Enemies; Foreign and Domestic

Somebody ( I think it was Tom Clancy in one of his novels, but I can’t find it) once said that every once in a while, the American people rise up on their hind legs and simply take control away from their governments. That’s what I’m seeing now, as the Lutheran reformation (Shelley, not Martin) sweeps across the country. The people have simply had enough of the bullshit house arrest, that has cost us trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of businesses, and untold stress.

Sure wish to know where & when!

Americans are finally awakening to the hoaxsters decimating our economy & trampling on our Bill of Rights & have rejected the attempts to replace our great nation with a suppressing overreaching NWO!

UNITED STATES WINS! pic.twitter.com/OoSyoqBCtn

— 🇺🇸IStandWithTrump ⭐️⭐️⭐️GeneralFLYNNisEXONERATED (@superyayadize) May 9, 2020

We live in a country where the national media is a propaganda outlet of a hostile foreign government, the Chinese Communists, it’s puppet the World Health Organization, and the overarching globalist conspiracy, each of which has a negative view of the American people. Well, it’s damned well reciprocated. We know that the governor of New York, Nipsey Cuomo has perhaps caused the death of more Americans than anybody since John C. Calhoun, who at least believed in what he believed instead of only in fattening his pocketbook. We have seen others of the Gauleiters, in Michigan, in Kentucky, in Washington, and not least in California attempt to suppress the freedom of the American people. And we have seen the revival of the Stasi tactics of East Germany amongst our people.

And who are these collaborators/informers? Our neighbors and (former) friends. I don’t think we’re quite at the point the French were in 1945, when they stripped their collaborators naked, shaved their head, and paraded them at bayonet point through the streets of Paris, but neither are we that far from it.

And that is the status of the Chinese Bat flu. I don’t think Winnie the Pooh and all the American media can put it back together. We’ve won, but we’ve been badly hurt, so keep up the skeer.

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The other day the President Tweeted a one-word message “OBAMAGATE!“.

And that is what we have, a fairly clear chain of evidence linking Obama, Biden, Clinton, and all their hacks and pawns with the illegal persecution and prosecution of Lieutenant General Flynn, in their apparent, and becoming more clear daily, attempt to subvert the will of the people by staging a coup on the duly elected President of the United States of America..

That too has been thwarted, it looks like, thanks to some very good men and women. Here is a recap from one of the best, Mollie Hemingway, from one of the best organizations in involved, The Federalist.

A clearer picture is emerging of the drastic steps that were taken to accomplish Obama’s goal in the following weeks and months. Shortly thereafter, high-level operatives began intensely leaking selective information supporting a supposed Russia-Trump conspiracy theory, the incoming National Security Advisor was ambushed, and the incoming Attorney General was forced to recuse himself from oversight of investigations of President Trump. At each major point in the operation, explosive media leaks were a key strategy in the operation to take down Trump.

Not only was information on Russia not fully shared with the incoming Trump team, as Obama directs, the leaks and ambushes made the transition chaotic, scared quality individuals away from working in the administration, made effective governance almost impossible, and materially damaged national security. When Comey was finally fired on May 9, in part for his duplicitousness regarding his handling of the Russia collusion theory, he orchestrated the launch of a Special Counsel probe that continued his efforts for another two years. That probe ended with Mueller finding no evidence of any American colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, much less Trump or anyone connected to him.

I’m sure we will be talking more about this in the days to come. As they say, “Summer is coming”, and its an election year.

American Rights, the Battle Continues

Shelley Luther
A Rosa Parks for our time

Ok, there’s a lot we haven’t talked about this, and yes, it’s deliberate. Like most of you, I’m deathly sick of house arrest. But the old Americanism is breaking out, as it always does when our liberty is threatened. Here’s what happened when an ex-marine talked ethics and patriotism to a police line. Watch the whole thing.

Did you watch to the end, where that line of riot police shuffled off?

And that’s the thing, the average police officer has all the troubles we all do, he’s mostly just trying to do his job. His superiors are a different story, though. It is unconscionable to give those orders.

Colonel Schlichter over at Townhall has something to say about this the other day as well.

As conservatives, we pride ourselves on our unwavering support of the Thin Blue Line, on backing our cops against leftist slander, and yet stupid and evil people in law enforcement are putting that default thumbs-up from normal Americans at risk. It’s bad enough when we watch the ridiculous spectacle of Deputy Karren and Deputy Man-Karen yelling at some mom for committing felony play-dating, but then we see how the FBI has flat-out framed political enemies and it’s too much. If the LEO community does not police its own ranks and stamp out this nonsense, it might as well take all the goodwill it has earned over the years, douse it in cheap gasoline, and set it on fire. […]

Here’s the thing – we normals respect our police not merely because they have badges and funny hats but because they take personal risks to protect us from those who would violate our rights. Usually, these violators are criminals. But the category of “People who violate our rights” also includes political hacks and bureaucratic petty fascists. And we reasonably expect to be protected from those creeps too.

“But we might get suspended or fired!” is the response. Well, yeah. That’s correct. And that’s immaterial.

He’s right, if you can’t stand the heat get the F out of the kitchen. Our nerves are plenty frayed worrying about all sorts of things, like feeding our kids and keep them safe. You really do not want the normals thinking that to keep our kids safe we have to keep them away from you. Or do you?

It’s like soldiers – the troops don’t get thanked for their service because their job is kick-back and safe.

So, we can surely expect them to pushback when some tool with sergeant’s stripes or chief stars tells them to oppress us.

For those LEOs who are confused:

When someone tells you to tackle people for misdemeanor failure to social distance, we expect you to say “No.”

When someone tells you to fly drones around scolding citizens, we expect you to say “No.”

When someone tells you to walk through a church parking lot taking down plate numbers, we expect you to say “No.”

When someone tells you to roll the SWAT team, with a complete with a Keystone Kop sniper up top, to confront the peril of a bunch of people protesting to reopen business, we expect you to say “No.”

When someone tells you to hassle Jews for praying, we expect you to say “No.”

We’ve seen all these things happen or be threatened since the bat stew virus infected the Bill of Rights, perhaps fatally. And these atrocities have to stop.

And they are going to stop. The question to you is, “Will you side with corrupt bureaucrats like the German Polezei did in the 1930s, or will you side with the American people and our God-given constitutional rights. Up to you, I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t much care. All I really care about is the restoration of eroded American rights. You can pick your side as you choose. But I’ll tell you something from experience, there are a hell of a lot of things worse than getting fired. One of them is living with yourself after you’ve ruined somebody’s life, or even killed them, for no reason, really, at all.

Many won’t play stupid games and they simply blow off dumb orders. I’ve witnessed police officers ignore all manner of Karen crimes, as they should. Bravo! We’ve seen a number of sheriffs stand up and refuse to enforce illegal and immoral orders from political hacks. Three cheers!

But then there are the Barney Fifes who, instead of saying “Hard pass” when ordered to dragging off some tattoo artist, comply instead. And that’s how we got a viral vid of two tubby constables hauling a guy to the pokey for trying to feed his family. Is that what LEOs signed up for? If so, we’re in trouble.

How would you feel if you were the guy or gal that wrote the citation that brought Shelley Luther into that courtroom to be abused by an Obama hack judge so badly that both of your Senators, and the Governor, as well as the state Attorney General called him out, while the Lt. Governor paid her fine, and the State Supreme Court ordered her release. By the way, she now has a new customer, Senator Cruz stopped in for a well-publicized haircut yesterday. All that to feed her kids, and help her employees feed theirs. Nice job, Bozo, you managed to create another Rosa Parks.

Feeling proud? If you are, well all I’ll say is you’re a scumbag and a disgrace to your uniform, and your country.

State Government, Facebook, and the Constitution

Well, it’s not often that Nebraska gets grouped in with New Jersey and California, especially involving Facebook (or Farcebook, as many of my friends have it) and denial of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I suspect Pete Ricketts, our governor, had much the same reaction as I did, best classed as WTF!

Emily Jashinsky at The Federalist seems to have it sorted.

At first, the company seemed to be bragging about its work with state governments to remove posts promoting protests of lockdown guidelines. After state governments disputed that characterization, Facebook said it had only consulted the local officials for information on the scope of their guidelines.

On Monday evening, a Facebook company spokesperson clarified the platform’s approach to The Federalist. “Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook,” they said. “For this same reason, events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook.”

Speaking on background, the Facebook source added, “We review content about the protests against our policies and whether the protest calls for social distancing where that is required. We require protests to make calls for social distancing clear in their event in states where that is required for protests.”

“State officials can contact us to inform us on their guidance as it relates to social distancing in their state,” they continued. “We reached out to state officials to understand the scope of their orders, not about removing specific protests on Facebook.”

Several news outlets reported early Monday that a Facebook spokesperson sent a statement claiming the company removed posts that promoted quarantine protests from its website at the direction of state governments.

The gist of the story seems to be that Facebook wants us to think they are an official gatekeeper working with our often overzealous governments to suppress our rights. Well, OK then. Facebook is convenient, but no one concerned with their constitutional rights should consider them an ally, or even a very good channel. They have far to often shown themselves to be susceptible to pressure, especially from the left. Simply not to be trusted. Never, not ever.

Meanwhile, over at Townhall, Katie Pavlich tells us that the US Attorney General Bill Barr reaffirmed that our constitutional rights don’t go away just because some new strain of flu shows up, saying:

But it still has the obligation to adapt to the circumstances. Whatever powers the government has, whether it be the president or the state governor, still is bounded by Constitutional rights of the individual. Our federal Constitutional rights don’t go away in an emergency. They constrain what the government can do. And in a circumstance like this, they put on the government the burden to make sure that whatever burdens it’s putting on our Constitutional liberties are strictly necessary to deal with the problem,” he continued. “They have to be targeted. They have to use less intrusive means if they are equally effective in dealing with the problem. And that’s the situation we’re in today. We’re moving into a period where we have to do a better job of targeting the measures we’re deploying to deal with this virus.

And that is fair enough. Americans have always been pragmatic enough to understand that sometimes rights have to give way to common sense. We still do. The problems start when the government gets pushy, without enough justification, or tries to hold on longer than common sense indicates, or goes too far. All of which is happening now. Then the government (state and/or federal) gets pushback, and it tends to be rather blunt. Governor Ricketts is unlikely to be harmed by this, he’s a pretty good man, and he did the right thing when Facebook misrepresented itself. But it too is a warning, it’s time to be getting back to work, this particular threat is diminishing, but the threat to the economy is very real, and getting worse.

Adam Smith and American Property Rights

From The American Spectator:

As free trade and markets are increasingly vilified today by the political Left and Right alike, the ideas of Adam Smith, author of the famed Wealth of Nations and sometimes called the Father of Capitalism, are also tarnished.

It’s worth noting that many of the modern criticisms of markets — the most common being that they promote greed, inequality, and materialism — aren’t new. They are, in fact, criticisms that Smith himself anticipated and answered in his works. Looking especially to insights found in the book that made him famous in his lifetime, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), we can learn much about Smith’s concern about the social, moral, and political dangers of the excesses of markets today and the importance of personal virtue in preventing them.

“The profit motive fogs the thinking of free-market advocates,” critics claim. In allowing for unchecked pursuit of personal gain, a free-market system necessarily feeds greed — at the expense of the society’s vulnerable and the collective good. But Smith cautioned anyone who thought that solely pursuing profit would bring happiness. In TMS, Smith recounts a parable of the “poor man’s son,” who observes the comfort of a rich man’s son and spends his whole life striving and longing to become wealthy. When he finally does, he realizes that he’s just as dissatisfied as he was when he was poor. Smith uses this story to illustrate the importance of contentment with one’s current status and wealth and to caution against the delusion that any amount of money can buy happiness.

“Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity,” is another increasingly common refrain, as growing income inequality is one of the key national issues of our day. When we read about billionaires spending over a billion dollars on a superyacht or $5 billion on a collection of rare cars, while over one in 10 American households experienced food insecurity in 2018, it’s not difficult to see why many become so upset about inequality.

Smith was very aware of the inequality markets would produce. In Wealth of Nations, he wrote, “For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.” Smith also knew, however, that markets had great potential to lift entire cities and nations out of poverty — benefiting the wealthy, yes, but also the underprivileged. For Smith, inequality was worth the “universal opulence” that markets would produce, because the benefits of markets would “extend itself to the lowest ranks of the people.”

Keep reading, this is very good. Although I caution that trade is not free unless it is fair, which is a common misperception these days. Remember that Smith’s world ran on the gold standard, amongst other things, there was very little currency manipulation.

But the author’s point is, and must be, well taken, there is no proper understanding of Adam Smith without understanding The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which in fact, predates The Wealth of Nations.

But where did all this wealth we speak of (and it is an amazing story) come from? William Yeatman writing in The Federalist knows, and he shares it with us.

Within our constitutional framework, property rights have been relegated to second-class citizenship.

Take the Supreme Court’s double-standard on the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against the government “taking” private property unless it’s for “public use.” For alleged infringements of other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, the Court “strictly” scrutinizes government action. But with the Fifth Amendment’s property protections, the Court allows legislatures to interpret their own constitutional boundaries. If “only” property rights are at stake, then the fox may guard the henhouse.

And yet:

Erler is a professor of political philosophy, so it’s unsurprising this book’s foremost contribution is its discussion of the vital role property rights played in the Framers’ constitutional vision. Tracing an arc of political thought from Aristotle through Locke on to the Declaration of Independence, Erler argues that the Founding Fathers put an inherently American gloss on pre-existing conceptions of property – one that merged natural rights and moral obligation into a synthesis they called “the pursuit of happiness.”

For the Founders, the right to property was the “comprehensive right that included all other rights.” In this spirit, the Supreme Court in 1795 averred that “the right of acquiring and possessing property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent and unalienable rights of man.”

Keep reading this one too. The founders were correct. The right to property includes all the others. Do you have the right to own a Bible? a Gun? a House to keep them (and yourself) in? This is the basic question of the right to property. It is the right to be whatever you are, and the more it is corroded, the more we are creatures not of God, but of the state.

Keep it in mind, as we continue on.

Epstein

Like so many others, I’m having trouble taking Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide seriously. Yes, we should, of course, but my word…

Steven Hayward pretty much nailed it on Twitter:

And

That pretty well sums it up, doesn’t it? Everything we know tells us Epstein was a bad man, but how in the world does the main witness in one of the most important cases the government has manage to hang himself. In short, it has been a very long time since the government has encouraged us to have confidence in it. And this event has made it quite a bit worse.

Steven also says this in his article:

Attorney General Barr is asking for an FBI investigation and and Inspector General investigation. Why an IG investigation, too? Maybe he doesn’t trust the Clinton-friendly FBI? (On the other hand, if this IG report takes as long as most of them do to finish, we’ll be dead from global warming before we see it.)

Yep.

Jonathan Turley adds:

The suicide comes a day after the release of documents implicating an array of powerful figures around the world. Epstein catered to friends from Bill Clinton to Prince Andrew. The timing has already caused some to question whether this was a true suicide or an effort to get rid of a man who was becoming a major threat to major players in politics and business. Given the low likelihood of success for Epstein, 66, in his criminal case and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in jail, a suicide attempt was likely. However, that raises the question of how a man who was once on a suicide watch could be allowed the material, let alone the opportunity, for a suicide.

And if I understand the timeline, only a few hours after he was taken off suicide watch. Which doesn’t explain why nobody checked on him for at least several hours that night.

Prison officials say that Epstein was declared dead at 6:30 am. They say the cause was cardiac arrest but reports indicate it was a suicide. Two weeks ago, Epstein was was found nearly unconscious in his cell with injuries to his neck.

It is the timing that is likely to spur conspiracy theories. Documents released yesterday detail allegations by Virginia Giuffre that she was told to have sex with an assortment of Epstein’s friends, including former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell; asset manager Glenn Dubin, modeling executive Jean Luc Brunel, the late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, Prince Andrew and Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz. The next day, Epstein is dead.

Unless one counts revenge on his so-called friends, it is rather hard to see what Epstein had to live for, looking at a long criminal proceeding and then most likely life in prison, but:

Yet, how could such a high suicide risk be allowed the opportunity for a suicide? At a minimum, a suicide would indicate gross negligence by the prison officials in Manhattan. Much like the murder of Whitey Bulgar at Hazelton, the death would only be possible with an utter lack of competence by correctional management and staff.

This is how huge conspiracy theories start when nothing at all makes sense. Attorney General Barr would be well advised to build a hot enough fire under his subordinates to get some answers rather quickly because I can’t think of anyone who believes the government’s story at this point. All I’m hearing is a disagreement on whether it was the Clinton Crime Family or the Deep State if there is either a distinction or a difference between them.

This is one of those times when justice delayed is decidedly justice denied, and the American people are pretty much fed up with the bullshit.

Swamp Report: CIA Running Scared

New today, at The American Spectator, from Jed Babbin is this:

[L]ast Wednesday the intelligence community launched its first attack on Attorney General William Barr’s investigation into its illegal acts and abuses of power during the 2016 election. In a New York Times article entitled “Justice Department Seeks to Question CIA in its Own Russia Investigation,” the IC makes clear its fear of the results of Barr’s investigation of their spy operation on candidate Trump in 2016 that continued through his early presidency.

The article, obviously written at the behest of its intelligence community sources — “current and former American officials” — is the first of many concerted attacks on Attorney General William Barr’s investigation of the joint CIA/FBI spy operation. Many other articles, based on carefully crafted leaks to the media and Congress, are sure to follow because current and former high-ranking officials of those agencies (and probably the NSA as well) have a lot to lose.

John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, is running the investigation under Barr’s direction. From the Times report, we can easily deduce the fact that those who ran the spy op — including CIA Director Gina Haspel — are running scared from the Durham investigation.

Start with the sourcing: “current and former American officials.” That includes all of the people who were in the Obama White House, Comey’s FBI, Brennan’s CIA, and everyone else who’s ever held a government job in, for example, the Obama White House.

The third paragraph says, in part:

While the Justice Department review is not a criminal inquiry, it has provoked anxiety in the ranks of the C.I.A., according to former officials. Senior agency officials have questioned why the C.I.A.’s analytical work should be subjected to a federal prosecutor’s scrutiny.

Two points are made there and both are clearly wrong.

It damned well is an investigation not a “review.” James Comey — probably at the behest of then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch — only referred to the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s felonious use of a private, unsecured email system as a “matter.” By doing so he tried to exclude the possibility that it was a criminal investigation despite the fact that it very much was one. So is the Barr/Durham investigation. It’s not a “review.” By definition, such an investigation is an investigation into possible criminal actions.

The reason the CIA’s “analytical work” is being subjected to a federal prosecutor’s scrutiny is that there is a lot of evidence of criminal conduct by the CIA and FBI. That’s one of the fundamental differences between the Barr/Durham investigation and the Mueller investigation into the imaginary conspiracy between candidate Trump and his campaign and the Russians.

Keep reading, link above.

It’s damned well time, I think. The so-called intelligence community has been an insular walled-off community of its own far too long. In that time not only has it conspired against the American people, and their elected officials, often to our detriment, They have gotten damned near every important call, since before the fall of the Soviet Empire, including the fall of the Shah.

Maybe if they did reasonable work, I’d be a bit more tolerant, although I doubt it, but since I think Harvey Lunchbucket in Hoboken is about as qualified as anybody in the puzzle palace, I don’t see any upside in tolerating their arrogance built on friendship made in some of the most expensive and least educational universities in the world. Nurtured in a hothouse where nobody was responsible for anything, and the people came way back in last place.

It’s time to try something else. But first, its time to see these failed arrogant tools in the dock, instead of living the high life on our dime.

America is a tolerant country, but karma remains our girlfriend, but she’s a cold bitch to her enemies.