Month: December 2019

Orangevale burglary suspect shot by homeowner

ORANGEVALE, Calif. (KTXL) — Authorities are investigating a burglary attempt and a shooting on Santa Juanita Avenue in Orangevale.

Shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday, a man called authorities to report a burglary attempt at his home. The man told authorities he confronted the burglar and shot him.

The man said the burglar ran to a car and the car fled the scene.

Soon after, Roseville police located a man riding in a car on Sierra College Boulevard who had a gunshot wound to the upper body.

He was transported to a nearby hospital and is expected to survive.

At this time, Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies believe the man found on Sierra College Boulevard is the same man suspected of burglarizing the home in Orangevale.

Man shot while trying to break into apartment on Spottswood

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Police said a man was shot Thursday while trying to break into an apartment near Highland and Southern.

Police found a man with a gunshot wound around 1 p.m. at the University Highlands apartments in the 3400 block of Spottswood.

Officers detained one man on the scene and are continuing to investigate.

Police said the victim was trying to break into a residence when he was shot.

It was a scary situation that neighbors were shocked to hear about, but they’re hoping this failed burglary attempt will serve as a deterrent to any future criminals.

Residents said they’ve never had a violent break-in like this.

“That’s why I was alarmed when I heard about it,” Ladarius Jordan said. “A break-in is unusual around here. But I guess you gotta be on your Ps and Qs at times.”

“I mean, I haven’t heard about any break-ins,” Alisha Stephenson said. “You might hear an argument or something, but nothing too serious.”

People WREG spoke with said the resident had every right to protect his home and property.

“It comes to safety first,” Jordan said. “If someone’s trying to attempt a burglary or robbery of your home, you have all rights to defend yourself. It just so happens that the person got shot.”

Virginia Dems Cave on Confiscation as 2A Sanctuaries Expand
Gun-rights groups unsatisfied with concession, vow to fight on

Virginia Democratic leaders abandoned their gun confiscation proposal Monday following a grassroots outpouring of opposition to gun control across the state.

Governor Ralph Northam (D.) and incoming Senate majority leader Dick Saslaw (D.) said they will no longer pursue their marquee plan to ban the possession of “assault weapons.” Instead, they will include a provision to allow Virginians to keep the firearms they already own. The reversal comes before the newly elected Democratic majority has even been sworn in, after a majority of the state’s counties declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

“In this case, the governor’s assault weapons ban will include a grandfather clause for individuals who already own assault weapons, with the requirement they register their weapons before the end of a designated grace period,” Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky told the Virginia Mercury.
The Democrats’ backtracking may indicate a trend in the gun debate in Virginia. Gun-control advocates poured millions of dollars into successfully flipping the state legislature, but the outpouring of opposition to their agenda, even in deep blue areas, may cause some new members of the state legislature to be cautious about backing gun control. The concession is unlikely to end the fight brewing across the state, however, as Democrats still plan to pursue a ban on many new sales.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League, which has pushed counties to refuse to enforce unconstitutional gun laws, said there is “no doubt” the Democrats’ retreat was a result of the Second Amendment sanctuary movement.

“They were hoping to play that card later, but they’re playing it now because they have to find some way to slow down this whole process,” Philip Van Cleave, the group’s president, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Gun-rights groups said the backtracking is merely a political strategy designed to enact new gun bans and registration.

“Gov. Northam and the rest of Virginia’s anti-gun politicians’ idea of a compromise is to threaten hundreds of thousands of Virginians with felonies unless they submit to government control,” Catherine Mortensen, a National Rifle Association spokesperson, told the Free Beacon. “The NRA will stand with the Commonwealth’s law-abiding gun owners in solidarity to oppose gun bans, confiscations, and registrations.”

“We’ve been down this compromise road and their version of a compromise is they never give up anything,” Van Cleave said. “We are expected to give up something every time and we’re not doing it anymore. I think gun owners are tired of this and they’re gonna stand up and fight this stuff.”

The grandfather clause offered by Northam’s office had no impact on VCDL’s opposition to the bill, Van Cleave said, and the group will fight any new gun ban—whether it has a confiscation component or not.

“The problem with what his suggestion is it’s still taking away guns,” Van Cleave said. “Yeah, we get to keep our AR-15s, but what about the next generation and the generation after them? Who are we to negotiate away their rights and accept this crap?”

He did suggest they could work with Democrats on gun legislation if it targeted criminals instead of gun owners.

According to Van Cleave, there were 59 sanctuaries in the state as of Tuesday. VCDL is organizing supporters to attend 20 more meetings this week alone.

We Just Got a Rare Look at National Security Surveillance. It Was Ugly.
A high-profile inspector general report has served as fodder for arguments about President Trump. But its findings about surveillance are important beyond partisan politics.

“IF THE FBI WAS WILLING TO BE THIS SHADY WHILE INVESTIGATING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WHAT DOES IT GET AWAY WITH IN LOWER-PROFILE CASES?”

When you’ve even lost the proggies at the NY Times…….

WASHINGTON — When a long-awaited inspector general report about the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation became public this week, partisans across the political spectrum mined it to argue about whether President Trump falsely smeared the F.B.I. or was its victim. But the report was also important for reasons that had nothing to do with Mr. Trump.

At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the government’s secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.

The Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

“The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how the secrecy shrouding the government’s one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse,” said Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are necessary.”

Congress enacted FISA in 1978 to regulate domestic surveillance for national-security investigations — monitoring suspected spies and terrorists, as opposed to ordinary criminals. Investigators must persuade a judge on a special court that a target is probably an agent of a foreign power. In 2018, there were 1,833 targets of such orders, including 232 Americans.

Most of those targets never learn that their privacy has been invaded, but some are sent to prison on the basis of evidence derived from the surveillance. And unlike in ordinary criminal wiretap cases, defendants are not permitted to see what investigators told the court about them to obtain permission to eavesdrop on their calls and emails.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Mr. Horowitz’s report on Wednesday, both Republicans and Democrats suggested that legislation tightening restrictions on FISA surveillance may be coming, and the A.C.L.U. submitted ideas to the committee.

Civil libertarians for years have called the surveillance court a rubber stamp because it only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Out of 1,080 requests by the government in 2018, for example, government records showed that the court fully denied only one.

Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that fall short of the legal standard. They have also stressed that officials obey a heightened duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request.

But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed that misleading portrait onto the court.

Judge blocks enforcement of LA law that takes aim at NRA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a Los Angeles law requiring businesses that want city contracts to disclose whether they have ties to the National Rifle Association.

The NRA’s request for a preliminary injunction was granted by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson in Los Angeles. It temporarily prohibits enforcement of the measure while the case unfolds. The next step could be an appeal by the city or an NRA request to make the injunction permanent.

The judge also threw out part of the lawsuit on technical grounds and removed the city clerk and Mayor Eric Garcetti as defendants but he refused to entirely dismiss the lawsuit.

Gov. Northam says localities could face ‘consequences’ if law enforcement officers don’t enforce gun laws

‘The law is the law’: Virginia Democrats float prosecution, National Guard deployment if police don’t enforce gun control

Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill say local police who do not enforce gun control measures likely to pass in Virginia should face prosecution and even threats of the National Guard.

After November’s Virginia Legislature elections that led to Democrats taking control of both chambers, the gun control legislation proposed by some Democrats moved forward, including universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, and a red flag law.

Legal firearm owners in the state, however, joined with their sheriffs to form Second Amendment sanctuary counties, which declare the authorities in these municipalities uphold the Second Amendment in the face of any gun control measure passed by Richmond.

Over 75 counties in Virginia have so far adopted such Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in the commonwealth, the latest being Spotsylvania County. The board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve a resolution declaring that county police will not enforce state-level gun laws that violate Second Amendment rights.

Virginia Democratic officials, however, already say local law enforcement supporting these resolutions will face consequences if they do not carry out any law the state Legislature passes.

“I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they’re prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly told the Washington Examiner of local county police who may refuse to enforce future gun control measures. “The law is the law. If that becomes the law, you don’t have a choice, not if you’re a sworn officer of the law.”

Democratic Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin suggested cutting off state funds to counties that do not comply with any gun control measures that pass in Richmond.

“They certainly risk funding, because if the sheriff’s department is not going to enforce the law, they’re going to lose money. The counties’ attorneys offices are not going to have the money to prosecute because their prosecutions are going to go down,” he said.

McEachin also noted that Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam could call the National Guard, if necessary.

“And ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law,” he said. “That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring blamed the numerous Second Amendment resolutions in the state on the “gun lobby” as a tactic to frighten state residents.

“The resolutions that are being passed are being ginned up by the gun lobby to try to scare people. What we’re talking about here are laws that will make our communities and our streets safer,” Herring told CBS 6.

US Supreme Court Denies Pennsylvania’s Appeal Regarding Whether Display of a Firearm Constitutes Reasonable Suspicion of Criminal Activity

As our viewers are aware, Chief Counsel Joshua Prince drafted an Amicus Brief in Commonwealth v. Hicks on behalf of Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Firearm Owners Against Crime (“FOAC”) and Firearms Policy Coalition (“FPC”), resulting in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issuing a monumental decision on May 31, 2019, wherein it held, pursuant to Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that the mere display of a firearm did not constitute reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. As the Court explicitly held that its decision was rendered pursuant to Article 1, Section 8 (in addition to the 4th Amendment) and the U.S. Supreme Court cannot overturn the PA Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Pennsylvania Constitution, it was expected that the case was over.

However, as we previously discussed, on August 16, 2019, the Commonwealth appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. You can find a copy of the Commonwealth’s Petition for Certiorari here and Mr. Hick’s response here. The Petition and Mr. Hick’s response were considered during the December 6, 2019 conference and on December 9, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Commonwealth’s request to review the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision; thereby leaving in place the decision by the PA Supreme Court that the mere open carrying or display of a firearm, in and of itself, does not constitute reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

If you or someone you know has had their constitutional rights violated by merely openly possessing a firearm, contact Firearms Industry Consulting Group today to discuss YOUR rights and legal options.

Richardson Man Who Called for Slaughter of ‘Infidels’ In Name of ISIS Gets 30 Years in Prison

Said Azzam Mohamad Rahim lived a comfortable life in North Texas, where he operated his own convenience store.

But he wanted more, prosecutors say: war, murder and jihad.

As a result, the 43-year-old Richardson man will spend the next 30 years in a federal prison for trying to recruit ISIS fighters on a social media app called Zello.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle read Rahim’s own words to him before she sentenced him in a courtroom in Dallas in the terrorism case. Among the words Rahim used that she read were, “Kill them and do not show them compassion or mercy.”

Georgia Woman Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Support ISIS

An Augusta-area woman has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support and resources to ISIS and will face up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines when she is sentenced Feb. 5, federal court records show.

The Justice Department announced Kim Anh Vo’s arrest in March, saying she was apprehended in Hephzibah, which sits about 14 miles southwest of Augusta.

Vo is at least the second person in the Southeast to be charged this year with supporting ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. On Thursday, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Romeo Xavier Langhorne, 30, of Roanoke, Va., accusing him of attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. Langhorne, according to the Justice Department, was seeking to help ISIS adherents arm themselves with deadly explosives for terrorism.

The more Mike Bloomberg talks, the less the public like him

Late-entrant Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg, billionaire and former mayor of New York City, isn’t exactly a popular guy.

To us, we remember him well enough — the guy who was so busy stealing salt shakers off New York diners’ tables and telling them how much Big Gulps were good for them that he forgot to prepare the huge metropolis for Hurricane Sandy.

These days, he’s talking about packing the Supreme Court with anti-gun activists, a real political winner if there ever was one, given the repeated failure of such measures across the country.  Gun control is always a loser.  And voters know what rigging is, and packing the Court is rigging.

So it’s no surprise he’s seeing numbers like these following his multi-million-dollar shell-out for campaign ads, something the other candidates (not that they deserve any sympathy) can’t afford:

A newly-released poll shows billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is deeply unpopular with registered voters after jumping into the crowded 2020 Democrat primary field.

A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found voters react to Bloomberg twice as negatively than they do positively — 54 percent unfavorable and 26 percent favorable — signaling that it will take more than multi-million-dollar ad buys to win over the electorate.

This comes after he splashed out all that cash and hired all those best-and-brightests from the company he founded, Bloomberg News, as his campaign handlers.

Voters can now see him up close from those nonstop ads, praising himself as better than the mere middle class, selling himself to voters as “not a deplorable,” and they don’t like it.

The more he talks, the less they like him.

It all goes to show how bad his judgment is.

For starters, it makes sense that billionaire Bloomberg is annoying to leftists, given that they think all the world’s ills were caused by billionaires — and they don’t like billionaires as it is.  Remember Occupy! Wall Street and all that hollering about the 1%.  Bloomie, with his $55-billion or so fortune, would be around the top 0.01% actually, so his argument of course is on the importance of tamping down that dreaded 1%, something that tastes funny to leftists.

But he also isn’t resonating with moderates, who have some semblance of liking for capitalism.  Instead of promoting capitalism for them, as Trump did for the right-wingers in 2016, he’s promising bigger government, all the money — and all the power, in hands like his.

Has he really done anything for “the people”?  It’s true he’s hired a lot, but he made money off those hires, so no need to give him any special credits unless he gets honest with voters and tells them that capitalism helped him get rich and he will sure as heck make sure that capitalism, and not government, does the same thing for them.

He’s too far up in the economic stratosphere to recognize that.  He’s in Buffett territory, a rich guy trying to defend his fortress at the expense of all those nouveaux riches.

Bad premise.  No wonder it’s not working.  Good to see him lose money on his own cynical buy-an-election ego project, though.  Run, Mike, run…

The Black Hebrew Israelites were the group that initiated the confrontation with the Covington High School students.

Pizza Delivery Driver Shot, Killed Suspect Who Tried To Rob Him In Dallas

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – For the second time this week, a delivery driver was attacked in northeast Dallas. This time, however, the delivery driver fired at the suspects, killing one and critically injuring another.

Police said the shooting happened at around 10 p.m. Tuesday in the 8100 block of Southwestern Boulevard near Greenville Avenue.

According to police, three males allegedly tried to rob the driver, but the driver had a gun and shot at them to fend them off.

Police said two of the suspects were shot and that one of them died from his injuries. The other is in critical condition in the hospital. The third suspect was detained at the scene.

The delivery driver was not injured. Police are continuing to investigate and have not said what charges will be filed for this incident.

On Monday, a delivery driver was shot five times while dropping off food at the Pearl at Midtown apartments in northeast Dallas. He’s expected to be okay and the suspect was arrested at the scene.

 

Thousands of lawful California gun owners are being denied ammunition purchases. Here’s why

It’s not a bug. This is a feature of the new law.

Christopher Lapiniski, operations manager at Last Stand Readiness & Tactical, describes the hurdles to buying ammunition in California on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, at the gun store on Florin Road in Sacramento.

Zachary Berg usually buys guns and ammunition with relative ease. After all, he’s a Sutter County sheriff’s deputy and needs them for his job. California’s stringent gun laws usually don’t apply to him.

But Berg couldn’t buy shotgun shells at his local hardware store in Yuba City prior to a duck hunting trip last month. He was rejected under California’s stringent ammunition background check program that took effect July 1, because his personal information didn’t match what state officials had in their database.

Berg was one of tens of thousands of Californians who have been turned away from buying ammunition at firearms and sporting goods stores, even though they appear to be lawfully able to do so, a Sacramento Bee review of state data shows. Between July 1 and November, nearly one in every five ammunition purchases was rejected by the California Department of Justice, the figures show.

Of the 345,547 ammunition background checks performed, only 101 stopped the buyer because he or she was a “prohibited person” who can’t legally possess ammunition, according to state Department of Justice data.

New York Loses Its Climate-Crusading Suit Against ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil won a first-of-its-kind climate change fraud trial on Tuesday as a judge rejected the state of New York’s claim that the oil and gas giant misled investors in accounting for the financial risks of global warming.

New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said the state failed to prove that Exxon violated the Martin Act, a broad state law that does not require proof of intent of shareholder fraud.

“The office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” Ostrager wrote in a 55-page ruling, deciding the case without a jury.

What About the FISA Court?

Ever since this dog-and-pony show culminating in today’s articles of impeachment got started, something has been on my mind.

It’s clear the FBI is corrupt at the upper most levels. Chief Weasel Jim Comey, and the dishonor roll of his underlings: McCabe, Strzok, Page, and lots more are all partisan hacks. We know this. We know they used the absolutely bogus Steele dossier to justify the need to monitor American citizens to the FISA courts (overview). Borepatch started the day with post that it’s time to Disband the FBI. Count me on board with that. While, from all I know, the majority of the agents and lower level staff are still honorable, there’s a saying in management classes (I originally heard it was taken from the mafia) that goes, “the fish rots from the head down.” If there are systemic problems in an organization, the problem lies in the top management’s offices.

What I’ve been saying since this whole mess started is “what about the FISA courts?” In my mind, if they were honest and honorable, they’d bust the FBI like 13 year olds pretending to be college students at spring break in south Florida.* I’d very publicly and loudly tell the FBI, “you’ve proven you’re not trustworthy. Because of that, from now on there will be no warrants issued to you unless you bring 10 times the amount of justification we used to require, and you’d better have far more than one source. You will be questioned about it relentlessly, and you’d better damned well have every last detail documented.” Or something similar. Let everybody know the FBI is getting their chops busted for their partisan politics.

The fact that this hasn’t happened doesn’t mean the FISA courts didn’t slap down the FBI in some classified meetings that we’re not allowed to know about. The fact that it wasn’t public, though, implies that the FISA court is just as rotten as the heads of the FBI fish. They could have dressed them down in secret but made a public statement about how shocked – shocked! I tell you – and how appalled the court is at having been lied to by the FBI. The fact that didn’t happen tells you the FISA court needs to be disbanded, just like the FBI. The whole Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act needs to be torn up and started again from blank paper.

The Danger of Making Ruthlessness Seem Reasonable

I use a lot of dangerous drugs. Well, not me personally, but on my patients. Of course, I use dangerous drugs only when the disease I’m treating is more dangerous than the drug.

In diseases that are not life-threatening, naturally I avoid dangerous drugs and try to stick with safer therapies. Chemotherapy drugs can save your life, but they can also have significant side effects. Side effects that you would not tolerate if you were treating a sinus infection. But if you have cancer, and you’re trying to avoid dying, it may make sense to take a chance on side effects – even very serious side effects. In truly desperate circumstances, there are few actions one would not consider, no matter how drastic.

That’s what always bothered me about the great leftist / progressive / socialist leaders of the 20th century: Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and so on. They saw a problem and took drastic measures to fix it.

When I consider the horrifyingly drastic measures they took, I wonder, “What possible problem did they see that warranted such drastic actions? Who on earth could have possibly thought that was a good idea?” Even for those who lack sympathy for others, killing millions of people is no small thing. They claimed that they were trying to save or improve their countries for their citizens. Which some considered to be an adequate reason. Think about that. And then, think about Greta Thunberg.

There are many facets of the global warming fraud that I find concerning, but what bothers me the most about it is that its adherents claim to on a mission to save the world. Ok, so what would you not do to save the world? At that point, any action could be considered, right? Even horrible side effects are worthwhile in this case because the patient is dying and we’re desperate. So no action, no matter how drastic, is off the table.

It’s easy to chuckle when a self-important 16-year-old girl explains that the world is ending. It’s ridiculous.

Well, it may be ridiculous, but it’s not funny.

These people are dangerous. Their polarizing extremism encourages ruthless actions that would otherwise be unthinkable. Just ask a dead German Jew from 1943.

A few days ago, at a town hall on CNN, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained her concern about President Trump with the following statement: “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet. The damage that this administration has done to America, America’s a great country. We can sustain. Two terms, I don’t know.”

Not that long ago, Mrs. Pelosi would have said no such thing. She might have said, “I have serious disagreements with Mr. Trump’s policy proposals, and I don’t like where he is taking this country. I hope my fellow American citizens will choose to vote Democrat in the next election. Let me explain why I think that would be a good decision.” And she would then outline her specific disagreements with Mr. Trump, and how she would propose to do better for the American people than he would.

This is how the Republicans won the House in 1994. The “Contract with America” explained what they saw as problems, and how they intended to fix those problems. It worked – they won.

I’m not sure that approach would work now. As I often say, I hope I’m wrong about this. But American politics has changed. And more importantly, American society seems to have changed.

There are those who think that the Democrats’ repeated impeachment attempts against Mr. Trump and other extremist tactics are due to their particular dislike for Mr. Trump. I disagree. If Mitt Romney or Scott Walker were president, I suspect the Democrats would be using similarly ruthless tactics. This shift in tactics occurred before, and independent of, the inauguration of Mr. Trump.

President Trump may be a response to this new approach to American politics, but he is not the cause of it.

It seems strange that such extremism and such vicious approaches to politics occur now, in a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity, here in modern America. American politics were vicious and nasty in the mid-1800s, but slavery and other issues were on the verge of tearing our country apart. One can understand how such serious disagreements about such serious issues would lead to divisive politics.

But we’re not arguing about slavery and basic human rights anymore. We’re not even arguing about foreign wars or Prohibition. We’re arguing about transsexual bathrooms. It’s hard to understand such vicious political tactics in times of peaceful prosperity like these.

I’m not sure of the cause, but I suspect it started with the extremist environmental movement. Silent Spring was published in 1962. The Population Bomb was published in 1968. The cold winters of the 1970s led many to believe that we were all about to die in the next ice age.

All of those predictions turned out to be wrong, but the potential power of such messages was hard for some politicians to ignore. Particularly politicians who had no other compelling reasons for anyone to vote for them. Al Gore is an extreme example of this phenomenon, but many others on the left are using this technique now. And when one considers the success rate of leftist policies, one can understand why they use this approach.

A leftist politician no longer has to explain why socialism has never worked anywhere else, and how exactly it will work here. That’s a tough sell. All he/she has to do is convince voters that Republicans are evil capitalists who want to get rich by destroying the world, like a James Bond villain. And then convince those voters that global catastrophe is certain unless they vote for the leftist, who cares for the environment. Skip the details, just paint the picture.

At that point, no actions, no matter how drastic or ruthless, are off the table. Confronting and shaming people in public. Scaring the families of prominent conservatives. Arresting elderly nobodies like Roger Stone in SWAT raids in the middle of the night, with CNN along to broadcast it worldwide. It seems vicious, but hey, we’re trying to save the world here, so it’s ok. Really. Are you with us, or against us? Are you evil, or nice?

These people are dangerous.

So when I hear Nancy Pelosi say, “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet,” I don’t laugh. When I hear Greta Thunberg say, “For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer,” I don’t just roll my eyes. When I hear AOC say, “There’s no debate as to whether we should continue producing fossil fuels. There’s no debate,” I don’t wonder what she’s been smoking.

These people are dangerous. They make ruthlessness seem reasonable.

In the past, people have agreed to drastic actions simply to save their country, as they saw it. People actually voted for Adolf Hitler for little more reason than that. What if they thought they were saving the whole world? What would they not do?

Saul Alinsky.
The impeachment charade is not a joke. Neither are climate protests, or boycotting businesses suspected of being insufficiently leftist, or economic sanctions against businesses in states that don’t enact your preferred policies regarding transsexual bathrooms. It may seem ridiculous, but it’s not funny.
This is scary stuff. And I don’t see a solution. This is just the way the left does politics now. It wasn’t just Hillary Clinton who learned a lot from Saul Alinsky. The Democrat party has decided that such ruthless tactics are reasonable. I suspect that things will get much worse before they get better.

I really hope I’m wrong about all this…