Archive for the ‘elections’ Category

Ukraine.

Saturday, August 26th, 2023

The escalation of American involvement in Ukraine continues in spite of growing questions about it. There is a whole bipartisan obsession with that country, going back to Joe Biden’s involvement and his son’s. Even before that, there was much concern about the fact that Ukraine was the site for many of the USSR’s nuclear missiles. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, fears about those missiles resulted in an agreement. The 1994 agreement to remove those missiles, included a promise to protect Ukraine from aggresion.

The U.S., in a burst of diplomatic energy and at a time of unmatched global influence, worked to prevent the unprecedented collapse of a nuclear superpower from leading to history’s largest proliferation of nuclear weapons.

It was at a time of immense US power and a weakened Russia.

This diplomatic activity manifested in security assurances for Ukraine embedded in what has become known as the Budapest Memorandum. With the entrance of Ukraine into the international order as a non-nuclear state, Russia, the U.S. and the U.K. pledged to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” The memo reaffirmed their obligation to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” The signatories also reaffirmed their commitment to “seek immediate” UN Security Council action “to provide assistance to Ukraine … if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression.” These assurances upheld obligations contained in the U.N. charter and the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.

The nuclear weapons were sent to Russia to dismantle them. In 2014, sensing US weakness and indecision, Russia invaded and took possession of Crimea. Russia has a long history with Crimea.

Some argue that Putin’s annexation of Crimea is an attempt to return Russia to the glory of its pre-Soviet days, “as one of the world’s greatest civilizations.” Although Ukrainian nationalism remains strong, particularly in the eastern part of the country, Ukrainian officials and analysts report to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that significant demographic transformation is underway, with a huge influx of ethnic Russians.

This may or may not be true. Eastern Ukraine has many Russian speaking people, or had, and plebiscites have been confusing. There has been some evidence that those Russian speakers have been bombarded by Ukrainian forces for years.

In 2010, Victor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian Ukrainian was elected president.

Prior to entering national politics with his successful run for parliament in 2006, Yanukovych was the Governor of his native Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002. He was simultaneously the Chairman of the oblast’s legislature from 1999 to 2001.

Yanukovych first ran for president in the 2004 election, where he advanced to the runoff and was declared the winner against former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. However, allegations of electoral fraud and voter intimidation caused widespread protests and Kyiv’s Independence Square was occupied in what became known as the Orange Revolution. The Ukrainian Supreme Court ultimately nullified the runoff election and ordered a rerun, which Yanukovych lost to Yushchenko. Yanukovych ran for President again in the 2010 election, this time beating Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in an election that was judged free and fair by international observers.[5][6]

Yanukovych had represented a Russian speaking portion of eastern Ukraine and was seen by the CIA as a Russian ally.
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Trump is indicted again.

Friday, June 9th, 2023

The Democrats keep reenforcing the lessons of “Ham Sandwich Nation,” especially when a Republican is involved. The last time was a civil suite by A woman who alleged he raped her 40 years ago in a department store dressing room. Of course she had no evidence and it will be reversed on appeal but it was enough for a New York jury to harass Trump.

Given the plethora of criminal laws and regulations in today’s society, this due process gap allows prosecutors to charge almost anyone they take a deep interest in.

The election of leftist district attorneys has added to the problem. Certain locations, heavily Democrat in politics, are ideal locales for these political cases. Race, as in the Chauvin case in Minneapolis, is an added feature.

Now we have another case involving Donald Trump and the Biden regime. The designated hitman is one Jack Smith who, with Andrew
Weissmann, has the distinction of having a verdict reversed by the US Supreme Court 9-0.

Smith previously served under Attorney General Eric Holder, leading the DOJ’s Public Integrity Unit from 2010 to 2015. Smith led a team of 30 prosecutors in conducting public corruption cases throughout the U.S., including a mixed track record of going after high-profile politicians.

While chief of the public integrity section, Smith helped with the prosecution against then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Virginia Republican who was indicted and convicted on federal corruption charges related to bribery in 2014. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction in 2016.

Of course, the conviction was successful in ending the defendant’s political career, which seems to be the same here.

Here is an example of the double standard.

Here is some background about the use of Lawfare.

The DOJ is no longer legally arguing that Donald Trump held any classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ is arguing that President Trump held documents vital to U.S. defense security. It’s a farce but that’s their position. The classification status of documents is moot, nonexistent, except to create the predicate for the proverbial FBI nose under the tent.

The DOJ-NSD (that’s Lisa Monaco) got a warrant to look for classified documents, but never intended to use classified documents as a case cornerstone because President Trump had full declassification authority.

The entire case has shifted to another charge based on “The Espionage Act” beloved of Woodrow Wilson.

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Trump is indicted.

Friday, March 31st, 2023

In an obvious political move, Manhattan NY District Attorney, Alvin Bragg has succeeded in getting a grand jury to indict former president Trump on what are supposedly 34 counts of something. The indictment seems related to the Stormy Daniels case where a porn actress, represented by felon lawyer Avenatti, succeeded in extorting $130,000 from Trump during the election season. Her only evidence was a photo taken at a public golf tournament. Trump, of course, denied the accusation. He is a well known germaphobe who does not even shake hands with people. That he would have sex with such a likely STD source is ridiculous but in the midst of a campaign he paid her off with a Non-disclosure agreement which, she of course violated.

Great hilarity is, of course, widely seen in the leftist media, like the LA Times. At least they do admit the concerns of many.

The larger share — the “maybe Trumpers,” as Ayres calls them, make up 55%-60% of the party. “They’re exactly the kind of people who will want to know if this is a credible case or a trumped up vendetta by a liberal New York, Democratic prosecutor who is out to get Trump,” Ayres said.

No kidding. Nancy Pelosi has weighed in with what she thinks the law is. She thinks he has to “prove his innocence.”

Alan Dershowitz disagrees.

Dershowitz said on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is playing with fire.

[W]hen you’re a democratic elected prosecutor who ran on the campaign pledge of getting Trump and you’re going to indict, forget about the former president, the man who may become the future president if he beats the incumbent who is the head of your political party. Prosecutor, you’d better have the strongest case imaginable, not a case that depends on stitching together two inapplicable statutes and using Michael Cohen.

Powerline blog also has a different opinion.

While politics has always been a scrappy arena, former President Donald Trump has radicalized Democrats and brought them to a level of derangement that few could have imagined. The full-court press to ruin Trump began the moment he descended the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in June 2015 and continues to this day.

It started with the Russiagate hoax, which was manufactured by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and carried out by the top ranks of the FBI and DOJ. The FBI falsified information on a FISA court warrant application in order to spy on Trump’s campaign, pushed the debunked Steele dossier as fact knowing full well that its sourcing was bogus, and openly boasted about trying to stop Trump from becoming president.

Now what ?

The Wall Street Journal agrees this is making history.

President Bill Clinton in 1998 was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice related to his attempted coverup of his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate voted against conviction, but the threat of criminal charges persisted until the final hours of Mr. Clinton’s presidency, when he struck a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray. The prosecutor agreed not to pursue a grand jury indictment after Mr. Clinton admitted to giving false testimony under oath, surrendered his law license for five years and accepted a $25,000 fine.

Clinton committed perjury as well as sexual misconduct in the Oval Office, of all places.

When compared with practices in other countries, Mr. Trump’s prosecution is less unusual, even among liberal democracies. In the last decade alone, sitting or former heads of state in France, Italy, Israel, Brazil and South Korea have been charged with crimes including illegal campaign financing, bribery and tax fraud.

The Israel prosecution is the closest comparison to Trump’s. It has been pushed by Netanyahu’s enemies on the left.

Here is an analysis of that case.

The corruption charges facing him, meanwhile, are problematic. It does look as if he and his wife have been living extravagantly, and they look grasping and a bit unethical in accepting expensive gifts, such as copious amounts of rare cigars and fine champagne, from people they call “friends” but who could be seen as supplicants.

I claim no expertise in Israeli law concerning gift limits, but judging from most coverage I’ve read, the gifts in themselves seem at worst a minor violation. The major allegation against Netanyahu would have to be that the gifts were accepted as a bribe for specific official action. If the gifts weren’t just an extravagance, but actually changed Israeli government policy, that would amount to a crime under the laws of most republics.

What is chilling about the charges against Netanyahu, though, is that the alleged “bribery” involved no change in policy at all. Instead, he is alleged to have influenced media outlets friendly to him to also be friendly to those who provided the gifts.

The similarity to Trump’s case is that the legal issues are murky but the opposition is determined to drive him from office. That link is to 2019 so the campaign did not work but Natanyahu is trying to reform the corrupt Israeli courts and the left has taken to the streets in protest.

In both cases the left is using the legal system to try to destroy a political rival. The recent incident at Stanford Law School shows that the left is in firm control of law schools. In time, not so long, the legal system will be controlled by the left.

The Midterm Election.

Wednesday, November 9th, 2022

Well, that wasn’t much of a red wave. Why ? There was probably some fraud but that did not determine these surprising results.

Here is a pretty good analysis

* Fantasy vs. Reality. It turns out that there are a great many voters who don’t care much about what traditionally have been considered decisive issues: inflation, crime, illegal immigration, lousy schools, etc. Many millions of Democrats, confronted with these facts, didn’t conclude that they should consider voting for someone else. Rather, they seem to have thought, My team is in trouble! All the more reason why I need to support my team. This was an election in which, to an extraordinary degree, issues were subordinated to party loyalty.

I agree this was a party loyalty election. The issues we all thought would dominate were ignored. Why ?

Maybe Democrats are living in a fantasy world. Not phased by inflation or gas prices yet. Was Trump a factor?

* Donald Trump. I thought the Democrats’ endless yammering about “our democracy” and “fascism” was incredibly stupid, born of desperation, and would be ignored by voters. I was partly right: those themes were stupid, and they were born of desperation. But it turned out that they were not ineffective. To cite just one example, a young woman I know posted a photo of herself at the polls on Instagram, with the text, “I’m voting against fascism.”

Trump did not do well with the candidates he endorsed. I was not surprised when Oz lost in PA. I was astounded by the candidate who won. Fetterman is obviously not qualified and I assume his wife will serve in his stead or the Democrat governor will appoint some typical pol. Pennsylvania is also the home of vote fraud. In 2020, they changed the rules, violating the law and ignored a Supreme Court Justice ruling that they must sequester late mail in ballots.

This is probably the end of the Trump magic. It’s not fair but the left has taken control of the country and will not be displaced short of war or economic collapse. I think either or both are coming.

“Our democracy” and “fascism” were code for Donald Trump. At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States. He has teased a “big announcement” in the next few days. I hope he announces that he is moving to Bulgaria.

I think that is too strong and it is unfair but Trump has been successfully vilified. His rallies did not seem to help his chosen candidates.

* Polls. We Republicans have gotten used to the idea that polls generally underpredict Republican performance. When liberal pollsters started reporting more favorable numbers for Republicans in the days leading up the election, it looked like the usual script was being followed. But this year, if anything the polls may have understated Democratic support, not Republican. What–to cite just one instance–happened to the 26-point swing among suburban women toward the GOP, which led Steve to dub this the “Desperate Housewives Election?” They were desperate, all right–desperate to vote in favor of abortion and against Donald Trump. But how could so many polls be so wrong?

DeSantis did outstandingly well in Florida and he is now the leader for 2024.

One consideration is that the things we thought would dominate the election as issues are not going away. I was concerned that the GOP Congress would get blamed for the troubles which will get worse. Inflation, oil prices and shortages, supply chain issues, school indoctrination of children, the “transsexual” fad. All these will get worse now. But Republicans cannot be blamed. As HL Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I suspect they will be getting it good and hard. Sadly to say, we will be getting it good and hard, too.

We will be lucky not to get into a war we lose in the next two years.

The Raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

The FBI raid on Trump’s residence is unprecedented in American history. The pretext for the raid and the refusal to allow TRump’s lawyers to witness what was done is also a gross deviation from normal behavior.

Conservative Treehouse a pretty good theory of the reasons.

The motives of the DOJ and FBI are clear when you have a full comprehension of the background. However, it’s the threats and betrayals against President Trump that most people have a hard time understanding. Why he was blocked is clear, but how Trump was blocked is where you realize the scale of the threat that exists within this corrupt system.

Trump has for years been promising to declassify documents showing how the “Russiagate” conspiracy developed, including the FBI role in it.

By the time we get to September of 2018 the basic outlines of the Trump-Russia targeting operation were clear. However, the Robert Mueller investigation was at its apex, and anyone in/around Donald Trump was under investigation for ancillary issues that had nothing to do with Russia.

It was into this fray of constant false narratives that President Trump first made statements that he would declassify documents related to his targeting. It was after Trump made those statements when the real motives of putting Robert Mueller as a special counsel became clear.

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation, it was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who delivered the message to President Trump in September of 2018, shortly before the midterm election, that any action by him to release documents, now under the purview of the Mueller special counsel, would be considered an act of “obstruction” by the DOJ/FBI people charged with investigating him.

What he might have done is to bring some of those documents with him when he left the White House. Of course, that is speculation since the warrant was never disclosed to the Trump lawyers.

In essence the DOJ and FBI, along with white house counsel and a collaborating senate and media, kept President Trump from declassifying and releasing documents by threatening him with impeachment and/or prosecution if he defied their authority. The threats created a useful Sword of Damocles, and blocked Trump from acting to make documents public.

In the months that followed President Trump frequently made public statements and tweets about the frustration of documents not being declassified and released despite his instructions to do so. Many Trump supporters also began expressing frustration.

The external debate and consternation surrounded how the Administrative State has seemingly boxed-in President Trump through the use of the Mueller/Weissman counterintelligence probe, authorized by Rod Rosenstein, where President Trump was the target of the investigation.

A widely held supporter perspective was that President Trump could expose the fraudulent origination of the counterintelligence investigation; of which he is now a target; if he were to declassify a series of documents as requested by congress and allies of his administration. This approach would hopefully remove the sword of Damocles.

I had a suspicion that Trump might have been in contact with the FBI whistleblowers mentioned by Senators Grassley and Johnson. That is also a reasonable theory.

Newsweek has a typical left wing excuse.

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.

This is ludicrous as the FBI with full cooperation by Trump, searched these boxes of records in June. They even required their own padlock to seal the room.

Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House.

I doubt a 10 year old child would believe this rot.

A threshold has been crossed. Many on the left seem to cheer this on as their obsessive hatred of Trump and his voters is unending. I just hope Trump has good personal security. I don’t trust the Secret Service any more than I trust the FBI.

Is the Biden regime risking war to hide its domestic failures ?

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

There is considerable talk in the media right now about Russia and Ukraine. Russia has moved troops close to the Ukrainian border. The Biden regime, which has no interest in the US southern border, has expressed alarming determination to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why are they so interested in a corrupt country that has no strategic importance to us ? Certainly the Biden family has profited from Ukraine. Hunter Biden, who seems to be the family bagman, was paid $50,000 a month by the Ukraine Burisma gas company.

It was in April 2014 that Hunter became a board member for Burisma with at least $50,000 per month compensation, and $83,000 by some accounts.

The board appointment for someone who had no experience in the energy industry or in Ukraine came just months after Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserves after testing positive for cocaine.

Burisma’s board chairman, Alan Apter, said, “This is totally based on merit.” Apter added: “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals.”

Recently, the president of Ukraine, in a phone call from Biden, is alleged to have told Biden to “calm down.” The transcript of the call has not been released.

Why the threats, including moving 8500 US troops to eastern Europe ? Back in the 1990s, there was a movie called “Wag the Dog.” The plot was “Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.” Is that what is going on now ?

Biden’s poll numbers keep going down.

At 33% approval last week. The 2022 election is coming in a few months and prospects for Democrats are poor. It is known in history that authoritarian governments, like this one, have been known to create war fever and even war to conceal weakness in domestic affairs.

Tucker Carlson had a show last night on this topic. He shows the left leaning TV shows all cheerleading the Biden threats. In fact, they are accusing Carlson of being pro-Russian. Sound familiar ?

I think, with the people around Biden, there is a real risk of major errors. These people belong in the Harvard faculty club, not the White House.

The Destruction of the US Military.

Sunday, May 16th, 2021

There is an old saying in the military, “Trust No one above O-6” They are all politicians. The Obama years saw more generals retired or relieved than there had been in years. General Carter Ham was one of the notable ones. Wiki sloughs over his relief about Benghazi.

Ham was in overall command of military forces when the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks were launched on the American consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. According to his June 2013 Congressional testimony, Ham chose not to deploy close air support during the attack, based on a lack of situational awareness about the circumstances on the ground. He denied the allegation by some Republicans that President Barack Obama or others in Obama’s administration had ordered him to “stand down” a planned rescue mission that was ready to deploy.

After a 24-month tour of duty[9] as Commander Africa Command, Ham was succeeded by General David M. Rodriguez.[10] General Ham retired in June 2013.[5]

That is one version.

Snopes, of course, insists “All is Well”

The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.

General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.

Navy Rear Admiral, former commander of the USS John Stennis Strike Group, Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette was also mysteriously relieved of duty, and all the brass will say is he is “under investigation” for, get this, “inappropriate leadership judgment.”

Just another way of saying that the admiral dared differ with the Administration’s Libya policy and perhaps openly defied Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Snopes, of course, disagrees. General Ham retired after 2 years of the 3 year assignment as AFRICOM.

The White House [has] flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on September 11th.

That’s Snopes’ “Proof.”

On 29 October 2012, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also asserted that this rumor was false:

The speculation that General Carter Ham is departing Africa Command (AFRICOM) due to events in Benghazi, Libya, on 11 September 2012 is absolutely false. General Ham’s departure is part of routine succession planning that has been on going since July. He continues to serve in AFRICOM with my complete confidence.

HR McMasters wrote a book about senior officer cowardice, but he has since joined the war makers. He resigned in protest of Trump’s intention to end the 20 year war in Afghanistan.

Obama appointed generals who showed their loyalty by attacking Trump

Retired military leaders who were nominated to senior positions by former President Obama began speaking out this week against President Trump, as he warned of using the military to end violent riots throughout the nation.

Their speaking out comes as Trump on Monday deployed the D.C. National Guardsmen and called up active duty forces to be on standby to protect the nation’s Capitol, after rioters defaced national monuments, looted, and burned a historic church.

This, of course, was well before the military occupied DC at the order of Nancy Pelosi in response to the January 6 riot. That was very different.

There is a longer list of those fired or retired by Obama.

Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented.Things have gotten so bad that a number of retired generals are publicly speaking out about the ‘purge’ of the U.S. military that they believe is taking place. As you will see below, dozens of highly decorated military leaders have been dismissed from their positions over the past few years. So why is this happening? What is going on right now is absolutely crazy especially during a time of peace. Is there a deliberate attempt to reshape the military and remove those who don’t adhere to the proper ‘viewpoints’ ? Does someone out there feel a need to get officers that won’t cooperate out of the way?

Throughout world history, whatever comes next after a military purge is never good.
If this continues, what is the U.S. military going to look like in a few years?

We now know. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin

Fresh off his confirmation as Secretary of Defense, General Lloyd Austin III took immediate action to clear out members of the Pentagon’s 42 advisory boards. Austin dismissed every single member, including those who were added in the waning hours of the Donald Trump presidency.

That was certainly important. What next ?

Indoctrination with CRT

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a “stand down” of the entire US military over the next 60 days in order for commanders to address “extremism” in its ranks.

News of the military-wide pause came in an announcement Wednesday from the Pentagon, with press secretary John Kirby describing the move to reporters as similar to stand downs that units have to do to address safety concerns.

Kirby was Kerry’s spokesman as Sec State. A retired PI Admiral.

“Extremism” can be loosely defined as a Trump voter. During his confirmation hearings, Austin pledged that he would “rid our ranks of racists and extremists,” though he declined to offer details on how he planned to see that through.

Now we know who is not welcome.

Military.com reports that Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier has been relieved of his duties pending an investigation after he appeared on a podcast and criticized the rise of Marxism in the United States military.

Lohmeier served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force before joining Space Force among its first officers and recruits. He has written and self-published a book, “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest and the Unmaking of the American Military.” He appeared on a podcast, called Information Operation, to discuss the book on May 7. He was relieved of his duties as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado on Friday, May 14, by order of Lt. Gen. Steven Whiting. Public affairs made it clear that his comments are the reason his job now hangs in the balance.

“This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast,” a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. “Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”

Opposing Marxism is “prohibited partisan political activity.” Joe McCarthy should be alive to see this.

The Arizona Recount.

Thursday, May 6th, 2021

At least Maricopa County has a new county recorder who defeated the Democrat who screwed up the 2018 election.

The preliminary audit aired several unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of election fraud and partisanship on Fontes’s part, some of which didn’t even cite a source or origin for the claims. Though Richer labeled the claims as unsubstantiated, some Republicans portrayed them as established fact.

Richer also questioned some of Fontes’s other election-related actions in his report, such as the expanded use of emergency voting centers in 2018, his placement of those centers, and his new policy of reaching out to voters with potentially deficient signatures on their early ballots. Richer concluded in the audit that those policies were questionable but not illegal.

Of course a Republican accusation is a “conspiracy theory.”

I’m sure Soros backed Secretary of State would agree. She is convinced an audit of the voting is a waste of time.

“A group of Republicans are continuing to try to appease their base who refuse to accept that … Trump lost Arizona and that he’s not the president anymore,” Hobbs told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “Cuomo Prime Time.”

This was a few months after she referred to Trump voters as “neo-Nazis.” Certainly no bias there.

First, the Board of Elections denied use of official facilities. Then the Board of Supervisors Tried to prevent access to ballots

The Democrats then sued to try to stop it. The first judge recused himself, then the second judge, a Democrat, Refused to stop the recount.

Why are Democrats so determined to prevent any recount in an election they assert they have won and any questions about fraud are “without evidence?”

Now, the Biden DOJ is trying to intervene.

They really don’t want anyone checking on that election, do they?

Everyone knew this was coming…. The Feds are attempting to get involved in the Maricopa County ballot audit. The DOJ Civil Rights Division has sent a letter [pdf available here] to the Arizona State Senate claiming their review of Lawfare statements and media reports may show evidence of auditing issues that violate federal laws.

Last week a group of Lawfare activists [SEE HERE], including New York University Law School – which leads to Andrew Weissmann, asked the DOJ to get involved.

The ridiculous letter from the Biden DOJ goes on to cite media reports from the Washington Post as evidence to justify their involvement.

Remember, previously the DOJ narrative was that each state makes up its own election rules. Now the DOJ is saying, falsely, that Arizona might be breaking federal laws.

No doubt there will be more to come. You’d think Democrats would be proud of how well the election that Biden won was conducted.

What do Democrats Want ?

Saturday, July 25th, 2020

I have been watching the gradual, then sudden, dissolution of a political party. My parents were Democrats. They were shocked when they learned I had voted for Richard Nixon in 1960. Jimmy Carter was a failure as a President but I wasn’t really worried about the country when he was in office. His actions with Iran and the Panama Canal were harmful but they were a matter of policy. Ronald Reagan, not a governor I was fond of in California, was a successful president. He was able to work with the Democrat Party in spite of some far left loonies like Chris Dodd. Many of the far left members of the Democrat Party favored communists like the Sandinistas but they were kept in line by the old pols to whom graft and spending were more important. Tip O’Neill would let Reagan win the Cold War as long as Reagan let the Democrat Congress run up the deficit.

Bill Clinton changed much of this dynamic in two ways. First, he was a lot more ideological than previous presidents and second he was incompetent at it. Clinton is a very smart man but his wife, Hillary, was far too obvious in her corruption. First the 900 FBI files, then the White House Travel Office. Both were scandals that primed him for a big loss.

Then the 1994 elections turned the Congress over to the Republicans and we learned how little they were interested in Conservatism. They accomplished nothing before being ousted by Democrats in 2006. This, of course, was followed by the housing and mortgage collapse of 2008. There was some attempt by Bush administration officials to rein in Congress and the debt explosion but it was probably too late anyway. The 2008 election placed Congress in Democrats’ hands for the first time with a Democrat president since 1974. Clinton’s two years did not result in much happening. Then first Obama Congress spent like drunken sailors but were quickly reined in in 2010.

What might happen if Biden won the presidency and the Democrats got a majority in the Congress ?

In the past until now, there was zero chance that the hard Left would ever win an American election. No socialist has ever come close. Even Bernie Sanders accepted that the Democratic establishment for six years broke rules, leveraged candidates to drop out, and warped the media to ensure that he would remain a septuagenarian blowhard railing at the wind from one of his three houses. George McGovern was buried by a landslide. Most Democrats, after Kennedy and until Obama, never won the popular vote unless possessed of a Southern-accented hinting at centrism.

Only the Great Depression and World War II ensured four terms of FDR, who still knew enough not to let his house socialists ruin the wartime U.S. economy.

But in perfect storm and black swan fashion, the coronavirus, the lockdown, the riots, anarchy and looting, all combined with Trump Derangement Syndrome to be weaponized by the Left—and the media far more successfully than with their failed pro forma, legalistic efforts with Robert Mueller and impeachment to destroy the Trump presidency—have pushed socialism along.

I thought Obama was an empty suit. Biden is an empty head.

Who is behind all this and why ?

Why would any socialist go after the sympathetic mega-funders of the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Google or Apple News, Twitter, or Vox?

Left-wing billionaires are not so strange as we might think. After all, they can afford to be socialists. They like the idea that fewer may follow in their footsteps. They think social activism offers them penance for their hard-driving acquisitiveness. Most of all, they feel their knack for making money is proof that they have the wisdom, the right, and the need to redirect the lives of less successful others—and for the good of all.

Otherwise, the plutocratic class will spend hundreds of millions—a proverbial drop in the bucket in their fortunes—to consult with lawmakers about how to avoid their own progressive legislation and policies. It will hire phalanxes of tax lawyers, trust evaders, and philanthropy scammers that will make the architects of the Clinton Foundation seem a poor joke.

The real enemy in 2021 would be the upper-middle-class as it always is, the kulaks—and not really the professionals such as the lawyers, media grandees, and professors—although many should expect to become collateral damage.

I tend to agree with this analysis. There is a small club of super rich right now who seem determined to rule the rest of us. Why ? I think it is the arrogance of those who think they are much smarter than the vast majority. Some of this is true but there is also a tendency for those well informed in one field to assume they are equally well informed in others. They may also assume that knowledge in one area is more important than another. A nuclear physicist may not know how to change a tire or to install a new garbage disposal. We used to laugh at absent minded professors but those absent minded individuals may have the power of life and death over others who will be afraid to laugh.

Democrats who might have been wary of the promises of Socialists and impractical dreamers before seem to think that a faceless, nameless bureaucracy will run things efficiently in spite of extreme policies offered as the rationale for governing.

I would not be so sure of that.

The principal–agent problem, in political science and economics, (also known as agency dilemma or the agency problem) occurs when one person or entity (the “agent”) is able to make decisions on behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the “principal”.[1] This dilemma exists in circumstances where agents are motivated to act in their own best interests, which are contrary to those of their principals, and is an example of moral hazard.

The Founders were well aware of this problem and tried to protect the citizens with certain provisions of the Constitution.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

Protest or Insurrection ?

Monday, June 8th, 2020

The protests that quickly morphed into rioting and mass looting began with an arrest of a career felon for trying to pass a counterfeit bill. He had been convicted of felony home invasion and robbery in Texas and served 5 years in prison. According to several unreliable sites, he was”turning his life around” and was involved with a church. That argument is somewhat diminished by the fact that he had Methamphetamine and Fentanyl in toxic levels at autopsy. The reaction in Minneapolis was extreme and horrific.

Some of the destruction can be seen here the next day.

It got worse, much worse.

The spineless leftist Mayor is now seeking $55 million form somebody to repair damage he might have prevented.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey will seek state and federal aid to rebuild city structures following over a week of looting and rioting, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Friday.

Some 220 buildings have been damaged and require at least $55 million in repairs, the city’s Community Planning & Economic Development department said earlier this week, noting that the city was “not yet ready to produce a credible estimate.” City Council members warned that the costs will likely be far higher, while Mayor Frey said damages could reach into the “hundreds of millions.”

Typically, he tried to seek approval from black rioters and was expelled from the meeting.

He was elected on a platform of fighting “global warming.”

A pretty good explanation of what is behind all this.

For white liberals, a black identity shaped by rage is not only to be condoned, but celebrated. All politics is identity politics to liberals, because the whole object of their existence is to invent one’s identity according to therapeutic needs. That is why the progressive movement took up the cause of transgender rights with such passion: To change one’s gender is the ultimate expression of self-invention in defiance of nature and tradition.

The possessors of these newly-invented pseudo-selves know that they are imposters, and that everyone is laughing at them behind their backs. As Mephisto told Faust, “Wear a wig with a million hairs, and stand in heels as long as your elbow, and you still remain what you are.”

The motivation behind these riots is becoming clear. Antifa is an international, communist based, terror organization.

Antifa is not a single organization: it is a movement or coalition of leftist groups, each of which claims to combat “fascism,” a political ideology whose definition academics have been arguing about for decades. The word Antifa itself is a truncation of anti-fascist.

Despite the name, the movement embraces fascistic tactics.

Antifa has gained new prominence in the post-Obama era. They trace their roots back to Nazi Germany. Although they opposed the Sturmabteilung (SA), or Nazi storm troopers, like the SA they also used violence to intimidate political opponents and break up their meetings and rallies. It could be argued that the ideological distance between Antifa and the now-defunct National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated as NSDAP) or Nazi Party, is so slight it can be measured in millimeters.

How is it funded ?

[T]he left-wing billionaire George Soros has ties to Antifa through a group called the Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ). Soros’s philanthropy, known at the time as the Open Society Institute, gave $100,000 to AfGJ ($50,000 in 2004 and $50,000 in 2006).

Acting as a fiscal sponsor, AfGJ gave $50,000 to Refuse Fascism, an unincorporated Antifa group. Fiscal sponsors are recognized tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofits that take in donations on behalf of unincorporated or small groups so that donors can deduct the donations from their taxes, charging the group receiving the donation a processing fee.

Refuse Fascism was created in the weeks after Donald Trump’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. The group’s goal was summed up in a slogan on its website: “It’s Fascism: Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime!”

Some of the members are employed, usually by universities or school boards. The man arrested for striking a demonstrator with a bike lock was shown to be a non-teaching employee of UC Berkeley. However, his charge for felony assault, resulted in 3 year probation. Thus local juries and judges tend to favor the offenders.

Eric Clanton had been linked by police to violent assaults with a metal bike lock during a “free speech” rally in Berkeley on April 15, 2017. Before his arrest, Clanton had been “outed” online, on the website 4chan, as someone who used a bike lock to strike a man in the head. The assault was captured in a video clip (below) that drew widespread attention and anger after it was posted on YouTube.

Wednesday, Clanton was supposed to have had his preliminary hearing, where a judge decides whether there’s enough evidence in a case for it to move ahead to trial. Instead, there was no hearing, and information about Clanton’s plea deal became available online.

According to Alameda County Superior Court records, Clanton entered a “no contest” plea Wednesday to one misdemeanor battery charge. The felony charges against him were dismissed, and an allegation that he had caused serious bodily injury was stricken. A misdemeanor charge that Clanton wore a mask during the commission of the crime also was dropped.

The local leader of a group called “By Any Means Necessary,” an affiliate of Antifa, was similarly, given a token sentence.

Under a plea agreement, the Sacramento District Attorney is set to dismiss a case against Berkeley teacher Yvette Felarca and two co-defendants related to a neo-Nazi rally and counter-protest more than three years ago.

Felarca and two other activists were scheduled to go to trial Thursday over felony assault charges and misdemeanor rioting charges, but left the morning court hearing, in front of Judge Richard Sueyoshi, with only a community service requirement and stay-away order.

“This is a victory,” said Felarca, a King Middle School teacher and controversial activist with By Any Means Necessary, in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. “Of course I’m relieved, it’s just been a long process and a struggle. I’m really so happy for all three of us. To me it’s a real affirmation of standing by your convictions.”

Needless to say, the “White Supremacist” rally was a fiction. Does anyone think they will “stay away?”

Relatives of Democrat politicians are also members of this group

The son of VP candidate Tim Kaine was arrested at an Antifa riot. The son of Minnesota AG Keith Ellison (former black Muslim ) has announced he is an Antifa supporter and made the motion to disband the Minneapolis police.

More evidence of the insanity of academia, which has spread to the population.

An example of focusing on “underrepresented minorities” can be seen in the recently established “Power Hour” at Gordon Research Conferences. While this effort is commendable in order to increase the participation of women in science it diminishes the contributions by men (or any other group). Universities have established various centers for “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion”, complete with mandatory seminars and training. These issues have influenced hiring practices to the point where the candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications.

The paper has now been withdrawn.