Wow!
If Democrats didn't have double-standards, they'd have no standards at all!
At Pajamas, "Political Amnesia: Look at All the Democrats Who Boycotted Trump's Inauguration."
Monday, January 18, 2021
Izabel Goulart on the Beach
At Drunken Stepfather, "Izabel Goulart is Topless on the Beach of the Day..."
MLK Day 2021
A surprising headline at the Los Angeles Times, "Martin Luther King’s Promised Land may be closer than we think."
Plus, seen on Facebook earlier:
Regnery Picks Up Senator Josh Hawley's Book After Simon & Schuster 'Cancelled' It
Heh.
Free speech is like water running downhill. If a tree falls to block the flow, the stream just rolls up and over and keeps on going down.
At Yahoo News, "Hawley Book Picked Up by Regnery Publishing after Being Dropped by Simon and Schuster."
Hmm, 'Far-Right' Protesters Stayed Home on Sunday?
That's not what we were told.
The story's at NYT (FWIW), "After Capitols Become Fortresses, Far-Right Protesters Are Mostly a No-Show."
Also a screenshot of my post on Facebook yesterday:
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Michigan Congressman Peter Meijer Buys 'Body Armor', Claims 'Someone May Try to kill Us' Ahead of Joe Biden's Inauguration (VIDEO)
The guy's prolly a "Never-Trumper" nutjob, sheesh.
At the Detroit Free Press, "Rep. Meijer says legislators buying body armor as precaution: 'Someone may try to kill us'."
Watch on Twitter (since YouTube shoved this clip down the memory hole), "Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who voted to impeach Trump, says he and other lawmakers believe their lives are in danger following yesterday’s impeachment."
Saturday, January 16, 2021
Ravens Fan Amber Athey is Not Pleased
On Twitter, "I'm upset. No one talk to me."
(On the other hand, pro golfer Paige Spiranac is "1-0 as a Bills fan," and the Bills themselves aren't holding back on the celebratory trolling lol.)
Lincoln Project's John Weaver Comes Out as Gay! Who Knew, LOL?!!
Heh.
Following-up, "Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver Accused of 'Grooming' Young Men, Offering Jobs for Sex."
At the Other McCain, "John Weaver: ‘The Truth Is I’m Gay’":
Sunday, I blogged about the accusation that John Weaver, the former top campaign aide to John McCain and co-founder of the anti-Trump “Lincoln Project,” had been sexually harassing young men. Now he has been forced out of the Lincoln Project:Lincoln Project cofounder John Weaver is no longer affiliated with the Democratic Super PAC after admitting — in the classic tradition of the Friday evening news dump — to having “inappropriate” sexual conversations with young men. “The truth is that I’m gay,” Weaver told former Washington Free Beacon journalist Lachlan Markay in a prewritten statement. “And that I have a wife and two kids who I love. My inability to reconcile those two truths has led to this agonizing place.” Weaver reportedly took a medical leave of absence from the Lincoln Project over the summer, and will not be returning to the controversial Super PAC. Over the past few days, dozens of young men have come forward with accusations that Weaver engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct, including text messages and phone conversations, as well as “grooming” them by promising lucrative career opportunities in exchange for sex. The allegations were broght to light through the reporting of journalists Ryan Girdusky and Scott Stedman. Weaver admitted to making the young men “uncomfortable through my messages that I viewed as consensual mutual conversations,” which included at least one instance in which Weaver allegedly emailed an unsolicited photo of his penis. However, he appeared to suggest the men accusing him of grooming them, or offering favors in exchange for sex, are lying, perhaps for nefarious reasons. “While I am taking full responsibility for the inappropriate messages and conversations,” Weaver wrote in the statement, “I want to state clearly that the other smears being leveled at me … are categorically false and outrageous.” The emergence of the allegations, Weaver suggested, was facilitated by political critics of the Lincoln Project.Wait — “dozens of young men”? This implies a number in the 25-30 range, at least. Your homosexuality is not really secret, if you’re engaged in such large-scale solicitation...
Maybe they're all homos at the Lincoln Project, NTTAWWT!
Still more at the Other McCain.
Folks Can't Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough
Yeah, and it's bad all over this once-Golden State.
At NYT, "They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough":
SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area struck a hard bargain with its tech workers. Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn’t like you. If you lived in San Francisco, you might have commuted an hour south to your job at Apple or Google or Facebook. Or if your office was in the city, maybe it was in a neighborhood with too much street crime, open drug use and $5 coffees. But it was worth it. Living in the epicenter of a boom that was changing the world was what mattered. The city gave its workers a choice of interesting jobs and a chance at the brass ring. That is, until the pandemic. Remote work offered a chance at residing for a few months in towns where life felt easier. Tech workers and their bosses realized they might not need all the perks and after-work schmooze events. But maybe they needed elbow room and a yard for the new puppy. A place to put the Peloton. A top public school. They fled. They fled to tropical beach towns. They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida. That’s where the story of the Bay Area’s latest tech era is ending for a growing crowd of tech workers and their companies. They have suddenly movable jobs and money in the bank — money that will go plenty further somewhere else. But where? The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have even set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes. Miami’s mayor has even been inviting tech people to move there in his Twitter posts. I talked to more than two dozen tech executives and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the country over the last year, like a young entrepreneur who moved home to Georgia and another who has created a community in Puerto Rico. Here are some of their stories...
RTWT.
Friday, January 15, 2021
Kristen Clarke’s Disastrous Nomination to Head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division (VIDEO)
From Joseph Klein, at FrontPage Magazine, "Biden’s Disastrous Pick to Head DOJ Civil Rights Division":
Senate must reject Kristen Clarke’s nomination.
Kristen Clarke, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, is a disastrous choice. Clarke has a long record of making racially charged-comments, going back to her time in college and continuing to this day. She also has spoken out in favor of anti-Semites. Back in college, Clarke led a student group that provided an anti-Semitic professor a platform to spew his vile remarks. Much more recently, Clarke supported an advocate of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. If Clarke’s name is not withdrawn from consideration, the Senate must reject her nomination. Back in the day when Clarke served as the president of the Black Students Association (BSA) at Harvard, she co-authored a letter to the Harvard Crimson asserting that blacks are born with “superior physical and mental abilities.” It’s all due to the chemical melanin, Clarke claimed, which “endows [b]lacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities -- something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards." The Harvard Crimson editors at the time called for Clarke to resign her position at the BSA unless she was “prepared to retract her statements, and apologize publicly for making them.” The furthest that Clarke was willing to go at that time was stating that "The information [contained in the letter] is not necessarily something we believe.” [Emphasis added] There was no public retraction back then. Clarke also invited the late Wellesley Professor of Africana Studies Anthony Martin to speak at a 1994 Black Students Association-sponsored event. Clarke’s guest used his time to slander Jews with the accusation that Jews had a “tradition” of persecuting blacks. "There was a Jewish monopoly over Blacks being cursed," Martin said during his address. Clarke defended the choice of Martin to speak after receiving criticism from the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel. "Professor Martin is an intelligent, well-versed Black intellectual who bases his information on indisputable fact," Clarke said. The real indisputable fact is that Jews have put their lives on the line in the cause of the black civil rights movement. For example, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman served in 1964 as voting-registration volunteers in Meridian, Mississippi and were murdered by Klansmen. Now that Clarke is craving for the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights position in the Biden administration, she wants a do-over. In a recent interview, Clarke said that she realizes it was a mistake to invite Martin to speak at Harvard. “Giving someone like him a platform, it’s not something I would do again,” Clarke said, adding that “I unequivocally denounce antisemitism.” Clarke’s recantation comes way too late. If Democrats had an ounce of intellectual honesty, which they do not, Clarke’s invitation to an anti-Semitic professor to speak at Harvard when she was a student would be reason enough for them to “cancel” Clarke now. After all, Democrats in the Senate were willing to throw Trump nominees’ alleged behavior in college and high school back at them when their nominations were being considered. The worst case involved the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But there were others as well who were targeted by the cancel culture crowd. In any case, we don’t even have to look back at Clarke’s college days to find proof of her support for radicals who espouse anti-Semitic views. In 2018, for example, Israel denied Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, entry to the country because of his organization’s support for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Clarke tweeted, “Incredibly disturbed to hear that @VinceWarren was detained and denied entry into Israel on a trip that was carefully and thoughtfully planned out over the course of several months. #CivilRights Lawyers should not be penalized for their work to promote justice.” As for the letter to the Harvard Crimson Clarke co-authored, claiming that blacks have “superior physical and mental abilities,” Clarke is now saying that it was all a misunderstanding. She claims that the letter was intended as a satirical response to the book The Bell Curve, which posited genetic differences between whites and blacks. Clarke wants us to believe that her letter’s references to melanin as the cause of black superiority “was meant to express an equally absurd point of view — fighting one ridiculous absurd racist theory with another ridiculous absurd theory.” That’s disinformation. At the time when the letter was written, Clarke said that she was uncertain whether the melanin theory of black superiority was true or not. There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in the letter. Putting aside her comments about melanin back in college, Clarke certainly shows no uncertainty today in embracing critical race theory, which posits that America is inherently racist. In her capacity as president and executive director of Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Clarke condemned the Trump administration’s decision to remove critical race theory from federal government training programs. "Our nation stands at an inflection point as communities are grappling with the ongoing threat of racism, white supremacy and police violence," Clarke said in a statement. "President Trump's latest federal directive is an attempt to discredit, condemn and silence important conversations happening in communities and workplaces about anti-racism and about our nation's history of white supremacy. By banning government support for these discussions, he sends a dangerous message to the country that racism is a fallacy." Last year, Clarke denounced what she claims is “systemic racism that pervades every aspect of our lives, especially when it comes to policing and the operation of the criminal justice system of our country.” She supports defunding of the police. “I advocate for defunding policing operations that have made African Americans more vulnerable to police violence and contributed to mass incarceration, while investing more in programs and policies that address critical community needs,” she wrote last June for Newsweek. She called the concerns regarding the violence that broke out last year in the wake of the George Floyd killing a “distraction.” Clearly, if Clarke were to become Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and have her way, she would push to put the police on trial all over the country. She would also force-feed critical race theory to all federal employees and beyond. She would support the BDS movement as a civil right.
The Senate's Coming Impeachment Fiasco
A great piece, from Byron York, "Byron York's Daily Memo":
Remember that the primary purpose of an impeachment trial is to remove the convicted official from office. Here is the description of impeachment from Article II of the Constitution: "The president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The Constitution gives the Senate "the sole power to try all impeachments" and says that "no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present." If the official is convicted, the punishment "shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States." But the removal part will be off the table. The Senate trial will not begin until January 20 at the earliest, after President Trump leaves office. So Democrats propose to use impeachment to disqualify Trump from ever holding federal office again, which they say requires only a majority vote in the Senate. But the Constitution clearly requires a conviction before punishment, so two thirds of the Senate would have to convict former President Trump before he could be disqualified. ***** There are two new polls on the impeachment question. An NBC survey shows the public narrowly divided on the issue, with 50 percent for and 48 percent against. An ABC-Washington Post poll shows a wider spread, with 56 for and 42 percent against. But both polls asked respondents whether they supported removing Trump from office without mentioning that in real life Trump will already be out of office when the impeachment verdict is rendered. This is just a guess, but it seems opinion might change when the public realizes that Democrats are using impeachment against a president who has already left office...
Still more.
And read those polls, especially the one from ABC News. Americans of all partisan persuasions repudiate the violence of the Capitol Hill riot, including 76 percent of Trump supporters.
And as usual, don't forget all the caveats about media polling, perhaps the biggest one is that their samples are always biased toward the Democrats, and often questions are rigged (push-polling) to get the desired results of making Trump, Republicans, and conservatives look bad.
]
Evelyn Taft's Weather Scorching Forecast
It's hot out here today. Just the other night we needed extra blankets when going to sleep.
Weird.
Here's the fantastic Ms. Evelyn, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:
Goebbels and the New American Terror
Following-up from yesterday, "America's 'Reichstag Fire'."
See Caroline Glick:
What purpose did it serve for President-elect Joe Biden to liken Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Adolf Hitler’s top propagandist Joseph Goebbels?
In response to a question about the two Republican lawmakers following remarks on January 8, Biden said, “I was being reminded by a friend of mine…when we’re told [about] Goebbels and the great lie, you keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie.” Although Biden’s comparison was imperfectly stated, it was clear enough to follow. He was saying that the lawmakers’ efforts to challenge the Electoral College votes from disputed states was a Nazi-like effort. By speaking this way, Biden did many things at once. First, he whitewashed Goebbels’ barbaric crimes. Goebbels was the chief architect of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany and one of the lead architects of the Holocaust. In his literary warning about the fragility of freedom and the allure of totalitarianism, 1984, George Orwell demonstrated that total control over a society is achieved through total control over the information its members can see. Goebbels implemented this in Nazi Germany. As Hitler’s propagandist, Goebbels exerted total control over information. He ensured that Germans would view Hitler as their infallible savior. He conditioned them to view Jews as subhuman vermin, to be exterminated like cockroaches. And he made them believe that all Germans who didn’t accept what they were told were enemies of the people. Goebbels achieved all of these things by blocking public access to accurate information while inundating the Germans with images and words that repeated and amplified his monstrous lies. Goebbels’ success in controlling information was the necessary precondition for all he and his comrades unleashed on Jews, and on humanity as a whole. The second thing Biden did by comparing Hawley and Cruz to Goebbels was to whitewash the unspeakable crimes of Nazi Germany. After all, if merely questioning certain election returns is the moral equivalent of Goebbels’ “Big Lie,” then the Big Lie was actually no big deal. The third thing Biden did by comparing Hawley and Cruz to Goebbels was set them up for what Orwell referred to as “un-personing”—or in today’s culture, “canceling.” Obviously, if Cruz and Hawley are Goebbels, then all right-thinking people must work to silence them and remove them from positions of influence in the Senate and larger society. As if on cue, shortly after Biden said what he did, Senate Democrats began debating whether to censure the lawmakers. Senate Republicans, for their part, began discussing the possibility of denying the two members cherished committee assignments. According to Senate officials, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is leaning toward denying the two their subcommittee chairmanships—thereby removing them from the line of seniority. Outside the Senate chamber, major corporate donors also announced they will cease all political contributions to the two men, and to all 149 federal lawmakers who supported the efforts to challenge election returns from various states. Simon & Schuster canceled its contract to publish Hawley’s forthcoming book about the tyranny of Big Tech. And this brings us to the fourth thing that Biden did by comparing the two senators to Hitler’s satanic propagandist. Whether one supports or opposes their decision to formally raise questions about the Electoral College vote count, the indisputable fact is that their actions were both legal and widely supported by their constituents. A Rasmussen poll released on January 6 found that 52 percent of politically unaffiliated Americans were less than fully confident about the integrity of the election results. The senators, and their colleagues in both houses who worked with them, noted that they had been flooded by requests from their constituents to question the returns from the states in question—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. Cruz and Hawley incited no riots. To the contrary, they tried to channel the concerns of voters the American way—through constitutional, peaceful deliberations in Congress. Cruz, for his part, denounced the January 6 riot in real time, referring to it as “a despicable act of terrorism.” By conflating the constitutional, democratic behavior of the senators and their colleagues with Goebbels’ crimes, Biden accomplished a fifth goal. He demonized as Nazis these officials’ voters who had urged them to act—and by extension, threw under the bus the shockingly high percentage of Americans who questioned the election returns. Of course, Biden’s statement wasn’t made in isolation. He spoke after Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had banned Trump from their platforms and begun a purge of the accounts of his supporters—and as other major private sector actors openly called for the “un-personing” of Trump’s advisers and supporters. Forbes Editor Randall Lane, for instance, announced he would destroy any business that hires Trump’s spokespeople. In his words, “Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists…and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. …Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away!” The Lincoln Project, an influence outfit run by former Republicans now serving Democrats by demonizing Republicans, announced it was working to have all Trump administration officials blacklisted. “We are constructing a database of Trump officials and staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration and track where they are now. …They will be held accountable and not allowed to pretend they were not involved,” the group tweeted. Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank announced they were closing Trump’s accounts. Payment processors such as PayPal, Shopify and Stripe cut off the Trump campaign and Trump merchandising stores. These actions are of a piece with earlier actions by financial giants like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and others that announced last month they will require their clients to hire women and LGBT persons to their corporate boards, adopt approved green policies, and reveal their political contributions, lobbying contacts and trade association memberships as conditions for continuing to receive financial services. All of these repressive statements and actions provided both the impetus for, and the legitimization of, the coordinated action taken last weekend by tech oligarchs Google, Apple and Amazon to destroy Parler, the free speech social media platform launched two years ago. As law professor William Jacobson documented on his Legal Insurrection website, there is no evidence to support the tech giants’ implicit claim that Parler was in any way responsible for the Capitol Hill riot. Indeed, as Jacobson showed, it was Facebook, not Parler, that the organizers of the violent events had relied upon to mobilize their supporters. The reason Google, Apple and Amazon destroyed Parler was not because it had done anything wrong. They destroyed Parler because it did everything right. For years, Big Tech oligarchs brushed off criticism that they operated as monopolies by insisting that everyone remains free to create platforms and compete with them. And as their viewpoint censorship of conservatives became more aggressive in recent years and reached new heights during the 2020 election, demand for alternatives continued to grow. Parler wasn’t a Trump affiliate. It wasn’t a political instrument. It was simply a free speech platform. It was an alternative. And so it was destroyed. The social media users who wish to leave Twitter and Facebook now have no comparable alternative venue. So they are compelled to remain and live within the platforms’ increasingly repressive rules. A sense of foreboding and fear now grips millions of Americans—and, indeed, conservatives worldwide. Unless something is done quickly by those who wield power to restore freedom, it is impossible to see a happy end to this story.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Charges Leveled at Men Accused of Assaulting Police With Flag, Fire Extinguisher in Capitol Riot
No surprise. The "authorities" are cracking down. Never forget the Reichstag fire.
At WSJ, "Man carrying Confederate flag in Capitol was also charged":
Federal prosecutors escalated their efforts Thursday to target some of the more brazen violent conduct from last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, charging a retired firefighter who they say threw a fire extinguisher at three police officers and another man who allegedly beat a police officer repeatedly with an American flag.Robert Sanford of Chester, Pa., faces charges including assaulting a police officer after he was allegedly identified as the person who lobbed a fire extinguisher on the west side of the Capitol, at around 2:30 p.m., as the mob crashed past a thin line of Capitol police officers and stormed toward the building on Jan. 6.
Around the same time, a radio dispatch captured by OpenMHZ, a platform that records radio chatter from law enforcement and other agencies, relayed: “There is a 10-33 at the Capitol building. It has been breached,” using a code that signifies an emergency in which an officer needs assistance.
The prosecution’s statement of facts in the case described the fire extinguisher hitting three officers in the head, including one who wasn’t wearing a helmet. Officials said the extinguisher Mr. Sanford allegedly threw isn’t the one that killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was also struck in the head with a fire extinguisher during the unrest and died from his wounds, officials said.
William Young, one of the officers who was hit in the incident allegedly involving Mr. Sanford, was evaluated at a hospital and cleared to return to duty, the charging document said. A friend of Mr. Sanford tipped off the FBI to his involvement, the document said, adding that he was around 55 years old and had recently retired from the Chester Fire Department.
Mr. Sanford’ charges include using a deadly weapon in a restricted area, which carries a potential 10-year prison term, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and obstructing law enforcement.
The charges against Mr. Sanford, who couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, come as prosecutors have filed dozens of cases against the most visible participants in the riot, many of whose efforts were widely broadcast on social media, including one video showing a man beating a police officer with an American flag at the Capitol riot.
An Arkansas man identified in court documents as Peter Stager was charged Thursday with obstructing a law-enforcement officer in connection with that incident. The officer from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department was guarding an entrance of the U.S. Capitol after 4 p.m., when members of the mob grabbed him, dragged him down a set of stairs, forced him into a prone position and proceeded to forcibly and repeatedly strike him, according to an affidavit from FBI agent Jason Coe.
The document identified the Washington police officer only as B.M., saying it was anonymizing victims and witnesses. The Metropolitan Police Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A confidential informant recognized Mr. Stager from videos posted online in social media and notified the FBI on Tuesday, the documents said. One video, cited in the documents, showed Mr. Stager saying: “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.”
Mr. Stager had told his associate he planned to turn himself in to law enforcement for his actions, the document, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, said. A man reached by telephone at a number associated with Mr. Stager had no immediate comment...
Still more.
America's 'Reichstag Fire'
At Theo's , "Let's be very CLEAR. The Capitol event was America's "Reichstag Fire" and was staged by the Left (Antifa-BLM) to 'seal the steal'."
Frankly, that's the best analogy I can come up with myself. In fact, last night I was reading William Shirer's, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which has a long section on the both the fire and the political machinations.
The Nazis were lucky, as apparently there was one actual communist who had entered the building that day to set fires, shortly before Goebbels and Goering's "Brown Shirts" stormed the building with containers of gasoline. Once the fuse was lit, with flames reaching higher than surrounding rooftops, and having their scapegoat, Goebbels and Goering seized the moment, to "never let a crisis go to waste," and initiated the massive crackdown on dissent that culminated in the passage of Hitler's "Enabling Act of 1933." This law literally gave all legislative power to the chancellor's office. The national parliamentary elections held shortly thereafter were completely rigged, with members of opposition parties banned from the building, attacked by Brown Shirt mobs, and in many case, murdered in summary executions after the fact.
As we're seeing more news that the Capitol riot was planned days in advance, the leftist narrative that Trump "incited" the riot is completely falling apart.
Know your history, people. The truth is starting to trickle out, and it's going to redound to the everlasting regret of our leftist domestic enemies and literal terrorists (see Portland, Oregon).
John Eastman Resigns From Chapman University Law School
Here's the letter, originally published at the American Mind:
It is with mixed feeling that I announce my retirement from Chapman University today. Apart from prominent visitorships at the University of San Diego and the University of Colorado Boulder, my entire academic career has been as a professor and Dean at the Chapman University Fowler School of Law. During my tenure as Dean, the law school achieved the highest national ranking it has achieved to date, moving from 163rd to 93rd in that short three-year period between 2007 and 2010. I wish Dean Parlow much success in regaining and surpassing that high water mark. I have also enjoyed a strong working relationship with the University’s current President, Daniele Struppa, dating to my Deanship when he was serving as the University’s Provost and Chancellor. And I applaud his defense of me in particular and academic freedom more generally in this recent controversy. But I cannot extend such praise to some of my “colleagues” on the campus or to the few members of the Board of Trustees who have published false, defamatory statements about me without even the courtesy of contacting me beforehand to discuss. The political science faculty, for example, made numerous false statements of fact and law in their diatribe against me. They asserted, for example, that I have made “false claims” about the 2020 presidential election which “have no basis in fact or law and seek to harm the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic.” Had they bothered to discuss the matter with me, they could have learned that every statement I have made is backed up with documentary and/or expert evidence, and solidly grounded in law. For example, it is a fact that partisan election officials and even partisan-elected judicial officials in numerous states altered or ignored existing state laws in the conduct of the election, the instances of which are well documented in the petition for writ of certiorari I filed in the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the President. And it is clearly established law that Article II of the Constitution assigns to the legislatures of the state, not anyone else, the sole, plenary power to determine the “manner” for choosing presidential electors. And it is a fact that numerous legislators wrote to Vice President Pence indicating that their electoral votes were problematic at best because of these illegalities and urging him to delay the electoral count proceedings long enough to allow the legislatures in the contested states time to review whether their electoral slate was legally certified. By way of example, 21 members of the Pennsylvania Senate, including the powerful President Pro Tem of the Senate, outlined in a January 4 letter the numerous instances of violations of state law by state election officials and even the partisan-elected judiciary in the conduct of Pennsylvania’s election, thereby usurping the sole power that the Legislature has pursuant to Article II of the federal constitution to determine the manner for choosing presidential electors. Because of those illegal actions, the Senators noted “that PA election results should not have been certified,” and asked that the Congress “delay certification of the Electoral College to allow due process as we pursue election integrity in our Commonwealth.” Similar letters were sent from Pennsylvania house members, and from legislators in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Arizona’s included this: “Based upon the clear and convincing nature of the evidence [of illegality and fraud], we respectfully ask that you recognize our desire to reclaim Arizona’s Electoral College Electors and block the use of any Electors from Arizona until such time as the controversy is properly resolved through the pending litigation or a comprehensive forensic audit.” It is also a fact that a forensic analysis of the one voting machine courts have permitted to be inspected demonstrated not only that the machines are capable of switching votes, but they actually did switch votes in Antrim County, Michigan. In other words, it is patently untrue that my statements have “no basis in fact or law.” As for the claim that by raising these issues, I have sought to “harm the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic,” nothing could be further from the truth. As noted above, the Constitution sets out the authority for choosing electors, and that authority was usurped by non-legislative partisans in several states. Legislators in the contested states have quite reasonably asserted that the illegal conduct effected the outcome of the election. If true—and a full forensic audit would confirm whether or not it is true—then the democratic foundations of our constitutional republic were not just harmed but completely subverted by those partisan actors who violated election laws in order to permit the counting of illegal votes. Shining a light on what occurred is the highest defense of the constitutional republic, and such an investigation ought to be welcomed by citizens of all political stripes rather than blocked by those who are acting as though they have something to hide. The letter signed by 169 members of the Chapman faculty and Board of Trustees is even more scurrilous. It claims, falsely, that I “participated in a riot that incited” last week’s violence at the nation’s Capital. I participated in a peaceful rally of nearly ½ million people, two miles away from the violence that occurred at the capital and which began even before the speeches were finished. And unless simply identifying illegal actions by election officials qualifies as “incitement”—under the law and well- established Supreme Court precedent, it clearly does not—then this charge is really an attempt to shut down the exercise of First Amendment rights. Nor did I “spout lies” about secret folders in the machines—the forensic audit discussed above has identified the suspension files in the software. Neither is there anything “conspiratorial” about simply identifying the available evidence. I am grateful that not a single one of my colleagues at the Law School signed such a defamatory letter. To my knowledge, not one of the faculty signers has a law degree, and the three members of the Board of Trustees who are lawyers (and hyper-partisan Democrats) are clearly not well-versed in the constitutional questions at issue—either the Article II role of legislatures, or the definition of the “incitement” exception to the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. Nevertheless, these 169 have created such a hostile environment for me that I no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty, and am therefore retiring from my position, effective immediately. I am currently on leave from Chapman while serving as the Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder, so my mid-year retirement will not have any impact on my Chapman students. Once that visitorship is concluded, I plan to devote my full-time efforts to the Claremont Institute and its Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, which I direct.
Still more, "Statement from the Office of the President."
The Real Reason Most Republicans Opposed Impeachment
It's Ben Shapiro, at Politico's Playbook, via Memeorandum:
Howdy from Nashville, y’all! I’m BEN SHAPIRO, and I host the conservative podcast and radio show “The Ben Shapiro Show”; I’m also editor emeritus of the Daily Wire, husband to a medical doctor, and father to three children who run me more ragged than the news cycle. Or at least they used to, before all time was condensed into a political gravitational singularity, where one day is several years long. So, let’s get to it. The big news of the day, of course, is the House’s impeachment of President DONALD J. TRUMP for the second time in just over a year. It was a foregone conclusion that the Democratic House would do so — the only question was how many Republicans would vote along with Democrats to impeach Trump over his behavior leading up to and surrounding the Capitol riot. In the end, 10 did — ranging from Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.), the third-ranking Republican in the House, who called openly and clearly for impeachment; to Rep. FRED UPTON (R-Mich.), who said he’d prefer censure but that he’d settle for impeachment. The spotlight immediately moved to Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL, who now says that he hasn’t made up his mind on impeachment. It seems he’ll leave Republicans to their own devices on the Senate vote when it takes place. Many in the media seem bewildered that House Republicans didn’t unanimously join Democrats in supporting impeachment (looking at you, Playbook readers in the media) — after all, Republicans were in the building when rioters broke through, seeking to do them grievous physical harm. My Republican sources tell me that opposition to impeachment doesn’t spring from generalized sanguinity over Trump’s behavior: I’ve been receiving calls and texts for more than a week from elected Republicans heartsick over what they saw in the Capitol. Opposition to impeachment comes from a deep and abiding conservative belief that members of the opposing political tribe want their destruction, not simply to punish Trump for his behavior. Republicans believe that Democrats and the overwhelmingly liberal media see impeachment as an attempt to cudgel them collectively by lumping them in with the Capitol rioters thanks to their support for Trump. The evidence for that position isn’t difficult to find. Sen. RON WYDEN (D-Ore.) suggested this week at NBCNews.com that the only way to prevent a repeat of the Capitol riot was endorsement of a full slate of Democratic agenda items. Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.) suggested that “Southern states are not red states, they are suppressed states, which means the only way that our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of Southern states …” And PAUL KRUGMAN of The New York Times placed blame for the Capitol riots on the entire Republican Party infrastructure: “This Putsch Was Decades In The Making.” Unity looks a lot like “sign onto our agenda, or be lumped in with the Capitol rioters.”
More.
And at the Daily Beast (safe link), "‘Mischief Making’: Politico Boss Defends Handing Playbook Over to Right-Wing Bombthrower Ben Shapiro."
Wednesday, January 13, 2021
The Debate Over 'Fascism'
It's Jennifer Szalai, at NYT (FWIW), "CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK The Debate Over the Word ‘Fascism’ Takes a New Turn":
But the critique of fascism analogies runs deeper than whatever it is Trump says or does. Moyn suggests that crying fascism obscures the extent to which Trump is a thoroughly American creature while also exonerating the establishment rot that allowed him to flourish in the first place. Corey Robin, in an updated edition of his book “The Reactionary Mind,” has argued something similar. Both Robin and Moyn seem animated by a similar suspicion — that fascist analogies ultimately serve centrists trying to gin up fear among the left, pushing progressives to settle for expedient political choices by overstating the strength of a floundering right. Robin cites a modern classic by the historian Robert O. Paxton, “The Anatomy of Fascism,” to attest that what made the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler so potent was its youth and its novelty, an advantage forsaken by a lumbering and nostalgic Trump. But one of the most striking aspects of Paxton’s book, which was published in 2004, is how much attention he shines on the circumstances that allowed for fascism’s emergence in the early 20th century and its subsequent rise. Paxton wasn’t laboring under the same conditions as current writers, who get drawn into endless debates over whether Trump is or is not a fascist. Historically, fascist movements hardened into fascist regimes when given the opportunity by enfeebled conservative elites trying to cling to power, who resort to bringing in an outsider to rile up the base. It was only after the Nazis started losing electoral support that Hitler cut a back-room deal to be appointed chancellor. Like a vampire, Hitler had to be invited into the house...
The best way to respond to leftist books on fascism is to read them and rip them. Shred them to oblivion with your hardest-hitting critiques. As I always say, "Know your enemies."
Now's a particularly good time. The Harris administration is going to test our founding principles in ways that'll make the last four years look like a long and relaxing vacation.
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Staying Sane in a World Gone Mad
It's Robert Stacy McCain, at the American Spectator, "You’re not crazy; it’s the media who have lost their minds."
Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver Accused of 'Grooming' Young Men, Offering Jobs for Sex
At Red State, "More 'Grooming for Sex' Allegations Surface Against Lincoln Project Co-Founder John Weaver."
And at the Other McCain, "Far Be It From Me to Repeat Salacious Gossip About RINO Backstabbers, But …"
Psychological Analysis of the Capitol Riot
From a former colleague of mine, on Facebook:
This morning, I decided to watch Trump’s inaugural speech for the first time. It is the best speech I have ever seen him give. I can see why his followers were enthusiastic about him, as it was the epitome of a populist message. He sounded as though the public’s interest was the only thing that mattered to him. He seemed much more together and credible than that he does today. Too bad it was just rhetoric. It has become patently clear that, true to what is typical with narcissistic tendencies, Trump only cares about himself. Much lower down on the scale of concern are the current Trump loyalists, although they are prone to being thrown overboard whenever they cross him. It’s all so predictable, when you know the features of a narcissistic personality disorder (not to mention an antisocial personality disorder). ***** To me, a former Republican, who feels that the party left me before I left it, the current Republican party seems to consist of delusional people, such as the QAnon folks; white supremacist groups; haters, who are [the] most scary at all, because they are directionless and have been observed to swing 180 degrees in their targets, but just seek some group to vilify; religious fundamentalists who are essentially one-issue voters and thus willing to sell their souls to the devil in a Faustian bargain in order to protect the unborn; and rational conservatives who wear masks, socially distance, well know that Biden won the election fair-and-square, but still believe that despite his massive character flaws, autocratic bent, and disregard for anyone but himself, Trump is still better for them and the country than those horrid Democrats. I suppose another category would be the ambitious politicians and corporate people who seek personal benefit from backing Trump, and care about little else. Although not Republicans, I would be remiss not to mention Putin, et al. as staunch supporters of Trump. I don't see any heroes here. Did I miss a group of noble Republicans that I missed because of my partisan blinders? ***** Excuse me, I did miss one group of noble Republicans, those who established The Lincoln Project. They have sought to cajole their fellow Republicans into embracing the traditional values of their party. Out of concern for the survival of our democracy, and a desire to return the Republican party to the respectable values it has traditionally embraced, this group has been tireless in their efforts to bring our national politics back to normal.
"Noble Republicans."
Hardly. *Shrugs.*
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Glenn Greenwald Decries the Left's New 'War on Terror' (VIDEO)
If you're familiar with Glenn Greenwald, he's not necessarily a sympathetic character. But he's been out here for a long time, and for good or bad (sometimes very bad, considering his views on Israel, his collaborations with Julian Assange, etc.), he's consistent. I think for that, in a time like this, folks who normally would ignore him are ready to listen.
I mean, he's now a regular on Fox News, if you can imagine that.
With all that said, he's not wrong on this, and it's frightening.
He's on Substack here, "Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath":
One is that striking at cherished national symbols — the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Capitol — ensures rage and terror far beyond body counts or other concrete harms. That is one major reason that yesterday’s event received far more attention and commentary, and will likely produce far greater consequences, than much deadlier incidents, such as the still-motive-unknown 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 59 or the 2016 Orlando shooting that left 49 dead at the Pulse nightclub. Unlike even horrific indiscriminate shooting sprees, an attack on a symbol of national power will be perceived as an attack on the state or even the society itself. There are other, more important historical lessons to draw not only from the 9/11 attack but subsequent terrorism on U.S. soil. One is the importance of resisting the coercive framework that demands everyone choose one of two extremes: that the incident is either (a) insignificant or even justifiable, or (b) is an earth-shattering, radically transformative event that demands radical, transformative state responses. This reductive, binary framework is anti-intellectual and dangerous. One can condemn a particular act while resisting the attempt to inflate the dangers it poses. One can acknowledge the very real existence of a threat while also warning of the harms, often far greater, from proposed solutions. One can reject maximalist, inflammatory rhetoric about an attack (a War of Civilizations, an attempted coup, an insurrection, sedition) without being fairly accused of indifference toward or sympathy for the attackers. Indeed, the primary focus of the first decade of my journalism was the U.S. War on Terror — in particular, the relentless erosions of civil liberties and the endless militarization of American society in the name of waging it. To make the case that those trends should be opposed, I frequently argued that the threat posed by Islamic radicalism to U.S. citizens was being deliberately exaggerated, inflated and melodramatized. I argued that not because I believed the threat was nonexistent or trivial: I lived in New York City on 9/11 and remember to this day the excruciating horror from the smell and smoke emanating throughout Lower Manhattan and the haunting “missing” posters appended by desperate families, unwilling to accept the obvious reality of their loved ones’ deaths, to every lamp post on every street corner. I shared the same disgust and sadness as most other Americans from the Pulse massacre, the subway bombings in London and Madrid, the workplace mass shooting in San Bernardino. My insistence that we look at the other side of the ledger — the costs and dangers not only from such attacks but also the “solutions” implemented in the name of the stopping them — did not come from indifference towards those deaths or a naive views of those responsible for them. It was instead driven by my simultaneous recognition of the dangers from rights-eroding, authoritarian reactions imposed by the state, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. One need not engage in denialism or minimization of a threat to rationally resist fear-driven fanaticism — as Barbara Lee so eloquently insisted on September 14, 2001...
Lots more at that top link.
More Powerful Than the President of the United States?
There's no "debate" over "publisher" or "platform" anymore.
This man, Mark Zuckerberg, is a danger to the Republic. Full stop. Unchecked power. He has no corporate board to rein him in. He can do whatever he wants with his platform, unless government regulators step in --- and they won't, because the bipartisan swamp in D.C. loves him and loves his suppression of dissent.
And so-called "progressives" are warning about a "coup"? Pfft. Gimme a break, will ya?
Signs of Leftist Fifth Column Everywhere
The left is America's "fifth column":
By the late 1930s, as American involvement in the war in Europe became more likely, the term "fifth column" was commonly used to warn of potential sedition and disloyalty within the borders of the United States. The fear of betrayal was heightened by the rapid fall of France in 1940, which some blamed on internal weakness and a pro-German "fifth column". A series of photos run in the June 1940 issue of Life magazine warned of "signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere". In a speech to the House of Commons that same month, Winston Churchill reassured MPs that "Parliament has given us the powers to put down Fifth Column activities with a strong hand." In July 1940, Time magazine referred to talk of a fifth column as a "national phenomenon".With the left’s crackdown on civil liberties and free speech, the Democrat Party and its Antifa/BLM minions are the real threat to the Republic. Gird your loins, patriots!
Hey, Twitter, Are You Sure About This?
It's John Harris, no stranger to the need for alternative media, at Politico, which he co-founded:
For a half-century, the trend in political culture has been inexorably in one direction: toward the steady loosening and eventually the near-obliteration of media filters. If someone has a voice that other people want to hear, that voice is going to be heard. No smug editor at the New York Times or damn anchorman at CBS News is going to get in the way. Who the hell elected them, after all, to decide what points of view were worthy of dissemination, what facts or rumors or even flat falsehoods should reach average citizens, who could decide for themselves what to make of it? The erosion of traditional establishment filters — first by such mediums as direct mail, talk radio and cable, later and most powerfully by social media — has been a primary factor in the rise of potent ideological movements on right and left alike. It is why the election and bizarre presidency of an insurgent disruptor like Donald J. Trump — inconceivable in the 20th century era of establishment media—was eminently conceivable in this era. And it is why the decision Friday night by Twitter to permanently ban Trump from its platform is a signal moment — a historic move, even before we know the consequences that will flow from it. It represents an effort to reassert the notion that filters have a place in political communication and that some voices have lost their claim on public legitimacy — even when that voice has 89 million followers and is just two months past receiving the second-highest number of votes in U.S. election history. Twitter’s announcement was made with a righteous air, as the company said it was acting “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” after Trump’s raucous lies about a stolen election inspired backers to take over the Capitol on Wednesday. Across a wide spectrum of politicians and commentators, there were exultations of relief, many mingled with it’s-about-time exasperation. Twitter’s move is plainly an effort to act responsibly in the face of Trump’s irresponsible words and actions. Even so, the question seems unavoidable: Are you sure about this?
Still more.
Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.
Following-up, "Matt Taibbi on the Capital Fiasco (VIDEO)."
At Amazon, "Matt Taibbi, Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another.
I'm Not Quitting Facebook and Twitter
They can boot me off, but I'm staying on these platforms for the fight:
Gonna quit social media if I’m booted off Facebook and Twitter. The fight is on these platforms, not Parler, Gab, etc., which are mere echo chamber outlets with no power.
See Arlen Williams as well:
Nikki Richards Speaks Out!
She used to have a blog, like 10 years ago, and I lost contact with her.
But she posted on Facebook yesterday, and, I mean, wow! She's got it!
Before I completely delete my account from Facebook and most of social mafia, I have something to say. This assault on free speech is disturbing and should terrify EVERYONE. These are the rights our government should be protecting and now they are promoting the silencing of millions. Conservative platforms are being removed and censored, not just the President, but his supporters and those with monetized platforms. This is America, and now my fellow citizens you have only one view that you are being fed by the media. You will be next. Soon your speech will be censored too. The reactivation of my Facebook account was met by community standards violations that were mere articles from conservative sources. The civil rights of millions were taken away the past couple of days and you all are silent. Your rights are next, unless you comply with the left. The exchange of ideas and debate is over. You may despise Trump and his so called rhetoric but now that is the excuse for silencing millions. And ask yourself what your current rhetoric is towards Trump supporters. Are you feeding a tyrannical silencing? The information you are getting from the MSM IS FALSE. You are all on the WRONG SIDE OF THIS FIGHT. PS. Parler is being shut down by the Apple and Google platforms unless they comply with their censorship guidelines. Afraid yet? You should be. PPS. With a dominant Democratic congress and executive branch, this will only get worse.
'There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...'
It's Krakatoa, at AoSHQ, "EMT 1/9/21 - The Stupid Edition":
Don't do stupid things. Take it from a moron: You know they are stupid, deep down, when you have to tell other people, often relative strangers, all about the stupid thing you really want to do hoping for some validation and fellowship. At that point, even if that thing wasn't really stupid to begin with , it turned stupid once it left your mouth and hit the ears of people you don't know enough about to be able to trust. Generally, people that encourage your stupid ideas aren't quality friends. Stupid things will get you in trouble. Could be small trouble. Could be really big trouble. I have a friend who does more than his share of stupid things, and since his two closest friends kept trying to talk him out of those things, he cultivated new friends. At his heart he is a prepper. He is far too unhealthy to be any sort of danger, and he acknowledges that. One of those new friends just got picked up by the state B.I., along with all his computers, guns [and] other assorted stuff. Blowing off steam is one thing. Using a "free" email service to sending emails that entertain all sorts of vengeance plots is another. Participating in email groups where that sort of thing goes on is stupid. Following up those emails with in-person meetings of supposed like-minded travelers is running the stupid flag to the top of the pole for everyone to see. Some of you may know that old poker saying: If you are sitting at the table and you can't figure out who the donkey is, you are the donkey. Well similar to that is that in any group of 3 people plotting violence, no matter how justified two of those my feel, the third is probably an informant. It was stupid of my friend to visit with those people a few weeks ago, even if his goal was to talk them down. We tried to talk him out of it, but now I fear he will soon be joining his new friend in trouble with the law, even though his focus is prepping and personal defense. Things are bad, and they are going to get worse. There will be all sorts of depredations visited upon us by those who wield all the influence of culture, academia, and state...
Still more.
Saturday, January 9, 2021
Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
At Amazon, Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations.
Dueling Protests and Violence at Pacific Beach?
Actually, no.
Or is that Ngo, as in Andy Ngo, "A mob of antifa assault a small group of conservatives in San Diego, Cal. The black bloc mob is also waving an #antifa flag."
Antifa goons are using the Capitol riot to get him banned from Twitter, which they've been trying to do for years, to say nothing of murdering him.
Also at ABC News 10 San Diego:
Amazon Suspends Parler, Threatening to Take Pro-Trump Site Offline Indefinitely
It's actually Amazon's "AWS" --- Amazon Web Services, where Parler's been hosted. The alternative social media platform has already been de-platformed off Apple and Google's app stores. Amazon's AWS move is the coup de grâce.
From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "UPDATE: Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service":
“In a post on Sunday evening following publication of this story, Parler CEO John Matze said it is possible ‘Parler will be unavailable on the internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch.’” ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t know if you can buy Parler stock, but it should be rising on the strength of its private antitrust suit against a bunch of deep-pocketed tech firms.
Tested: 2021 Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo vs. Audi A4 45
From Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "MAZDA’S LUXURY-BRAND AMBITIONS":
Bottom line: “As it stands now, the Mazda 3 2.5 Turbo offers a hell of a lot of car for the money, while the Audi A4 offers an appropriate amount of car for the money.”
Chad Felix Greene is Absolutely on Fire!
I've been meaning to follow him, but wasn't sure if he was the genuine article. But after seeing this thread, I'm gobsmacked!
And it's now available on the Thread Reader App (which hasn't been banned yet by Big Tech).
Here, "Chad Felix Greene":
Every person on the left believes they just survived the parallel to the rise of Nazism in Germany and they defeated it. They stopped it. They believe all Republicans are 1950's white racists. They feel empowered to live out their Civil Rights warrior fantasies. They imagine themselves toppling Jim Crow and the Confederacy and the Nazi army in one swoop and every powerful authority is on their side. They aren't silencing conservative speech. They are eradicating violence, terrorism, racism and hate from the internet. ***** They are *gleeful* we are vulnerable and scared of our voice being suppressed. They think we are the people in old 1950's photos angrily shouting at black school children. We are not people to them.We are symbols of what they feel morally driven to remove from the world.
The most powerful people who influence technology see us the same way.
We aren't customers.We aren't users.
We aren't people with real lives and families and businesses.
We are a problem to be solved and they've been trying to figure out how for years and finally can do it.
The reason free market ideals no longer work is because the market is controlled by fewer and fewer people who dominate all options. And those people are ideologically driven to eradicate from society all sources of hate. Its a religious crusade. And we are the target. ***** We cannot reason with them. They see our pleas for fairness like you would imagine a segregationist doing so. They believe - believe - that once we are gone the internet and therefore society will be cleansed, free, peaceful and able to heal FROM US. I say 'us' because we are not the one's defining our place in this world. We aren't white supremacists or nazis or bigots or violent insurrectionists. But the powerful have segregated society into good and bad thought and their strict and narrow worldview has placed us here.We are innocent.
But it doesn't matter to them.
They *hate* what they imagine we are.
They cannot be persuaded otherwise. You cannot convince them *you* are a good person wrongly categorized. The only people with influence have made up their minds and don't care to change it. The *only* option is a steady Civil Rights movement to make it illegal, step by step, to do this to us. They won't voluntarily stop. They think they are the heroes of the story fighting for the good of humanity. Each remaining GOP leader MUST begin NOW. Legal action. Now. ***** This means adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination law in red states. We no longer have the luxury of arguing against the idea of protected classes. We are now a marginalized group. You need to accept that and behave as such. This is a Civil Rights movement. If you think you are exempt from this because you didn't vote for Trump or you defend businesses with 'they have a right to' you are not paying attention. *You* do not define your status.Its imposed onto you.
Just like every prior targeted group.
You are a minority now. You are targeted for what you believe, who you are associated with and - be very clear - your existence. You cannot change that fact.
This has been applied to you.
Enough bickering over the philosophical nuances. You are a marginalized minority now. 1st step is adding Political Affiliation to anti-discrimination AND hate crime laws because the left targets us for physical violence. Create the legal framework to force businesses and corporations to defend their discrimination policies. Force them to second guess them. We don't need the federal level to do this. We just need a solid foundation to force their hand legally. This will not stop until it is illegal and enforced to stop. You will not shame them into acting ethically or fairly. Any GOP who refuses to act must be voted out. Eventually we must stop treating the internet as a fad and gadget we can just toss aside and move on from. We must have an internet bill of rights. Legal rights protecting all people from censorship and banning for who they are or what they believe. This is a new world. ***** Again. I understand the traditional free market arguments, but they no longer apply. Businesses are behaving collectively as they did in the 1950's Jim Crow era and joining together to discriminate against a single group in order to protect themselves from popular outrage. You are now in that group. Your entire online life.Your online communication.
Your digital currency.
Your job.
Your healthcare.
Your access to the world.
Its not 'just Twitter.' It can be taken from you for nothing more than a photo or an association. You cannot compete. People who believe your skin color, your sexuality, your gender identity, your faith and the core beliefs that make up how you engage in politics place you in a category deserving of discrimination and violence *control* your life right now. Understand this.Stop fighting it.
It is time to relentlessly legally fight back.
We don't like to do this. But its our only option to regain liberty. ****** Every act of racism, seismic, discrimination, religious discrimination - all of it must be treated like an LGBT person suing over a wedding cake. I cannot repeat this enough. The powerful left **will not** voluntarily stop this crusade. We must use available legal efforts now to overwhelm them with lawsuits and legal challenges to stop all forms of discrimination they feel entitled to now. Political Affiliation too. I am a gay/trans man and a Jew. I know what discrimination and marginalization is. I know what its like to be hated for nothing more than who you are. This is it.This is real.
New Impeachment Would Damage the Constitution
From Professor Jonathan Turley, at the Hill, "Swift new impeachment would damage the Constitution":
The author Franz Kafka once wrote, “My guiding principle is this. Guilt is never to be doubted.” Democrats suddenly appear close to adopting that standard into the Constitution as they prepare for a second impeachment of President Trump. With seeking his removal for incitement, Democrats would gut not only the impeachment standard but also free speech, all in a mad rush to remove Trump just days before his term ends. Democrats are seeking to remove Trump on the basis of his remarks to supporters before the rioting at the Capitol. Like others, I condemned those remarks as he gave them, calling them reckless and wrong. I also opposed the challenges to electoral votes in Congress. But his address does not meet the definition for incitement under the criminal code. It would be viewed as protected speech by the Supreme Court. When I testified in the impeachment hearings of Trump and Bill Clinton, I noted that an article of impeachment does not have to be based on any clear crime but that Congress has looked to the criminal code to weigh impeachment offenses. For this controversy now, any such comparison would dispel claims of criminal incitement. Despite broad and justified condemnation of his words, Trump never actually called for violence or riots. But he urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to raise their opposition to the certification of electoral votes and to back the recent challenges made by a few members of Congress. Trump told the crowd “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices be heard.”
Still more (via Memeorandum).
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