Being a skeptic, I’ve generally encouraged people not to rely upon Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) doing the right thing for us to be able to save the Republic from the Democrats’ overheated drive for power.
But I have to say that his words now appear to put a spike through those ambitions, at least in regards to their radical voting reform bill.
According to ABC, the Senate had an hours-long discussion about SB1, the Senate’s version of the Democrats’ HR1. It was so contentious, it deadlocked in the Rules Committee, indicating that it likely wouldn’t even be approved out of the Committee. It would need 60 votes to pass in a general Senate vote.
But Manchin indicated that it was effectively dead anyway because he would not support it.
“No matter what was brought up it was a partisan vote, 9-9,” Manchin said. “This is one of the most — I think — important things that we can do to try to bring our country back together and if we do it in a partisan way, it’s not going to be successful I believe.”
Manchin said he was talking with Republicans about the much narrower John Lewis Voting Rights Act that he, Manchin, supports that’s not as far-reaching or the power grab that SB1/HR 1 was to basically federalize elections. According to ABC, “the bill implements a federal process for reviewing changes to voting rules in any jurisdiction nationwide, with an eye toward measures that are historically discriminatory.”
But in any event, if there aren’t Republicans in agreement on that, Manchin said he wouldn’t be agreeing to that either, that he would not be approving any bill unless it was bipartisan. He said he wouldn’t support using reconciliation to bypass the 60 vote requirement and that he was still against blowing up the filibuster for it as well. “If you do it for one time you basically destroy the Senate as we know it,” Manchin said, and he’s refusing to do that, earning a lot of Democratic ire in the process. He’s also said that Democrats should remove the non-infrastructure items from the infrastructure bill.
While there can certainly be issues with state control of elections, HR 1 would have taken every slimy thing that Democrats try to employ now, like ballot harvesting, and given it the force of law federally. The bill would have banned requiring voter ID for elections. Republicans need to stand against any such attempt to federalize elections because it makes it too easy for a party in power to use it to remain in power.
So, good on Joe Manchin for standing up for the Constitution and proper process, standing in the breach against his own party.
US
Republicans have appointed New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a
Trump loyalist, to the third-ranking post in the House of
Representatives.
It
follows an earlier vote to oust the incumbent chairwoman, Liz Cheney,
from the role over her criticism of former President Donald Trump.
The final tally of Friday's secret ballot was 134 for Ms Stefanik to 46 for her opponent, Congressman Chip Roy.
Ms Stefanik's win was expected, as she had the backing of top Republicans.
The move is seen as a sign Mr Trump's grip on the party is as strong as ever six months after he lost the election.
"Thank
you to my colleagues for electing me to serve as House Republican
Conference Chair," Ms Stefanik wrote on Twitter after the vote.
"I
am excited to lead our unified team... to combat Biden and Pelosi's
Far-Left agenda!" she added, referring to President Joe Biden and
Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
In
remarks to reporters, she called Ms Cheney "a part of this Republican
conference", adding that "we are united in working with President
Trump". She called the former president a "critical part of our
Republican team".
Mr
Trump also issued a statement congratulating Ms Stefanik on her
"overwhelming victory" and saying the "Make America Great Again movement
is strong".
In any given year during the past decade in the United States, more than 2.5 million Americans have died—from all causes. The number has grown in recent years, climbing from 2.59 million in 2013 to 2.85 million in 2019. This has been due partially to the US’s aging population, and also due to rising obesity levels and drug overdoses. In fact, since 2010, growth rates in total deaths has exceeded population growth in every year.
In 2020, preliminary numbers suggest a jump of more than 17 percent in all-cause total deaths, rising from 2.85 million in 2019 to 3.35 million in 2020.
The increase was not all due to covid. At least one-quarter to one-thirdappear to be from other causes. In some cases, more than half of “excess deaths” were attributed to “underlying causes” other than covid. But whether due to untreated medical conditions (thanks to covid lockdowns), or drug overdoses, or homicides, total death increased in 2020. In other words, total excess mortality is a partial proxy for covid deaths. Whatever proportion of total deaths covid cases may comprise, it stands to reason that if total deaths decline, then covid deaths are declining also. Moreover, looking at total deaths helps cut through any controversies over whether or not deaths are properly attributed to covid.
What has been the trend with these “excess deaths” in recent months?
Well, according to data through mid-March reported by Our World in Data and by the Human Mortality Database, excess mortality began to plummet in early January and is now back to levels below the 2015-2019 average:
Excess mortality peaked the week of January 3 and then it began to collapse, dropping back to summer 2020 levels by mid February. By March 14, excess mortality was at 1 percent above the 2015-2019 average. All this occurred even as very few Americans were vaccinated. When excess deaths began to drop, less than one percent of Americans had been fully vaccinated. At the end of January, less than two percent of Americans had been fully vaccinated. By the end of March, when excess mortality returned to 2019 levels, 15 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated.
As of May 11, only one-third of Americans had been fully vaccinated, although "experts" insist 60 to 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated before we can expect to see a drop-off in deaths like that which occurred earlier this year.
Yet, as of the week of March 22—excess mortality was below both the 2015-2019 average and below the total for the last year before the official beginning of the covid pandemic (2019).
It's likely these facts won’t stop “public health” bureaucrats from continuing to insist that another “wave” of covid deaths and cases is right around the corner. These activists have many strategies for pushing vaccine passports, mask mandates, and even continual precautionary business closures. They’ll tell us that new covid variants are sweeping the globe. This is what they were saying in January, for instance, when Vox was telling us it was too dangerous to even visit the grocery store. At least one expert in late January warned us that the coming weeks would be “the darkest weeks of the pandemic.”
It’s now clear such predictions were spectacularly wrong. By late January, totals deaths were already in precipitous decline.
But what about the lag in data? We're only looking at data up to mid-March because it tends to take several weeks for estimates of total deaths to become reasonably reliable. Yes, that data shows a big drop off. But what about the numbers for April and May? Should we expect those death totals to surge again with a promised “fourth wave” of new covid death?
If we consider the more recent case and death totals attributed to covid, we see few signs of a new surge.
Although Anthony Fauci and other government employed technocrats have been unable to provide any explanation at all for it, the fact remains that months after Texas and Florida and Georgia have either abolished or greatly scaled back all social-distancing and mask mandates, cases and deaths are generally declining, and total deaths per million (attributed to covid) remain below what we've seen in states with severe lockdowns.
Notably, it’s only in recent weeks that “CDC guidelines” are beginning to admit the reality. It wasn’t until April 26 that the CDC declared that fully vaccinated Americans are allowed to venture outside without masks on. The CDC states these “recommendations” unironically as if it weren’t the case that most Americans—outside of true-believer hotspots like San Francisco and Chicago—stopped wearing masks outside a long time ago. The hermetically sealed world of government employees and corporate journalists appears unaware that at least half the country pretty much went back to normal last fall.
So now what?
The technocrats know that they need to keep pressing hard for more de factovaccine mandates—pushed mostly by corporate America for low-risk younger populations. Most Americans can already see that covid numbers are already in decline in spite of months of Americans flouting mask mandates and social distancing guidelines. People can see that children—an increasing number of whom are returning to schools—aren't a significant factor in the spread of disease. So it will be important for the regime to push vaccines for children more aggressively before people stop listening to the "experts" completely.
Don't expect the regime to admit it has been wrong about anything. If anything, it will double down on the usual narrative. It's worked pretty well so far.
Human nature stays the same across time and space. That is why there used to be predictable political, economic, and social behavior that all countries understood.
The supply of money governs inflation. Print it without either greater productivity or more goods and services, and the currency cheapens. Yet America apparently rejects that primordial truism.
The United States has borrowed about $29 trillion in debt—about 130 percent of its annual gross domestic product. The government will run up a $2.3 trillion annual budget deficit in 2021—after a $3.1 trillion deficit the year before.
The Biden Administration still wants to borrow more—another $2 trillion in new social programs and “infrastructure.”
In the crazy last 100 days, the price of everything from lumber, food, and gas to cars and houses has soared. Yet many interest rates are still stuck at or below three percent.
Jobs are plentiful; workers are not. Is that a surprise when government cash handouts discourage the unemployed from taking a pay cut to go back to work?
After being freed from 13 months of quarantine, Americans are splurging. But meeting their huge pent-up demand is causing shortages.
Producers fear the Biden Administration’s loose talk of impending higher income, capital gains, estate, and user taxes, along with more regulations and cutbacks in energy development.
Are the old laws really obsolete, warning not to print money, while expanding government debt, keeping interest rates almost at zero, and discouraging employment, production, and thrift? That dangerous formula used to ensure inflation, followed by ruinous stagflation.
After the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, many big cities slashed their police budgets. Mayors damned or defunded their departments. In terror of being fired or ruined for any use of force, patrol officers slowed down response times to inner-city violence,
The result?
In almost every major city—Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, Washington—violent crimes and homicides have grown by double digits over the previous year.
State and local governments believed that they were exempt from primeval laws of deterrence that warned when criminals assumed they would not be caught and punished, then they committed more crimes.
The same dangers of ignoring unchanging human nature apply to foreign policy.
Aggressive opponents such as Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, and the West Bank expect that the new Biden Administration will ignore their brinkmanship. They assume it will cut American defenses. And Biden certainly sounds to them more critical of the prior Trump foreign policy than of America’s enemies. So why not take previously unwarranted risks?
So Russian troops predictably mass on the Ukrainian border. Chinese steps up its harassment of Taiwan. North Korea launches more missiles, Iran hazes U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf. And rockets from Gaza pour into Israel.
Apparently, the Biden Administration did not believe that dictatorships and theocracies would interpret its virtue-signaling as weakness to be exploited rather than as magnanimity to be returned in kind.
The old dictum of the Roman writer Vegetius —“He who wants peace, let him prepare for war”—was just too much of a downer to take seriously.
In the old days, the greater the impediments to crossing a nation’s border—walls and the enforcement of iron-clad laws—the less likely was illegal immigration. Here too the Biden Administration apparently rejected the ancient warnings.
Stopping construction of the border wall, promising amnesties in advance, announcing that illegal entrants would be caught and released, and damning the tough enforcement of its predecessors have only led to more illegal immigration.
Refusing to call the chaos at the southern border a “crisis” did not mean it was not a disaster.
Wisdom of the ages also warned that humans’ natural first allegiance was to their own tribe, as defined by race, ethnicity, or religion. That existential danger is why volatile multiracial states always wisely sought to tamp down tribal differences, and to emphasize instead common ties of citizenship and transcendent common interests.
Otherwise, a diverse country ended up like the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, or Rwanda where tribal feuding turned bloody and barbaric.
Yet for three months, the Biden Administration has hyped racial differences rather than our melting-pot commonalities. On spec, it has demagogued its various opponents as being “racists.”
It has encouraged ethnic and racial groups to lodge claims for purported ancient grievances. And it has stereotyped a 220-million white population—hardly uniform in terms of class and ethnicity—as somehow uniformly enjoying “unearned privileged” and acting “systemically racist.”
The result was predictable. Crime is soaring. Racial tensions are at an all-time high. Hate crimes of tribe against tribe spike. Racial demagogues predominate. Meritocracy vanishes. Tribal solidarity replaces it. And the ancient idea of America unwinds.
When an arrogant present dismisses the wisdom of the past, then an all too predictable future becomes terrifying.
WILSON, WY—Many thought former Vice President Dick Cheney would be upset about the treatment of his daughter Representative Liz Cheney and the fact that she was expelled from leadership for denouncing former President Donald Trump, but Dick Cheney has now invited Trump on a hunting trip where they can patch things up.
“Just you and me out alone in the woods with no Secret Service,” Cheney told Trump, “where hopefully we can see eye to eye... but you never can be quite sure what will happen.”
Trump eagerly accepted the invitation. “I hope there are no hard feelings between us,” Trump told Cheney while gearing up for the hunt, “even though your daughter is an idiot and a loser, and I hope she gets hit by a bus.”
Cheney smiled. “No, no hard feelings. Just be careful out there.” Cheney loaded his shotgun. “Accidents happen.”
“Not with me,” Trump said as he waved around a shotgun. “I have never done anything wrong in my entire life... except let that election get stolen from me. Which your moron, warmongering daughter didn’t care about. Your moron daughter who is also ugly. Though you seem okay.”
Cheney simply nodded and kept smiling mysteriously. “Well, let’s go deep into the woods -- far from prying eyes. We have some hunting to do.”
“Great,” Trump said. “I’ve never hunted before, but I’m probably the best at it. I’m going to kill all the birds. All the birds in Wyoming -- a state I never even heard of before today. Probably full of idiots. Idiots like your daughter.”
Cheney and Trump then went into the woods. Updates on their trip will be added when available.
UPDATE: Trump accidentally shot Cheney in the butt.
Article by Robert Maginnis in The American Thinker
Is Silence Falling in the Mineshaft?
Military
officers from two leading democracies have been viciously attacked for
warning their fellow countrymen about existential threats. The
officers’ critics claim these leaders ought to remain silent denying
fellow citizens of their judgment about the crises before it’s too late.
One hundred and twenty-four retired American generals and admirals published an open letter (May 12th) that begins “Our nation is in deep peril.” Retired U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen,
President Barack Obama’s former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
dismissed the letter alleging it “hurts the military and… the country”
and contains Republican Party “talking points.”
Retired U.S. Army Major General Joe Arbuckle
agreed that “Retired generals and admirals normally do not engage in
political actions.” But he rejects the critics, claiming “the situation
facing our nation today is dire and we must speak out in order to be
faithful to our oath to support and defend the Constitution of the U.S.
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Across the Atlantic a cohort of French officers warned in two open letters their country was heading for “disintegration” and “civil war.”
The first of two letters by 23 retired generals (April 21) earned a
rebuke from Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, who called the
officers’ appeal a “crude maneuver”
by the far right. The letters were endorsed by Marine Le Pen of
France’s National Rally, a conservative political party, and a candidate
for the presidency next year.
There
are at least two ways for citizens to view these rare expressions of
public concern from military officers. One is to dismiss them as
political hacks as did Mullen and Darmanin, and the other is to embrace
their warnings like the idiom of the canary in a coal mine. A singing
canary is a good indicator of the build-up of a deadly gas in the mine.
Once the bird is weakened by the gas, it stops singing and the miners
know to quickly exit the shaft.
Both officers’ warnings ring true for a growing majority of French and American citizens as evidenced by recent polling.
Six in ten Americans say the United States is on the wrong track and
similarly, 73 percent of Frenchmen agree their nation has lost its way.
The American officers warn “the will of the people”
and our constitutional republic are at risk because of election
integrity and the fact that the Democratic Party is “welcoming
socialists and Marxists” that threaten “our historic way of life.”
Those
officers indicate the Biden administration launched a “full-blown
assault on our constitutional rights” and employed excessive population
controls such as lockdowns and censorship. Other issues mentioned in
their letter include open borders, cooperating with our Chinese enemy,
re-engaging in the flawed Iran nuclear deal, using our military as a
political pawn around the U.S. Capitol building, and ignoring the rule
of law in some cities.
The
French officers claim their nation is heading for “civil war” at the
hands of Islamists and leftists. They demand President Emmanuel Macron
stop the “Islamization” of France.
A second letter (May 7th) endorsed by up to a couple thousand active French officers claimed France’s “survival is at stake”
if more isn’t done to stop the rot. “Some of us lost their comrades,”
wrote the Frenchmen. “They gave their lives to destroy the Islamism to
which you make concessions on our soil.”
That
letter called French politicians cowards for failing to address the
issues with the Muslim population. They continued, “We have seen our
suburbs abandoned, accommodation to crime. We have suffered attempts to
exploit us by numerous religious communities, for whom France signifies
nothing – nothing but an object of sarcasm, contempt, even hatred.”
The
active-duty officers denounced Macron as a traitor for collaborating
with Islam much like the Vichy French collaborated with the Nazi
occupation of France during World War II.
Both
the American and French officers raise legitimate concerns about their
governments, which reflect majority views across their respective
countries. However, the pregnant question raised by critics is: Should
military officers in a democratic state go public with their criticism?
Critics like Professor Peter Feaver
of Duke University acknowledge the officers have “relevant experience
that renders their opinions especially worthy.” However, Dr. Feaver
writes that these officers lack expertise in a number of issues such as
election procedures and “to pretend otherwise is to inch along the path
patrolled by coup-prone officers in unstable democracies.”
The
professor labels the officers’ letter a “primal scream by several
scores of older Republican men who are angry” with the electorate that
chose Joe Biden for president. Then Feaver concludes: “They are
entitled to believe untruths…”
The
professor stretches his analysis too far. Today’s officers are among
the best educated and most experienced in political affairs of any
cohort of Americans, which includes self-righteous college professors,
but he’s not alone.
The late Samuel Huntington,
an esteemed American political scientist and former Harvard professor,
endorsed the view that military officers ought to be silent about
political issues. Huntington wrote “Politics is beyond the scope of
military competence… The military officer must remain neutral
politically.”
What’s
not at issue is that active-duty military personnel are public servants
that provide society with a specific set of services. However, they
are also among the most experienced patriots (both active and retired)
and like most citizens can look across their political landscape and see
problems that don’t require special discernment, whether it be chaos
associated with the Islamization of France or the assault on American
civil liberties by the Biden administration.
These
officers -- American and French -- are simply calling attention to
clear failings of elected officials – Macron and Biden – who appear to
abrogate their constitutional duties and reject democratic values to
protect their citizens. Uniquely, these citizen soldiers with decades
of leadership under the most difficult of circumstances across the world
understand better than most the cost of freedom and how this corrupted
world works, and most of all they understand threats when they see them
within their own countries.
Their
voice warrants outsized attention and not the unwarranted criticism of
those who lack experience and are subject to their own political bias.
We
should listen to such warnings on both sides of the Atlantic because
they are indeed like the canary in the democratic coal mine and should
be heeded by citizens concerned about the direction of our respective
countries.
Never
forget – canaries stop singing when danger arises, but when senior
military leaders -- active and retired -- start singing, they are
warning of danger.
The script about that day might have been concocted by Democrats and the media but the true account of what happened before, during, and after is still being written.
U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) prompted outrage this week following his remarks during a congressional hearing on the events of January 6, 2021.
Clyde, along with several Republican House members, is finally pushing back on the Democrats’ allegedly unassailable narrative about what happened that day. The roughly four-hour disturbance at the Capitol, as I’ve covered for months, is being weaponized not only against Donald Trump but also hundreds of nonviolent Americans who traveled to their nation’s capital to protest the final certification of a fraudulent presidential election.
Big Tech used the so-called “attack” on the Capitol as an excuse to achieve its long-sought-after goal to deplatform the former president; NeverTrumpers such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) insist the chaos of the day was fueled by the “Big Lie”—in other words, the belief held by tens of millions of Republicans—and a good share of independents—that Joe Biden didn’t legitimately earn enough votes to win the White House. The Biden regime vows to use the “whole of government” to purge the country of “domestic violent extremists,” which is code for Trump supporters.
And the media continue to blatantly lie about the number of fatalities on January 6, including the myth that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died at the hands of Trump “insurrectionists.”
But some Republicans are fed up with all the myths, the Justice Department’s abusive manhunt for Capitol protesters, and the obvious double standards.
After citing the Russian collusion hoax and Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe as the “only insurrection” he’s ever witnessed, Clyde unloaded on former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller during their testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
“The House floor was never breached and it was not an insurrection,” Clyde said. “This is the truth. There was an undisciplined mob, there were some rioters and some who committed acts of vandalism. But let me be clear. There was no insurrection, and to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bald-faced lie.”
Some videos, Clyde accurately concluded, looked like scenes from a “normal tourist visit.”
His comments caused the predictable pearl-clutching. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who initiated the falsehood that January 6 was an “armed insurrection,” accused Clyde of being in “denial . . . and in the range of sick” for daring to call out the obvious discrepancies between cherry-picked video footage that showed scenes of violence and other recordings that showed far less dangerous activity.
“Nothing makes my blood boil more than Republicans whitewashing the Capitol Insurrection,” Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) raged on Twitter about his Republican colleague. “Three cops died. 140 injured, including one who lost an eye and another who lost three fingers. 38 caught COVID.” (Democrats and the media insist on counting not only Sicknick as one officer who died as a result of January 6 but two others who reportedly committed suicide in the days following the chaos.)
MSNBC mouthpiece and Capitol Hill “correspondent” Leigh Ann Caldwell confronted Clyde on Thursday morning in front of the cameras. “Do you regret saying that? Five, five people died including police officers,” Caldwell lied to the congressman’s face and to her ignorant audience.
The facts, of course, are of no use or interest to the news media, Democrats, or NeverTrumpers who hope January 6 is the fatal blow to the Trump-supporting Right—a monster, in their view, that will not die no matter how hard they try—which is why, as another Republican congressman noted during the committee hearing, such virulent spin is necessary.
“Outright propaganda and lies are being used to unleash the national security state against law-abiding U.S. citizens, especially Trump voters,” Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said in his opening remarks. “The FBI is fishing through homes of veterans and citizens with no criminal records and restricting the liberties of individuals who have never been accused of a crime. It was reported early, totally unconfirmed, that an armed insurrection beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher.”
Gosar asked Rosen whether the Justice Department confiscated any firearms from people who entered the building on January 6. (Rosen refused to answer but the answer is no.) Gosar also raised the killing of Ashli Babbitt, the veteran shot by an unidentified security guard. She was unarmed, Gosar noted, and “wrapped in an American flag.”
“Who executed Ashli Babbitt?” Gosar asked Rosen. Again, he refused to answer.
The Arizona Republican also called for the release of surveillance tapes recorded by the Capitol security system on January 6; the Justice Department and federal judges are concealing that footage from the public and even from defense attorneys. “The American public should see that footage,” Gosar said. “If my Democratic colleagues really want the truth, they would join me in demanding the release of this Capitol surveillance footage.”
Democrats, obviously, do not want the truth. Why bother with the truth when falsehoods and orchestrated optics, such as a rare memorial service in the Capitol rotunda for Brian Sicknick, yield the political results they desire, no questions asked? Pelosi, after repeated promises to form a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol breach, has been slow-walking the threat. The House Speaker now is working with Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), one of 10 GOP congressmen who voted to impeach Trump in February, to negotiate the commission’s membership and objectives.
Regardless of whether any performative 9/11-style inquisition comes to fruition, it’s encouraging—albeit past time—to see Republicans challenge the destructive and intentionally dishonest account of January 6. “The narrative needs to be cleaned up,” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said Wednesday. “The truth matters.”
Well, not to everyone. It doesn’t matter to Nancy Pelosi or to Liz Cheney or to MSNBC reporters or, quite frankly, to nearly every Democratic voter. It does, thankfully, still matter to tens of millions of Americans who believe their votes were disqualified by a rigged presidential election and who are now considered wannabe insurrectionists and domestic terrorists-in-waiting by the Left and their own government.
The script about that day might have been concocted by Democrats and the media but the true account of what happened before, during, and after is still being written. Republicans took a big step forward this week in fighting back.
Article by Robert J. Hutchinson in The American Thinker
Who's really in charge in America?
Nearly six months into the Biden-Harris administration, ordinary Americans are increasingly wondering who is really running the country.
Joe Biden is ostensibly the president, yet he continues to show signs of cognitive impairment — despite the controlled media insistence that all is well and there is nothing to see here.
A
politician for more than 40 years, Biden is still able to read prepared
remarks in front of a teleprompter but appears to have difficulty
answering impromptu questions — fumbling ordinary words, forgetting what
he's speaking about mid-sentence, sometimes even ceasing to speak
altogether.
After a number of high-profile gaffes, the White House press office recently conceded that Biden's handlers don't want him answering unscripted questions from the media.
Yet now the issue of presidential authority has taken a more ominous turn.
On May 11, a group of 124 retired U.S. military admirals and generals signed a letter questioning Biden's fitness for office and seemingly challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
"Recent
Democrat leadership's inquiries about nuclear code procedures sends a
dangerous national security signal to nuclear armed adversaries, raising
the question about who is in charge," the letter said. "We must always have an unquestionable chain of command."
The letter is referring to a recent call by House Democrats that Biden give up sole control
of U.S. nuclear weapons. In a letter written by Rep. Jimmy Panetta of
California, the Democrats demanded that Biden change the
command-and-control structure surrounding America's nuclear arsenal so
that he no longer has the sole authority to launch weapons.
The
retired admirals and generals also questioned the legitimacy of the
2020 election, a topic that the nation's corporate media have declared
off-limits from any public discussion.
The
"Constitutional Republic is lost" without "fair and honest elections
that accurately reflect the 'will of the people,'" the retired flag
officers wrote. "The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when
election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in
2020."
The corporate media have declared
any questioning of the 2020 election to be a "big lie," a phrase taken
from World War II. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler in his
autobiography Mein Kampf and is used to mean "a gross
distortion or misrepresentation of the facts, especially when used as a
propaganda device by a politician or official body."
Yet
Republican leaders have turned the phrase itself against the corporate
media, insisting that it is the corporate media, rather than ordinary
Americans, that are engaged in overt propaganda.
The
recent example they point to is the media narrative of the January 6
"insurrection" by an "armed mob" that "killed police." After months of
investigations, it now turns out that law enforcement did not find a single weapon on any of the protesters; video surveillance footage reveals that most were comically peaceful; and the sole policeman who died at the time was a victim of a stroke, not of any attack as the media repeatedly and falsely reported. As a result, federal prosecutors are now backtracking on their original claims because proving treason and "insurrection" is looking increasingly impossible.
As
for the public at large, polls show that many ordinary Americans
continue to question the results of the 2020 election — despite being ordered not to by the corporate media.
According to Rasmussen Reports,
"voters are not letting go of their belief that the 2020 presidential
election was a fraud-filled nightmare." By a margin of 51% to 44%,
voters said it is "likely" that cheating affected the outcome. That
included 74% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats.
The
corporate media and Democrat politicians claim that cheating rarely
happens and that there is no evidence of "widespread" voter fraud. Yet
due to the "winner take all" Electoral College voting system,
"widespread" cheating would not have been necessary.
As journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes claim in their new book, Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, Biden only won the election with a slim cumulative margin of about 50,000 votes in four key swing states.
In addition, a month after the election, Time Magazine published an article
that described how a "well-funded cabal" of corporate elites, far-left
activists, and media organizations launched what the magazine called a
"conspiracy to save the 2020 election" and ensure that Trump would lose
his re-election bid.
According to the article,
this powerful group of corporate and media elites succeeded by "working
together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and
laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information."
The
recent letter from 124 retired U.S. military admirals and generals
shows that doubts about a corporate takeover of American government
persist, despite the U.S. media's insistence that even questioning the
results of the election is somehow illegal and should be banned outright as "misinformation."
At
the very least, polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans
believe that the tactics Democrats used to win — such as mass use of
mail-in ballots and, in some states, no ID required to vote — should be
outlawed, as they are in almost all other developed nations.
According
to Rasmussen, most voters say it's "more important to prevent cheating
in elections than to make it easier to vote and, by more than a
two-to-one margin, they reject claims that voter ID laws are
discriminatory."
The Big Lie Again: Attorney General Garland Says White Supremacists Top Terror Threat
It could be worse: he could be on the Supreme Court. But as attorney
general, Merrick Garland can do as much damage or more to our fragile
and besieged republic than he could if Barack Obama had succeeded in
placing him on the high court. A revealing piece in Yahoo News
by “journalist” Alexander Nazaryan Wednesday revealed not only
Garland’s frankly troubling agenda, but also how the establishment media
runs interference and sells that program to a largely unsuspecting
American public.
Garland, according to Nazaryan, “told Congress on Wednesday that
violence incited by white supremacists poses ‘the most dangerous threat
to our democracy.’ That assertion reflects near-universal consensus
among national security experts, including those who worked for the
Trump administration.”
Yeah, just like those seventeen intelligence agencies that had come to a consensus that Russia had hacked the 2016 presidential election. In both cases, they had a consensus, they just didn’t have any evidence.
But asking for evidence is likely white supremacist now as well.
Nazaryan notes that “Garland’s warning came during a Senate
Appropriations Committee hearing on the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol,
which was conducted by supporters of then-President Donald Trump and
incited by white supremacist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud
Boys. Five people died as a result of the attack.”
This is false and severely misleading in numerous ways: neither the
Oath Keepers nor the Proud Boys are white supremacist groups, and while
Nazaryan tries to create the impression that the “white supremacist
Trump supporters” killed five people, that’s not what happened.
But Merrick Garland apparently thinks evidence is for the proles. He
intoned sententiously: “In my career as a judge and in law enforcement, I
have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of
the Capitol.” He said that the Capitol incident was an “attempt to
interfere with a fundamental element of our democracy, the peaceful
transfer of power.” Consequently, “there has to be a hierarchy of things
that we prioritize. This would be the one we’d prioritize.”
Nazaryan then tells us that Garland is an old hand at hunting down
and neutralizing those evil white supremacists: “In 1995,
Garland investigated the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City
by white supremacists, an attack that killed 168 people, including 19
children. The bombing came at a time when militants were galvanized by
violent encounters with federal authorities in Waco, Texas, and Ruby
Ridge, Idaho.”
That was 26 years ago, but apparently Garland hasn’t managed to
completely eradicate the white supremacist threat, which now dwarfs the
jihad terror threat in magnitude: “The threat of domestic terrorism
receded in the public imagination after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
which were carried out by Islamic fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia and
other nations. But as that threat has diminished in recent years,
militant white nationalism has returned as a top concern.”
And so at the hearing, Garland declared that “the horror of domestic
violent extremism is still with us” in the course of his discussion of
“his work on the Oklahoma City bombing and the Unabomber case.”
As far as Nazaryan, and likely Garland as well, is concerned, the
white supremacist threat is still with us all these years later because
of (who else?) Donald J. Trump, who “infamously told one such group, the
Proud Boys, to ‘stand back and stand by’ during a presidential debate
when a moderator confronted him on the topic. But instead of taking
meaningful steps to address the white supremacist threat, Trump urged
officials in his administration to focus on antifa, a loosely organized
network of leftist radicals that is not widely considered a threat to
national security.”
Nazaryan explains it all for us yahoos: “Republicans continue to
insist that antifa and Black Lives Matter are as great a threat to
national security as white supremacy, though research has shown that
most of last summer’s Black Lives Matter-inspired protests were
peaceful. While some violence and looting did occur, intense media
coverage — in particular by conservative outlets like Fox News — may
have provided a distorted image of those protests.”
Yeah, that’s it. It’s all right-wing media bias. That’s it. Antifa and BLM would be positively cuddly were it not for Fox News.
The realities bear restating: the January 6 Capitol riot was not an
insurrection. The protesters were unarmed. There was no plan to
overthrow the government, no ringleader, no actual incitement or call to
violence from Trump. Nothing. And aside from that, they have to go back
to Oklahoma City, Waco, and Ruby Ridge, all of which took place over
two decades ago, which in itself demonstrates that they don’t have any
recent incidents of “white supremacist terrorism” to invoke. The Proud
Boys are not white supremacists. They aren’t terrorists, either; if they
had been responsible for any actual terrorist act, you can be sure
Alexander Nazaryan would have mentioned it.
Meanwhile, there has been the Boston Marathon jihad attack, and the
Orlando and Fort Hood and San Bernardino jihad massacres, and numerous
others that have gotten little or no media attention, and no
demonstration of concern from Merrick Garland.
So this is what we get from Yahoo News: actual violence from jihadis
is not mentioned. Actual violence from leftists is dismissed as minor or
unimportant amid “mostly peaceful” protests. The fact that there is
virtually no violence from white supremacists is glossed over with
claims that groups that aren’t white supremacist actually are, and
assertions that they’re terrorist, with no evidence offered at all.
This is not just Yahoo News’ scenario; it’s clearly Garland’s and the
Biden administration’s as well. This is deception and deflection at the
highest level of government. The agenda of Garland and his colleagues
is obvious and insidious: they’re going to find those white supremacist
terrorists, and they’re going to prosecute and destroy them. If they
don’t find any white supremacists in sufficient numbers, they will claim
that law-abiding conservatives are white supremacists, and defame and
destroy them accordingly. Garland’s spurious assessment of the domestic
terror threat must be seen against the backdrop of the left’s
increasingly common habit of referring to virtually anyone who opposes
the hard-left, socialist agenda of Biden’s handlers and the
establishment media as a white supremacist. This isn’t just a smear.
It’s a smear with a definite purpose, and is heading us straight to the
persecution of dissidents. That would be us.
