Comparisons can be useful to gain insight into human nature. That nature tends to make them formed or perceived as bigoted or rationalizing. Is it handwaving or is it fact based? That is one way to tell which is which. Eight Startling and Uncomfortable Ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party (Steve McCann, American Thinker) — “An unemotional examination of the underlying philosophies and the tactics the Nazi Party used to gain and maintain power reveals not just the common impulse to weaponize the judiciary to eradicate one’s political opponents (e.g., Donald Trump) but numerous other similarities between the Nazis and the Democrat party that cannot be ignored.  Here are eight uncomfortable dimensions of that resemblance.”

Another insight is The Age of Conspiracy (Richard Fernandez, PJ Media) — “Perhaps the reason there are so many “conspiracy theories” is because individuals are seeking to explain phenomena that they find difficult to understand or accept. … It’s fair to say that the “conspiracy theories” go both ways. … Both sides are now bristling with extreme explanations.” — This is where Fernandez fails with the ‘both sides do it’ fallacy. In this, his classification — “Going forward there are likely to be three kinds of conspiracies history must deal with: 1) the cons, 2) the heresies that turn out to be wrong and 3) the heresies that turn out to be right.” — is tossed aside and he demonstrates the underlying problem, the inability to see, to face, and accept reality. There are lists of current ‘conspiracies’ that can be examined to see where they fit in his classification scheme and they can also be assigned to the sides promulgating them so see if ‘both sides do it’ really is a fair (accurate) assertion.

A more balanced and objective view of one of these conspiracies is the essay ‘Capitalism is responsible for environmental destruction and climate change’ (Rainer Zitelmann, BPR) — “Capitalist West Germany (the Federal Republic) and socialist East Germany (the GDR) make for a good comparison … Having considered the facts, many people will concede that socialism is worse for the environment than capitalism, but they are still left with reasonable doubts: Isn’t economic growth in general bad for the environment?”

“At no time in human history have planned economies been the solution to problems, but they have caused a host of problems, especially environmental problems. In contrast, capitalism with its manifold innovations has already solved so many problems, including and especially in the area of the environment. It is therefore absurd to assume that abolishing capitalism would solve the problems of climate change and environmental destruction. 

Back to the Nazi principles: The Censored Generation (Thomas Buckley, Issues & Insights) — “Incredulity. Astonishment. Disgust. Anger. – It is these feelings – amongst others – that describe the general reaction to the revelations of the Twitter Files and other egregious episodes of Big Tech censorship of the electronic public square. … But what is society to expect when those doing the censoring seem to see absolutely nothing wrong with it, that it didn’t even occur to them that what they were engaged in – often at the specific request of governmental agencies – was at all a problem?”

Other history comes in to register reality. The Iraq War: 20 Years Later (Stephen Green, PJ Media |restricted|) — “It’s never too soon to correct the historical revisionism that’s taken place on recent years” — he claims his biggest mistake was forgetting the “Iron Law of American Public Opinion” that if you’re pushing a war without a 3 or 4 year endgame, then don’t bother – no matter the merits.

On the DJT current derangement, check out Alvin Bragg’s End Run Around the Constitution – American Thinker, The Legally and Morally Flawed Case Against Trump, Donald Trump and the ‘Stormy’ Time Ahead for the Nation,  

on the banking problem via ZeroHege: How The Fed Broke The Banks (Joakim, Reason.com), Too Wrong To Fail (Thomas McArdle, The Epoch Times) 

The distraction of the weekend: Arresting Trump (George Parry, The American Spectator) — “To those who in the future may wish to challenge the power of the permanent political class, heed well what it is doing to Trump. This is the Uniparty’s playbook, and here’s its message: the vast wealth, emoluments, privileges, and power of government belong to us, and, if you get in our way, we will destroy you.” — Counterterror Org Prepares for Trump’s Arrest. But Why? (Robert Spencer, – PJ Media) — “It’s an evil move, but it’s also a stupid one.” — A two-tiered justice system and the perils of a Trump arrest (Rajan Laad, American Thinker) — “The vast disinformation campaign was the first step by the Democrats towards outlawing political opposition. – But nobody was punished for this.” — Government Tyrants Play with Fire (J.B. Shurk, American Thinker) — “If anyone needed further evidence that we reside under a post-constitutional Uniparty regime with utter disdain for the rule of law, add this to the long list of government crimes and usurpations committed against the American people.”

This did not have to happen.  American leaders have had many opportunities to confront evil and nip tyranny in the bud.  Too many stayed quiet while the national security surveillance State worked to take down a sitting president.  Too many stayed quiet while the Uniparty stole the last election.  Too many stayed quiet while the Deep State censored Americans’ free speech.  Too many stayed quiet while leftist legal henchmen locked up J6 political prisoners for the thoughts within their heads.  Too many stayed quiet when the installed president of the United States called half the country “enemies,” “extremists,” and “terrorists.”  At any point, had enough elected officials finally risen, ground their heels into the dirt, spat upon their hands, and said “no,” this present tyranny would not exist.

If today is not the day to stand for freedom, then freedom is in mortal danger.  And any politician refusing to back up words with real action is as cowardly and worthless as the multitude of pretenders.

There are a lot of columns on this such as from Dershowitz and Turley explaining just how much of a reach this effort it taking. The evidence that does surface tends to decay the assault. Consider A Gigantic Egg All Over Brad Raffensperger’s Face (Jay Valentine, American Thinker) . This one describes the voter roll auditing using Washoe County, Nevada as an example for what is coming for Georgia. What is interesting is that the audit has the interest of the Sheriff looking into pandemic fraud.

Now, what is the Trump assault distracting from? Most underreported story: Evidence of the Biden family’s $ millions from China now documented with bank records (Thomas Lifson, American Thinker) — “It comes as no surprise that the propaganda arm of the Democrats called the “mainstream media” has no interest in informing the American people of the gravity of the evidence piling up that Joe Biden has been bought off by the Chinese Communist Party. Thanks to the efforts of James Comer, we already have bank records of $1 million flowing to Biden family members through a cutout named Rob Walker, shortly after Biden left office as VP. – There is no indication of any particular services performed for this treasure, nor is there any expertise among the recipients,”

Another event needing distraction is the economy. You Can Bank on it: A Cheat Sheet on the SVB Collapse (Clarice Feldman, American Thinker) — “It is, in fact, a story of faulty accounting practices, poor government oversight, and the effects of government micromanaging markets at the same time that it fails in its oversight responsibilities. And you will be paying for it.”

The nonsense. Here’s a ‘been there, done that.’ Woke Policies Are a Path to Societal Mediocrity — Or Worse (Henry I. Miller, American Council on Science and Health) — “I’m old enough to remember when “wokeness” was called “political correctness.” And “DEI” — diversity, equity, and inclusion — was subsumed under the term “affirmative action,” which often meant hiring, promoting, or admitting underqualified people from “underrepresented” demographic groups. – Whatever the labels, I have had several distasteful confrontations with them over the years.”

The demise of the Law School is a case in point. Let’s talk about Stanford’s law students (Andrea Widburg, American Thinker) — “as lawyers, we must listen to, grapple with, and understand even ideas and people that are offensive to us. Otherwise, there is no counter to a government on a mission.”

How is it done? Freedom Talkers Guide to Linguistic Insurrection (Deborah C. Tyler) — “The cloud of defeat enshrouding America is a spiritual, moral and political conquest which seeks to control minds, debilitate character and destroy institutions from within. That conquest starts with the power to control our words. We react, we write, we rail against them – but always using their words. They control the conversation. We have let the enslavers control our words.”

J6 narrative busting continues. Capitol riot footage means we must ask what’s REALLY going on with Jan. 6 trials (NY Post). Some light here but it shows two grievous flaws. — “Yes, what happened that day was inexcusable. Yes, then-prez Donald Trump’s summoning and provoking of the rioters is utterly beyond the pale.” and  “House Republicans need to dig deep into these prosecutions — without falling into the error of painting the Capitol Riot as a “mostly peaceful protest.” — both of these presumptions are questionable and contrary to existing evidence but presented with authority of Truth. That illustrates the bigger problem we all face.

Many are beoming ever more cynical because they see Failing Accountability Leads to Chaos (John Green, American Thinker) — “It’s an engineering principle that systems need feedback to remain in control. … Accountability is the balancing of the ledger. It’s the checking of actual behavior against what’s required. … Unfortunately, our systems of accountability are failing us. … Our news media is intended to provide information to the public for sound decision making. Instead, it traffics in obvious falsehoods. But there is no penalty for false reporting. … Our politicians have racked up over $31 trillion of national debt. … Federal agents violate our constitutional rights with impunity. They then dodge accountability by refusing to comply with congressional oversight. … Judges reinterpret laws to suit their personal ideology. … Schools indoctrinate our children with leftist ideology. They use secrecy, lawsuits, and criminal arrest to prevent parents from knowing or protesting their actions. … Major corporations use their profits to push their ideology … Banks make questionable ESG investments (such as those by Silicon Valley Bank) with no accountability. … Criminals assault and steal from the law-abiding with impunity. They avoid accountability because liberal prosecutors consider them — not their prey — the actual victims.”

A lack of accountability will only go so far. Elections Have Consequences; Stolen Elections Have Catastrophes (J.B. Shurk, American Thinker) — “That resort to low-minded name-calling always seems like the “big tell” that they know that the people know that they’re full of it.” … “When those who run the government have no vision and those punished by the government have committed no crimes, then the blind won’t see what they’ve destroyed until it’s too late.  Trust is a tricky thing to restore.  Once it’s gone, systems just break.” — that’s why The Looming Reckoning for COVID Tyrants (William Sullivan, American Thinker) — “Many of the tyrants who promoted the COVID madness have been begging for amnesty for some time, and we should only expect that their numbers will grow as more evidence surfaces. … What we need in order to assure that outcome is something to rival the Nuremberg Trials in scope and sensationalism. … We need answers.  And we demand justice, which can only come from identifying and adequately punishing those involved.”

This is a target rich environment. January 6 Doesn’t Shine a Candle to COVID (Trevor Thomas, American Thinker) — “Following his election in 2016, what was perpetrated upon Donald Trump by the Democrats and their like-minded allies in the media, the FBI, et al. can rightly be described as the “greatest political scandal” in American history.  It was nothing short of an “attempted coup,” as Roger Kimball put it in February of 2019.” — but do they learn? House Democrats anoint ‘so-called’ member of Congress to sabotage hearings, whistleblowers (Miranda Devine, NY Post) — “Now that Democrats are in the minority in the House and unable to abuse their power as easily as they have for the last two years, they are resorting to shameless lies to sabotage oversight hearings and trash whistleblowers and other inconvenient witnesses.” — and then there’s another puzzle. Mike Pence destroys his remaining goodwill among MAGA Republicans (Rajan Laad, American Thinker) — “It’s hard to say if Pence is a useful idiot for the Democrats or if he was an establishment Republican pretending to be a MAGA Republican.”

And, on the banking slow fail process, Barney Frank busts the leftist narrative that Trump did it (Monica Showalter, American Thinker) — “Trump signed off on a 2018 bipartisan deregulation bill that exempted smaller banks with assets below $250 billion from the Dodd-Frank banking regulations that were so onerous that they were killing off smaller banks. … The facts, though, don’t seem to be stopping today’s Democrats.”

The questions center on the why. Why did J6 go down the way it did? Sundance caught something that helps to understand this. It’s about using procedure and parliamentary rules to achieve a desired result. The Parliamentary Motive Behind the J6 Fedsurrection – The Last Refuge — 

“Within the questions: the FBI and government apparatus had advanced knowledge of the scale of the J6 mall assembly yet doing nothing?  Why were the Capitol Hill police never informed of the FBI concerns?  Why didn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi secure the Capitol Hill complex, and why did she deny the request by President Trump to call up the national guard for security support?  Why did the FBI have agent provocateurs in the crowd, seemingly stimulating rage within a peaceful crowd to enter the Capitol building?  There have always been these nagging questions around ‘why’?

 … Those congressional floor challenges, known and anticipated well in advance of the morning of January 6, 2021, would have formed a legal and constitutional basis for ‘standing’ in judicial challenges that would have eventually reached the Supreme Court.  The certification during “emergency session” eliminated the problem for Washington DC.

… One member raises a motion (with another in waiting for his turn) those two motions were well known and advertised. These were motions to vote for a pause in the certification to examine electoral vote fraud and irregularities. I can’t speak to the veracity and substance of those motions. They were never allowed to even be floored. it was at that exact moment that the house chambers were suspended and 4 of the key members, Pence, Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell were escorted OUT right after initiating the end of the session.

Effectively, this resulted in that motion never being floored at all.  Then, when reconvened under special emergency rules, inexplicably those two motions (and perhaps more – we will never know – or will we?) were not even attempted to be motioned. That was not just peculiar to me.

It all started to make more sense when I did some study on constitutional law AND THE HISTORY of specific special authorities given to president of the congress, Pence in this case. Not only did he have the authority and power to suspend the certification, but the duty to address the motion in the same sense that it becomes vital to the debate clause.

The behavior of the Vice President has been a topic of discussion and awareness of his potential culpability and its implications keeps surfacing. As Jan. 6 Narrative Implodes, Pence Still Blames Bad Orange Man (Robert Spencer, PJ Media) — “Mike Pence is running hard to be the Mitt Romney of 2024, the controlled opposition establishment Republican nominee who will run for president and lose gracefully. Or if he somehow wins, he will do the Left’s bidding, but in a restrained, ostensibly conservative way. … For Pence to say that Trump’s criticism endangered him is to parrot a Leftist talking point that is designed to shut down all criticism of the Left. It’s irresponsible and short-sighted for Pence to aid and abet the destruction of the freedom of speech. … His new remarks are jarring and tone-deaf, but Mike Pence actually made his choice long ago.”

All of this tends to lend credence to ideas like Pathocracy and the Liberal Mind (Philip Ahlrich, American Thinker) — “Pathocracy can be defined generally as a condition of government under psychopathic domination, one in which a sufficient number of psychologically defective personalities have organized to subjugate a vulnerable and passive citizenry.  Pathocratic systems are not at all uncommon in the world’s history. … Certainly, this is evil.  There can be no agreement with its terms nor space provided for its instruction.  To tolerate evil is to give it sanctuary, but to bargain with evil is to give it legitimacy.” — and here’s and example where a well established pathology is still running rampant: Must-see TV: Mark Levin exposes ‘the scandal no one is talking about’ (Thomas Lifson, American Thinker) — “Mark exposed, with video excerpts, the appalling Jew-hatred visible in Louis Farrakhan’s February 26 “Savior’s Day” rally in Chicago.  The media have almost completely ignored the rally, which is itself a scandal.  This is a rally that Ticketmaster had no scruples, no second thoughts, about enabling (and profiting off of) by selling tickets for it online. … But Mark went beyond decrying the hate to document the shameful sucking up of the Democrats to Farrakhan. … Watch and weep for our country that this man wields so much influence in the party that commands our bureaucracy, no matter who sits in the White House.”

The propaganda machine is a critical part of this. The media sin of reporting and debating from false premises (Bookworm Room) — “My friend Nodrog sent me this righteous rant about arguments from false premises and said that I could publish it here.” — the 2020 election – Climate change – “White supremacy, gender fluidity, Jan 6th — all are reported from the standpoint that they are real.” — This may be a part of A massive but subtle sociological shift observed through the lens of a conservative mind (Olivia Murray, – American Thinker) — “when I watched the video above, something new occured to me: the likelihood that these women ever go back and watch what they’ve recorded is close to zero, if not completely. But what makes that so profound. — These means of documentation were once an art, and they were methods to capture a moment in time that was gone as soon as it happened. The byproducts of this art were family treasures, passed down through generations; they were priceless. – Now? Pictures and videos serve an entirely different purpose: they’ve largely become novelty items to score cheap virtue-signaling points and inflate one’s already exaggerated self-importance.” 

The family of pathologies includes climate paranoia. The empty suits of the climate activists (Bill Hansmann, American Thinker) — “Reviewing a half-century of “it’s going to get cold, and we did it; it’s going to get hot, and we did it; and the seas are going to rise because the polar icecaps are going to melt, and we did it,” shows just how off base these claims have been.” — This sort of irrational denial of reality leads some to notice the link back to Pathocracy. The Toxic Intersection Of Climate Alarmism And Communism – Issues & Insights — “For reasons that escape us, there is a sizable number of people across the world and across history who hate capitalism, which is nothing more than the free market at work, and want to terminate it with extreme prejudice. Too often they are the same people who believe humans are destroying their planet, that they are, as British crank David Attenborough, said “a plague on the Earth.”

A place to live? Zoning laws and artificial (woke driven) constraints plus the ‘rich slumlord’ fantasies all play a part. The Many Lies of the Housing Crisis Alarmists (Linda R. Killian, American Thinker) — “Under the rallying cry of a housing crisis in the New York metropolitan area, politicians have begun a double-barreled assault against affluent suburban communities and the owners of multi-family residential properties.  Their ideologically driven plans are based on false premises and designed to grant developers free rein over local zoning and state environmental laws.” — “Having destroyed civil society in Newark, New York City, and Hartford, these politicians are now pressing toxic interventions on the self-governing suburbs that function well on their own.  Albany, Hartford, and Trenton legislators should be focusing on reducing crime, taxes, and regulation instead of turning the successful suburbs into urban hellholes.”

Some folks aren’t happy because they think Tucker isn’t aggressive enough. Some will take what they can get as each step forward is a part of the march in the right direction. Sometimes there is nuance not well served by brute force and awkwardness. So, Tucker Carlson Defends Himself Against DC Attacks – “We are learning who the liars are”… (Sundance) — “Mr. Carlson responded again tonight to the vitriol from the apparatus of government for his airing of the January 6th CCTV tapes and the fallout from the sunlight.” — The insurrection that wasn’t, National Review, Tucker Carlson, and new video of January 6 (William Layer, BPR) — “Charles Cook (“January 6 Was at Least a Riot”) and Noah Rothman (“Tucker Carlson’s January 6 Revisionist History) writing in March 7th’s National Review Online take Tucker Carlson to task for showing newly released video of the January 6 riot and daring to disagree with the official conclusion. I’ve read both pieces and if they accuse Carlson of being disingenuous, they’re not far behind. … As the released tapes continue to unroll the truth will slowly emerge. That certain members of Congress have wanted them sequestered “to preserve democracy” proves they care little for democracy and have little respect for the judgment of American citizens.  What else are they hiding?” — Beware The Nonresponsive Response To Tucker Carlson (Chris Bray, American Greatness via ZeroHedge) — “I just realized what Tucker Carlson versus “the swamp” teaches us … When someone makes specific claims, and the responses are not specific, the response is not a response. It’s chaff, and it’s meant to cloud the air. … We didn’t do that; also, we did do that, but it was a tactic.”

There are other fronts in the denial of reality that plagues current issues. Facebook: Extending its legacy of science denial (Gregory Wrightstone, BPR) — “Facebook continues to reject any and all scientific data that does not support their “consensus” narrative of man-made catastrophic warming by rejecting an ad placed by the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. … the ad displayed publicly available data from government sources and suggested an interpretation of the information. Readers are free to dispute our analysis. However, to be denied access to it is contrary to the founding principles of the United States of America – mainly the freedom of speech and thought. … Attacks on those standing for honest scientific inquiry into climate issues have become so common that one might be inclined to shrug them off. However, the purveyors of climate doom are not likely to go away on their own as might some pesky gnats.” — Then there’s ‘reparations’ as Hinderaker explains: “Reparations for slavery is an idea that, at best, is idiotic. More often it is malicious. Why people who never owned slaves should write checks to people who never were slaves is inexplicable. But insanity has its degrees, and this one takes the cake” 

Where do these people come from? Various cults of leftism find well-groomed recruits thanks to the Girl Scouts (Olivia Murray, – American Thinker) — “The seeping infiltration of leftist ideology into hallowed and wholesome American institutions resulting in their pollution is nothing new, but as cookie season is in full swing, it’s time to remind conservatives why supporting the Girl Scouts of the USA is deeply troublesome at best. … I could go on and on, but you get the point: cute as those little girls are, and tasty as the confections might be, GSUSA is a petri dish of perversion and corruption, and they don’t deserve a dime.” — This sort of dishonesty is getting to people. Naomi Wolf apologizes to conservtives (The New Neo) — “my question is: why did she believe the narrative the left was pushing in the first place? … My answer: a mind is a difficult thing to change. Most people are resistant to change despite evidence. It takes some sort of critical mass of a certain type of evidence, and even then the majority of people will probably continue to resist it. … it is excruciatingly difficult to do what she’s doing – or beginning to do.”

There is a great deal of racial hatred that has been fostered especially since 2009. Race-Based Hatred Permeates the Black Population (Steve McCann, American Thinker) — “For forty-five years (1964 to 2009), the United States experienced significant progress in race relations.” — by the numbers it goes back much farther than that, but — “In 2009, the most divisive and societally destructive president in American history, Barack Obama, came into office determined to reverse this trend by manipulating the Black citizenry into abandoning racial harmony by utilizing malicious demonization of the White population.  He succeeded in fanning the dying embers of racism into a potential national conflagration. … the Black community must shed the scales from its eyes and cease being gullible pawns and mascots for the race hustlers, social justice warriors, and the Marxists (i.e., Democrats) as the Black population has assented to be viewed by this cabal as nothing more than gullible, ignorant foot soldiers that can be easily exploited.” 

Why? Because they can! (and get away with it) The Price of Eliminating Consequences (Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics) — “The criminals entertained no fear of any consequences for walking out with bags of things that were not theirs. They had no care that mainstreaming their habits would undermine the entire fabric of society. … Yet deterrence is not just eroded from the bottom up, but also from the top down — and by an elite who assume it will never be subject to the chaos it has wrought.” — “When our state and federal governments allow criminals and foreign nations to injure with impunity their own law-abiding citizens, is it any wonder the civilized world we once knew has vanished — replaced by the Hobbesian rule of the wild?”

The J6 fracas highlights why. The Chair of the January 6 Select Committee Just Made a Damning Admission (Matt Vespa, Townhall) — “The hyperbole knows no bounds … Chansley’s lawyers didn’t have access to these tapes. Moreover, the January 6 Select Committee chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), didn’t even review them before forcibly plunging the nation through this kangaroo court. … This is gross incompetence, but Democrats went along with it anyway because they knew they would get all the political cover from the media, and they did.” — Turning A Blind Eye To Inconvenient Truths About Jan. 6 – Issues & Insights — “remember, it was the Democrats’ characterization of the events that was manipulative. It’s Democrats who decided to raise the stakes, hold kangaroo court hearings, and grossly misrepresent the events of Jan. 6.” — The Damage done? An egregious denial of due process for Jan. 6 protesters (Miranda Devine, New York Post) — “For more than two years, footage that could have exonerated Jan. 6 defendants was kept from their legal teams. – People are in prison because of that cover-up. … McBride says the J6 committee’s deceptions and pejorative comments about “MAGA Republicans” from President Biden “have poisoned the DC jury pool beyond repair,” which also is grounds for appeal. … The Capitol riot was a gift to Democrats and Trump-deranged Republicans. They didn’t care about the perversion of justice or the human toll of their political game. – The shabby treatment of the J6 defendants is a stain on this country’s reputation that has not gone unnoticed around the world.”

J6 isn’t the only event where this is happening. There is conflict on other fronts as well. DeSantis brings more receipts (David Strom, HotAir) — “The all-out war on DeSantis is as deeply deceptive as it is relentless. … This time DeSantis drops a truth bomb on the media and his critics (but I repeat myself) by providing a video that shows a tiny part of the content in the books that are being pulled from the public schools–that were being provided to kids not even in High School. The images are very disturbing. … Most people simultaneously recoil from book banning and from adults handing out sexually explicit material to children. Both impulses are good, and the problem with the attacks on DeSantis is that they make a false claim: that the governor is banning books. He isn’t.”

The situation is not unknown. Life Among the Ruins (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness) — “American society is facing three existential crises not unlike those that overcame the late Roman, and a millennium later, terminal Byzantine, empires. – We are suffering an epidemic of premodern barbarism. The signs unfortunately appear everywhere.”

There is deflation besides with currency. The truth tends to get out and can cause (or should cause) some embarrassment.  Another Pulitzer Prize discredited as propaganda (Monica Showalter, American Thinker) – the topic is the Vietnam false narrative and “the wickedness of America’s South Vietnamese ally and the importance of abandoning that country to the communists” — “It’s crude, rough, wartime justice, a picture of South Vietnamese Police Captain Nguy?n Ng?c Loan coldly executing Viet Cong Captain Nguy?n V?n Lém. The film is even harder to look at. … Just one problem, though: The context was missing, and that context mattered.” … “This is one sorry incident that the left got away with.  They showered their Pulitzers and watched the protests begin. One only wonders what the little kid who survived the massacre to become an admiral must have thought. Now that it’s out that he survived this psychopath, his life is living testimony to that reality.”

For more history, consider Roots of the Donbass Wars (Peter Nimitz, Nemets) — “History is a complex tapestry with many threads, and is constantly rewoven. Sometimes threads decay and disappear. Other times old threads are strengthened. Some threads are ripped out, and replaced with new threads. The shapes made on the tapestry are usually agreed upon, but the story they tell is usually disputed.” — and then there’s The Multi-Pronged Attack on Christianity (Raymond Ibrahim, American Thinker) — “All throughout Western school rooms, Greco-Roman civilization is presented as the West’s heritage, even though Christian civilization not only preserved it, but is the much more direct ancestor of the modern West.”

Ken Burns is sinking back into the muck where he is not alone. Television is making more documentaries than ever—but skipping the journalism (Danny Funt, – Columbia Journalism Review) — “this golden age of documentaries is defined, in part, by the blurring of what it even means to be a documentary. … Many of the twenty-plus industry leaders I interviewed for this story told me that conflicts of interest are now part of the cost of doing business.” —  Ken Burns Calls Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson ‘Huge Threat to Our Republic’ (Nick Arama, – RedState) — “He was a good filmmaker. Now he’s sold any credibility he ever had for his bias. It wasn’t a good trade.” — It’s all the Fault of Tucker and DeSantis.

Maybe this is a part of it? A lot of major Democrat donors have a couple things in common (Jack Hellner, American Thinker) – it’s lists and facts. Oh, My!

It was 1964 .. Unpopular, Polarizing, and Ineffective (Jason L. Riley, City Journal) — “Still, support for the equal treatment of blacks isn’t the same thing as support for racial quotas, statistical parity, or double standards, and lawmakers at the time made that clear. … No matter. In the aftermath of the law’s passage, this plain language would be turned on its head or ignored altogether to justify racial balancing not only in the workplace but also in higher education.” — in parallel The feminization of academia is a disaster for intellectual freedom (Andrea Widburg, American Thinker) — “I think it’s an objective fact that there’s a direct connection between the way American academia is falling off the leftist cliff (wokism, antisemitism, anti-white racism, anti-male sexism, and obsessions with transgenderism, White Privilege, critical race theory, etc.) and the rise of women in academia. While some may argue about that, there’s no doubt that women now dominate academia as both faculty and students and that they are the most fanatic members of the far left.” — 

The academic pot is simmering. Welcome to the Uncle Sam School of Law (Matthew G. Andersson, American Thinker) — “Our nation’s elite law schools otherwise want to stay elite, and equity is the new elitism. Government administrative bureaucracy is the new symbol of law school prestige, because government will accommodate the redefinition of law in personalized terms, and by personal, rather than objective values.  When that happens, there is no law, and when there is no law, the current political left can realize its fantasy of replacing law with absolute control.”

Accountability struggles. New Mexico Sued For Charging $5K To Access Public Voter Data (Victoria Marshall, Federalist) — “excessive charges are just another example of the barriers to government accountability and transparency faced by good government groups. As such, many are prevented from accessing state voter rolls.” –and also  Missouri, Florida, And West Virginia Ditch ERIC Voter Database — “ERIC doesn’t help states clean their rolls. Rather, it helps inflate them by requiring states to sent get-out-the-vote (GOTV) mailers to unregistered (and likely Democrat-leaning) residents.”

Then there’s the storm raised by the J6 video surveillance recordings.

• Tucker Carlson introduces some of the expanded January 6th footage – The New Neo
• Tucker Carlson Debunks the Democrat hoax of a deadly insurrection – American Thinker
• Tucker blows up sham J6 committee with new bombshell footage: ‘They are liars. That is conclusive.’
• YouTube Censors Tucker Carlson’s J6 Vids With Fake Fact Checks
• ‘They’re freaking out’: Kinzinger, Schumer spit fire over Tucker’s J6 footage, demand FOX stop the ‘lies’
• When it came to Tucker Carlson’s revelations about January 6, Democrats have come out swinging – American Thinker
• Panic in D.C.: Garland Tells Whopper of a Lie, Proving Why Tucker’s J6 Coverage Was So Important – RedState
• The Democrats’ strategy to dismiss the uncensored J6 videos evolves – American Thinker

There is deep dissonance. it is a gap between perception and record. The Senate minority leader exemplifies this as he is adamant about choosing who to believe – the record or the perception. What is being avoided is how the Democrats and their J6 committee has distorted the record and committed outright deceit and dishonesty. What is becoming clear is the Democrats efforts with J6 make the Salem Witch Trials look picayune.

Dis and Mis are a big deal in the propaganda war these days. Such pandering of words to deceive and mislead has consequences. ACHS provides one example in Strangling The Environment (Susan Goldhaber) — “Due to the ban on glyphosate by some cities and municipalities across the US, more and more fish and wildlife habitats are in danger. That is because glyphosate is the most effective tool for eradicating invasive plants that are destroying many native species. Without glyphosate, our country risks losing more and more critical wildlife and wetland habitats. Although everybody decries bad science, few people have considered the actual harm that can occur when faulty science is accepted as conventional wisdom.” — “Bayer has decided to stop selling Roundup for residential use in the US this year (2023). They stated that this does not include any admission of liability or wrongdoing; instead, their actions result from the US mass tort system.”

“Glyphosate is an example of what happens when economic and more significant societal impacts are not factored into the analysis of banning substances that have been safely used for years.

A related issue is being examined due to the calm down from the pandemic panic. It Can Be Difficult To Know What To Believe, Even In Medical Articles (Henry I. Miller) — “There are plenty of reasons for skepticism about medical studies. Some are poorly designed or performed, and some conclusions are totally implausible. In addition, some interpretations of them are intentionally misleading, and some studies need not have been done at all.” — “Here are some examples. – Long COVID Symptoms … Tylenol vs Morphine for Pain … Do masks prevent respiratory diseases … questions related to public health or medicine that don’t require randomized clinical trials … Approximately Zero” — “Don’t take everything you read – especially journalists’ accounts of published medical articles – at face value. Be circumspect about which interpretations you accept, whose advice you take, and whether there’s a consensus among experts. Life can be complicated.” – and avoid doing what Miller does and going ad hominem.

Another outcome of this behavior is in a Survey: Over Half of Faculty Fear Retaliation for Speaking Freely on Issues – JONATHAN TURLEY — “even liberal faculty now fear backlash for speaking freely in classes or on campus. … Blocking others from speaking is not the exercise of free speech. It is the very antithesis of free speech. Nevertheless, faculty have supported such claims. … it is not the actions of administrators that is most disgraceful but the silence of most faculty members as their colleagues are targeted and harassed.”

The tin foil hat brigade is showing its mettle. Gaslighting: “Conspiracy Theories” Already Proven True In 2023 (Marie Hawthorne via The Organic Prepper blog, ZeroHedge) — “The more time goes by, the more “conspiracy theorists” just seem ahead of the game.”

“If you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, you probably know what it’s like to have someone trying to convince you you’re crazy.  The only way to survive gaslighting like that is to constantly remind yourself of things you know are true.  That’s why it’s so important to keep track of whatever narratives we’re supposed to swallow and constantly check them against our preexisting knowledge base.  It’s important to hold purveyors of false narratives to account; it’s important to point to tangible facts and to be able to discuss them.

One of the tactics is Mangling Words’ Meaning to Manipulate the Public, by Laura Hollis | Creators Syndicate — the student loan payback is a rich field example for Hollis. Then there’s The Woke Wrecking Machine (Victor Davis Hanson. TownHall) — “Almost everything that has followed from the woke mass hysteria gripping the nation since 2020 has proved disastrous. – Wokeism destroys meritocracy in favor of forced equality of result – history’s prescription for civilizational decline. … Someday wokeism will disappear because it is inherently nihilistic and cannibalistic. – But in the meantime, Americans should end it now before it ends America first.”

Conspiracy theory? Why face the music now? Wray Confirms that FBI Accepted Lab Theory as Likely “For Quite Some Time Now” – JONATHAN TURLEY — “The disclosure of the Energy Department’s conclusion has followed a familiar attack pattern.” … “The notion that the FBI has held this belief for “quite some time now” is unnerving since it remained stoney silent as experts and commentators were censored and shunned for even uttering the theory. … the public should be focused as much on the censorship as the science behind the lab theory controversy. We will likely debate for years the merits of the theory. However, that is a debate that many in the media, academia, and the government actively sought to prevent for years. We need to know how our own government may have contributed to that ignoble effort.”

Then there’s CNN and Election Disinformation (Joe Fried, American Thinker) — “A Case Study … All those experienced CNN anchors, lawyers, and analysts eagerly cited the grand jury findings, but not one mentioned that those findings are entirely based on the prosecutor’s evidence, as she chose to present it. CNN was spreading coordinated misinformation.”

A more sinister take on things is How to Lose in 2024 (Jay Valentine, American Thinker) — “”Industrial-scale fraud, committed by organized actors, accelerates over time like a drug-resistant bacterium. … We are that guy now standing there knowing with 100% certainty that leftists in 2024 are going to steal the election by manipulating election commissions.” — The issue here is that a lot of the effort for voter integrity is reactive. It needs to be proactive and anticipate new and creative means of committing fraud to get out front in combating it.

The truth of the past leaks out eventually. Refighting the Vietnam War (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness) is a book review by a scholar of history about a scholarly work. “Triumph Regained [Mark Moyar] shows that America’s war in Vietnam could have been won earlier at far less cost, and in fact almost was, even belatedly by 1968.” — much of what was then is also now.

For instance, the key in The Covid Lab Leak is a Scandal of Media and Government Censorship – JONATHAN TURLEY — “the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science.” —  the fog of war is often cited as an excuse for not knowing what is really going on. The penchants of human nature are a bit more difficult to face, accept, and measure.

Denial has symptoms. Anatomy Of A Cover-Up: The January 6 Tapes (Julie Kelly via American Greatness, ZeroHedge) — “the usual defenders of accountability, transparency, and constitutional rights have been completely AWOL. … Withholding the video is only one part of the massive cover-up about January 6. Republicans should seek similar demands for records, emails, and communications from Capitol Police to expose the full scope of the cover-up. But like all good political scandals, the path to the truth begins with the tapes.” — 

There are consequences and the issues go back to the phenomena discussed in The Bell Curve by Murray and Herrenstein. What Killed Tyre Nichols (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal) — “Did these cops possess the tactical skill and psychological disposition to conduct any high-risk car stop according to professional standards? Given what is shown in the videos, the answer, even more self-evidently, is no. … Either Memphis’s police training is grossly inadequate, or these officers were incapable of processing it.” — Defunding the police, eliminating merit for ‘diversity’ in hiring and behavior standards, lax prosecution and treating criminals as victims and cops as persecutors, … tribalism rears a nasty head.

Then there’s The War on Musk: Washington Post Slammed Over Twitter Hit Piece – JONATHAN TURLEY — “The Post story was written with the usual telltale signs of a hit piece. First, there was the breathless headline (notably amplified on its own Twitter account) expressing a combination of shock and scorn … It has been unrelenting and includes a campaign to get companies to suspend or reduce advertising until censorship is restored. The media has kept a steady stream of hit pieces on Musk that often border on wartime propaganda. … The campaign against Musk reflects a degree of desperation as the control of social media collapsed with his purchase.” — 

Head over the the American Thinker to check these essays:

Merit loses out.  The collapse of civilization on the altar of equity and diversity (Patricia McCarthy) — “The American left has become so radical now, “diversity hires” are now a thing. We are following in the footsteps of South Africa and mandating racial quotas. What has that meant for South Africa? Their economy is in near collapse. Their electric grid is failing because no one knows how to fix it. The country is wracked by violence. Mandated equity, the primacy of race over merit, means civilizational failure. … The West has thrived due to achievement, accomplishment, exploration, imagination, innovation, Constitutional government, etc. … Meritocracy must prevail without regard for race if the U.S. is to prevail.”

Reparations are what came out of World War 1 and led to World War 2. The Dead End of Reparations (Christopher Chantrill) — “this fascination with “reparations” is just another confirmation of my idea that the left is a Great Reaction, a political lurch back to the primitive. “Revenge” and “Reparations” belong to stateless tribal societies where there is no legal system backed up by the state to enforce justice. How do tribal societies prevent escalation of blood feuds into general warfare? … stateless tribes tried to resolve blood feuds with a culture of revenge, arbitration, and monetary damages — called Wergeld by the Germanic tribes. But in our day, we have the glorious legal system and lawyers, backed up by government force, to assess damages and enforce payment without the intervention of the male relatives of the victim. … It seems to me that almost all ethnic groups in America have started out as stateless tribes in their ethnic ghettos. They lived outside the law, with gangs instead of police and courts. Today we see black gangbangers obsessed by “dissing;” thus a lot of the killings in the stateless black inner cities are really honor killings.”

The 1/6 injustice continues to reverberate. A Heaphy-handed Jan. 6 lead investigator tells all, or at least too much (David Zukerman) — “For what purpose?  Clearly not for the purpose of legitimate legislation.  Clearly for the partisan purpose of preventing Donald J. Trump from seeking a second term — with the added aim of crushing the Republican Party.  Briefly stated, rulings by federal judges upholding the validity of Pelosi’s partisan panel amounted to topsy-turvy justice, with the blindfold stripped from the eyes of Justice and the scales tilted way, way over to the left.  How sad.  How deplorable.  How undermining of democracy.” — The surveillance video has been made available to Tucker Carlson and that has the Democrats select persecution panel members upset. The creative use of video to persecute and prosecute those visiting the Capitol 1/6 will be revealed. 

The election problems still fester. Scott Johnson illustrates the problem in describing the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News at Powerline by asserting a negative is proven. Lawyers should know this approach is flawed because it is why court outcomes say “not guilty” rather than “innocent.” Asserting that allegations of election fraud are false in general is asserting that a negative is proven and that is a logical fallacy. But – The Democrat War on Election Integrity Continues (David Catron, The American Spectator) — “in the late 1990s, the Democrats began pushing for a number of fundamental changes to this system. They insisted that it contained all manner of “flaws,” but the actual impetus for “reform” was their decreasing ability to win majorities in federal and state elections. … very bad news for election integrity. The combination of all-mail voting and ranked-choice voting will make the election process less transparent while rendering it unnecessarily complicated and protracted. It will increase opportunities for fraud while coercing Americans to “rank” fringe candidates they would never support under normal circumstances.” — It does appear that SCOTUS will reconsider the Brunson case (Paul Dowling, American Thinker) and this one could get interesting. — “Raland Brunson’s petition for a rehearing argues that oaths of office are binding and that, because of this fact, there has to be a penalty exacted upon each member of Congress who refused to honor his or her oath to protect the Constitution.”

On the racism propaganda front MIKE GONZALEZ: What The 1619 Project Is Really About | The Daily Caller — “One could easily argue that Hannah-Jones’s work is not journalism, historically accurate, nor very helpful to democracy. … She’s not the first person to distort history for Marxist ends. That title would probably go to Howard Zinn, and his malicious 1980 textbook” —  But not to be outdone, AMA’s ‘Racism in Medicine’ Course Is Unscientific Propaganda (Julio Gonzalez USMA president, Federalist) — “if pure propaganda were insufficient, she then engages in a series of unfathomable scientific misrepresentations” … “As Dr. Andy Borom, board member of the U.S. Medical Association, notes after learning of the AMA’s racism course, “The AMA has irretrievably left the building of physician advocacy, abandoning it in favor of radical leftist ideology. They have become a fringe organization that in no way helps physicians practice effectively.” 

It’s about a WaPo hit piece, an astroturf campaign, and the CCDH. Weaponizing Advertising (Robert W Malone) — “Why have legitimate skilled physicians and media organizations been paired with antisemites, white supremacists, and NeoNazis? There can be no explanation other than that this is a clear attempt to delegitimize, censor and defame credible voices who are raising inconvenient (for the current administration) concerns. … The Center for Countering Digital Hate spreads mis- and dis-information for political purposes, and in so doing promotes rather than counters “Digital Hate.” — Then consider the GDI. GDI labels conservative websites “false/misleading” in false/misleading attempt to libel/slander (Eric Utter, American Thinker) — “Progressives have fostered a culture of lies. They are ubiquitous and keep on coming. If prevarication was an Olympic sport, it would now be hard to pick a winner from amongst the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians…and a U.S team comprised of Obama-Biden administration officials.”

There are other worries at the American Thinker. The Anti-Freedom Far-Left is Nothing More Than a Squawking Minority (D. Parker) — “it’s time to fight back with what we’re calling cultural guerrilla warfare, using asymmetric tactics.” — The moral gap between left and right is widening (M.B. Mathews) — “Perhaps this is the personality difference between liberal and conservative that seems so evident in the demeanor of both groups: many on the left seem perpetually angry and unhappy and often loath to examine their own probity.  Those on the right seem more willing to examine themselves for behavior that makes them feel less honorable and decent.”

That leads to an observation that America Is Becoming a Corrupt Country (Newt Gingrich, The American Spectator) — “There may be no more important fight in the next decade than the reassertion of basic honesty and lawfulness. … Surrounded by dishonesty, a free society and a free market cannot survive.” — 

Trust is an issue and the reasons why are being dissected. Did a Government Intel Asset Plant Key Evidence in Proud Boys Case? (Julie Kelly, American Greatness) — “Five members of the Proud Boys face the rare “seditious conspiracy” charge. Guilty verdicts—almost certain given the government’s near-perfect conviction rate for January 6 defendants—would build legal momentum for a similar indictment against Donald Trump. … much of the “evidence” amounts to nothing more than worthless trinkets, braggadocious group chats, and otherwise protected political speech. … It now appears that one key piece of evidence was not the work of any defendant in this case but rather written by a one-time government intelligence asset with unusual ties to both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, another group involved in January 6. … As evidence piles up to show how federal assets played an animating role before and on January 6, Armes’ weird account—and background in government intelligence—cannot be dismissed as coincidence.”

Another case where the suspect really isn’t the defense but the prosecution is GA Grand Jury Report Is Garbage Because DA Fed Them Garbage (Margot Cleveland, Federalist) — “The political targeting of Republicans was bad enough, but worse still was Willis’ blatant misrepresentation in a federal court filing about Donald Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, telephone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. … the grand jury’s view “that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” is meaningless without any context.” — Deja vu all over again – remember the Schiff rendition of the Ukraine phone call?

The result of this behavior needs some introspection by its purveyors. Constant Government Lies Spark Resistance Movements (J.B. Shurk, American Thinker) — “In the digital public square of social media, I have seen a noticeable uptick in biting memes and political cartoons calling out the U.S. government for its constant lies.”

“if we’re being honest, it should leave us with a shared understanding that the system as it exists today cannot hold.  We cannot be a nation whose rights and liberties are guaranteed by a governing constitution when lawmakers, presidents, bureaucratic agencies, and federal courts have redefined the Constitution’s plain meaning into a whole new document.  We cannot be a free people with a cherished Bill of Rights when freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to self-defense, due process, and other supposedly secured rights are thrown out the window every time government agents declare a “health emergency” (especially now that “health” has been redefined to include everything under the sun, including “climate change” and “systemic racism”).  We cannot pretend to have representative government when two private corporations posing as political parties exclude most Americans from office while promoting their own lackeys.  We cannot feign to have a functioning Congress when most every member is a bought-and-paid-for stooge for some corporate special interest.  We cannot profess to be wed to “democratic” principles when millions of unelected bureaucratic agents defended by an authoritarian and secretive national security Deep State run the show.  We cannot make believe that we live with anything remotely like “free markets” when the value of the U.S. dollar continues to crumble, Congress spends more and more money it does not have, the private Federal Reserve bank of financial titans keeps printing currency, and the apologists for multinational behemoths claim that blue-collar towns across America must be destroyed in order to pay proper tribute to international treaties posing as bulwarks for “free trade.”  All these things are lies, and people of goodwill and conscience must call them out as such.

Then there’s Truth in Government (Brent Ramsey, American Thinker) — “Today telling the truth has largely disappeared from public discourse.  Let’s use basic history as an example. … liars are promoting false history for a political agenda to fundamentally change America into a totalitarian socialist state.  Lying about our history is the key to overthrowing America.  If the majority can be convinced that they are living in an evil country, worse than others and with a system that systematically harms Blacks and others, it will be easier to convince them to throw off our Constitution and replace it with socialism.” … “Lying about our history is just the start.  Whether it is the mainstream media, the social media giants, academia, Hollywood, or corporate America, these institutions lie about everything.  They lie that climate change is a mortal threat to civilization … that gun violence is out of control … about abortion involving women’s health … that the nation has secure borders … that the rich pay no taxes … about basic biology … about the police being murderous brutes”

The former president and anyone associated with him are’t the only ones under attack. First, They Came for the Confederates…. (William Sullivan, American Thinker) — “On Disney’s latest ultra-woke reboot “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder”, the characters immediately roll into a litany of damnable lies about the history of this country.” — some good historical context is provided. An example for who is also in the line of fire is The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling (Megan Phelps-Roper, The Free Press) – you may have heard of this controversy and this article provides a good background to understand what is going on. There’s also professor Turley’s takedown in Risky Business: Government-Funded Group Targets Conservative Sites as “Riskiest Online News Outlets. — “Goodbye Disinformation Board, Hello Disinformation Index. … What is more troubling is the funding of the United States government for a group seeking to target conservative sites and deter advertisers from supporting them.”

When you find yourself on the receiving end from your peer group — Furious Naomi Wolf Rages At The Pain Of Listening To Twitter Censorship Testimony | ZeroHedge — “I finally am seeing them — up close, in real life, in person. I am finally able to look at the faces of the heretofore faceless technocrats who took it upon themselves to try to destroy my life and ruin my name . … Why should any young writer, watching what happened to me, believe in meritocracy in American culture any more — why should she work hard, aspire largely, and master her craft? Clearly keeping her head down and parroting the party line will keep her safer.”

As Congress opens hearings about censorship and government electoral interference, some are pushing preemptive defenses. Now the WaPo ‘factchecker’ is rationalizing the letter from 51 lying intelligence officials (Jack Hellner, American Thinker) — “claiming that the intelligence officials who lied about Russian disinformation were very careful in their wording of the letter but the media either misinterpreted or misused the letter.” — This is the typical nitpicking ambiguity to assert contortion and misperception. — “It is also no wonder that there is so much corruption by politicians throughout the United States as the media gladly campaigns for leftist criminals, buries the truth, and seeks to destroy anyone who gets in their way as they quest for power.” — James Clapper Runs From His 2020 Election Interference, Jonathan Turley Drags Him in Response (Bonchie, RedState) — “Turley’s critique of Clapper is exactly correct. It is a rewriting of history to pretend that letter was an idle suggestion simply drawing on the possibility of Russian election interference regarding the Hunter Biden laptop.” — So now there’s Outrage as James Clapper, other Hunter Biden laptop skeptics suddenly speak out against media: ‘What a fraud’ | Fox News.

Other narratives are struggling, too. The Climate Scare Narrative Continues To Collapse – Issues & Insights — “Hot, cold, wet, dry, sunny, clear, snow, no snow – it doesn’t matter, it’s caused by global warming, the climate alarmists tell us over and again. Their desperation is palpable, the cords that keep them tethered to reality fraying more than ever, their charade coming apart.”

There is an effort to scramble back from the brink. Alaska Conservatives Fight To Repeal Ranked-Choice Voting (Shawn Fleetwood, Federalist) — “In the lead-up to the 2020 election, out-of-state dark money poured into Alaska to hijack the state’s elections by tricking voters into implementing a ranked-choice voting system. Now, following a midterm election fraught with record-low turnout and confused voters, Alaska’s conservatives are fighting to take back control of their state’s electoral process.” — the problem they have to address first is “While Republicans outnumber Democrats in the upper chamber (11-9), eight GOP senators have abandoned their more conservative colleagues to form a majority coalition with the body’s nine Democrats.”

Ukraine was formed through centuries of Russian finagling with its western border areas. It became its own country after the breakup of the soviet union and looked West rather than East for guidance despite both the EU and NATO reluctance to include Ukraine. But some ask Since When did Ukrainians Become Entitled to the State they Got? (Alexander G. Markovsky, American Thinker). There is a good history summary provided bit Markovsky seems to think that immaturity and corruption in government along with the Western Europe focus mean that the country needs to return to Russia. It needs to serve Russia as a buffer from the threats of incursion by NATO. Perhaps Russia’s fear of NATO as an offensive threat is overblown? Perhaps Ukraine looking West is an effort to get away from the governance and social problems in Russia to its East?

The assault is not going well. People notice the evil and the incursions into morality and rights. There is pushback and ideological fantasies are encountering the crushing mechanisms of reality. The creates dissonance and resistance and conflict. It will be difficult. It has happened before and seems to be an ongoing painful struggle of human societies.

How the Administrative State Subverts the Constitution (Janet Levy, American Thinker) — “How did we get to a state when it has become necessary to denounce socialism by legislation?  … How did Marxist ideology gain ground in the proud home of individual liberty? … Trust Us, a new film from the Pacific Legal Foundation, is an excellent chronicle of the socialist seduction of America over 100 years. … Our Founding Fathers created a constitution with separation of powers and checks and balances to safeguard individual rights and liberty.  The administrative state — with no accountability to the American people — subverts our founders’ hallowed vision.”

The state of the union? Over the last decade or so you’d think you were in an Eastern Ukraine city with all the missiles and bombs flying by and going off. Bombshells, Landmines, and Nemesis (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness) — “For much of 2017 through 2021, Americans suffered the “bombshell” and “walls are closing” mythologies first of Russian collusion, then of supposedly vast Russian social media investments to sabotage the election. … These were journalistic sins of commission, warping the news cycle to advance ideological agendas and win elections. There emerged, however, other real landmines of omission—things the media deliberately ignores, but have the potential to go off and blow up a presidency.”

“Consider: a Democratic House majority once criminalized noncompliance with a congressional subpoena. A Democratic Ways and Means Committee institutionalized demanding and successfully obnemesistaining the tax records of a president. A Democratic president declared the unlawful storage of classified information to be worthy of a special counsel’s criminal investigation.

A left-wing media destroyed the high-bar rules of journalistic evidence and investigation protocols through its concoction of Russian collusion and disinformation hoaxes. A discredited media claimed that any perceived presidential laxity with an aggressive foreign adversary—like China’s serial intrusions into U.S. airspace—was supposedly prima facie evidence of a compromised president “colluding” as an “asset” of an enemy.

Ironically Biden, the media, and the old Democratic House majority have provided Republicans the same tools to discover the truth which the Left had once used to destroy it.

It’s about who you are, not what you did.  The American Legal System Is Becoming An Instrument Of Injustice (Joe Strader, American Thinker) — “In “The Law,” Frédéric Bastiat writes that a nation’s laws, which should protect private property, can also be used to plunder property. It is much easier to take others’ wealth using legalized theft than violent plunder. … The law should be designed to achieve justice to the point that law and justice are often considered synonymous. This has been perverted to the point that the law creates injustice. ”

In the never ending search to qualify a ‘both sides do it’ argument, Leftists Go Mad with Glee as ‘Trump Laptop’ Turned Over (Robert Spencer, PJ Media). The problem is that the facts don’t support the narrative. — “How wonderful for the Democrats! Does the Trump laptop contain salacious photos of the former president and 2024 frontrunner engaging in lewd, drug-fueled frolics with prostitutes? Is there evidence on the Trump laptop that the possible next president sold access to the White House to foreign entities who do not have the best interests of Americans at heart? Leftists are hoping for all that and more. … Well, they’ve done this before. And when the Trump laptop story turns out to be as much of a nothingburger as the Russian Collusion Hoax, the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” and all the rest, Leftists won’t learn the obvious lesson any more than they did the other times. They’ll just go searching for the next opportunity to say it again: The walls are closing in!” 

Jeff Gerth has written a perspective of the Trump presidency as he attempts to step away from the NYT. It is about the press versus the president and does a bit of record straightening BUT. The deep meaning of “no comment” (Scott Johnson, Power Line) — “is that a reasonable explanation is lacking and that something more than an admission of error is called for.” — Andrew McCarthy is cited. “Unlike Gerth, I don’t attribute much of this to journalists’ incompetence or getting too far out over their skis because the bogus Trump-Russia tale was too good to check. If I were a journalist by training or for life, maybe I’d want to see it that way.”

Is the Red Scare Going Blue? Democrats Accuse Government Critics of Being “Putin Lovers” and Supporting Insurrectionists – JONATHAN TURLEY — “What was most striking is the level of attacks on those seeking an investigation into possible FBI abuses. … It is all tragically familiar. The effort this week was to attack witnesses rather than address what appears to be the largest censorship system in the history of this country. … Democrats have insisted that freedom is tyranny”

Burns was early with an impressive story about what happened at Gettysburg but it has been downhill to the valley of the woke since then as he shapes history to fit the narratives. Shaming Americans: Ken Burns’s The U.S. and the Holocaust distorts the historical record in service of a political message. (Amity Shlaes, City Journal) — “What, precisely, should Americans remember about the massacre of 6 million Jews and their own nation’s role in that fate? Since The U.S. and the Holocaust stands a chance of becoming the history of the Holocaust, the question warrants serious consideration. … On the European side of the story, The U.S. and the Holocaust proves nothing short of magisterial … Still, the film is titled The U.S. and the Holocaust; the filmmakers put the “U.S.” first. And on this crucial U.S. component of the period, Burns lets his viewers down. For the series hammers away at an improbable narrative”

An example of the hubris caught between desire and engineering: Kevon Martis Responds to ‘Heated’ Ad Hominem (Robert Bradley Jr., Watts Up With That?) — “the climate alarmists and forced energy transformationists (whose whole agenda depends on government coercion) do not like Martis to have success playing political hard ball like they do. Climate exaggeration and extremism is okay, but not Martis’s fact-based presentations and follow-up that exposes the economic and ecological downsides of government-enabled, dilute, intermittent energy sources.”

Africa seems to have avoided the level of harm from COVID that more ‘advanced’ nations have suffered. Does this success say anything that anyone hears? Africa a medical mystery to the globalist COVID elites (Monica Showalter, American Thinker) — “What part of ‘succeeded’ do they not understand? The Africans did not follow the great lockdown strategies seen in China, most of Western Europe, and most of the U.S., which is why their populations were able to acquire natural immunity as the virus mutated to weaker and weaker versions of itself, which is how pretty much all pandemic viruses play out. They also used ivermectin and other known kill-it-dead cures for the disease, having the widely available and inexpensive treatment available over the fancy-schmancy newest treatments developed by Big Pharma. In addition, not having the resources, they didn’t pursue a mass vaccination strategy which has led to a host of suspected problems in the populations that did”

Coming to Nevada! There is opposition. “The positive press around the issue uses buzzwords that most of the public should, by now, know are red flags” — The problem with ranked-choice voting (Thomas Buckley, American Thinker) — “In other words, RCV is being supported by the very same forces that are intent on preserving the woke class in perpetuity and see RCV as a way to muddy the waters, confuse the public, and in fact tamp down direct participation in our governance.”

The media. It’s how they do it. This example is about the guilt by association innuendo tactic. A Tendentiously Alleged Connection Between Trump and the Kochs (Donald J. Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek) — “Every one of them – including tax cutting and reducing regulations – have long been supported also by mainstream Republicans. To suggest that Trump embraced these policies only because of insidious influence exercised by the Kochs is absurd.” — The censorship issue is under exam by Jonathan Turley: “Free Speech for Whom?”: Former Twitter Executive Makes Chilling Admission on the “Nuanced” Standard Used For Censorship – “it was the testimony of the only witness called by the Democrats that proved the most enlightening and chilling. … Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom” — Then there’s the ‘whom’ highlighted by We Have a Serious Misinformation Problem in Congress When It Comes to Hunter’s Laptop – RedState — “They’re so interested in trying to suppress “misinformation” on Twitter, maybe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) should first check their own house first.” — That leads to the idea that Government policy should be founded in fact rather than fiction (Jack Hellner, American Thinker) — “Here are some actual and very recent climate events that have occurred despite 150 years of exponential growth of coal, oil, cars, planes, gas stoves, methane, and all the other things that we are told cause an irreversible threat of rapid warming and severe storms.”

The idea that government is weaponizing politics is getting good play, too. FBI Declares War on Traditional Catholics in Insidious New Intelligence Report – RedState and Whistleblower Says FBI Mined Bank Records for the J6 Probe as the Bureau Takes a Hard Look at ‘Radical Traditionalist Catholics” (Lincoln Brown, PJ Media) — “So, what is the FBI to do about those pesky Catholics and their rosary-praying ways? Infiltrate them, apparently”

but it’s the Republicans  holding their hearings that are weaponizing and dividing and causing isurrection and riots, you see …

There are those who try to excuse and de-escalate by asserting that both sides do it. Consider what happens: a simple proposal to restore confidence in public data (el gato malo) — “we only see what they want us to see and time after time, they get caught fiddling the figures, making stuff up, using bad math and worse analyses, and cancelling or adulterating every data series that goes against their chosen narratives and pathways. … then they wonder why we won’t trust them.” — this refers to the policy and executive actions such as on parade in the pandemic panic. Another examples illustrates just how broad the problem is.  So when is the FEC going to fine the WaPo, the NYT and all the other media outlets that bury stories or post false ones to influence elections? (Jack Hellner,  – American Thinker) — “What about fining all the news outlets that continuously published fake news stories about Russian collusion? Those were obviously in-kind contributions seeking to destroy Trump and influence elections, too.” — or consider The Pentagon’s calumny shop? (Monica Showalter, American Thinker) — “Unlike the FBI with its tangled “insurance policies,” phony dossiers, jigged up kidnapping plots, altered emails, and false statements to judges, what seems to be coming out of the Pentagon against Trump has a crude, simple template in the way it employs lies against him, in a pattern so simple that it’s now recognizable. … People can see what’s going on at this point, and that’s bad news for whoever can’t stop spreading the same fake stories.” —

The spread of the cancer contributes to the distrust. The left took over an important cultural institution while you weren’t looking (Andrea Widburg, American Thinker) — “with America’s publishing houses firmly under the control of college graduates who majored in leftist indoctrination, the education and faith aspects have merged into wokism, with little children set up to worship everything from Mother Gaia to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. … It’s notable that the very first thing you see on the imprint’s homepage is a book entitled Happy Earth Day.” — Then there’s what happens to those that notice. Woman Booted from Virginia School Board for Honoring the Constitution (Kevin Downey Jr., PJ Media) — “Dutta — who, again, is from India — denies hobnobbing with white supremacists as well as the rest of the assertions, but the Virginia Board of Education ousted her all the same. So much for being a woman of color trying to create a better life for Virginia public school students” — or how aboout of satire? Let’s Boost Women’s Sports in Nevada! (Bob Zeidman, American Thinker) — “Since the Nevada amendment calls out people with specific characteristics to be protected, the implication is that people with other characteristics are, by their absence, not necessarily equally protected.  Laws are read that way. … Unfortunately, the amendment passed and is now part of the Nevada constitution.  However, there actually is a bright side.  Women’s sports in Nevada should, and must, make a sudden leap forward in record-breaking and fan attendance.  Since the new amendment doesn’t provide any definition for “gender identity or expression,” it only makes sense that girl’s teams should recruit boys who identify as girls.” — 

On another front is a rinse and repeat anti Trump innuendo campaign. Here’s a take on the ‘mean tweats’ narrative. DeSantis, Inc. Underestimates Donald Trump (Matthew Boose, American Greatness) — “Monday morning quarterbacks on the Right tend to exaggerate Trump’s failures and whitewash the unprecedented opposition he has faced from every angle. That he is still competitive at this stage is a testament to his extraordinary character, which remains, as always, underestimated by his critics.” —

The pandemic panic has provided a mass scale example of mass formation psychosis. Some are noticing. How The “Unvaccinated” Got It Right (Robin Koerner, The Brownstone Institute, via ZeroHedge) citing Scott Adams: “It was a mea culpa in which he declared, “The unvaccinated were the winners,” and, to his great credit, “I want to find out how so many of [my viewers] got the right answer about the “vaccine” and I didn’t.” … “What follows is a personal response to Scott, which explains how consideration of the information that was available at the time led one person – me – to decline the “vaccine.” It is not meant to imply that all who accepted the “vaccine” made the wrong decision or, indeed, that everyone who declined it did so for good reasons.” — Add in an introspection about human behavior to round out some understanding. Thinking Out Loud: Ignorance Scales (Chuck Dinerstein, | American Council on Science and Health) — “The problem with debunking lousy science is that it doesn’t scale; there are no snappy lines to take down carefully constructed but flawed arguments. To evaluate a scientific study dispassionately, you need to be open to contrary views and have the time to let your analytic brain, not your intuitive brain, respond. Based on what our intuitive brain tells us, a mixture of survival skills, confirmation bias, and schadenfreude, Ignorance scales. And that is especially true for social media, the place that 60% of us go for our news.”

Then there’s the idea that Objectivity Is Dead, and the Leftist Media Killed It (Tanya Berlaga, American Thinker) — “Instead of “communication of thoughts between subjects,” the media took it upon themselves to decide which thoughts they will promote and which they will ignore. … instead of promoting unity, the media seek to promote conformity. … If the media can hide the facts that go against their agenda, they will. … It is not your opinion that we object to.  It’s your dishonesty.  You are abusing special protections the founders designed for you to push your worldview on the American people.” —