Headline of the day – Paleo Republican edition

Is McConnell Trying To Lose in November?

That the question even has to be asked.

Conrad Black summarizes the degradation of American politics and the judicial system over the last few years

Can This Be Happening in America?

“…We have familiar experience of the phenomenon of what are clearly intolerable circumstances being tolerated if they worsened only gradually. Everyone has looked back on a grueling experience and thought that it could not have been endured had the individual known how unpleasant it would become. No matter how familiar anyone may be with the horrors of the Nazi regime, it remains to us inconceivable that the culture of Beethoven and Goethe could have committed such crimes.

The United States has now reached the point where the sequence of outrageous and unconstitutional measures that have occurred in the last six years would have been inconceivable six years ago.

It’s unimaginable that anyone who has ever been nominated for president by a serious American political party could be an intelligence asset for a foreign power. We now know that there has never been one scintilla of evidence remotely hinting that Donald Trump was guilty of any such offense, or that he had any inappropriate relations or even a particular regard for the government of Russia. Yet for over two years it was endlessly bandied about that Trump had been “groomed” by Russian agents like the Manchurian Candidate to debase the presidency of the United States into boot-licking subordination to the national interest of Russia. The former directors of the National and Central Intelligence Agencies, James Clapper and John Brennan, solemnly told national audiences that Trump was a Russian intelligence agent and was guilty of treason in favor of the Russians.

Both these senior officials on occasion allegedly lied to Congress but were never prosecuted. Former FBI Director James Comey, who improperly removed government property from his office, improperly leaked confidential information to the media, improperly presumed to decide that Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted for destroying 33,000 emails that were under subpoena from Congress, signed a false affidavit in support of a FISA warrant to conduct illegal telephone intercepts on the Trump campaign, and supported the pretense that the infamous Steele dossier, which he knew to be a pastiche of lies and defamations, was authentic intelligence, indicating the guilt of Trump of unlawful collusion with the Russian government. The ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and other Democrats repeated ad nauseam that they had conclusive evidence of Trump’s guilt. They lied. The inspector general of the Justice Department recorded 17 separate instances of improper official behavior. There has been no prosecution of any of this.

In all of pre-Trump U.S. history, there had been two impeachment trials of presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither of them should have occurred and both failed, but in the last four years Trump was impeached twice, once for a telephone conversation with the president of Ukraine in which he asked if the Biden family and particularly the current president’s son Hunter Biden had committed illegalities in Ukraine. He did not direct the verdict; he did not ask for any incrimination of the Bidens. This was a completely inadequate pretext for impeaching a president and yet he was impeached, and on one count 49 senators including a former Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, did vote Trump guilty, though he was, of course, acquitted. And at the end of his term, he was impeached again for having allegedly fomented an insurrection even though the FBI director had already testified that there was no evidence that Trump or his campaign organization or his administration were connected in any way to the trespass and the vandalism that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump requested and offered extra security, but this was declined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Washington mayor Muriel Bowser.

The various comprehensive accumulations of evidence about the behavior of Hunter Biden incite the strong inference that he has committed a number of illegalities and that the president repeatedly lied to the public about his own connections to his son’s activities. There is no evidence that U.S. official conduct was altered in respect of Ukraine, China, or other countries, in consideration for bribes paid to the Biden family. But there seems to be no doubt the current president and his family were engaged in improper activity that not only allegedly involves substantial lawbreaking by family members but also seems to have been suppressed rather than investigated by the FBI. The allegation that the FBI seems to have suggested to Facebook that the allegations against Hunter Biden were likely Russian disinformation and requested that they not publicize them would have been unthinkable six years ago. But it seems to have been assimilated by the American political community as a perfectly normal and acceptable occurrence.

It seems clear that in the 2020 presidential election, where Trump could have prevailed in the Electoral College if 50,000 votes had flipped in Pennsylvania and any two of Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin, that millions of ballots potentially passed through hands that could not be identified. All of this occurred in swing states where rules were changed ostensibly to facilitate voting during the pandemic. But in the case of a number of states, contrary to the Constitution, these changes were determined not by the state legislatures but by executive branches or state judiciaries. In every one of the 19 lawsuits launched to attack these questionable changes to voting and vote counting rules, the judiciary, including in the case of the Texas attorney general’s action against the swing states and supported by 18 other state attorneys general, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear any of these cases on their merits; they were disallowed for technical reasons, some of those quite spurious.

Now we have had, on the complaint of federal archivists, the intrusion and occupation for nine hours of the former president’s home on a warrant alleging just cause to believe that crimes have been committed involving the improper removal and retention of classified information. Trump had been collaborating with the archivists, possessed the power to act as he pleased with classified material when he was president, and this isn’t a classified material case anyway. He didn’t pack any of this himself as he left the White House, has not mislaid or misused any of this material, and 19 months have gone by since he left office. It’s a document-handling case. There’s no conceivable justification for such a sensational invasion in the absence of any plausible claim of significant wrongdoing—except that it’s a political tainting job against the former president, and the Presidential Records Act isn’t a criminal statute. This is just the Democrats transmuting a grumpy librarian’s complaint into the insinuation that the former president committed unimaginable crimes.

A disastrous and shaming flight from Afghanistan is described by President Joe Biden as “a triumphant success.” Dr. Anthony Fauci retires with dignity after doing terrible damage to the country with his nonsense about shutting schools, “droplets,” the ups and downs of masking, the “abolition of hand-shakes”—almost all of it now thoroughly discredited.

Six years ago, no one could have imagined that these outrages would have occurred, much less that they would be accepted by a bedraggled, degraded, demoralized America, its federal government in the hands of lawless and authoritarian myth-makers, applauded by the complicit national political media. Can this be America?…”

Video on Biden’s political tax dollar giveaway on student loans

Climate politics destroys European energy systems. Democrats want America to follow suit.

Climate-Crazy E.U. Faces up to Decade of ‘Terrible’ Winters Thanks to Russian Gas Reliance

“…Statists Have Genius Solution: Price Controls!

The European Union now faces up to ten years of “terrible” winters of energy insecurity as a result of its green agenda, with many nations in the bloc having gotten themselves addicted to Russian gas in service of climate crazy ideals…”

Related:

Nearly a quarter of UK adults ‘won’t turn on heating this winter’ as energy bills soar.

“…The survey of more than 2,000 UK adults found 23% would not turn their heating on at all over the winter months, with this figure rising to 27% among parents with children under 18.

In the poll, which was carried out by Savanta ComRes before the new price cap was announced, 69% of respondents said they would switch their heating on less, and one in 10 said they would take out a loan.

It comes amid resounding warnings that people are in for a dire winter, with the energy price cap set to rise by 80% by October, pushing the average household’s yearly bill up from £1,971 to £3,549…”

I don’t know how a reasonable person could read these stories, and the many others like them, and come to any conclusion other than the green policies of the Climate Cult are a disaster.

I don’t have the same confidence in today’s NASA as I did in the NASA of Gene Kranz and Glynn Lunney. Is that fair?

Warning sign? NASA never finished a fueling test before today’s SLS launch attempt

“…Space is hard, certainly. But Monday’s attempt—which NASA had promoted heavily by inviting celebrities to the launch and which included a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris—was perhaps a bit rushed. Why? Because NASA rolled a rocket out to launch without accounting for all of the things that could go wrong…

…Beginning in April of this year, NASA conducted four separate “wet dress rehearsal” tests during which the agency aimed to fully fuel the SLS rocket and countdown to T-10 seconds, ending the test before ignition of the main engines. Each of these four tests ultimately ended prematurely, although the fourth attempt in June saw engineers bring the rocket down to T-29 seconds.

However, to reach that late stage in the countdown, NASA had to “fool” the flight computer. During the test, a 4-inch hydrogen line—smaller than the problematic 8-inch line on Monday—had a leaky seal. To complete the wet dress test, NASA chose to mask the leak from the ground launch sequencer, the ground-side computer that controls the majority of the countdown.

Because of this masking, NASA could not complete the engine chill portion of the test. Had it done so, the agency may well have uncovered the problem that caused a scrub on Monday. In hindsight, therefore, NASA probably should have completed a full wet dress rehearsal before rolling the rocket out for a launch…”

Politicized, woke medicine is a disaster…

After Proclaiming The Opposite, Medical Pros Quietly Admit Mutilating Trans Kids Doesn’t Fix Depression

Related:

Complications From Gender Transition Surgeries Are Being Covered Up

Regulations on distilling liquor are burdensome and ridiculous.

What’s good for beer should be good for bourbon. Make home distilling legal

“…The prohibition on home distilling creates an artificial barrier to entry to budding entrepreneurs who want to perfect their distilling skills at home. It also turns everyday citizens into felons simply for engaging in an activity that is lawful for industry titans, but not for them.

Fortunately, the craft beer industry provides a policy template that home distillers ought to be allowed to use moving forward. After prohibition ended in 1933, home brewing, much like home distilling, remained illegal. Only those permitted to operate could make and sell beer. This was the case until October 14, 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill legalizing the practice of home brewing. Many breweries that are now established institutions got their start in basements or garages, experimenting with unique techniques and flavors, thanks to the legalization of homebrewing. The craft spirits industry could find itself in a similar situation if proper reforms were made…”

Hollywood and media in a single photograph…

This fat turd was given an award and during the ceremony claimed she was oppressed.

Related:

Multi-Millionaire Pop Singer Lizzo Uses MTV Award Speech to Rant About ‘Laws Oppressing Us’

Multi-Millionaire Pop Singer Lizzo Uses MTV Award Speech to Rant About ‘Laws Oppressing Us’

Political payoff for fake opinions and lying…

Hunter Biden ‘laptop denier’ to join Biden’s intelligence advisory board

Manipulating the criminal code to find a basis to search the home of a political enemy represents an appalling weaponization of the criminal justice system.

Redacted Mar-A-Lago Affidavit Confirms Biden’s DOJ Fished For A Crime To Pin On Trump

“…The search warrant affidavit unsealed on Friday confirms the Department of Justice used a bait-and-switch tactic to justify the FBI’s unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump’s home. The unredacted portions of the affidavit further expose the Biden administration’s manipulative and tenuous basis for the search and its reliance on inapplicable federal criminal code provisions to justify the targeting of a political enemy. ..”

Democrat governance – New York style

New York cracks down on crime by outlawing whipped cream purchases for people under 21

Political bias at FBI related to Trump Raid? Who knew?

FBI special agent who opened Trump investigation reportedly escorted out of Bureau headquarters

“…Former Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Tim Thibault was reportedly escorted out of the Bureau’s headquarters on Friday, amid whistleblower allegations that he showed political bias in his handling of politically sensitive investigations.

The Washington Times reported eyewitness accounts that “Mr. Thibault was seen exiting the bureau’s elevator last Friday escorted by two or three ‘headquarters-looking types.'”

Whistleblowers alleged that Thibault concealed the partisan nature of evidence from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland to secure their approval to open an investigation into former President Donald Trump. That investigation culminated in the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.

The public release of the affidavit that accompanied the search warrant revealed the warrant application relied heavily on information from news articles, including a CBS Miami piece titled “Moving Trucks Spotted At Mar-a-Lago” and a Breitbart News article in which former Trump adviser Kash Patel discussed the classified status of documents the bureau previously removed from the estate on behalf of the National Archives.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley confirmed to Just the News prior to the raid that Thibault had been removed from his post and reassigned to an unspecified position…”

It now costs more to charge an EV than driving a gas car in Germany.

Image

Birds on a drive…

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1564145792776028162

Petty vindictiveness from incompetent politicians and bureaucrats…

Unvaxxed Coast Guard Cadets Given 24 Hours To Vacate Campus

This has nothing to do with science or good policy.

Hollywood climate frauds…

Climate Phony Harrison Ford Banks 5,284 Miles On Private Jets

Ford said people must ‘cry out for justice’ during a climate conference last year

Democrat governance – Chicago style

Related:

LIGHTFOOT’S CHICAGO: 35 SHOT, 8 KILLED DURING WEEKEND

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JUNE 07: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks to guests at an event held to celebrate Pride Month at the Center on Halstead, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community center, on June 07, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Lightfoot is the first openly gay mayor of the city …

Democrat governance – California style

California lawmakers reintroduce amended zero bail bill in waning days of session.

California county saw 70% of criminal suspects released on $0 bail commit new crimes.

“The media swarms and lies. Tells you it’s over, wants you to give up. Happens every single time.” Don’t fall for it.

Operation Demoralize Is Back

William A. Jacobson:

“…I understand how demoralizing the current situation is. The border is wide open. The full apparatus of the criminal justice system from DOJ to FBI to state prosecutors are weaponized for Democrat political purposes. To his (dis)credit, Biden has been able to do substantial and long-lasting damage to the country with just a 50/50 Senate.

Yet the narrative as recently as a month ago was that a red wave was coming in November.

That has changed. There is a concerted media effort to create the counter-narrative that the red wave has failed. Even though we are just entering the prime election season, and Republicans still lead in the generic ballot.

“The media swarms and lies. Tells you it’s over, wants you to give up. Happens every single time.”

“The media swarms and lies. Tells you it’s over, wants you to give up. Happens every single time.”

Melissa Chen described it back in 2020:

“Feeling exhausted & demoralized?

They want you to think you’re all alone, swimming against the tide. You’re not.

That’s the goal – to break your will, to train your attention on the inane and frivolous, to siphon it away from issues of existential gravity, of global import.”

View the early and notoriously inaccurate polling in this context. View the mainstream media analysis in this context. View Biden’s increasing incitement of conflict between Americans in this context. This is Team Obama 101 stuff.

Operation Demoralize will only get worse.

Don’t fall for it…”

Headline of the day…

Police remove Lesbians from pride event because Transgenders complained

https://youtu.be/SYFeWjP7D9U

Doug Santo