer answer’ from a – one might suppose – incompetent hack, which then tells everyone the accusation is true.
On the other hand——–
A really cynical person might think that was the plan, as we’ve seen so many unforced errors in the Biden campaign to make one conclude some of his team are purposefully trying to sink SloJoe with something like ‘death of a thousand cuts’.
But that’s just me.

So the answer is, yes, he uses a teleprompter.

— CTW (@ctwilliamsiii) September 10, 2020