A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)
And a NeverTrumper, but that’s redundant.
Luntz has it exactly backwards. Cheney is trying to protect her phoney baloney job, trying to ingratiate herself with the new leadership to get a plum minority co-chairmanship or something. There’s nothing patriotic, courageous, or conscientious about Cheney’s stand. She has without doubt put herself and her career before her country (and her state). And now she is reaping the whirlwind of her decision. Sucks to be her. And sucks to be Frank Luntz.
Somewhere this morning I was reading an article — oh, come to think of it, it was at Breitbart — where a commenter posited that it was time to junk the Constitution and try something new, though said commenter didn’t seem to know what that should be. He did mention “Confederacy”, which means he’s likely a fucking idiot who doesn’t know we already tried one of those and found it severely lacking (the first one, under the Articles of Confederation, not the second one the South attempted to pull, though it was seriously lacking as well). Oh, got it! It was this article at Breitbart — “PA Lt. Gov. Fetterman: ‘You Do Not Have the Right’ to Spread Lies That Are ‘Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater’”. He’s wrong, but we’ll get to that. And here’s the comment that set me off:
The fact is, we don’t need to junk the Constitution (or the Union). We need to start applying the Constitution to the existing unConstitutional superstructure that’s been built onto the original framework, and junk all the crap that’s accreted over two centuries onto the Framers’ grand design.
The easy example is gun control, and I bring it up first, because “the Second protects the First”. BATFE is unConstitutional. The National Firearms Act of 1934 (granddaddy of all current gun control) is likewise unConstitutional. The plain reading of the Second Amendment is: “My God-given right to own and carry guns in defense of myself, my family, and my country, shall not be infringed by the federal goverment period, end of subject.” Note the following (from way back in the depths of history, 1993):
And read that last bit about the Preamble to the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is not a list of things we get to do because the government says so. The Bill of Rights is a list of things the government is constrained from doing because we the people say so. It places restrictions on the government because the men who wrote it had suffered under, and revolted from, a government that had no such restrictions. And there were a bunch of states that ratified the Constitution only upon exacting a promise that just such a Bill of Rights would be added to it.
The Bill of Rights contains things that shouldn’t have to be said, but they’re being said anyway because smart people over 200 years ago knew the government itself, and its myriad functionaries, could not be trusted with the car keys.
So let’s get to this moron in Pennsylvania, who has actually been elected to the second-highest public office in that state, who thinks the First Amendment does not permit one from expressing what he thinks are prevarications and treasons. The fact is, his opinion in and of itself is a prevarication and a treason, and should be grounds for his immediate removal from office. But Pennsylvania (and other states) haven’t been particularly good stewards of the First Amendment for a while:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Simple, eh? Doesn’t say a damn thing about yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was pretty much wrong when he wrote, in the Schenk case in 1919:
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
— Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47
The problem is, this decision was later partially overturned in 1969 (Brandenburg v. Ohio) which stated
[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
— Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. at 447-48
And the moron in PA might be right if there weren’t evidence galore pointing to the election having been stolen, particularly in his own state. But the onus is on him to prove that making these statements was intended to provoke, say, a riot in the U.S. Capitol. There’s pretty clear evidence debunking charges that President Trump told people to go invade the Capitol. So maybe this moron needs to read the right-wing press once in a while, for clarity.
The bottom line is, the moron is just trying to shut people up under color of law, and as noted previously, he needs immediately to be removed from office. So does his boss, who my brother-in-law says he went to school with and remembers him as a great guy. I guess my BiL likes being told what to do by the State. I don’t. But I live in Indiana where our statist RINO governor is being ignored left and right, so long as you’re not in Indianapolis/Marion County.
(Maybe there is something to be said about folks who don’t live in Indianapolis saying Indianapolis is what’s wrong with the state.)
But again, you can’t revoke First Amendment privileges, and you can’t simply write laws that infringe upon it. Freedom of speech is a fundamental natural right of man, just like freedom of self-defence, freedom to be secure in your home from the government commandeering it to quarter troops, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and freedom from being forced to self-incriminate. And that’s just the start.
The point of this exercise is to point out that it’s not the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that are at fault. It’s the people who claim to be “interpreting” them who are at fault. And the people who are just ignoring the hell out of what it says, too. Like Old Lady Pelosi impeaching President Trump again, days before he leaves office, on the basis of a claim that’s been shown to be specious, both by a careful examination of what he said, and by a careful examination of the timeline of events that has the Capitol riot starting either before he started to talk, or while he was still talking.
Making a crime out of speech that is not in fact criminal is pretty gutsy, even for commies, folks.
But this is why whenever someone tries the worn-out claim that the Constitution has failed us, I just assume that person is either
We do not need something to replace the Constitution. If we would simply go back to following the plain language of the Constitution, we would be a lot better off — and we’d be rid of most of the albatross we’ve allowed to be hung around our collective neck (the permanent bureaucracy).
Oh. And get rid of the 16th, 17th, and 25th Amendments while we’re at it. (I used to say just 16 and 17, but it’s clear what use the 25th is being perverted into by the Democrats, so it has to go, too.)
Just as Sleepy Joe Biden will never be my president, the incoming Congress will never be my Congress.
It’s nothing but congresscritters all the way down, with a few notable exceptions like Paul, Cruz and Hawley — but they aren’t enough to stem the tide.
Conservatives — real conservatives, the kind who consider themselves libertarians but not necessarily Libertarians — need to dig in for the duration. It’s going to be a real fight, and we might have to resort to the Fourth Box before it’s over.
G-d help us if it comes to that. We already had a taste of it from 1861-1865, and the 600K casualties we suffered in that contretemps will pale in the wake of any similar upcoming conflict. Yet, as Abraham Lincoln told us,
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here — hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.
I don’t want my grandchildren growing up under Chinese hegemony. I hereby pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to doing everything I can to prevent that.
Fuck China. China is asshole. And so are the traitor Democrats.
Or, on the other hand, what they pretend not to understand.
On MeWe, a friend posted: “The problem with government is that it attracts people who want to govern.”
Which is all too true. My response was:
As we’ve said before, the right man for the job is the man who absolutely, positively, does NOT want it.
On reflection, I added the following:
I think that actually encapsulates Trump, FWIW. He doesn’t want to be president, he doesn’t want to govern; he wants to fix things so the government stops trying to self-immolate itself and take the entire country with it. If being president is how he can accomplish that, he’ll take on that job. This is his sacrifice, to coin a phrase. And in that, he rather perfectly fits the mold of the true public servant the Founders and Framers had in mind.
Other than Reagan — and frankly, I have doubts at this stage in my life about Reagan’s actual effectiveness — I believe strongly that Trump is the only president in my lifetime who actually has cared about the average citizen and tried to better their lives, and at the cost of his own privacy and personal fortune, at that. Not even W has been pilloried and crucified the way Trump has.
I dunno. I’m just calling ’em as I see ’em.
The media today have become a serious problem. Far from being impartial observers and reporters of current events, for most of my 61 years on this planet, they have become more and more stridently supportive of the left wing of the political spectrum.
In other words, they’re a bunch of lying commies.
Which put me in mind of this bit from Heinlein’s Methuselah’s Children:
“Ensenada, Baja California. Jeffers and Lucy Weatheral today asked for special proctor protection, alleging that a group of citizens had broken into their home, submitted them to personal indignity and committed other asocial acts. The Weatherals are, by their own admission, members of the notorious Howard Families and claim that the alleged incident could be traced to that supposed fact. The district provost points out that they have offered no proof and has taken the matter under advisement. A town mass meeting has been announced for tonight which will air–”
The other man turned toward Lazarus. “Cousin, did we hear what I thought we heard? That is the first case of asocial group violence in more than twenty years…yet they reported it like a breakdown in a weather integrator.”
“Not quite,” Lazarus answered grimly. “The connotations of the words used in describing us were loaded.”
“Yes, true, but loaded cleverly. I doubt if there was a word in that dispatch with an emotional index, taken alone, higher than one point five. The newscasters are allowed two zero, you know.“
The words I’ve emphasized in bold are what I’m talking about.
It’s time to start holding “journalists” to a higher standard. Editorializing is not news. Save the commentary for the editorial page and start reporting straight news. Or else.
Or else, what? sneer the “journalists.”
Well…for one thing, you’re already losing (if you haven’t lost) half of America. Even Fox News couldn’t hold onto conservatives when they went all-in NeverTrump on election night. And there’s even a lot of folks on the soft-left who are getting tired of hearing nothing but “we hate Trump” day in and day out when they recognize that, even for all the BS that spews out of his mouth and off his Twitter account, Donald Trump has a long list of accomplishments and achievements to his credit, over the last four years.
It would not pain me to see the rest of the syndicated newspapers and the national TV, radio, and cable media go out of business for lack of, well, business. They’re not guaranteed a living, anymore than the rest of us are — and we’re tired of being told we’re a bunch of redneck racist jerks out here in flyover country, particularly given you never come here to actually find out what we’re like. (For one thing, we’re a lot less racist than you are. We also still believe in G-d, to a great extent, and haven’t given ourselves over to Moloch and Baal like you have. Think about it.)
But I figure the media will get theirs, soon enough, even if they get their way and a senile old pedophile hair-sniffer ends up inaugurated as someone else’s president in January. Regulating the media will probably be one of the first steps the Dems take if they can get away with it; after all, they’re against freedom of speech. Take away free speech, and that leaves the media pretty much in the crosshairs.
And the media do need to be taught a lesson — that lesson being, they don’t run the country and they don’t anoint the president. The Fourth Estate? Shit. More like a fifth column. That’s how they’ve acted for the last half century or more. Certainly after they dethroned Nixon.
And that shit has got to stop.
(“Someone else’s president?” Yeah, because he sure as hell won’t be my president. Fuck Biden, to hell with Harris, pitch Pelosi (“pitch” is “tar”, feathers not included) and string up Schumer. Get ready for a long four years, folks on the left. You have earned major, major payback…and you’re going to get it. But I think Trump is probably going to end up beating you, which will be the most delicious payback of all.)
We watched the latest episode of NCIS last night. At the end, (possible spoiler alert, but eh) Fornell is shouting at Gibbs on the phone, “Two weeks! I need two weeks, then I can tell you everything and we can bust this wide open!”
With respect…I just read this article about Trump’s response to Liz Cheney telling him it’s time to concede (and believe me, I don’t agree with Liz anymore than Trump does — fight on, Orange Man, fight on, if only because of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton).
I’m behind Trump 100%, and I’m convinced there is massive fraud involved in the late election…and I believe Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani are convinced of it as well…
…but I have to say I’m starting to feel like Jethro Gibbs did at the end of the episode last night. (“Sturgeon Season”, if you’re looking at this twenty years from now and going, “which episode was that?”)
Get the evidence out there, already. File the goddamn lawsuits. Move your asses. If you know you have it, let people see it, and make up their own minds. Press conferences where everybody says, oh, yes, we have evidence, we have these affadavits, we have this, we have that, the lawsuits are going to be epic, but we’re not ready to actually show it to you yet, don’t feed the bulldog.
Evan Bayh, as usual, is an idiot. Biden isn’t actually interested in this sort of thing. This is mostly a ploy to try to endear him to the unions that went for Trump.
Any rebuilding done under a Harris/Biden administration [sic] will be pretty much the same as Obama’s “shovel ready” projects, viz., borrowed money thrown in all directions with a net result of nothing to show for it, other than well-connected Democrats enriched even more with Chinese loan money.
How To End The Covid-19 Threat, Right Now
Well **** you Fauci, Birx, Lightfoot, Cuomo and the rest. You just got ****ed up the ass by Elon Musk who was willing to drop a grand for the purpose of disproving your bull**** — with irrefutable results displayed to the public — and your little scam that destroyed income and lives has been blown to bits.
Seems legit. You may want to read the whole thing…but I recommend having a nice whiskey available while you do, because this is going to raise your blood pressure. A further sample:
Elon Musk conclusively proved that the test is nothing more than a coin toss that has no relationship to the actual state of a person being tested. It is purely a scare-mongering tool to return big numbers and thus drive more $100 million day collections of money by the testing companies for a literal worthless test that is not diagnostic of anything.
In any reasonable legal environment such a result would lead to the instant revocation of authorization by the FDA for all such testing as Elon has now proved that said testing is literally worthless. It doesn’t have an error band it is nothing more than a criminal racket exactly as would be some preacher collecting money in exchange for prayers that, he says, will make someone’s “Gay” go away.
Not that we didn’t pretty much all suspect this. Well, those of us with any fucking brains, that is. Not prog Demo Biden voters who believe everything Fauci says as if it were the Pope speaking ex cathedra from his belly button.
Well, like I said, read the whole thing.
I’ve seen a lot of red state folks, lately, talking about how maybe it’s time to simply let the blue states go their own way.
I disagree. I don’t see any call for that at all. Here is the current House of Representatives electoral map as posted at Real Clear Politics, right now (1053, 11/11/2020):
Most of the land mass is red. Doesn’t mean most of the population is, but if you cut out those blue areas and let them become their own country (or probably “countries”), where do they get their food? Where is their industry? How do the interior blue areas get goods shipped to them? (By air? Too expensive in the long run.)
Not even California is fully blue. Most of the area away from the coast is red. And that’s where most of the food comes from. Not to mention the water.
And look at most of the two land borders. Mostly red.
There’s a map Brad Torgeson (the science fiction writer) likes to point out regarding the 2016 election. He calls it the “Clinton Archipelago.” I believe it’s based on the county-level returns, not for the House of Representatives, but no matter:
I say “no matter”, because it looks pretty much the same, doesn’t it?
Then there’s TrumpLand (again, based on 2016 numbers), with all the food, industry, and resources, and no areas cut off from other areas:
So, really, you’re talking about something that’s pretty impractical when you talk about dividing up the country between the blues and the reds.
Like it or not, we’re all Americans, and we’re going to have to (re-)learn how to live together — even if that means a bunch of people are going to have to suddenly find out what a civil war is really like. I mean, I live in a blue city with a blue wife, but if the blue cities suddenly get cut off, we’re not so far from a red county that we couldn’t quickly relocate. And we would.
But I don’t want to live in Friday’s world. And neither should you.
Larry Correia, who was an actual accountant before he became a highly-successful science fiction writer, has posted
The 2020 Election: Fuckery Is Afoot
I am more offended by how ham fisted, clumsy, and audacious the fraud to elect him is than the idea of Joe Biden being president. I think Joe Biden is a corrupt idiot, however, I think America would survive him like we’ve survived previous idiot administrations. However, what is potentially fatal for America is half the populace believing that their elections are hopelessly rigged and they’re eternally fucked. And now, however this shakes out in court, that’s exactly what half the country is going to think.
People are pissed off, and rightfully so.
Kindly go and read the whole thing. Damn it.