Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Civilizational Jenga
Bit by bit, our ruling class is eliminating our societal safety margins

Politics makes me sad sometimes.

Oh, not just because politicians are doing dumb things.  Not even because politicians are corrupt.  Politicians have always been dumb and corrupt, as any study of history will demonstrate.

And it doesn’t matter if they hold office by election, inheritance, or swords distributed by strange women lying in ponds.  Stupidity and corruption are human characteristics, and politicians are very, very human.  (Though recent history is such that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords look better as the basis for a system of government . . . .)

Sometimes their stupidity and corruption make me angry, and sometimes they make me laugh.  But, given my low expectations, it takes a special kind of stupidity and corruption to actually make me sad.

What makes me sad now is the ongoing game of Civilizational Jenga that our ruling class is playing.  One by one, they’re withdrawing the supports of civil society, in a process that will inevitably lead to a collapse.  They’re taking what was a very robust society, and consuming all the safety margins, bit by bit.

What really makes me sad is that while some of the people involved – let’s call them “the morons” for convenience’s sake – are doing this out of shortsightedness, cupidity, or sheer partisan bloodthirstiness, I’m increasingly convinced that there’s a contingent at the top that knows exactly what it’s doing, and is fine with it.

Roger Kimball gets at it in a recent piece:

“This is the same old trick,” Trump said when he got the news that the Colorado Supreme Court voted 4-3 to keep him off the primary ballot for the 2024 presidential election.

Oops. Sorry. I got my papers mixed up. That was actually Abraham Lincoln in 1860 when he got the news that some Southern states had voted to keep him off the ballot. Eventually 10 states did so.

So here we are again. It’s a bit like that Army Major in the Vietnam war who explained that they had to destroy a village in order to save it. Just so, the virtuous people of Colorado have decided that in order to save democracy they need to destroy it.

In fact, what they have just voted to preserve is not democracy but “Our Democracy™.” Here’s the difference. In a democracy, people get to vote for the candidate they prefer. In “Our Democracy™,” only approved candidates get to compete.

Donald Trump is the opposite of an approved candidate. The untrammeled hermeneutical ingenuity of the American legal profession had be let loose against Trump. As I write, he faces huge legal battle in four states. . . .

Trump is guilty not because of anything he has done but because of who he is. He is an enemy, not of the state, exactly, but of the state of mind that constitutes “Our Democracy™.” When he unexpectedly won the presidency in 2016, the beautiful people, beginning with his opponent Hillary Clinton, couldn’t believe it. They denounced the election as fraudulent. “Our Democracy™,” you see,  means “rule by Democrats.”

Now they are warning that, should Trump be reelected, he would be a “dictator,” a new Hitler, etc. He would weaponise the Department of Justice against his enemies, they claim, and use the FBI to harass his opponents. Stay tuned for the seminar on what the Freudians call “projection”: it meets this afternoon in a democratic redoubt near you.

In a more civilized version of America – one that existed just a few decades ago – the notion of waging this sort of unrestricted lawfare against a leading presidential candidate, much less a former president – would have been considered ridiculous, and had it been taken seriously, would have been seen as enormously risky.

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Biden Administration Urges Supreme Court To Overturn Injunction on Federal Agencies Influencing Tech Censorship
Biden wants the Supreme Court to support its censorship efforts.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed an injunction against federal agencies to stop the current White House from colluding with Big Tech’s social media.

And now, the Biden Administration is going to the US Supreme Court in a last-ditch attempt to reverse this decision.

The big picture effect – or at least, the intended meaning – of the Fifth Circuit ruling was to stop the government from working with Big Tech in censoring online content.

There’s little surprise that this doesn’t sit well with that government, which now hopes that the federal appellate court’s decision can be overturned.

The White House says the ruling is banning its “good” work done alongside social media to combat “misinformation”; instead of admitting its actions to amount to collusion with Big Tech – which has been amply documented now, not least by the Twitter Files – the government insists its actions are serving the public, and its “ability” to discuss relevant issues.

We obtained a copy of the petition for you here.

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is back again here – to say that what those now in power in the US (a message amplified by legacy media) did ahead of the 2020 presidential election, as well as subsequently regarding the pandemic “misinformation” – which is now fairly widely accepted to be censorship (“moderation”) – is what Murthy still calls, justified.

By what, though? Because the appellate court’s ruling looked into the government’s “persuasive actions” (and no, you’re not reading a line from a gangster movie script, where “coercion” is spelled as, “urging”, etc.).

In any case, the appellate court found these actions were in fact coercive and unconstitutional.

Well, Murthy believes the court got it all wrong. The Fifth Circuit is accused of “improperly applying new and unprecedented” remedies. (No – he was not talking about the Covid vaccine(s). The reference was to the court’s allegedly flawed “legal theories”).

Murthy and other administration representatives are telling the Supreme Court that what the Fifth Circuit found to be unconstitutional, was actually “lawful persuasive governmental actions.”

The “grand” argument here is that, historically, US governments have been using free speech as a vehicle to promote their policies. And so – why would this case of “urging” Big Tech be any different?

“The Biden administration’s urging of social media platforms to enforce their content moderation policies to combat misinformation and disinformation is no different,” the government said.

Putting the enemies of civilization in charge of educating our kids may have been a mistake. You think I exaggerate?

“I’ll take ‘Totally Lacking Due Process” for $500, Alex

On Trump and Colorado

By now most readers will have heard that Donald Trump was disqualified from the ballot in the state of Colorado, by the Colorado State Supreme Court, for what amounts to a criminal offense neither proven nor charged. Fifth Amendment, Schmifth Amendment, apparently.

This is a major escalation of the lawfare phenomenon that’s zoomed from simmer to boil in the seven short years since Trump was first elected in 2016. The glee of #Resistance dolts like Robert Reich and Dean Obeidallah at this decision shows that this was a move dreamed up at the very center of the bubble-within-a-bubble-within-a-bubble that is the blob of the modern Democratic Party. Racket readers, I had a piece planned for later on a quasi-related subject, but I’ll try to get it out in the day or so now.

 

Every institution has been corrupted, but they get upset if you call them corrupt.

‘Liberty and Justice For All’ – A Tattered Cliche?

One set of laws for Donald Trump and his supporters, and another set for the harassers.

Throughout history, the tyrannical abuse of governmental power has been a fearsome thing to behold. Wise men instituted laws in an effort to tame that abuse. The Constitution of the United States, for example, was framed in large part as a prophylactic against the coercive power of the state. The Framers witnessed the “long train of abuses and usurpations” perpetrated by the British crown and resolved to respond. The Constitution dealt with many other things, to be sure, but concern about tyrannical abuse of power by the government and its minions is patent from the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence straight through the Constitution and its Amendments. The idea was that we Americans would live in a polity governed by “laws, not men.” That is to say, laws would be legitimately formulated, clearly defined, and administered impartially, so far as was humanly possible. How are we doing on that score?

Not so well.

The terms “administrative state” and “deep state” entered parlance only about seven years ago. The realities those phrases name long predate their currency, but Donald Trump was the lens through which worry about those legitimacy-devouring, essentially tyrannical phenomena crystallized. During the 2016 campaign, Trump’s chief strategist Steven Bannon raised eyebrows when he said that “deconstructing the administrative state” was a high priority. In the event, Trump’s success on that task was only a patchwork affair, but he did make an effort.

What prompts these thoughts is the spectacle, partly risible, partly terrifying, of the federal government’s ongoing vendetta against a single individual it cannot countenance. That individual, of course, is Donald Trump. And while the focus of its vendetta is against Trump the man—or, more precisely, Trump the presidential candidate—its animus has spilled over to embrace anyone tainted by association with the Trump phenomenon. Into this category fall the hundreds of people who had the misfortune to visit the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Opinions differ about the state of popular sentiment when it comes to the current disposition of the United States government. I have by degrees joined the camp that has grave doubts about its legitimacy. I do not, for example, believe that the hallowed ideal of “liberty and justice for all” is these days much more than a tattered cliché, a pious nostrum without substance.

One of the great poster children for this erosion of public support—and, consequently, of political legitimacy—is the FBI. At a time when its operations are so patently partisan, it is hard to maintain confidence in its beneficence. Consider the news about Charles McGonigal, former head of Counterintelligence for the FBI, boss of  FBI love bird Peter “Mr. Insurance Policy” Strzok, and vigorous investigator of the Trump Russia Collusion hoax. Wouldn’t you know it: the chap who went after George Papadopoulos and others in Trump’s circle was just fined and sentenced to four years in prison for—wait for it—colluding with Russia.

You might argue that McGonigal’s comeuppance shows that “the system works,” that the FBI can effectively police itself, etc. I would counter that it is yet another reminder that the deep-state, anti-Trump forces operate primarily by what the Freudians call projection, by being guilty of what they accuse others of. There is a hilarious video collage making the rounds of various pundits and politicians warning that the world, or at least our democratic republic, will come to a sudden and ignominious end if, heaven forfend, Donald Trump should be elected again in 2024. Trump will assassinate generals, you see, shoot visitors to the White House, suspend the Constitution, and kill democracy. It is an inadvertently amusing compilation but also a deeply depressing one since it underscores the sad and debilitating effects of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Trump represents a threat to democracy, ergo he must be prevented from running “by any means necessary,” otherwise so many people might vote for that he would win. That’s the logic. Odd isn’t it? Person X wins in a free and open election. But you don’t like the person. So you declare the election “undemocratic.”

It is here that we must distinguish between “democracy,” which is what would be upheld if Trump were allowed to run, and “Our Democracy™,” that strange, oligarchical confect that can be maintained only by suppressing common, or garden variety democracy.

It is in this context, I believe that we must understand the unhinged legal campaigns unleashed against Trump in four separate jurisdictions.

I say “legal campaigns,” but really they are partisan political assaults masquerading under cover of legal procedures.

That is, they look like legal procedures from the outside; they employ all the paraphernalia of legal procedures. There are courts, lawyers, subpoena, judges.  But  the German Judge Roland Freisler (1893-1945) employed all that machinery, too. He presided over trials.  But he always got the results he wanted.

And this brings me to the activities of Special Counsel Jack Smith, the anti-Trump fanatic and DOJ pit bull who has been charged with taking Trump down in Washington, D.C., where Trump is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election by “obstructing an official proceeding,” etc., and in Florida, where he is accused of illegally possessing classified documents.

Smith understands that by far his best chance of getting Trump is in Washington—not, I hasten to add, because he has much of a case there but because he has an Obama-appointed anti-Trump judge Tanya Chutkan and a Democratic jury pool that can be counted on to convict Trump on anything he accused of. Andy McCarthy has published a thoroughgoing anatomy of the the legal niceties of the case. He is no friend to Trump, deprecates what he calls his “loathsome behavior,” but does say that he thinks Trump is “being denied due process.” He further acknowledges that the effort to use Section 1512(c) of the federal penal law against Trump will be a “tough case” that is likely to signal “trouble for Smith.”

It’s the opposite in Florida, where the judge is a Trump-appointed jurist and the jury pool is likely to be sympathetic to Trump. In my view, Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is no different from Biden’s possession of classified documents in his garage behind his Corvette. Rather, Trump’s case was less egregious than Biden’s. For one thing, Biden was never president.  He had many more documents, in many more, less secure places. And remember: all modern presidents seem to have possession of classified documents after they leave office, but not all former presidents are Donald Trump.

Trump’s lawyers have appealed the Washington case and, in response, Smith has asked the Supreme Court to bypass the usual appeal process and take the case on an expedited schedule. Why? Because the Washington trial was set to begin on March 4, a day before “Super Tuesday,” at which Trump is likely to seal the GOP nomination. Smith hoped that an early trial would harm Trump with voters. So far, legal attacks agains Trump have had the opposite effect, increasing his standing in the polls. That is because voters understand that the legal challenges are legal in name only. At bottom, they are instances of bare-knuckle political warfare.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial whose slug got to the nub of the issue. “The special counsel,” it read, “tries to drag the Justices into his political timetable for the Jan. 6 trial of Donald Trump.” That’s it exactly. Smith wants the Court to decide now, today, so he can pursue his vendetta against Trump on the time table the election calendar has set. Most observers believe that the Court will be more circumspect. The writers of that editorial caution that “The wiser decision would have been to lay out the facts of what the special counsel found and let the voters decide. They chose to prosecute, and the damage has begun to unfold.”

I was talking to a friend about about Smith’s case. He responded “It sounds like the judiciary/prosecution is corruptly trying to interfere with an official proceeding, i.e., the election.” That’s pretty much what I think, too, though I don’t expect Jack Smith to be charged for the tort. Remember, there is one law for Donald Trump and his supporters. They can be harassed, prosecuted, and jailed. There is another law for the nomenklatura that does the harassing, prosecuting, and jailing.

Christian Nationalism

We’re being told that we should be afraid of this:

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set down, his disciples came unto him. And opening his mouth, he taught them, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.

Blesses are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.

     [Matthew 5:1-12]

And this:

And behold one came and said to him: Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?

Who said to him: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
He said to him: Which? And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

     [Matthew 19:16-19]

And this:

But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together: And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

     [Matthew 22:34-40]

But we’re not supposed to be afraid of this:

“Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! These are hundreds of other psalms and Hadiths urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

“The minarets are our bayonets; the domes are our helmets. Mosques are our barracks, the believers are soldiers. This holy army guards my religion. Almighty Our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom.” — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey

Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak. [Koran, Sura 4:76]

“I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.” [Koran, Sura 8:12]

“But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem…” [Koran, Sura 9:5]

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, of the people of the Book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” [Koran, Sura 9:29]

“O Prophet! Struggle against the unbelievers and hypocrites and be harsh with them.” [Koran, Sura 9:73]

Puzzling, eh?

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It’s becoming rare that my boiler gets lit over anything, these days. I’ve said too much…written too much. But among my remaining hot buttons, this one may be the hottest: people who promote contempt toward Christianity and malice toward Christians. From the way they whine and rave, you’d think we had our hands in their pockets, if not down their pants.

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Hamas Calls for Violence Against Americans, and So Does This Michigan Imam

Could the war in Israel spread to the United States? Sure. Some people want it to.

Hamas has never made a secret of the fact that its goal of destroying Israel is just part of a larger jihad to conquer the entire world for Islam. And so it was inevitable, both in light of that aspiration and the Biden regime’s shaky but still subsisting support for Israel’s defensive effort, that Hamas jihadis would call for violence against Americans. What is more surprising, at least for those who have bought into the comforting establishment fictions that have been circulating since 9/11, is that one such call came from right here at home.

Hamas operative Sami Abu Zuhri recently proclaimed that Biden regime Secretary of State Antony Blinken, despite pressuring Israel to go easy on the warriors of jihad, was just as bad as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “When Blinken is justifying the killing of women and children, the sons of our nation should say to him: You are the enemy, just like Netanyahu, and you must pay the price, just like Netanyahu. We should keep this in mind.” Yes, we should indeed.

If you’re wondering when exactly Blinken justified the killing of women and children, the answer, of course, is never. Blinken has actually parroted Hamas propaganda in warning Israel that it must do more to reduce civilian deaths, when in reality the number of civilians killed in Gaza compares favorably to the death toll of civilians in other recent conflicts, notably the battle of Mosul against ISIS in Iraq.

Nevertheless, Abu Zuhri wants to see American blood: “Now it is our nation’s turn to pressure the Americans to stop this war. We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere, as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation.”

It’s hard to see how those who call for violence against people who have nothing to do with the conflict have the moral high ground, and those who are doing all they can to limit civilian casualties deserve the opprobrium of the entire world; we’d need an American university student to explain that.

Meanwhile, an echo of this call for jihad terror attacks against Americans came from a Muslim cleric, Ahmad Musa Jibril. Jibril, “whose hate-filled sermons,” according to a Friday report in the New York Post, “were said to have inspired the London Bridge terrorist attack,” is not in Britain, or in Baghdad or Balochistan. Jibril was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and while his current whereabouts are murky, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) identifies him as a “Michigan Islamic scholar,” and the Twitter/X account that posted his call for jihad in America states that it is operating out of Chicago and is “managed by students.” Jibril, who did hard time in the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex for fraud, money laundering, unlawful possession of firearms and more, clearly has considerable influence among Muslims in the United States.

Contradicting the false narrative Americans have been fed for two decades now, Jibril declared: “Yes, there is holy war in Islam, it is jihad. This may be a surprise to many who grew up in the West, especially those who were born or grew up post 9/11, because of the growing number of hypocrites, who are spreading the American-Zionist Islam, and it has nothing to do with Islam, that version of Islam is and Islam that suits the enemies.” He added that “the one who has been spreading that there is no holy war in Islam, has been defecating heresy out of his mouth for the past 20 years, downplaying the legislation of Allah and the Islamic punishments.”

That would include virtually all of the prominent Islamic spokesmen in the U.S. As far as Jibril is concerned, the only people who had it right about jihad and Islam were the ones who were (and still are) vilified, marginalized, and silenced as “Islamophobes.” And now he wants Muslims in the U.S. to start taking this holy war seriously: “The Muslims in the West, especially the youth in the West, especially the youth in America, need to wake up. The current events are a wake-up call for Muslims to start normalizing mentioning jihad’s proper meaning, and putting it back into their vocabulary. Jihad must be a common, normal term on your tongues, on your social media, and in the mosques and elsewhere.

This should, he said, be a matter of lifelong indoctrination: “It’s time the mothers nurse their infants with the love of jihad and the ambition to become a mujahid and a martyr.” A martyr in the Islamic sense is one who acts upon Allah’s promise of paradise in the Qur’an to those who “kill and are killed.” America said Jibril, is “a vicious enemy of Muslims.” And so the import of his words was clear: Muslims need to wage jihad against America. While the Biden regime’s FBI hunts for “white supremacist terrorists” and Jan. 6 “insurrectionists,” some young men in America right now are heeding the words of Ahmed Musa Jibril.

The Self-Described “Subversive” Dance Group the Bidens Invited to the White House.

Yesterday I posted a short note about the dance company that the Bidens invited to the White House to perform as part of their Christmas celebration. I simply linked to Jill Biden’s video of the performance with a short note that observed that this was how the Bidens, who profess to be Catholics, celebrate the birth of Christ. I had intended to let the video speak for itself and to let the viewers draw their own conclusions. I still want that. But I was prompted by a comment from one of my subscribers to do a little research into Dorrance Dance, the dance company featured in the White House performance. What I found was a surprise, although perhaps it should not have been.

I learned that the Dorrance Dance is not just another entertainment group that happens to specialize in tap dancing. Rather, it is an ultra-radical political organization that designs and intends its performances to be “subversive.” The company’s statements and recommendations on its website provide the context that explains what it means when it says that its dancing is meant to be “subversive.” I summarize this below.

Mrs. Biden’s post says that the video is a “playful interpretation of The Nutcracker Suite.” Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite was first performed as a ballet in 1892. It was centered around a young girl’s Christmas eve and her adventures with her nutcracker doll, who came alive as a charming prince. With its performances including Christmas trees, toys, candy, snowflakes and, the joy in seeing a young child’s wonderment at the ideal of a symbol of love come to life, it naturally has become famous as a celebration of Christmas.

The abbreviated jazzed-up tap dance version of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece performed by the Dorrance Dance company, and on display at the Biden White House, is not intended as a celebration of Christmas. Rather, it is intended to subvert traditional values, such as Christmas.

Don’t take my word for it – Dorrance Dance says on its own website that “At its core, tap dance is a subversive form.” “Subversion” has been defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “trying to destroy or damage an established system or government.”

The White House almost certainly knew that Dorrance Dance was a subversive company and intentionally so. Public performers at the White House are vetted for security reasons. One of those reasons, presumably, is to identify potentially subversive actors who should be scrutinized closely. Certainly, at a minimum, the White House staff and Secret Service would scrutinize the web site of a company such as Dorrance Dance. They would want to know the identity and backgrounds of the performers who would be coming to the White House.

When the Secret Service and the White House staff checked out Dorrance Dance, this is what they would have found (among other things) that provides the context for its pledge to be “subversive”:

· “It is our job to tell the history of tap dance as a celebration of Black culture and also the never-ending struggle against systemic racism and white supremacy in this country – the origin story of appropriation in American culture.” [All bolded emphasis is added.]

· “The answer to police violence is not ‘reform.’ It’s defunding.”

·     White people should “Join fights to defund the police.”

And statements by the founder of the company, Michelle Dorrance:

·     “I am a white tap dancer with Black cultural ancestors in a society that privileges white people and whiteness.”

·     “It is from this place of white privilege that I invite you to join me in lifelong antiracism work. Understanding how deeply embedded white supremacy, racism, and colonialism is in our culture is paramount to understanding our role (as white people) in perpetuating it and embracing our job to dismantle it.”

In short, even a casual look at Dorrance Dance’s website would have revealed its constant references to “whiteness,” “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” “systematic racism,” and the like. Any reviewer also would see that Dorrance Dance has sounded the call to do away with prisons and policing, and that it has endorsed the likes of Ibram A. Kendi “(who has argued that “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”), as well as racist ideas such as the 1619 Project (which has been discredited for, among other things, its false argument that one of the principal reasons for the American Revolutionary War was to preserve slavery). All this makes clear that its agenda is one of radical and political activism and the “subversion” of traditional – and necessary – values and institutions (such as the police!).

We must presume that the Secret Service brought these red flags to the attention of the President, the First Lady, and/or their senior staffs. There is no other possible conclusion other than, perhaps, sheer incompetence. Yet, they went forward with the Dorrance Dance performance anyway. Why? Because it is what they wanted.

The Bidens and their staffs plainly agreed to a White House Christmas celebration that was intended to be “subversive” of traditional American values.  That should not be a surprise because it was a decision aligned with numerous other well-documented Biden policies and initiatives that are trying to subvert — “to destroy or damage”— the traditional American “system,” — a system that has brought unprecedented wealth and security to millions of people of all races and origins.

No. These domestic enemies need prosecution

THEY SKIPPED CIVICS
SENATOR CORY BOOKER NEEDS A REFRESHER COURSE ON RIGHTS

It’s as if the gun control crowd doesn’t want me to retire, because the Capitol Hill clown show seems to be taking every federal court rejection of extremist gun control as a challenge rather than a lesson in civics and the Constitution.

Last month, U.S. Senator Cory “I am Spartacus” Booker of New Jersey and a handful of his Beltway buddies — the “usual suspects,” of course — introduced a stinker known as the “Federal Firearms Licensing Act.” Otherwise dubbed S. 3212, it reads like the handiwork of someone who either slept through American Government in high school or skipped it altogether. The bill was read twice and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Here are the highlights:

“Except as provided in subsection (d), it shall be unlawful for any individual to purchase or receive a firearm unless the individual has a valid Federal firearm license.

“The Attorney General shall establish a Federal system for issuing a Federal firearm license to eligible individuals for firearms transferred to such individual.

“(2) REQUIREMENTS.—The system established under paragraph (1) shall require that—
“(A) an individual shall be eligible to receive such a license if the individual—
“(i) has completed training in firearms safety, including—
“(I) a written test, to demonstrate knowledge of applicable firearms laws; and
“(II) hands-on testing, including firing testing, to demonstrate safe use and sufficient accuracy of a firearm; and
“(ii) as part of the process for applying for such a license—
“(I) has submitted to a background investigation and criminal history check of the individual;
“(II) has submitted proof of identity;
“(III) has submitted the fingerprints of the individual; and

“(IV) has submitted identifying information on the firearm that the person intends to obtain, including the make, model, and serial number, and the identity of the firearm seller or transferor.”

If you liked the above, you’ll love what follows:

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Netanyahu, Israeli FM to Biden: We’re Destroying Hamas Whether You Like It or Not

Before we get to this direct rejection of the Biden/Blinken ‘credit’ argument, let’s go over the background that led to it. Under pressure from progressive anti-Semites in his party, Joe Biden growled yesterday about Israel’s supposedly “indiscriminate” bombing campaign in Gaza. His comments at a campaign event yesterday sent shock waves through the US media:

“Israel’s security can rest on the United States,” Biden stated during a campaign event Tuesday, as he touted his government’s strong support of Israel. …

“But they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place” in Gaza, Biden said, in a statement that implied Israel was needlessly targeting civilians.

The context of the event mattered in this case. Biden was in campaign mode, and as such, Biden apparently felt compelled to pander to his progressive wing on Israel. While agreeing that Hamas are “animals” and need to be held “accountable,” Biden then compared Israel’s campaign in Gaza to World War II, and claimed “Bibi” made the comparison:

It was pointed out to me — I’m being very blunt with you all — it was pointed out to me that — by Bibi — that “Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died.”

I said, “Yeah, that’s why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn’t happen again — it didn’t happen again. Don’t make the same mistakes we made at 9/11. There was no reason why we had to be in a war in Afghanistan at 9/11. There was no reason why we had to do some of the things we did.”

I’m not sure what point Biden thinks he was making. Is he criticizing the Allied war actions of World War II, which destroyed the Nazis and liberated half a continent? Would he have recommended cutting a deal with Hitler instead and leaving the Nazis in place? Is he criticizing Truman for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (As I explained in August, there were good reasons to make that choice, some of which apply in this conflict.) Does Biden think we “carpet-bombed” Afghanistan? If the answer to any of these is “yes,” then Biden is far more ignorant than even we assumed.

At any rate, it seems unlikely that Netanyahu actually made an argument based on “carpet-bombing,” because that is clearly not what the IDF is doing in Gaza. (That part smells like Biden’s typical self-serving fabulism.) The IDF has chosen to use ground troops and narrow targeting of Hamas-infiltrated infrastructure rather than use bunker-busters that would eliminate some of the risk to its own soldiers. Even the New York Times tacitly acknowledged the falsity of Biden’s claim in a rather useful deep-dive analysis of “proportionality” today. Steven Erlanger debunks the idea that “proportionality” has anything to do with equating body counts, as well as that “symmetry” is a legal requirement in wars, especially when one side starts it as part of an annihilation effort.

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Civilization Versus the New Nihilists
Americans must choose between civilization—or its destroyers

Nihilism is the religion of the Left. Anarchy is now at the core of the new Democratic Party.
If the Left wished radically to alter the demography of the U.S., it could have expanded legal immigration through legislation or the courts.
Instead, it simply erased the border and dynamited federal immigration law.

By fiat, nihilists ended the wall, and stopped detaining and deporting illegal aliens altogether.
Or was it worse than that when candidate Joe Biden in September 2019 urged would-be illegal aliens to “surge” the border?

As a result, through laxity and entitlement incentives, eight-million illegal entrants have swarmed the southern border under the Biden administration.
They are swamping border towns, bankrupting big-city budgets, and infuriating even Democratic constituencies.

The same nihilism applies to crime.

In the old days liberals gave light sentences to criminals or reduced bail. But today leftist prosecutors do not even seek bail. They hardly prosecute theft or random assaults.
Criminals are arrested and released the same day. Is the nihilist plan to destroy the entire body of American jurisprudence, and to ensure “equity” in being victimized?

Is the woke idea that all Americans—inclusive of diverse Beverly Hills elites, Hollywood celebrities, or members of Congress alike—must share victim equity, and thus experience first-hand street robbery, car-jacking, smash-and-grab, and home invasion?

The United States can produce annually more natural gas and oil than any nation on earth. It once pioneered nuclear power. It has vast coal reserves and sophisticated hydroelectric plants.

The old idea was to use these unmatched resources to transition gradually to other cleaner fuels such as hydrogen, fusion power, solar, and wind. That way consumers would still enjoy affordable energy. And the United States could remain independent of coercion by the oil-producing Middle East.

But that was not the nihilist way.

Instead, the left deliberately cut back on pipelines, new energy leases, and fracking. It bragged of an upcoming ban on fossil fuels. In drought-stricken, energy-short California, the state is blowing up, not building new dams.

Is the nihilist agenda to punish with bankrupcy the energy-using middle class?

Is the hope that Americans will have to beg the Saudis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and Russians to pump more of the hated goo for our benefit so we would not have to dirty ourselves helping ourselves?

When Joe Biden entered office in January 2021 the U.S. was naturally rebounding from more than a year of Covid-enforced lockdowns.

Overtaxed supply chains were still fragile. Pent-up demand was soaring. Consumers were flush with government cash. Trillions of dollars had been printed and infused into the economy to ward off a feared recession.

All economists advised not to increase the deficit, spike further consumer demand, and expand entitlements.

Instead the Left did just the opposite.

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White House Hosts State Lawmakers, Launching ‘Safer States Agenda’

Approximately 100 state lawmakers were invited to the White House Wednesday for the official introduction of the Biden-Harris administration’s Safer States Initiative, which reportedly outlines “key actions states should take” to “reduce gun violence.”

The White House unveiled an eight-page “Safer States Agenda,” which includes the following recommendations:

  1. Establish a State Office of Gun Violence Prevention
  2. Invest in Evidence-informed Solutions to Prevent and Respond to Gun Violence
  3. Strengthen Support for Survivors and Victims of Gun Violence
  4. Reinforce Responsible Gun Ownership
  5. Strengthen Gun Background Checks
  6. Hold the Gun Industry Accountable

Essentially, it is Joe Biden’s gun control scheme repackaged from his 2020 presidential campaign.

There is very little in the plan about holding violent criminals responsible for crimes they commit, with or without firearms. Part of the Biden-Harris proposal is aimed at funding law enforcement efforts to “hold shooters and gun traffickers accountable.”

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For our fellow Shootists out there:

New Mexico Governor Pushing Ban on AR-15s, Other Semiautomatics

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) is pushing a ban on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles in an upcoming 30-day legislative session in her state.

The Santa Fe Reporter noted Grisham wants to do what Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) unsuccessfully attempted at the federal level. Heinrich, together with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), put forward the Gas-Operated Semiautomatic Firearms Exclusion Act (GOSAFE), and it went nowhere.

Breitbart News reported the focus on the AR-15’s gas operation came some 64 years after the gun was designed to use spent gas from a shell casing to reset the bolt group and ready the gun for the next round. The rifle is still just a semiautomatic, firing one round per trigger pull just like a Glock or Smith & Wesson handgun, but the gas from a spent shell casing replaces recoil in working the action.

Grisham believes New Mexico lawmakers will be more open to banning an entire category of firearms — by highlighting gas operation, etc. — than Heinrich and Kelly’s federal colleagues were.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham launches an effort to confront organized crime by convening a specialized commission of local prosecutors and leading law enforcement officials, on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Santa Fe, N.M. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

The Sante Fe Reporter quoted her saying, “Let’s try that vehicle in our own assault weapons ban in New Mexico. Because one thing I have that the senator doesn’t have is I’ve got a set of lawmakers that are more likely than not to have a fair debate about guns, gun violence, weapons of war, and keeping New Mexicans safe.”

Grisham made news on September 8, 2923, for issuing an executive order to ban concealed or open carry in larger cities like Albuquerque. Her ban also prohibited licensed concealed carriers from having their guns for self-defense.

On September 13, 2023, Breitbart News reported that U.S. District Judge David Herrera Urias granted a temporary injunction against Grisham’s ban. So Grisham amended her ban on concealed and open carry, saying it applied only to carrying a gun in parks and playgrounds, and on September 15, 2023, Urias allowed it to stand.

BLUF
Without a military leadership that understands the purpose of war, the next time we may not lose thousands, we could lose millions. And we could lose the United States of America.

THIS IS WHY AMERICA FORGOT HOW TO WIN

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stopped by the Reagan National Defense Forum to deliver an address titled, ‘A Time for American Leadership’. What leadership lessons did he have to offer?

“I learned a thing or two about urban warfare from my time fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign to defeat ISIS,” he told his audience. “Like Hamas, ISIS was deeply embedded in urban areas. And the international coalition against ISIS worked hard to protect civilians and create humanitarian corridors, even during the toughest battles. So the lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians.”

He then went on to lecture that “we will continue to press Israel to protect civilians” and” that “protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative.”

Gen. Austin headed Central Command from 2013 to 2016. Obama officials blamed Austin for telling Obama that ISIS was “a flash in the pan” (while Austin’s people denied he said that.) Central Command’s intelligence failures against ISIS were so bad that they resulted in an investigation into whether intelligence had been falsified to make it look like we were winning.

By the fall of 2016, after 3 years of fighting, ISIS had only lost a third of its territory in Iraq and Syria. That was in large part because the Obama administration refused to allow the military to properly hammer ISIS. Under Trump, our hands were no longer tied and we hit ISIS hard.

Despite Austin’s claims that victory against ISIS came from protecting civilians allied with the Islamic terror group, the reality was just the opposite. Fussiness over civilian casualties during the Obama administration translated neither to victory nor civilian lives saved. On Austin’s watch, airstrikes against ISIS killed civilians, but that was always inevitable.

It’s impossible to take out Islamic terrorists whose entire operating model is to fight from behind and around civilians without civilian casualties. The choice is between a long grueling war, which Obama and Austin gave us, or a short devastating campaign, which Trump gave us.

What the Obama administration refused to understand in either Iraq or Afghanistan is that the leading cause of civilian deaths are the Islamic terrorists we are fighting. During the Holocaust, Jewish groups pleaded with the FDR administration to bomb concentration camps, despite the inevitable civilian casualties, because it would have stopped the killing. The Allied campaign hit Nazi-controlled territories hard, with little regard for civilian casualties, because only ending the war quickly would stop the killing. If we had fought WWII by today’s rules, we would still be fighting it and for that matter it’s not at all impossible that we would have long since lost it.

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This is why our foreign and domestic enemies wanted a cease fire. They knew HAMAS was near collapse and the intel the IDF will gather is likely to implicate people and organizations that secretly supported them.

Netanyahu: It’s the ‘Beginning of the End’ for Hamas as Even More Terrorists Surrender, Give Vital Intel

More than 100 Hamas terrorists reportedly surrendered on Saturday in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Maybe “strip” was also the right word, since the IDF was making them strip to make sure that they didn’t have any weapons or bombs on their person. We reported on this before, but now even more terrorists surrendered Saturday, and what those people who raised the white flag are revealing is helping the IDF.

N12 News shared the clip of the men standing in line across a rubble-strewn street in Jabaliya as IDF soldiers trained automatic weapons on them and ordered them to drop their own weapons across the street. One of the men gingerly crossed the street, his automatic weapon held over his head, before dumping into a pile of seized arms.

“In Shejaiya and Jabaliya, terrorists who surrendered handed over weapons and equipment,” said IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari Saturday, the Times of Israel reported, adding that many of the men told Israeli forces that Hamas leadership underground “does not care about the public in Gaza who are above ground.”

Hagari said that interrogations of the captured operatives already provided valuable intelligence for the Israeli military and “aids us in operational activities.”

Sounds like the Hamas members have had enough, especially of their leaders, particularly if they’re providing intel to the Israelis.

Now, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has called on the rest of the terrorists to surrender. 

“The war is still ongoing but it is the beginning of the end of Hamas,” Netanyahu said as he urged the terrorist group’s fighters not to sacrifice themselves for their leader Yahya Sinwar.

“I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over. Don’t die for Sinwar. Surrender – now!”

“In the past few days, dozens of Hamas terrorists have surrendered to our forces. They are laying down their weapons and turning themselves in to our heroic soldiers.” Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile there are reports that Sinwar has fled south to Khan Younis. Sounds just like the coward he is.

Some continued to flip out that the people were being held in their underwear by the IDF.

Warning for graphic language

But the IDF has to make sure that they don’t have any weapons. Notice they are taking prisoners, unlike Hamas who just rapes and slaughters civilians. This is real, and so is the war that Hamas started. Treating them with safety isn’t a war crime, unlike what Hamas did. Hamas is outgunned and outsmarted, and they’re going to find out it wasn’t a good idea to open up this can of worms by attacking Israel.

People upset about conditions in Gaza should be calling on Hamas to surrender because once they are gone, things will get immeasurably better for everyone. Calling for a ceasefire, as many on the left are doing, only saves the terrorists from being wiped out. What they’re doing is helping Hamas, not the people of Gaza.

But it may be too late for the leftists to save them. It’s the beginning of the end and it’s only going to get worse for Hamas.

Giveaways

 When a man shows you who he is, believe him.– Maya Angelou

Among the great weaknesses of the Right is our powerful desire to believe that our opponents are fundamentally just as decent as we are. There’s actually some rationality behind that assumption. If our opponents are not fundamentally decent – that is, if they don’t share our core convictions about good and evil – we have no chance of reasoning with them. As we’re determined to prevail politically with logic and evidence rather than through bloodshed, the assumption is vital to keeping our guns in the closet.

But the evidence is strong that the Left does not agree with our convictions about good and evil. Now and then we get more of it.

Quite recently, Pramila Jayapal sought to deflect discussion from HAMAS’s rapes and other brutalizations of Israeli girls.
From an open HAMAS supporter, the impulse to dismiss their atrocities might be understandable…but giving in to it indicates a missing moral foundation. Either that, or she’s seriously stupid. And yes, I suppose it could be both, though that leaves her tenure in Congress unexplained.

A few days later, a New York University law professor tried to justify those rapes as less evil than Israel’s military response:

It’s difficult to believe someone that morally empty could hold a law professorship at a prominent law school, but this is 2023.

The most illuminating giveaway of all is a few years old. Regard the little video below: a segment from a “debate” over what European policies should be toward the waves of “refugees” flooding Europe:

Note that the leftists, Simon Schama and Louise Arbour, scoff at the plague of sexual violence – rape, often gang rape, and often of underage girls – that the “refugees” have inflicted on the women and girls of Europe, and imply that the position of the Right is founded on prudery or “newborn feminism.” Mark Steyn’s riposte devastates them, simply by citing a handful of the known incidents the leftists were determined to dismiss with weak sarcasms.

But what does it really signify that Arbour and Schama regard violent sexual predation as something they can dismiss with a flip remark? Are these persons to whom you would entrust the care of a young girl? Would you be confident that they would protect her from the sort of vermin Mark Steyn cited? Or might their attitude be “Well, different cultures” or perhaps “Hey, these things happen” – ?

A man who’s willing to countenance the sacrifice of women’s and young girls’ bodies to debatable “humanitarian” priorities, or for the sake of some political or economic advantage, or perhaps merely to prevail over an ideological opponent, has embraced evil. Arbour and Schama have shed all pretense to the contrary. They have shown us who they are, and we should believe them.

Good men don’t compromise with evil. They don’t try to reason with evil. They fight evil. They do their utmost to destroy it. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.

American Forces Attacked by Iranian Proxies 84 Times in 52 Days and Biden Does Nothing

US military installations in Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Iranian proxies nine times since Friday. According to senior defense officials, this brings to 84 the number of attacks on US forces since October 17, resulting in injuries to 66 American servicemen. The highest profile of those attacks was an attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. It was hit by a volley of 60mm mortar rounds on Thursday, and there were no casualties

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin used the occasion of his phone call with Iraqi President Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to condemn the attacks as “acts of terrorism” that “endanger Iraq’s internal security.”  He also “made clear that attacks against US forces must stop.”

As Austin made clear, it is no secret that Iranian proxy groups are behind the attacks (New Drone Attacks on US Forces in Syria, Iranian Proxies Claim Responsibility).

The same provocations are taking place in the Red Sea by the Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen. A US Reaper drone was shot down over international waters (Yemeni Houthis Shoot Down US Reaper Over Red Sea, the White House Response Is Crickets). Houthi drones targeted a US destroyer.

I’m sure that the usual isolationist fringe will say, “Why do we have troops in those countries? Why are our ships sailing in international waters? Shouldn’t they be on our southern border?” Those may be fair questions, but it is also immaterial and a shameless dodge. The National Command Authority has ordered our military to those locations to carry out American foreign policy. But in an environment where our troops have been attacked on 84 separate occasions in 52 days, we have launched a grand total of six airstrikes in the same time frame.

We allow Iranian proxies to lob rockets and mortar rounds at our troops. We’ve accepted, on average, one American casualty per day since October 17, and It is only a matter of time until Americans get killed. And the reason they do it is that there is zero risk attached to attacking Americans or American ships or aircraft because Joe Biden is so afraid of offending the Iranians that he’d rather see the coffins arrive at Dover AFB than have panties soiled under the man-dresses in Tehran.

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It’s Not Just the Second Amendment Anti-Gunners Oppose

I’ve long argued that our gun rights were included in the Bill of Rights as an insurance policy, one meant to make absolutely certain we could fight back against tyranny if our free speech or freedom to worship as we choose were to be stripped from us.

And, to be fair, we do see more restrictions of freedom of speech and things of that sort in countries that have already eliminated people’s ability to arm themselves effectively.

Here in the US, our anti-gun crowd says they respect our right to keep and bear arms, they just want some “common sense” gun control.

That’s hard to believe when it’s clear they don’t even respect freedom of speech.

Two gun control groups on Wednesday came out in favor of moderating “hate speech” on social media in a brief filed with the Supreme Court in a pending First Amendment case, alleging that it poses “a real-world threat to our democracy.”

Giffords Law Center and Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed an amicus brief in a challenge brought by NetChoice against Texas and Florida laws intended to prevent viewpoint censorship online. The groups didn’t speak to the constitutionality of the laws but wrote to warn the justices that social media companies “have a role to play” in protecting individuals from “hate-motivated gun violence.”

“Across social media platforms, hate speech has been tolerated, fostered, and even promoted,” they wrote. “In a time of increasing political strife, online hate speech presents a real-world threat to our democracy and to the lives of every human being in America.”

The brief notes Americans report “disturbingly high levels of online harassment and hate speech targeting their race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”

The brief later argues that hate speech can “chill” free speech.

“Social media companies have resisted regulation or content moderation on the theory that such efforts would stifle the marketplace of ideas and infringe the free-speech rights of their users,” they wrote. “And yet, by fostering and promoting hate speech across their platforms, social media companies have in fact often chilled free speech and other protected First Amendment activities, both online and in the real world.”

The problem with this, of course, is that these groups routinely pretend that opposition to their gun control schemes is racist, thus making it entirely possible to argue that opposition to gun control is, in fact, a type of hate speech.

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