Would a “Hot” Civil War Be Just?

Article by Danl Hull in "RedState":

As we approach the November elections, the likelihood of the current low-intensity conflict between actual Americans and the left heating up into something more seems to be increasing. As I pointed out in an earlier diary, if the left loses, they’ll double down on the violent “resistance” they were pushing in 2016. If the left wins, they intend to destroy the republic and literally enslave the citizenry. In a reversal of the classic kids’ game: heads I lose, tails they win.

So if things go hot, or if we reach a point where the only recourse is actual physical opposition to tyranny–aside from surrender–would such a conflict fall under the definition of a “just” war?

Thomas Aquinas had three rules for determining if a war is just: First, the war must be waged at the command of a rightful sovereign. Second, the war must be waged for just cause, on account of some wrong the attacked have committed. Third, those fighting must have the correct intent: to promote good and to avoid evil. Lets break these down.

The first question is the trickiest to answer. I’ve had a number of discussions with Christian friends about what they would do if civilization breaks down. Do we turn the other cheek, which Christ commanded individuals to do when attacked? Do we support the idea that governments are instituted among men by God, and thus fighting for them is our duty? What do we make of the Founders, deeply religious men by-and-large who “rebelled” and who created the country that was rewarded with 200+ years of success?

There are any number of arguments on both sides of this, but my take is that in a constitutional republic, to quote Louis XIV, <i>L’etat c’est moi</i>. In our democracy, the people are the ultimate authority, not a king, but we can echo that statement from 1791: We are the state. Which means that if the country dissolves into a civil war, and if we must fight, we are fighting for ourselves, the rightful sovereigns of the republic.

The second question is easier to answer. Preventing the destruction of our homes, the brainwashing of our children, the destruction of our civilization can’t help but be a just cause. As far as the acts which the “attacked” committed, you’ve only to watch ten minutes of the national news to see the violence that those who are no longer our countrymen are enacting against the innocent. The rioting, fire-setting, beatings… those are the kinds of acts that are wrong on so many levels it beggars the imagination.

The last question is the easiest of all to answer. To promote good and avoid evil. Those who are our likely opponents in a coming conflict are as evil as any denizen of the Pit. To quote an old Book:
"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things."

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."

"For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."

Again, I hope that we can avoid an actual conflict. I pray that sanity will prevail and that the country will not be torn apart by a second “Late Unpleasantness.” But if it comes to that, we need to know that what we’re fighting for is a just cause.

https://www.redstate.com/diary/riderdan/2020/07/08/would-a-hot-civil-war-be-just/

Eric Ciaramella Crony and Impeachment Figure LTC Alexander Vindman Retires

Article by streiff in "RedState":

Army LTC Alexander ‘Sweet Cheeks’ Vindman has announced that he is retiring. His pettifogger said that Vindman is retiring, despite Resistance forces in the Army selecting him for promotion to colonel, because OrangeManBad:

Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between honoring his oath or protecting his career. Between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers. LTC Vindman’s patriotism has cost him his career.

Vindman was the prime mover in the farcical impeachment trial of President Trump. He used information available to him through his position on the National Security Council (if you ever have a doubt as to why our policy in Ukraine and other places is so incredibly incoherent, disjointed, and utterly f***ed up, it is because toads like Vindman are the interagency focal point for coordinating policy) which he passed on to a crony who, in turn, collaborated with the Intelligence Community IG to launder rumor of a non-intelligence related nature into a high priority whistleblower complaint that had to go directly to Adam Schiff’s committee.

He was selected for promotion to colonel and the White House indicated that it was not likely to forward a list of nominees to the Senate for confirmation that included Vindman. By the way, this is completely legitimate. Presidents have the right to put their stamp on the officer corps of the armed forces. Obama was not hesitant about forcing officers he deemed to be insufficiently supportive of his policies, foreign and domestic, from service. Thomas Jefferson purged the officer corps of men known to be active in Federalist politics. The services may nominate candidates for promotion but it is the President who makes the final decsion.

Then Tammy Duckworth got involved. She declared that unless Vindman was on the list she intended to hold up the entire slate of officer promotions. As much as I think Duckworth is a loathsome person, she has every right to do that as a Senator and particularly as a member of the Armed Services Committee. In the aftermath of the Tailhook investigation, Navy promotion lists were held hostage to guarantee that no one tainted by the taint of that taintful episode would be promoted. Senator John Warner twice threatened to hold up Navy promotions unless the commander of the USS Cole was stricken from the list.

I suspect the White House made it known that there was no way possible that it was forwarding a list with Vindman on it to the Senate no matter what Duckworth quacked about. Vindman was left with a stark choice, either retire or stand his ground and have about 1,000 fellow lieutenant colonels who had not participated in a coup attempt blame him for their delayed promotion.

No matter how this played out, it is no great loss. Vindman is the kind of officer who endangers the nation. He was driven by politics (I suspect this will become abundantly clear in the coming months) and was a willing participant to what can only be termed a coup attempt. His loyalty obviously lay somewhere besides with the nation and the Constitution and we are much safer with him out of uniform.

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/07/08/eric-ciaramella-crony-and-impeachment-figure-ltc-alexander-vindman-retires/

Supreme Court Rules That a Religious Order Bound With a Vow of Chastity Does Not Have to Pay for Contraceptive Coverage

 

Article by streiff in "RedState":

One of the many odious parts of Obama’s Affordable Care Act was his administration’s attempt to use health care, particularly women’s health care, as a cudgel to demolish any organized opposition to abortion or contraception. Under the guise of defining minimum benefits required to be offered by health insurance plans, abortion and contraception were baked in.

For instance, employers were required to provide women with ‘preventive care and screenings’ without ‘any cost-sharing requirements.’ Fair enough, you might say, but it went on to charge the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) with the responsibility of determining what that ‘care and screenings’ looked like. No huge shock when it was ruled that access to birth control pills was essential preventive care.

In light of the Burwell  v.  Hobby  Lobby  Stores decision, which ruled that forcing employers to provide birth control coverage potentially violated the First Amendment, the Obama administration constructed a test to be used by employers seeking the exemption to comply with the SCOTUS decision. Churches automatically received an exemption, religious orders did not but they could ‘self certify.’ The Catholic religious order, the Little  Sisters of the Poor, refused to self-certify:

They challenged the self-certification accommodation, claiming that completing the certification form would force them to violate their religious beliefs by “tak[ing] actions that directly cause others to provide contraception or appear to participate in the Departments’ delivery scheme.” Id., at 1168. As a result, they alleged that the self-certification accommodation violated RFRA.

The Trump administration promulgated a policy exemption that allowed the order to avoid either providing contraceptive coverage or self-certifying. The Little Sisters were happy but the Pennsylvania state government wasn’t. It filed suit and a pro-abort federal judge ruled that the exemption was illegal and…wait for it…issued a nationwide injunction. The federal government appealed to the Third Circuit and New Jersey joined the lawsuit also demanding that an order of celibate religious women be required to purchase health insurance that provided contraceptive coverage. The Third Circuit agreed with Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Today the US Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, (read the decision here) affirmed that the Trump administration had the authority to make the exemption.

“We are overjoyed that, once again, the Supreme Court has protected our right to serve the elderly without violating our faith,” said Mother Loraine Marie Maguire of the Little Sisters of the Poor, whose employees work in the group’s facilities. “Our life’s work and great joy is serving the elderly poor and we are so grateful that the contraceptive mandate will no longer steal our attention from our calling.”

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement that the decision was “a big win for religious freedom and freedom of conscience.”

“Since Day One, the Trump Administration has sought to lift burdens on religious exercise for people of all faiths,” she said, adding the administration would work to allow “women who lack access to contraceptive coverage because of their employer’s religious beliefs or moral convictions to more easily access such care” through federal programs.

The decision is potentially much broader than just a single order of nuns.

The critical thing about the decision is that you are presumed to be acting in accordance with your faith, you don’t have to prove it to the satisfaction of some fat fascist pro-abort in some government agency. And as to Ginsburg’s statement, there is literally no countervailing right or interest that involves contraception when it comes into conflict with an enumerated right.

This is going to be portrayed as some Romney-esque ‘war on women’ but it is a positive development in restoring the right of Americans to live their faith rather than reducing, as Obama tried to do, faith to some sort of cultural artifact that could be harnessed for purposes of political identity but which was not lived at all.

The decision: 
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-431_5i36.pdf 

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/07/08/supreme-court-rules-that-a-religious-order-bound-with-a-vow-of-chastity-does-not-have-to-pay-for-contraceptive-coverage/

Utah GOP congressional candidate discusses nationwide unrest

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:12 AM PT — Wednesday, July 8, 2020

As the U.S. attempts to grapple with nationwide protests against police brutality and the coronavirus pandemic, attention is being to turned to this year’s elections.
One America’s Emily Finn caught up with former Oakland Raiders safety and Republican nominee in Utah’s Fourth Congressional District Burgess Owens to get his take on the issues.

If We Don’t Stop It, Marxism Will Annihilate The American Way Of Life

If we’re inclined to glide past the Marxist fingerprints all over America’s current turmoil, assuming its ideas will flare up for a while and then burn out, we’re not paying attention.

posted by John Andrews at The Federalist

American institutions have stoked the coals of Karl Marx’s destructive ideology, fanning its flames until his notions have consumed our cultural pillars.

Far from being forgotten and irrelevant, Marx’s ideas pervade key institutions, from universities and schools, to mass media and popular entertainment, to major corporations and medicine, to the arts and sciences. They’ve even seeped into many churches and seminaries. Of course, they also define the Democratic Party, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi no less than Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama.

I don’t mean such clunky ideas from “Das Kapital” as the dictatorship of the proletariat, the labor theory of value, or the withering away of the state. No, we’re talking about the substratum of assumptions about how the world works, underlying those discredited notions from bygone days.

The poisoned root of all of it is something called “dialectical materialism,” a concept Marx borrowed from Hegel that describes how material needs create social conflict. The two men saw the material world as distinct and independent from the spirit and mind, and maintained that attempting to combine the material and immaterial bred inconsistencies. For our purposes here, suffice it to say the “materialism” part disallows all things spiritual, and the “dialectical” part disallows all things fixed or permanent or unchanging.

So we’re left with nothing but atoms in endless flux, physical forces violently colliding in a grim world where might makes right and brutal will reigns supreme. If that sounds like the radical autonomous zone in Seattle, it’s no coincidence.

Cultural Marxism is increasingly defining the worldview within which all debates and decision-making take place, even for most of those who rightly fear and despise Marx. This philosophy is on an accelerating trajectory to deconstructing the American way of life from top to bottom, leaving no sphere of our daily lives untouched.

Beware the Marxist Cycle

Its deconstruction agenda takes three main forms: Marxism dehumanizes all persons, demoralizes all relationships, and decivilizes all institutions.

Dehumanizing all persons. No one is anything more than his or her DNA and appearance, plus whatever animal instincts he happens to feel at a given time. From this comes identity politics, racial and sexual polarization, group victimhood, and group guilt. This logically results in demoralizing relationships.

Demoralizing all relationships. Since individuals are mere meat in motion, and existence is mere randomness, morality as all the world religions have known it is gone. No two people can interact on the basis of objective right and wrong.

What’s right or good is instead the mere product of quantitative mass (how many persons want it) times qualitative intensity (how much emotion they express). Dignity, property, marital and family ties, marketplace exchanges, contracts and promises, tradition and heritage, vulnerability, duty, love, and life itself — all go to zero.

Decivilizing all institutions. People and relationships having thus been zeroed out. Institutions of whatever sort, including communities or nations, obviously cannot stand either. An institution is but an agreement or understanding entered into by people, meant to outlive them and endure through time, all of which is viewed as absurd and dissolves under the acid of dialectical materialism. All bets are off.

Civis, Latin for city, which gives rise to our ideas of civilization and civility, civics and the citizen, goes on the ash heap of history. Language, the institution enabling people in communities to communicate — even to seek and express truth — gets trashed as well. Truth is whatever one wants it to be. Plain speaking must bow to political correctness, itself a purely Marxist term.

Marxism Says Some Lives Matter More Than Others

It bears repeating that life is devalued to zero under this nightmare of deconstruction America is now experiencing. One can draw a connection to George Orwell’s anti-Marxist masterpiece “Animal Farm.” All animals are equal, says Napoleon the pig reassuringly. It’s just that some animals are more equal than others.

In the same way, we’re now being told some lives matter more than others by the leaders of a mass movement decivilizing our cities and seeking to incite a race war. It shouldn’t surprise us that one of those leaders has bluntly and proudly said on camera, “We’re trained Marxists.” Hearing that, do we shrug and make excuses for her since, after all, a lot of pain can accompany being black in this country?

Or are we shocked at the cynicism that would so disserve the very people her movement claims to champion? Are we surprised at the gullibility of so many of our fellow citizens of all colors who would trust a Marxist to do anything but defame and damage the United States of America at every opportunity?

If we’re not shocked, angered, and determined to turn back this and every attempt at deconstructing our country by the disciples and dupes of Marx, a hater of humanity and agent of evil, we are unworthy of our forebears’ sacrifices and our descendants’ hopes.

If we’re inclined to glide past the Marxist fingerprints all over America’s current turmoil, chalking it up to “wokeness” or “cancel culture” or “the left” or some other vague fad we assume will flare up for a while and then burn out, we’re not paying attention.

It was specifically Marx’s ideas, according to the “Black Book of Communism,” that took 100 million lives worldwide in the last century. How many more will they take in this one? That’s up to you and me. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Why Is The Media Lying?

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway and Federalist Co-Founder Sean Davis discuss topics concerning American culture, specifically analyzing the mainstream media’s involvement in the recent defacement of historical monuments and handling of President Trump’s Fourth of July speech at Mount Rushmore.

“I feel like we’ve been conditioned to a whole bunch of media lies, whether it was the Russia hoax, or pretty much anything, the coronavirus, the protests, and the riots. They’ve lied about anything,” Davis said. “And now when they do it and they take it to the level they did after that speech. I’m not sure they even watched it. It was such a coordinated response across the left.”

Davis said the mainstream media has proven they will take anything that is good news for the country, because it is also a positive reflection on the president, and distort or ignore the story.

The statue destruction, Hemingway said, which began as a movement led by rioters about removing Confederate statues, was quickly compounded by the mainstream media’s defense of toppling prominent American figures such as the Founding Fathers.

Listen Here:
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Shootings And Killings Surge In Democrat-Run Cities Across the Country

Jonah Gottschalk reporting for The Federalist

Last week, The Federalist reported on early signs of a coming violent crime wave in Atlanta, Georgia. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” a resident stated following a murder near his home. It’s becoming clear now how predictive his statement was.

On Monday evening, Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in Atlanta. A thousand National Guardsmen were deployed to quell surging violent crime across the state’s capital. The events followed the death of an eight-year-old girl in just one of 75 separate shootings across the city over the last few weeks.

“You can’t blame this on a police officer; you can’t say this is about criminal justice reform,” the city’s Democrat mayor said Sunday night. “This is about some people carrying some weapons who shot up a car with an 8-year-old baby. We are doing each other more harm than any police officer on this force.”

She, like many other Democratic city leaders across the country, had in the past weeks criticized the city’s law enforcement and stated her support for “reallocating” police spending.

Happening Across the Country

Since June, shootings and murders have surged across many of the country’s major cities. Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Nashville, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans have all seen murders jump over 20 percent this year. The violence is heavily concentrated in the last few months, ever since protests have led to nationwide pressure on politicians to “defund” and “reimagine” policing.

Just as concerning is that these stats do not include data from the end of June and July. Data from New York and Chicago, recent data from which we do have, tells that the last few weeks have seen by far the worst of the violence. Murders and shootings in the Windy City are up about 80 percent, and New York has averaged at a 209 percent over these last weeks compared to the same times last year. It’s likely these disturbing numbers for the cities above only captures a fragment of the lives lost during unrest in which many protesters chant “Black Lives Matter.”

It’s also worth noting that Atlanta appeared to lack this crime spike just a few weeks ago, according to the statistics released above. If it serves as a bellwether, then the cities that already had a surge at the time of recording are in deep water. The scale will likely become apparent over the next few weeks.

Every one of the cities above has both a Democrat mayor and Democrat-controlled city council.

Hard Questions for Democrats

The surge in violence has drawn attention from Republican leaders. “Violence and death, which are disproportionately harming young African Americans, are tragic and unacceptable, particularly on such a shocking scale,” the White House recently stated in a letter addressed to Chicago leadership. “You continue to put your own political interests ahead of the lives, safety, and fortunes of your own citizens.  The people of Chicago deserve better.”

Republican-led cities, such as Jacksonville and San Diego, have not had equivalent surges, according to the data above. As awareness spreads of the scale of the problem, it’s unlikely these criticisms will disappear. In a critical election year, this could pose a problem for Democrats making a case for left-wing policing and other policies.

The surge also raises questions about the role of existing reforms in causing the violence. Of the eight cities with the worst surges listed above, Minneapolis‘s leadership has pledged to abolish the city’s police department, while Philadelphia and New York have already cut money from law enforcement under pressure from activists. All have voiced criticism of police departments. While police chiefs in both Chicago and New York have begged city leaders to grant them greater latitude to deal with the surge, city leaders have instead taken the politically expedient route of keeping policing limited.

Combined with a public willing to attack officers making arrests, it’ll surprise few to learn that record numbers of police are abandoning their line of work, straining cut resources even further. Having more officers on the street is widely recognized to reduce crime of all stripes, and the inverse is true as well. With blue cities’ law enforcement spread thin, restrained, and lambasted by soundbite attacks, it will be difficult for politicians to dispute the link between their policies and results on the streets.

No major Democrat politician has yet come forward to address the connection.

Ron Johnson Backs Away From Proposal To Eliminate Columbus Day, Says Intent Has Been Mischaracterized

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson pulled back from his proposal with fellow Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford last week to yank Columbus Day from the federal holiday calendar in exchange for Juneteenth following conservative outcry over the cancelation of the world famous explorer.

“I didn’t want to end the celebration of Columbus Day,” Johnson told The Federalist Tuesday. “My entire intent was simply not give federal workers an 11th day off.”

Johnson said the proposal, which came in the form of an amendment to an existing piece of bipartisan legislation last month to solidify Juneteenth as an 11th federal holiday reeling towards the president’s desk with 47 cosponsors, was merely a product of haste introduced to prompt discussion on whether to give federal workers an 11th day off at the expense of the taxpayer.

“Sponsors didn’t even know the score of their own bill,” Johnson complained as senators prepared to rush passage of a new federal holiday. Outside budget group Open The Books estimates the holiday would cost taxpayers upwards of an additional $524 million. “I thought I was being fiscally conservative.”

Johnson said he asked his team to come up with something quick to slow the passage of the legislation without forcing the senator to go on the Senate floor and speak out against celebrating the emancipation of slaves.

“We really only had hours to decide this,” Johnson said, emphasizing his choice to swap out Columbus Day as opposed to any other federal holiday since “Columbus Day is the federal holiday where most of America works.”

Johnson and Lankford’s push to dismantle Columbus Day as left-wing mobs tear down statues of the legendary trailblazer however, put the two senators in the same camp as the anarchists purging the nation’s history in pursuit of a new world order, a characterization that Johnson adamantly rejected.

“I tried to make that pretty clear,” Johnson said, whose staff released statements claiming the senators’ amendment tarnishing Columbus’ legacy with the abolition of the federal holiday was introduced for the sole purpose of saving the American taxpayer.

“Obviously, it wasn’t taken that way.”

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson slammed the pair of Republican senators for bowing to the anarchal mob in their proposal to nullify Columbus Day as statues of the explorer fall.

“It’s easier to give them what they want, so that’s what they’re doing,” Carlson said.

The segment offended Johnson, who described himself as a “devoted follower” of the prime time host and was “disappointed that he didn’t talk to me first before he went on air and did what he did.”

Following criticism, Johnson and Lankford pulled back from their proposal to terminate Columbus Day with the replacement of Juneteenth. Jonhson instead is now pushing legislation that seeks to reduce the number of paid-leave days for federal workers.

“Although the substitute amendment I offered to the Juneteenth holiday bill had the desired effect of slowing down the passage of a new paid day off for federal workers, many were not happy with the proposal to swap a holiday celebrating emancipation with Columbus Day,” Johnson said in a statement introducing the new modified proposal. “I suggested Columbus Day for the swap because few Americans in the private sector get it as a paid holiday, and as a result, it is lightly celebrated, and would not be disruptive to most Americans’ schedules. I was in no way deprecating Christopher Columbus’ achievements.”

Johnson told The Federalist he stands opposed to mobs attempting to cancel Columbus, and added he hoped in his initial proposal the holiday would remain on Americans’ own calendars without offering federal employees the day off.

Here's a column from last year that illustrates RJ’s decepticon sketchiness

See also: Neoconservatism

Why Conservatism is the Natural Home for Working-Class Americans

 
 Rightly understood, it is of, by and for the people.

Article by Patrick J. Deneen in "The American Conservative":

By the telling of the intellectual classes, conservatism is the ideology of the elite, aligned with those who seek to preserve the wealth, status, and power of the upper classes against the egalitarian longings of the people. 

Conservatism, it is alleged, was born in reaction against the efforts of ordinary people to gain some degree of political influence, economic justice, and social dignity against the brutal and inhumane oppression of the aristocratic classes. By the telling of one of these chroniclers of this nefarious ideology—Corey Robin, in his book The Reactionary Mind—“conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, and agency the prerogative of the elite.” Per Robin, conservatism is the default ideology of those who seek to conserve the status and privileges of the elite. No other feature or quality that might pertain to conservatism—preference for the past, caution, prudence—is pertinent except inasmuch as those, or their opposites, preserve elite status.

If Robin’s definition is correct, then today’s “conservatives” are that ruling class we typically call “progressive.” 

It is instructive to consider what group in today’s America is driven “by animus against the agency of the subordinate classes.” Those most invested in maintaining the current form of class division—notably through control of elite colleges and universities which relentlessly sift and distill today’s economic winners from losers, along with support from almost all the main cultural institutions such as media, foundations, NGOs, government bureaucracy, public service unions, and corporate board rooms—are wholly controlled by “progressive” elites, people who have little hesitation condemning the backwardness and deplorableness of the lower classes. For a generation, it is progressives who have relentlessly turned to unelected judges and bureaucrats—often with the assistance of corporations—to overturn duly-enacted democratic legislation. Today’s liberal elites studiously avoid considerations of class, having replaced their historic claims to defend the underclass with obsessions over identity politics that, properly implemented through “diversity” initiatives at every university and workplace, are thinly veiled efforts to keep in place the educational and “meritocratic” structures that maintain the privilege of those same elites. By Robin’s definition, today’s so-called “progressives” are “conservatives”—if that word simply means, per Robin’s narrow definition, those who attempt to maintain their status and position especially by shoring up class structures to the advantage of liberal elites.

What both older and recent history actually discloses is that conservatism as a political stance is and ought to be truly informed by and aligned with the concerns and commitments of the lower and working classes. Conservatism is the natural disposition and political home of the working classes, invested in stability, protections for families, and supportive of the formative institutions of civil society, especially religious institutions. Conservatism supports these goods by its natural disposition toward preserving the inheritances of the past, mining tradition for wisdom rather than wishing for unproven promises yet in the future, and by being attuned to the likelihood of baleful unintended consequences. It seeks to preserve the past into the present, valuing continuity over disruption, steady and unfolding development of longstanding tendencies over radical breaks, temporal continuity and stability over revolution. Conservatism seeks to conserve, to arrest decay and forestall unbridled innovation that always most heavily burdens the lower classes. 

♦♦♦

Historically, there have been two groups mainly dedicated to this substantively conservative worldview: the old aristocracy (the ancien regime described by Tocqueville) and ordinary people. What is a historical accident of a hostility between those classes is mistaken by Robin as its essence. The best and most natural arrangement for political conservatism is a coalition between a properly constituted elite aligned with the needs of ordinary people against the disruptions of, and hostility toward, the commitments of family, home, and place that have always animated the party of “Progress.”

The Left came into being by claiming the political support of the people against the old aristocracy, but conservatism came into being almost simultaneously, recognizing that this revolutionary class was actually more hostile to the basic commitments and inclinations of the working class. The Left rose to power by loudly opposing the existing aristocracy while actually undermining the conditions supportive of the working class, all the while installing their own leadership as the new elite that shrouded its status by trumpeting its commitments to equality (the basic script of the Soviet Union has been endlessly repeated, and is on full display in today’s America). Conservatism’s first and most fundamental source and allegiance derives from ordinary people as the natural constituency and beneficiaries of policies that shore up stability, attack concentration of both political and economic power, and support families, communities, and churches.

Today’s most vibrant and intellectually exciting critiques of capitalism, monopolies, globalism, cosmopolitanism, the financialization of the economy, and structural class inequality are not found on the Left (given their effectual commitment to all of the above), but among a new generation of conservatives who not only reject progressivism, but have split with individualistic libertarians and war-mongering “neo-conservatives.” Revealingly, those former “conservative” coalition partners have now found a political home with the progressives.  

The allegiance of the working classes is increasingly aligned with conservative parties around the world, fully recognizing the deep hostility of both “progressives” and “neoliberal conservatives” to their way of life. The abandonment of working classes from progressive parties is the deepest underlying source of their panic over populism—the mask has been lifted. The loss of residual working class support reveals the emperor has been wearing the finest clothes, bought with assets strip-mined from ordinary people. Conservatism wandered in the wilderness in its alignment with classical liberalism, but as that ideology has been discredited and its influence over conservative parties has diminished, there is—arguably for the first time—a genuine possibility of a conservative moment in America. Conservatism rightly seeks to protect the main aims of a well-lived life for ordinary people—family, home, honest work, production over consumption, decent places, stability, and a nation that protects these goods.

Today, conservatism increasingly enjoys the support of the working classes. The next thing most needful is to replace the current corrupt elite of faux egalitarians with a genuinely conservative leadership who will actively protect, support, and promote the goods of life that should and can be widely enjoyed, regardless of one’s wealth, social status, or ranking of one’s alma mater.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/of-by-and-for-the-people/ 

Why Did The DOJ Declassify and Release the FISA Application on July 21, 2018?

On July 21, 2018, amid the apex of all things Trump-Russia being carefully narrated by the special counsel team, why did the DOJ release the Top Secret Classified Intelligence document known as the Carter Page FISA application?

At the time it happened everyone was so consumed with the content of the release, almost no-one stopped to ask that question.  Except, well, me.

Put yourself back into that 2018 time-frame: the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was being pushed hard; the Nunes memo -vs- the Schiff memo was being argued and the media was writing furiously about leaks from anonymous sources “with knowledge of the investigation” etc.  Congress was being blocked from all their document requests and their bucket lists for declassification.  Rod Rosenstein was refusing to testify to the House Intel Committee led by Devin Nunes.  The DOJ was blocking documents related to surveillance of President Trump.  The media was saying there was no surveillance of Trump.  Congress was desperate to break the stonewalling and asked President Trump to declassify a list of documents they provided.  Rod Rosenstein threatened Trump that if he declassified documents it would be adding to a potential obstruction investigation and claim. Etc. Etc.

Hell, despite his recusal from these matters, AG Sessions was getting major heat over the blockage from DOJ… the battle was intense.  Sessions announced an Illinois USAO John Laush to try and mediate the issues.  Laush was a major fail.

Then, amid all of that stonewalling, blocking, redacting of documents, failure to unredact, and refusal to declassify…. suddenly, all of a sudden, presto, here’s the most top secret classified document release ever.

To fulfill a FOIA request by Judicial Watch and the New York Times.

A FOIA request?

Seriously?

Considering all of the documents that would have been the easiest NOT to release because it is a top secret classified intelligence product; and considering the denial of that FOIA request would have easily withstood all judicial challenge because of the nature of its content; all of a sudden… hey, here you go. Here it is.

It just never made sense.

I have finally found the answer to that question; and while I must hold back on some details, we are at a point where you too should know.

First, an admission that I was wrong.

I always thought Robert Mueller was a false front, a semi-cogent face for a team of 17 lawyers that moved-in to take over Main Justice.  I was not wrong about Mueller, he was exactly that: a hand selected name to give credibility to a team assembly, and a man who would acquiesce to the smart, familiar and legal minds that were really running the resistance operation.

Where I was wrong, was thinking Rosenstein was a countermeasure to those who took control over Main Justice.

He was not.

Rod Rosenstein was doing exactly the same as Mueller, acquiescing to every request, instruction and demand by the seventeen legal squatters who took over Main Justice.

As Rod Rosenstein recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he never once questioned the special counsel about any request, demand or instruction; and he never once challenged their motives for the requests they made.

As Deputy AG, and with AG Sessions recused, Rod Rosenstein should have been on top of the special counsel; but he wasn’t.  He intentionally wasn’t.

The entire time the special counsel was operating, seventeen assembled members of the Trump resistance, were running the show inside the U.S. Department of Justice.  They controlled everything.

AG Jeff Sessions was fire-walled; he saw nothing, and he had no input into anything.  That was the first step in the resistance operation.

The second step was to instruct Rosenstein that every request made by the team was part of their investigation; regardless of how it might seem disconnected, it was all part of their investigative process.  That’s how they steamrolled Rosenstein into sitting in a corner and waiting for documents to sign; authorities to grant (scope memos etc.); indictments to approve; and requests to be fulfilled.

Seventeen members of the special counsel were running Main Justice.  Seventeen members of the resistance, with input guidance and assistance from Lawfare, were running Main Justice.  That’s the paradigm shift needed to baseline everything.

When the FISA application was released in July 2018, it was released by the special counsel team.  Technically Rosenstein released it; however, unofficially it was released by the demand of the resistance operators under the auspices that it was part of their investigative technique; part of the ongoing operation.

Except that wasn’t the real motive.

The real motive for releasing the FISA application, under the auspices of granting a FOIA request, was because the resistance already knew the New York Times had obtained it illegally.

In fact The New York Times had the FISA application since March 17, 2017, when SSCI Security Director James Wolfe, operating under instructions from SSCI resistance coordinator, Mark Warner, took pictures of each page of the FISA application and sent them to journalist Ali Watkins at Buzzfeed.

Ms. Watkins then shared the FISA with fellow resistance allies at the Washington Post and New York Times.   To cover her tracks Ms. Watkins did not immediately write about the FISA application, and I suspect the editors at Buzzfeed may not have known.

In exchange for her pre-planned role, The New York Times then hired Watkins; and, under the legal tutelage of the NYT, Watkins based her reporting on the Trump-Russia narrative from there.

However, in March 2017 what Watkins, Wolfe, media and Mark Warner did not immediately know, was that the FBI was conducting a leak investigation; a genuine leak investigation, and the SSCI was suspected.

The FISA application picked up by James Wolfe and delivered to the SSCI contained a leak tracer, a trap.  When the tracer showed up in media reports, the FBI knew where it leaked from – the SSCI.

[Note the FBI interception dates – The Wolfe leak was March 17, 2017]

Unfortunately, what the FBI did not know – was that SSCI Vice Chairman Mark Warner was the inside resistance operative giving Wolfe the instructions on how to proceed.

In May 2017, the FBI informed Vice-Chair Warner and Chairman Richard Burr that someone in the SSCI leaked the FISA application.   In essence FBI investigators just told the culprit they were investigating a leak he created.  Think about the ramifications.

As part of the overall investigation to locate the specific leaker, all of the SSCI was subject to review and quiet investigation.  As the FBI worked through a process of elimination, that’s when the FBI discovered the Mark Warner text messages to Adam Waldman, the lawyer for Chris Steele.   Not coincidentally the Warner text messages end in May 2017; exactly when he was first notified by the FBI about the specifics of the leak hunt.

What also started in May 2017?…..  The special counsel.

One important aspect to the coordinated demand and incessant drumbeat by the media for a special counsel, was a need to control the outcome of the FBI leak investigation.

Total control.  This was all connected.

The resistance took over Main Justice with the appointment of the special counsel; and one of their priorities was to stop anyone from: (a) finding out the FISA application had leaked; (b) block anyone from finding out how it was leaked; (c) block any independent FBI activity surrounding the leak.

Remember, in this period of 2017 the media side of the resistance operation were denying Trump was under any surveillance.  They were denying anyone in/around the Trump campaign was under surveillance.  However, they were also reporting on the investigation of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative from the investigative perspective, while using and exploiting the information they had in the March 17th leak of the FISA.

March 17th was less than two months after President Trump was inaugurated.   The FISA was leaked even before it was renewed in April (Boente/Comey), and renewed again by the instructions of the special counsel team on June 29th.

When the New York Times sent a FOIA for the FISA application, they did so as a necessary legal cover because they already illegally possessed it.  [Keep in mind, the copy they had was not redacted at all.]

When the Trump-Russia narrative was at it’s apex in July 2018; and with a need to deploy all weapons against the upcoming mid-term election; and when the resistance group  needed to provide legal cover for the New York Times; the FISA application was released by the resistance unit running Main Justice.

It was released as cover for the New York Times (and others) who were already reporting on it; and it allowed the NYT, and others, to fully weaponize the fictitious aspect of the narrative about the FBI genuinely being concerned about Trump colluding with Russia.

The July 2018 release itself was not a clean copy of the FISA application; but rather the DOJ team re-released the March 17, 2017, release and then added the final two renewals to the total release.  In 2018 the DOJ resistance group had to re-release the portion of the FISA application that was previously leaked in March 2017 (or else any reporting containing the leak tracer would not be covered/justified).

So who do you think released the Mark Warner text messages for the same purpose?

BINGO.  Yup, the same resistance group.   It was all an effort to cloud, cover and control.

Key takeaway.  The seventeen members of the special counsel were intentionally brought into Main Justice to organize the resistance.   The DOJ was running the resistance operation.  AG Jeff Sessions was fire-walled and clueless; and DAG Rosenstein was just approving anything put in front of him because it was sold as part of the investigative process.

Regardless of the FBI investigation, the DOJ resistance operation held ultimate control.

Some in the FBI were not happy… not happy at all…. but not in a position to do anything about Main Justice patting them on the head and telling them to run along now.

Oh, there’s so much more…. this is just an appetizer.

The SSCI

The Gang of Eight

The DOJ

The ICIG

Why did Warner/Burr, the SSCI and the DOJ resistance need ICIG Michael Atkinson?

…..Control, in the event a whistle-blower tried poking his head up.

sundance at cth