Saturday, March 18, 2023

Pax Americana or Pox Multipolar?


Only the “blame America first, last, and only” Left can think that rogue nations will behave better in a multipolar world.


The announcement of a Communist Chinese orchestrated rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is another instance of the feckless, incompetent Biden Administration and the Democrats’ foreign policy that damages America’s national security. As the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Mark Dubowitz assessed, it “is a lose, lose, lose for American interests.” As it is for the entire free world.

Of course, many on the Left welcome the Chinese-engineered renewal of relations between the Saudi kingdom and the terrorist-exporting Islamic regime. The Left believes it can be portrayed as evidence the duplicitous Tehran regime would be a credible party in an international agreement, particularly, the suicidal Iran nuclear pact the Left still covets. 

But the Left’s coveting of the Iran nuke deal serves a far larger purpose, one that transcends even their intermediate goal of the United States abandoning our strategic interests and allies, notably in the Middle East. (It is a contention the Biden Administration contests, despite this and other evidence to the contrary.) The Left’s long-term goal? A “multipolar world.”

There are two prime drivers of the Left’s quest for a “multipolar” world.

In a multipolar world, the United States would no longer be the sole superpower; and power would be more evenly distributed among other nations. The Left’s pursuit of a multipolar world is a logical extension of its irrational loathing of America as a fascist, racist, misogynistic, homophobic nation of haters. Its delusional domestic aim to “fundamentally transform” America and “liberate” its “marginalized” citizens is mirrored in the Left’s foreign policy aim of transforming the current Pax Americana into a multipolar world. It is a goal the Western Left shares with Communist China, which also seeks to liberate the world from the evil American “hegemon.”

The second prime driver is the Left’s embrace of “moral equivalency.” The Left does not employ its moral equivalency to improve the image of our free republic. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent intellectual integrity in the Left’s assessment of not only America’s adversaries but also of the enemies of democracy and human dignity, such as Communist China, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. Looking at that quartet of tyrannical regimes, one can see why only those who are blinded by their loathing of America could argue a moral equivalency between our free republic, which birthed a new freedom for the world, and these aspiring global and regional autocracies that systematically repress, impoverish, starve, and murder their own people. Yet, because these regimes are on the Left and, thus, in the eyes of the Western Left they seemingly can do no wrong—or at least nothing than cannot be excused because America is worse. 

Note, too, that Russia is no longer on the list of the Left’s preferred autocrats, though it had a good run during the Cold War as the Left’s proffered moral equivalent of the United States. The Left correctly views Putin’s Russia as nationalist, regressive, and fascist. Shelving its dovish peace wing, the Left supports the multinational opposition to Russia’s invasion, seeing it as an example of the multipolar world they seek. 

What the Left fails to clearly see (or is it, admit?) is how Putin’s support is coming from autocracies like communist China and Iran, nations the Left would bless as multipolar “partners” (once they are fundamentally transformed, of course). Ultimately, the Left will endeavor to explain away their purblind worldview by citing how the planetary scale of existential issues, such as climate change, will compel the multiple poles to coalesce and combine their puissance to solve them—and without the United States being singularly powerful enough able to frustrate these aims.

Yet, notwithstanding the Left, the United States’ citizenry remains the biggest obstacle to a multipolar world. Americans generally see the world as it is; and, being rational, do not want other nations, especially tyrannical ones, having any say or sway over our country. Yet, the American people (if not our government) remain wary of foreign entanglements. Consequently, the Left has insidiously couched its support for a multipolar world by insinuating how Americans’ domestic bliss will commensurately increase in relation to our dependence upon other nations to protect ourselves. What is less articulated is this increased dependency comes at the expense of our unilateral power to defend ourselves against threats. On the whole, Americans do not want to be the “world’s policeman”; but Americans also do not want to leave their doors unlocked at night and hope whoever shows up isn’t a thief—or worse. 

Further, the Left’s siren song of multipolarity must not be confused with isolationism. The Left fully intends the United States to participate multilaterally within a multipolar world, for our global participation is critically necessary to attain it. But only a humbled America would have the foreign policy to consent to do so. Thus, only by shattering the U.S. hegemon’s Pax Americana and bringing our nation to heel can a multipolar world be birthed. 

Yes, the Left’s hunger for a multipolar world is insane and injurious. Dictators and their totalitarian regimes, which have repressed and killed their way to power, are not going to cede control and subordinate themselves to anyone. But if the Left understood human nature, they would not be leftists. Only the “blame America first, last, and only” Left can think that rogue nations will behave better in a multipolar world. These tyrannical regimes are far more likely to use their status in a multipolar world to consolidate and expand their newfound power in the pursuit of becoming the new, sole superpower. Who truly believes Communist China only aims to be a pillar of a multipolar world rather than become the new hegemon?

The American Left. 

And, like their ahistorical revision of America as a systemically, intrinsically evil nation, the Left decries our free republic as the major impediment to global stability—despite all the historical evidence. Nonetheless, when one cuts through the Left’s calumnies and cant, the choice is crystalline: the Pax Americana or the pox multipolar?

The choice remains yours. Pray, choose wisely. For once the Pax Americana is dead, all manner of things are possible.



X22, And we know, and more- March 18

 



To anyone who has read too much fear porn today on what might happen next week:

Enough!


Nothing is ever as nightmarish as it looks, especially when you're dealing with an information war.

If you're feeling scared because you've read too many differing opinions on what might happen in the next few days, calm down. Take a step back, take a few deep breaths, and remember all this:

-God has got this
-How many times have we been at this road and everything turned out all right in the end? Every time!

Things won't go like the Left thinks it will this time, just like with all the other 'We've got Trump now!' claims. Why? Because they've got nothing, just like with allllllll the other attempts.

We WILL win in the end after this, you can be assured of that.

Here's tonight's better news:


Ron DeSantis Joins the Fight for Sanity Against the Foreign Policy Blob

The blob is composed of those who grew up in a world that simply no longer exists and those who are compelled to criticize DeSantis to secure sinecures or maintain professional relevance.


Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ written statement to Tucker Carlson about the Russia-Ukraine war, heard around the world earlier this week, has caused nothing short of a full-scale meltdown from the arrogant, consistently wrong-thinking, military-industrial complex-addled band of bipartisan dunderheads who collectively comprise the American ruling class’s foreign policy “blob.” Fact is the governor, also a likely 2024 presidential candidate, should wear the blob’s dripping scorn as a badge of honor.

These “blobsters,” oftentimes think tank and punditry Boomers or Gen Xers who came of political age during the Cold War, typically suffer from a first principles-level delusion about whether America’s triumphalist post-Cold War unipolar moment still exists (it does not). Accordingly, blobsters know one modus operandi only: more intervention and more escalation. Abba Eban once famously said, in the context of ever-elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace, that “the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”; for the blobsters who have been seething this week at the fact both presumptive frontrunners for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination now oppose their agenda in Ukraine, we might say they never miss an opportunity to intervene further and blow up (or screw up) more things abroad.

The blob’s post-Cold War track record of supported foreign interventions is positively abysmal; Iraq is now an Iranian satrapy, Afghanistan is now run by the Taliban, and Libya, over a decade post-Samantha Power/Hillary Clinton-led intervention, is still riven by a jihadist civil war. In most vocational settings, a track record of such obvious repeated failures gets you fired, and perhaps blacklisted; for Beltway blobsters, such prognostications can merit a promotion, at least when Boeing or Northrop Grumman has something to say about it.

Seriously: Outside the corridors of Beltway groupthink, who in their right mind would still listen to these people for sage foreign policy counsel?

Apparently not DeSantis. The Sunshine State governor, in his statement to Carlson, bemoaned the extent to which America’s increasingly weapons-entrenched, rhetorically absolutist and fiscally incontinent posture in Ukraine distracts from urgent problems at home, such as the horrific drug overdose epidemic inflicted upon our nation’s youth by a wide-open southern border and the vicious drug cartels that operate with impunity in northern Mexico. Even worse, from the blobsters’ blinkered perspective, DeSantis had the temerity to—egad!—reject the notion that further American entrenchment in a “territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” represents a “vital national interest” for the United States.

For thatdéclassé Beltway neoconservatives and liberal humanitarian interventionists have derided DeSantis as a “Putin apologist” or, as befits a group of people unable to process a foreign conflict outside a dichotomous World War II paradigm of full-scale war pitting absolutist good against absolutist evil, as a reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain.

But DeSantis’ statement to Carlson is emphatically correct. Toward the beginning of the conflict, there was indeed a real threat of Vladimir Putin toppling the Volodymyr Zelenskyy regime. But despite the lingering presence of intermittent rocket fire in and around Kyiv, the overwhelming majority of the fighting since last May—when Russian tanks that had encircled Kyiv in anticipation for a possible final assault on Zelenskyy largely retreated—has been relegated to far-flung provinces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and Crimea. As this column has repeatedly noted and as has been documented ad nauseam more generally by anyone willing to listen, the Donbas is comprised of towns and enclaves of decidedly mixed Russian and Ukrainian ethnic backgrounds; the specific national borders drawn there today, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, are simply arbitrary. Crimea, for its part, has spent most of the past few hundred years under Russian control.

So with the Zelenskyy regime secure from being toppled—especially secure, as of late, due to Europe’s recently increased arms shipments—and with the main question now pertaining to the precise boundaries and contours of an ultimate settlement, how exactly is the conflict not a “territorial dispute”? And what exactly is the “vital national interest” for the United States in ensuring Ukraine retains every single square foot of disputed territory, even if some of those square feet in the Ukrainian far east are—heaven forfend!—Russian-speaking towns that may well want to be part of Russia? Is poking the world’s largest nuclear arsenal as much as we have already done, and as much as the blob still wants to do, seriously worth “upholding international norms,” or whatever other unthinking drivel the blobsters regurgitate?

The truth is that the vitriolic reaction to DeSantis this week says everything about the blob’s debilitating personal and vocational insecurities, and nothing about DeSantis’ call for measured prudence in Eastern Europe. DeSantis’ critics—besides the obvious knee-jerk Democratic partisans—are largely composed of two groups of people: those who grew up in a world that simply no longer exists, and those who are compelled to criticize his stance for purposes of retaining sinecures or maintaining professional relevance.

The first group, namely the “BoomerCons” (Boomer conservatives), matured in a “mutually assured destruction” Cold War setting wherein framing foreign policy as full of binary choices about dueling moral abstractions, such as “freedom versus authoritarianism,” might have been more apt or better resonated; and crucially, when we think of abstract values clashing on the geopolitical chessboard, American society back then had also not yet fully degenerated into its present decadence. The second group, composed of intellectually homogenous journalists, think tankers and academics, depend upon the propagation and acceptance of blob orthodoxy for their very livelihoods.

The blob will likely have many 2024 GOP presidential contenders to choose from: Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence perhaps chief among them. What is needed is more statesmen who have the courage to defy the blob, and to instead side with the American people. Ron DeSantis has again led the way.



Weaponization of the Legal System Reaches a New Level

Democrats are more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting American citizens


If we are to believe the news, the district attorneys in Fulton County, Georgia and Manhattan will soon announce indictments of Donald Trump. 

The New York indictment looks especially imminent. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is hellbent on charging Mr. Trump. In fact, the New York City District Attorney’s office has been searching for any way to charge the former president since 2017. The investigation has poured over President Trump’s personal and business life. They’ve reportedly settled on charging Donald Trump for the non-crime of his attorney Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels settlement money.

Even The New York Times admits the case is a stretch: “The case against the former president hinges on an untested and therefore risky legal theory involving a complex interplay of laws.”

It doesn’t matter. Donald Trump is uniquely evil to the liberal prosecutors in New York. Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Donald Trump for the New York City District Attorney’s office, reveals in his book that he was asked in 2017 to join the DA’s office for the sole purpose of going after Mr. Trump. Mr. Pomerantz wrote that, unlike prosecuting “killers,” the prospect of prosecuting Mr. Trump made him emotional, as Mr. Trump “disgusted” him.

The now-former prosecutor wrote that he “would have paid the District Attorney’s Office for the opportunity to prosecute President Trump.” 

This zeal to go after the political opponents of the Democrat Party while ignoring real criminals starts with the leadership in the Manhattan DA’s office. The New York Post found that “soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has downgraded more than half his felony cases to misdemeanors — while also managing to lose half of the felony cases that do reach court.”

Mr. Bragg can’t find the time to prosecute felonies in his district and protect the citizens that pay his salary, but he has all the time in the world to pursue a partisan agenda against Mr. Trump. This is an attempt to undermine a presidential candidate in order to curry favor with Democrat officials while ignoring New Yorkers’ concern with rising crime in New York City.

The partisan legal antics don’t stop in New York. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis convened a special grand jury in Atlanta to try to secure charges against Mr. Trump. The foreperson of the special grand jury went on a national media tour, where she gleefully fantasized about taking down Mr. Trump. 

Mr. Willis appears to be targeting Mr. Trump for actions that are protected by the First Amendment. It’s only illegal to challenge election results in third-world Marxist hellholes. It’s not criminal to lobby other politicians. If political arm-twisting were illegal, then every politician in America would be in prison.

These two prosecutions are intended to kneecap Mr. Trump with the 2024 presidential election on the horizon. Mr. Trump remains the Republican frontrunner, and he is ahead of Joe Biden in recent polls. 

These district attorneys are attempting to force Mr. Trump out of the race with bogus legal theories—Mr. Bragg’s even essentially dismissed by the liberal New York Times—because they are terrified of a fair election. 

Why wouldn’t they be afraid? There’s record inflation and a looming financial crisis. Most Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Mr. Trump brought us peace and prosperity; Mr. Biden brought us war and despair.

Fortunately, these politicized legal shenanigans tend to blow up in Democrats’ faces. Just look at how Mr. Trump’s poll numbers improved after the FBI’s baseless and illegal raid on Mar-a-Lago. 

The one thing that has united conservatives in the Trump Era is disdain at the Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system. 

But while the use of our courts to score political points might not succeed as planned for Democrats, it will succeed in causing permanent damage to our nation. For all the Democrat talk of “protecting democracy,” weaponized prosecution is a blatant attempt to steal control from voters. 

Every time a prosecutor’s office becomes more focused on targeting political opponents than protecting its citizens, we become more like the countries we used to liberate.



ESG Will Bankrupt You — Financially and Morally


Do you believe in cautionary tales or think most things happen without warning?  Your answer might reveal how your psyche processes information to which you are exposed.  Everything you need to make good decisions is readily available, depending upon which sources you rely.   

Recently publicized topics should set your spidey senses twitching:

  1. Silicon Valley Bank suffers an abrupt collapse.

  2. Joe Biden resurrects the all-but-dead Willow Creek Oil project.

  3. Biden’s Energy Secretary praises China’s work on climate change.

  4. The president delivers his vision for his FY 2024 budget, with a $6.9 trillion price tag.

  5. 40,000 hours of security footage inside the Capitol on January 6th are released to the public, initially through Tucker Carlson.

All of these bullets connect — ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) ideology permeates everything, and it will cost us all.  You’ll understand who wins and who will lose when ESG is fully implemented.  ESG is intended to replace the profit motive for large companies with something more akin to a social conscience.  What could go wrong?

Prepare to be amazed!

Silicon Valley Bank

The biggest little bank you had never heard of was a key bank to the small and medium-sized businesses in the tech industry.  Remember, the FDIC guarantees up to $250,000 per account.  But, in a jaw-dropping move, Biden bailed out all accounts in a change not contemplated by the FDIC act.  Is this to be the new FDIC standard?

Where did Biden get such authority, and is this yet another abuse of his presidential powers?  Where’s Congress in all of this?  Given Biden’s extra-lawful money grabs, why have a Congress at all?

Early information about the bank’s demise gives a definite and suspected reason.  Long-term bonds, issued at low yields, secured many of the bank’s assets.  When liquidated early to cover cash calls, SVB suffered huge losses.  Why did SVB need cash?  Because the government spent trillions it did not have making the money supply massively inflated, thus creating runaway inflation.  The Fed’s only real inflation-fighting weapon is raising interest rates, which it has done so at a voracious rate, thereby making everyone poorer.  Biden’s wasteful spending is directly tied to the default of SVB and other banks.
Even more controversial is that SVB’s head of risk management spent considerable time spearheading multiple “woke” LGBTQ+ programs, including a “safe space” for coming-out stories, even as the firm catapulted toward collapse.  Like its tech clients, SVB embraced ESG and took its eyes off the ball while serving “higher interests.”

Willow Creek Oil Project

It would be difficult to find another oil field approval on public land since Biden came to office.  Biden’s earlier statements about ending our dependence on fossil fuels without regard for Americans going cold this winter; making electricity less and less affordable for the everyday citizen; and seizing the freedom a personal vehicle brings all show he believes such suffering will make us more pliable as the only alternatives are those that fold into his “green” energy agenda.

So why has the Willow Creek project just been approved?  Look no further than the imminent announcement of Biden’s reelection.  His overlords use Clinton’s famous triangulation tactic to win support from people who would otherwise not consider voting for him in 2024 and are not aligned with his climate politics.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praises China

What at first would appear to be a head-scratcher comes sharply into focus only when you understand that China is constantly increasing its greenhouse gas output without U.S. rebuke.  Its output is now greater than all the other developed nations combined!  Nothing the rest of the world (i.e. America and Europe both committed to net zero) does will achieve Biden’s stated goals to “save” the planet.  China greenlights two coal plants a week while the U.S. and Europe shutter their own, risking brownouts and people dying from the cold!
Why are we such zealots for dumping our traditional sources of energy with nothing on the near horizon to replace our needs?  Granholm knows what’s going on, and, like our President, both are in the tank for an ever-ascendant China.  Why?  This seems to continue our government’s ever-firming control over us.  Do you see a different answer?  I certainly don’t! 

Biden releases his vision for our next budget

I can’t express the staggering numbers within Biden’s proposed budget meaningfully.  Key takeaways include; A record-breaking $6.9 Trillion to fund all of Biden’s priorities.  This budget breaks new ground by proposing the confiscation of some individuals’ assets outright, departing from our tradition of only taxing realized income.  U.S. dollars will be sent worldwide to further “woke” agendas.  We will see our budget deficit grow to $50.7 Trillion over the next ten years, according to his numbers, even though he promises a magical $3 trillion in deficit reduction.  Unfortunately, it’s all smoke and mirrors, so deficit reduction in our years will never occur.  (Remember, government spending will increase by double digits this year.)  Spending is accelerating, not slowing.
No one expects Biden’s budget to become a reality, and it is as much a political budget to gin up his constituency as a fiscal one.  But if you discounted his budget entirely, you would be missing something important.  His budget does not deal with extending Social Security’s life, the realities of our deficit spending, or the interest we will be paying on our debts, soon to become the single largest item in our Federal budget.  God save our children!

40,000 additional hours of security footage inside the Capitol on January 6th were released

What’s the difference between an “insurrection” and a riot?

For the first time I know of, since that incident, our country has been holding prisoners of conscience in solitary confinement without a trial. Democrats had free rein on prime-time television to sell the American people a narrative of an insurrection, yet many rightfully remain unconvinced.  A stink is attached to the entire process with a kangaroo court, scripted television, and zero defense of those accused of high crimes.  Process matters.

Dozens died in the streets due to rioting during the pandemic, and property damages were billions of dollars.  Comparing the differences in how these two series of actions were spun is instructive, and analyzing the different approaches to how we reacted is reasonable and proper.  It is an inconvenient truth that an overwhelming majority of participants at the Capitol did no physical damage and harmed no one.  The only known violent death was Ashli Babbitt, who was unnecessarily shot.

We, the People, used to mean something.  Now, it's little more than a catchphrase with the government going after a thousand people (many who never set foot in the Capitol building).  They are targets because of what they think.  What does that portend?

Freedom today is defined by what some Democrats decide it to be.  You can riot in American streets almost without consequence, but demand change at our Capitol, and you will be imprisoned and the key thrown away.  How does this square in our “free” country?  

ESG is an additional control measure that helps to point us down a path that today’s Democratic/Marxist leaders demand.  Ask the financial institutions you deal with to explain their ESG policy.  Then decide what you will do with your money, politics, and future.

God Bless America!



The Latest Twitter Files Release Reveals Efforts by the Government and Social Media Platforms to Block ‘True’ Information

The Latest Twitter Files Release Reveals Efforts by the Government and Social Media Platforms to Block ‘True’ Information

Brad Slager reporting for RedState 

Matt Taibbi provides more disturbing evidence of how extensive the government’s desire and the outlets’ cooperation were to kill accurate information.

Matt Taibbi has just posted the latest batch of internal messages from the social media giant: The Twitter Files #19. This latest release comes just after he and Michael Shellenberger made an appearance before a House Committee regarding the activities at Twitter, and the contentious attitudes and belittling of these reporters by certain House members on March 9 are made even clearer as a result.

These latest revelations lay out cleanly the organized effort that took place to manage and control the pandemic-related messaging on social media, and the widespread agreement of those platforms. What is striking is just how extensive this plan was and the manner in which all of the various entities involved worked in concert to smother discourse that even those involved acknowledged was accurate.

Stanford University served essentially as the information hub, under the banner of “The Virality Project.” This enterprise was fed voluminous amounts of posts — numbering into the billions — that came from government agencies and social media platforms. They were flagging posts that dealt with questions about the vaccines, Senator Rand Paul’s comments on natural immunity, and even people telling or sharing what were labeled “worrisome jokes.” This shows how extensive their net was and how fine their information filter was set.

The Virality Project (VP) stated it was even flagging posts and content it admitted were accurate because the nature of these posts was deemed either dangerous or running counter to desired government efforts. These were flagged even as they were said to harbor “true content,” and as a result, they came up with a new designation: Instead of “disinformation,” these flagged posts were dubbed “malinformation” because the factual content could lead to vaccine hesitancy.

Another reason this type of action was so disturbing is that it involved so many entities which normally would not be so cooperative. As Taibbi points out, many of those participating in this project are normally working in their self-interest. But these were corporate rivals joining together. More than just Twitter, the Virality Project also involved Google/YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, TikTok, and Pinterest. These competitors were banding together under the guidance of the government and managed by Stanford to deliver an approved and homogenized narrative on their platforms.

The VP managed to both narrow its acceptable guidelines (from flagging opinions down to determining which facts were acceptable) and in turn broaden what would become flagged as misinformation. The entire goal was to preserve the governmental narrative. People expressing concerns over vaccine passports, for example, were cited because these concerns could then lead to vaccine hesitancy. 

Factual issues with one vaccine — from AstraZeneca — were squelched because it could lead to people casting doubts on other vaccines. This was the move to kill off possibly important health information, accurate information that could have impacted individuals. But because the broader narrative could have been threatened, this accurate information was targeted to be censored. This meant that even the New York Times came under the focus of the VP.

This policing of the language by the VP was so militant that factual news items would be flagged if the people who were mentioning those valid reports were doing so to promote the wrong narrative. Given as an example was the case of an elderly woman who became vaccinated and then soon after passed away. This was an entirely accurate and media-reported event, but because too many people sharing it or commenting on it were considered “anti-vax,” then the factual news story became labeled as misinformation.

The VP also began cataloging notable accounts that routinely put out information of which they disapproved, and thus rather than citing their specific posts which were problematic, the account itself would be declared a misinformation source. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was one such individual who fell into their category of “Known Repeat Offender.” So rather than flagging particular comments, Kennedy, and numerous others, were deemed to be wrong, just on the basis of who they are.

Stanford was growing in its confidence as the VP continued. Not only was it making more determinations and expanding its qualifications for “misinformation,” it soon became more proactive in this arrangement and began coaching the government. At one point the VP was advising the DHS to begin undertaking particular initiatives to combat rumors and disapproved narratives that were spreading nationwide. Immediately after was when Alejandro Mayorkas announced the formation of the ridiculed DIsinformation Governance Board.

Things took on a true Orwellian nature when we see one of the avenues of investigation. The VP began seeking out those who were commenting on the possibility of a “surveillance state.” This becomes the darkest of ironies; an established shadow project overseen by the government was trying to ferret out those suggesting there was a government-operated shadow project.

What becomes disturbingly clear is that this was an operation intent on enforcing true censorship, and it originated within our federal government. Throughout the examples Taibbi provides, you see it mentioned by those involved that information they were targeting was factual and true – and even as was seen, frequently the VP was itself factually inaccurate. 

It flagged as false the now-proven fact that those vaccinated can still contract COVID (our frequently-infected President Jose Biden is a testament.) The Wuhan lab leak story has now become certified. People punished for expressing concerns over governments issuing vaccine passports were proven to be accurate.

The most ominous aspect in all of this is the repeated assertion of facts which then must be stifled. Without any public knowledge, we had an extensive enterprise with numerous power centers working together to control the approved messaging. The underlying reality is that facts were frequently pushed aside because those were details interfering with the government messaging. The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails was cited by Graphika as an example of how this release of information undermined authorities.

All of this displays a disturbing level of thought control by government entities, and it explains so much about the hostility visited upon Taibbi and Shellenberger when they sat before the House committee. The Twitter Files continue to expose the level this federal government was willing to go to control what people were permitted to say on social media and the broader news outlets. The Democrats who lashed out at these reporters were angered that their control was being exposed in an Oz-like fashion, and their authoritarian desires are being threatened.

This is how you know they have been caught. The revelation of facts and the act of opening up information has the politicians, the social media platforms, and the compliant journalism outlets seething. The people who call for transparency and the news divisions that normally love whistleblowers are united in their disdain for these details going public. Like vampires in sunlight, they are recoiling at the facts shining down on them.




Here’s How Federal Agencies Compelled Americans to Give up Their Gun Rights


The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution of these here United States of America clearly states that the government cannot infringe on a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. Apparently, this has not stopped federal agencies from treating this mandate as a mere guideline rather than hard and fast law.

A recent report revealed that the FBI and Secret Service covertly coerced a number of Americans into surrendering their Second Amendment rights. The means by which they did so should terrify, and infuriate, anyone who values the right to be armed.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Between 2011 and 2019, the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement coordinated to obtain signatures on an internal form from at least 60 U.S. citizens that stripped their gun rights, according to newly obtained records and multiple Washington Examiner reports. In at least one instance, the bureau and Secret Service worked behind closed doors with what appears to be a government prosecutor who conditioned signing of the form as part of a legal case, the Washington Examiner has learned.

A letter sent by an attorney to a Secret Service agent in 2019 informed the official that they “will find enclosed the NICS firearm form which has been signed by my client and his doctor…in compliance with [redacted] plea agreement.”

The report notes that it is not clear what the defendant had been charged with, and the FBI redacted the case number. The forms were obtained by gun rights advocacy group Gun Owners of America (GOA) through the Freedom of Information Act.

It is also unclear why the agency required this form, which registers individuals into the Bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It asked defendants to acknowledge that they are a “danger” to themselves or others, and that they lack the “mental capacity adequately to contract” their lives.

However, according to GOA outside counsel Robert Olson, citizens cannot forfeit their right to bear arms. From the Washington Examiner:

The person who signed the plea agreement was evidently not barred from owning guns until voluntarily signing the FBI’s form and the government asked the defendant to agree to a punishment comparable with a different type of crime, said Olson. Lawyers have previously honed in on how the form did not go through public comment through the Office of Management and Budget, which is required before the government collects information from the public.

Gilbert Ambler, a constitutional attorney told the news outlet that the government is “having you agree you’re incompetent” and questioned how this could be legally binding.

“It’s an example of something more nefarious, which is individuals within the government pursuing a goal of disarming people. That is not something supported by our legislature. In fact, it is contrary to what our legislature has done because there are set forth conditions on when somebody can be disarmed,” Ambler said.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 established that a person could be prohibited from owning guns if they are “adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution,” but says nothing about people being able to voluntarily give up their Second Amendment rights.

This development comes on the heels of a previous report from the Washington Examiner revealing that between 2016 and 2019, the FBI “presented forms to U.S. citizens at their homes and in other undisclosed locations that registered them with the bureau’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.”

“The very existence of the FBI’s forms has raised significant concerns among First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress, including Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Reps. Dan Bishop (R-NC) and Andrew Clyde (R-GA),” the report noted.

The report indicates that about 60 people were subjected to this treatment, but that there could easily be more such cases.

This is apparently a bipartisan issue since the Bureau engaged in these activities under both Democratic and Republican presidents. In what appears to be a flagrant violation of the Constitution, federal agencies have been pushing individuals to give up their Second Amendment rights – and they did so in the shadows.

This is yet another development showing how little our federal government thinks of our natural rights and its duty to protect them. By covertly pressing people to sacrifice their right to be armed, they are systematically seeking to disarm as many Americans as possible. This is not the only step the executive branch has taken toward this purpose.

In 2022, it was revealed that the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is terminating gun dealers’ licenses for silly clerical errors on paperwork. President Biden has been unable to enact his radical anti-gun agenda through Congress, so he is trying to do so through executive means. He recently signed an executive order expanding background checks and red flag laws.

These people are not going to give up. The reality is that they do want to take your guns, and are willing to flout the Constitution to achieve this end.



Getty Adds Early Medieval Manuscript and Annibale Carracci Painting

 Both acquisitions significantly add to the collection and include an important manuscript and a rare painting    


The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today two major acquisitions: the Irmengard Codex, a manuscript made for the 11th-century noblewoman Irmengard of Nellenburg, a member of the House of Egisheim-Dagsburg in Germany; and Madonna and Child with Saint Lucy, Saint Dominic, and Saint Louis of France by the renowned and influential Italian painter Annibale Carracci.

“These two exquisite acquisitions add key works to our representation of northern European medieval manuscript illumination and to our already strong holdings of 17th-century paintings,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “The Irmengard Codex, with its unusually rich body of imagery, is a spectacular example of early medieval manuscript illumination, the likes of which has not appeared on the market in over half a century. And together with Caravaggio, Annibale was one of the prime instigators of the baroque movement in Italian art.   


Irmengard and Her Husband Werner, shortly after 1053. Tempera colors, gold, and ink.


Virgin and Child with St. Lucy, St. Dominic, and St. Louis of France, about 1596–1598, Annibale Carracci.  



https://www.getty.edu/news/getty-adds-early-medieval-manuscript-and-annibale-carracci-painting/    



The French  Catholic Institute of Lille discreetly sold this priceless masterpiece of medieval piety, which a priest had nevertheless offered to his library. As for the French Republic, it classified it as a “national treasure” but let Los Angeles slip away…

In Terms of Word Salad

Enjoy the latest Word Salad featuring Kamala’s favorite phrase.

This morning I saw this clip of Kamala tossing a big old word salad during an interview with Stephen Colbert. And while most people marveled at her utterly incomprehensible non-answer, I couldn’t help but notice that in her 37-word response, Kamala used her favorite phrase, IN TERMS OF, two times.

Then again, as I said in March 2021, once Kamala’s favorite phrase is pointed out to you, “you will never not notice it.” It sticks out like a sore thumb.

I’ve gotten to the point that when I see a clip of Kamala talking, her favorite phrase is as jarring to me as an out of tune guitar string is to an accomplished musician.

Case in point, here is the clip from her interview with Colbert:

As always, I recommend you read the words out loud to yourself:

“Well, I think that the concerns are based on what we should all be concerned about. But the solutions have to be and include what we are doing IN TERMS OF going forward, IN TERMS OF investments.”

Where to begin?

First of all, Kamala didn’t answer Colbert’s question at all.

He asked her directly if they had been discussing the blowback over the White House approving the oil project. And Kamala’s answer wasn’t an answer IN TERMS OF answering his direct question.

And what in the Sam Hill does “I think the concerns are based on what we should all be concerned about” even mean?

It reminds me of her “it is time for us to do what we have been doing and that time is every day” response in that Good Morning America interview last year.

Honestly, why do they insist on having Kamala Harris sit down for these interviews? Left without a speech written by others, this woman couldn’t formulate the words to order an iced tea with lemon.

“But the solutions have to be and include?” How did Kamala Harris make it all the way through law school without someone taking the time to teach her grammar and sentence structure?

Unsurprisingly, Kamala’s double use of her favorite phrase were just frivolous and unnecessary, very similar to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s penchant for using “it’s like” and “you know.”

As I wrote in my April 2022 column “In Terms of Kamala:”

”Like a vestigial organ, Kamala’s favorite phrase serves absolutely no purpose in the grand scheme of what she’s trying to say.”

And yet she cannot make it through a single off-the-cuff interview or extemporaneous remarks without tossing it out around like a handful of confetti.

Yesterday, a flack from the Democratic National Committee wrote a Twitter thread praising Kamala’s “brilliance & masterful communication skills” during her interview with Colbert that ended with this:

“One last note: I’m tired of all the attacks on Kamala Harris. They’re misogynistic. They’re racist. They’re uncalled for. Has she been perfect? No. No VP is perfect. But she sure has done a heck of a good job & we should embrace her as one of our party’s best. Period.”

Hey, if the Democrat Party wants to embrace Kamala as their “party’s best,” who are we to stand in their way?

Fact is, IN TERMS OF the rest of the Democrat Party, maybe Kamala is the best they have to offer, IN TERMS OF “brilliance & masterful communication skills.”

But why would they boast about that?

Jesse Kelly cracked me up so hard with his response to this guy’s thread:

“She got hired because she’s black and a woman by Joe’s own admission and she got her start in politics by letting Willie Brown blow her back out. These are the facts of the case.”

Jesse Kelly is a national treasure, IN TERMS OF what he means to the country.

Let’s face it. Democrats are stuck with Kamala Harris no matter how much they wish they could unload her in 2024.

I just don’t see Biden giving Kamala the heave-ho if he runs for reelection. As Jesse Kelly pointed out, Biden, by his own acknowledgment, selected Kamala Harris so he would have a black woman as his Veep.

James Clyburn, no doubt the force behind Biden wanting the Democrat Primaries starting in South Carolina, would raise holy hell if old Joe’s team even dared to suggest replacing Kamala with someone else. And I just can’t see Biden risking Clyburn’s wrath given the role Clyburn played in forcing Biden’s nomination on the country.

No. Democrats are stuck with her, and her all-you-can-eat word salad bar, whether they like it or not.