Georgia’s Corporate Exodus Signals The Rise Of The Woke Cartel. Dennis Weisman — “Woke policy positions by corporations and sports leagues that aren’t sustainable when acting alone are sustainable when they operate as cartels.”

“When all or virtually all businesses in a market adopt the same policy position, consumers are unable to voice their dissatisfaction by voting with their feet and patronizing a competitor that offers a similar product or service. Unfortunately, in this setting, boycotts are of limited effectiveness because customers have nowhere else to turn.

Wealthy and Woke. Victor Davis Hanson — “Apparently to rant about “privilege” means the less you need to worry about your own.” … “The rules of cynical CEO censure are transparent.”

Rise of the Absurd. The Z Man — “The French Enlightenment philosopher known to us as Voltaire once said, “Whoever can make you accept absurdity can make you commit injustice.” … “Political correctness is a way to maintain control. By forcing people to accept and repeat the most ridiculous things, the people in charge break the will of the people. By accepting the lie, they can no longer live in the truth. “A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.” … “Freed from those moral constraints, reason quickly turns into superstition.”

The Face Of Evil. John Hinderaker — “Michel Foucault is the intellectual godfather of the modern Left.” … “the icons of the Left–Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Michel Foucault and many more–were hideously deformed and evil. I think a flawed man or woman–which is to say, a normal person–can produce sound political and social philosophy. But I think it is impossible for a moral leper like Michel Foucault to produce anything good or useful. Which helps to explain, perhaps, why today’s Left is irredeemably corrupt.”

Conrad Black on America today. neo — “Maybe I know an atypical sample of people, but I’m acquainted with a lot of people who have always seemed to me to be smart, kind, and well-meaning, and who have no obvious dysfunction in personality or lives, and yet who now fully subscribe to the notion that America is evil and must atone for its sins. They believe that it’s the people who say otherwise who are lying and/or ignorant.”

Justice And The Question Of Process Versus Outcome. J.T. Young — “Members of America’s left see justice not as a process but an outcome. … The problem for the left in attaining its vision of justice in Chauvin’s trial is that the charges, even if proved, will not deliver a sentence that will meet its definition of justice.”

Ann Coulter explains the status of the Derek Chauvin trial. Andrea Widburg — “Currently, the prosecution is still putting on its case, but it may want to stop doing so before the court is forced to dismiss the case altogether.” cited: Legal Insurrection, Ann Coulter, also see Taki’s Derek Chauvin, Human Sacrifice by Ann Coulter.

Did the 9th Circuit Just Erase “to Bear” Arms from the Second Amendment? Cody Wisniewski — “Young v. Hawaii: The case presented the Circuit with a not-so-straightforward question: Since Hawaii heavily regulates the concealed carriage of firearms, which licensing scheme has been upheld by the Ninth Circuit, can Hawaii even more heavily regulate the open carriage of firearms?” … “One can be forgiven for not immediately grasping the full impact of the Ninth Circuit’s 215-page opinion (with dissents), which reads more like a prequel to George Orwell’s 1984 than a judicial decision.”

Former Gaetz aide: Sure looks like the media’s cooking a narrative on Gaetz. Ed Morrissey — “this eye-popping Twitter thread from Washington Post reporter Matt Zapotosky should have us demanding greater scrutiny to these claims, until extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims finally emerges.”

Media, Politicians Still Spreading the ‘Big Lie’ About Officer Sicknick. Julie Kelly — “Democratic leaders and the American news media aren’t just dishonest and shameless—they’re fully depraved.”

Cause of Death Comes in for Folks Who Died at Capitol Riot. Nick Arama — 1 shot by police, 2 from cardiovascular natural causes, 1 from acute amphetimine intoxication. “What was still pending was a determination on the cause of death of Officer Brian Sicknick, who didn’t die during the riot, but collapsed and died hours later.”

Why The Iconoclastic Left Are On The Wrong Side Of History. Steven Watts — “Approaching history with condescending arrogance, as the woke movement does, merely highlights the smallness of the examiners.” … “Judicious students of the American experience steer clear of these mistakes and approach it cautiously, seeking wisdom, not weaponization.”

Covidocractic Tyranny. Don Boudreaux — “It’s come to this, my fellow Americans. A prominent “expert” – one who is a personality on a major international television network, a columnist at one of the country’s most prominent newspapers, and a professor (if apparently only now visiting) at a major U.S. university – recommends, with no evident hesitation or embarrassment or shame, that each of us Americans be compelled to purchase our freedom by getting a Covid vaccine. Freedom, in this woman’s view, is the “carrot” that will lure us little rabbits to submit obediently to vaccination.”

Germany’s wind and solar push driving up prices, harming reliability. Isaac Orr — “Minnesota politicians, along with wind and solar special interest groups, often applaud Germany’s decision to close its nuclear and coal plants in order to build more wind and solar, but an audit by the German government seen by Reuters indicates the country’s energy policy is causing electricity prices to skyrocket, and it is putting reliability at risk.”

Study: Media Reported Only Bad COVID News (Until Trump Lost). I & I Editorial Board — “Researchers at Dartmouth College and Brown University did a content analysis of tens of thousands of COVID-19 news stories to look at the levels of negativity.” … “There’s a precedent for this. When George H.W. Bush was running for reelection in 1992, coverage of the economy was overwhelmingly negative, despite the fact that one of the shallowest and shortest recessions on record ended in March 1991.” … “We all know how deplorably biased the mainstream media is. But even we can be stunned when we see blatant evidence of it like this.”

The ‘Pathetic’ Genesis of a Fake News Story. Stephen B. Presser — “Truth ought still to be the most important thing in our lives and our politics, but truth is not advanced by assertions taken out of context to affirm a narrative.” This is about the (mis)reporting on the Powell v Dominion case. “As I have argued in this space before, the American people should still demand a full airing of the disputed fairness of this last presidential election—an airing that has yet to take place.”

Mark Wauck: An Independent Judiciary? — “Anyone who’s been following the January 6 Event and the Sedition Hoax will be aware that the elements of this offense–the conspiring and especially the element of force connected to planning for the event–are notably lacking.”

The Justice Department Is Struggling With January 6 Protest Cases — an Overview. Shipwreckedcrew — “the evidence the government is bringing before the courts doesn’t measure up to the rhetoric used by prosecutors and federal agents in their early comments, both in the courtroom as well as sworn affidavits.” … “one issue that is percolating at this moment in several pending cases — but has not yet broken out into the public arena quite yet — is a determined and widespread tactical effort by the Department of Justice to keep the actual evidence it has in all these cases out of public view.”

What Nobody Tells You About the Alamo and the Texas Revolution of the 1830s. ¡No Pasarán! — “The problem with the Left, international as well as American, is that they obsess so much over every sin, real or alleged, of the United States, going berserk over American/Western guilt, that they leave other nations — and their citizens — totally unscathed from the minutest amount of criticism, all the while ignoring basic historical facts.”

When The Powerful Say Truth Is A Lie And Lies Are The Truth, No One Will Stand Up For America But You. Christopher Bedford — “In an age when Americans have grown used to casually shrugging away their freedoms at the whim of TV pundits, this kind of propaganda is seriously dangerous.” … “Reasonable people can disagree on if they think the Democrats or Republicans are right or wrong in their different initiatives, but the stark difference between these two top news headlines is glaring — and not too long ago would have been deeply embarrassing to any serious news editor.”

Department of Justice Is Investigating the Lead Prosecutor for the Capitol Riots and the Fix Is In. streiff — “I’d like to think that Sherwin would suffer some kind of repercussions for overtly attempting to deprive American citizens of the right to a fair trial just to angle for a bigger and better job in the Department of Justice. But the one thing we’ve learned over the past four years is that Justice takes care of its own. When you have a lawyer forge a document used to deceive a court so electronic surveillance could be carried out against a presidential candidate, his campaign, his transition team, and his administration get probation, you know that Sherwin is in no danger whatsoever of any punishment.”

First battlefront drawn in Georgia in epic fight over future of American elections. John Solomon — “Is ID requirement a voter suppression tactic or a responsible security measure? Georgia is ground zero for settling debate, future of American elections.” … “Remarkably, the concept of voter ID that was widely embraced just 16 years ago by a bipartisan election commission chaired by former President Jimmy Carter has now become the leading symbol of what Democrats allege are Repoublican voter suppression tactics”

Biden Unhinged: Calls Attempts To Stop Election Fraud ‘Sick’ And ‘Un-American’. I & I Editorial Board — “So what is it that states are trying to do? First, it’s worth clearing up a few things Biden rattled off.”

A general overview of Biden’s first press conference. Andrea Widburg — “From the very first moment of Biden’s first press conference, one could tell that the days of Trump press conferences were gone. … Gotcha questions, lectures, fights, interruptions, blatant disrespect — not from Trump, but from the media. It was they who created a sense of chaos and divisiveness, not Trump. It was very different this time.”

Getting the facts right on Operation Warp Speed. Paul Roderick Gregory — “judged by its own benchmarks — regulatory approval and vaccinations by the end of 2020 and the accelerated delivery of 300 million doses — OWS is a rare private-public partnership that has met its performance benchmarks.”

A Wilderness of Lies. The Z Man — “no one living in Russia accepted what was told to them through state media as the truth. It could be true but was most likely false. The game was to figure out what the lies meant. Instead of poring over photos in the newspapers, citizens relied on their personal networks to provide a narrative that explained what they could see happening around them. There was public truth and private truth. — This is something Americans are learning.”

The Mask Nonsense Doesn’t Stop, Even From Unexpected Sources. Kevin Roche — fisking Mirengoff at Powerline.

Follow The ‘Science,’ They Said. Victor Davis Hanson — “As a general rule, the next time an official, a politician, or an expert lectures us on the “science,” make sure that he is not projecting his own unscientific biases onto others.” … “Science” is used to denigrate a perceived enemy of the people, and ignored to enhance a guardian of the flock.”

Prosecutors Now Backing Away from Statements and Charges Against January 6th Protestors.  Sundance — “The approach of building a political narrative through false accusations and over-charging in the DOJ is the essence of Lawfare. The government has endless taxpayer resources to fuel their political weaponization of the judiciary. – The process of the charges then becomes the punishment by design.”

The Q Lie: The Power-Grab After January 6th Was The Real Insurrection. Thomas J. Farnan — “It is now obvious that the continued military occupation of Washington D.C. under a phony, Q-pretext is a purposeful overreaction to silence objections over the use of mass mail-in ballots to swing the 2020 election.”

Dept. of Homeland Security flirting with totalitarianism. Thomas Lifson — “Now that the Department of Justice and FBI are using the 1/6/21 Capitol incursion to demonize all who attended the massive rally that day, imputing “insurrection,” “white supremacy,” and “extremism” to them, massive political repression may be coming.” … “Just try and dissent once those pending steps are accomplished. You will be looking out from inside a new iron curtain.”

Time to Stand Up for the Second Amendment More Than Ever. [Epoch Times warning] Roger L. Simon — “Maybe we should ban Facebook instead of guns.”

Has there ever in US history been a more pitiful Cabinet? Patricia McCarthy — “We are all beginning to realize, too late, that being woke is a form of mass hysteria meant to undermine every essential tenet of Judeo-Christian values.”

What Trump Derangement Syndrome Has Wrought. Lauri B. Regan — “At less than 100 days in, Trump-haters have imposed growing disasters on the country. Trump-hating voters cared about one thing and it wasn’t the success of Operation Warp Speed, a strong economy, or peace in the Mideast. Bad Orange Man must go, the country, our kids’ and grandkids’ futures be damned. And we reap what we sow.”

Truth And Lies In A Digital Media Era. Carver Gunlocke — “Americans are submerged in an ideological fog of artificial truth thanks to the American media. In step with them are digital social media platforms. In addition, our universities, political class, and elites are foisting information that is laden with lies and half-truths to promote their social and political agenda — and they are doing it with some considerable success.”

California Officials Accepted 99.4 Percent Of Mail-In Ballots In 2020. With Newsom Recall, It’s A Completely Different Story. Jonathan S. Tobin — “When it comes to leftists protecting their own from accountability, it appears that only the strictest of scrutiny will do.” … “in California, Democrats who were trying to stop the recall were not concerned with defending the notion that every signature, just like every vote, should be counted.”

The cult of the vaccine. Landon Freeman — “Close your eyes and think back to a time in which you, your kids, or any other loved one received a vaccine. Chances are, the event wasn’t treated as if it was some grandiose event.”

Wife Suffers Miscarriage Day After FBI Raids Home Over Combat Veteran Husband’s Presence at US Capitol. Cassandra Fairbanks — “Christopher Kuehne maintains that he had traveled to the Capitol to protect Trump-supporting civilians from Antifa. Inside the Capitol, he was seen on video cleaning up trash before, he says, he helped to clear people out so police could get control of the situation.”

New emails deepen the mystery surrounding Election Night in Fulton County. Andrea Widburg — “The one thing that’s certain about Election Night is that, as long as the Democrat-run counties across America that deviated from election norms continue to resist scrutiny, at least half of all Americans are going to assume that they’re hiding election fraud that placed the wrong man in the White House.”

Laurence Silberman’s blast at the judicial establishment. Mark Wauck — “Silberman’s dissent focuses on the SCOTUS’ game changing 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, and the line of decisions that follow from it.”

“the SCOTUS has enabled the wholesale and virtually riskless defamation of any person or group that happens to be out of favor with those who control the institutions that control the public square. This is what concerns Silberman, and in this he sees the developments in media control and news delivery since 1964 a serious threat to our democracy.

A federal appellate judge challenged Supreme Court infallibility. Andrea Widburg — “Judge Silberman wrote a dissent challenging not only how the majority applied New York Times Co. v. Sullivan to the case before it but also challenging the entirety of the Supreme Court decision. It’s this last aspect that makes Silberman’s dissent noteworthy.”

A look at New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in 2021. neo — “it was easy to see the problem: how best to balance the need to have a free press with the need to protect people, even people in public life who are written about a great deal, from libel?”

“Back in 1964, when the case was decided, the situation was exceedingly different than it is today. Now we have a press that has no regard for truth, is almost wholly partisan and firmly on the left, and willing to do almost anything to help its side win.
…
Justice White’s description of the competing interests as he saw them is quite interesting. He sees on one side “the public’s interest in being fully informed about public officials and public affairs” and the other side as “the competing interest of those who have been defamed in vindicating their reputation.” Public versus individual interest – I believe that’s the traditional view. But what of the public’s interest in being informed of the truth rather than falsehoods?

Why We Should Hate “Hate Crime” Laws. Paul Mirengoff — “No doubt, any musings about race, broadly viewed, will be scrutinized the way a Talmudic scholar analyzes the Torah. Or, to provide a better analogy, the way a modern literature professor analyzes Shakespeare, looking for racial overtones and/or LGBT characters.” … “We are one society, or should be. Hate crime laws, like so many other aspects of wokeness, negate this noble aspiration.”

Jealous Dubya Bush emerges a pathetic, bitter little man. Monica Showalter — “he had plenty of hateful things to say about President Trump for the left-wing media, and he’s the smaller for it. – Here were his three worst whoppers, as cited by Business Insider”

Why Muslim Politicians Vote For Gay Marriage. Maureen Mullarkey — “Pope Francis, the most visible representative of Christianity’s presence in the world, has been in the forefront of efforts to present all religions as roughly equal, and equally good. He has, in short, encouraged the kind of naïveté that facilitates Islamic penetration of Western institutions.”

“We are witnessing the resurrection of Islam as a great and dangerous power. But instead of taking this as a signal to prepare for spiritual and cultural war, many Christians have taken it as an opportunity to display their tolerance. They invite Islam ever deeper into the fabric of our culture—a culture shaped in large part by Christianity.

Woke Progressivism Will Crash and Burn — and Here’s Why. Wen Wryte — “because the adherents of woke progressivism find it impossible to live up to their utopian expectations. Sooner or later the cognitive dissonance of living in a state of self-contradiction will become translated into a burning desire to punish others for not being perfect also. At that point the reactionary response will ensure their destruction.” … “Holland offers numerous examples of Christian sects following this pattern.”

Wealth of Nations’ Wealth Of Wisdom. Gary M. Galles — “This week marks the 245th anniversary of the most famous book by the most famous economist in history … Wealth of Nations is memorable for its articulation of how the “invisible hand” of market interactions can coordinate a society based upon liberty — private property rights and voluntary exchange — more effectively than can the coercive power of the state.”

Louis L’Amour: the Chronicler of Americanism. By Nicholas J. Kaster — “March 22 is the birthday of the iconic writer Louis L’Amour, a man whose name became synonymous with the American frontier and whose novels promoted old-fashioned patriotism and morality. America sorely misses his kind.”

Facemasks in the COVID-19 era: A health hypothesis. Baruch Vainshelboim — “The existing scientific evidences challenge the safety and efficacy of wearing facemask as preventive intervention for COVID-19.”

The Battle of Burbank. Clarice Feldman — “The wheels of justice seem in need of oiling and are moving slowly, but we can meet, eat, and drink while waiting it out at the Tinhorn Flats bar and restaurant in the meantime.”

Judge Rules New York Times Used ‘Deceptive Disinformation’ To Smear Project Veritas. Tyler Durden — “What the Times did, as you’ll see below, is similar to countless hit-pieces against Zero Hedge and others; using broad, unsupported brush strokes to slander their ideological opponents. We can only hope this case sets new precedent for future defamation cases.”

The MSM and the Atlanta massage parlor murders. neo — “Almost? I assume Sullivan is being sarcastic here. But actually, they don’t need a script anymore. They know the playbook by heart.”

Why HR1 Threatens Election Integrity [via zerohedge]. Justin Riemer at RealClearPolitics.com — “Let’s look at just a few of the many areas where HR1 would nationalize elections and cancel out state integrity and confidence-building measures.” … “Cynics say that Republicans oppose this legislation because we want to restrict people from voting. This could not be further from the truth. The reality is that we want all eligible voters to be able to vote and vote easily — but voters must also have confidence that our elections systems have safeguards to prevent fraud and ensure accuracy.”

Digital Trails: How The FBI Is Identifying, Tracking, & Rounding-Up Dissidents [via zerohedge]. John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute. — “Databit by databit, we are building our own electronic concentration camps.” … “The government’s efforts to round up those who took part in the Capitol riots shows exactly how vulnerable we all are to the menace of a surveillance state that aspires to a God-like awareness of our lives.” … “Forget about being innocent until proven guilty.”

“As for the Fourth Amendment and its prohibitions on warrantless searches and invasions of privacy without probable cause, those safeguards have been rendered all but useless by legislative end-runs, judicial justifications, and corporate collusions.

The ‘net neutrality’ issue is a part and parcel of this.

The American Police State Is Now Forming. Jack Wisdom — “The image of the new wall or fence with razor wire on top that now surrounds the Capitol has been floating across the screen of my mind since it was erected.” … “Although the vulture mentality grows and expresses itself as the police state, the vultures pretend to be enlightened doves, bringing friendliness and meeting the needs — scientifically grounded, of course — for a more safe, clean, secure, intelligent, just, and cooperative environment.”

The Anatomy Of The Scam [via zerohedge]. Quintus Curtius at Fortress of The Mind — “We must remember that all con games play on two elements: greed and ignorance. Other emotions can be used, such as pity or guilt, but greed and ignorance are the mainstays.” Note the behaviors you can see in the election, climate change, white guilt, and other political ideologies on today’s forefront. You are the mark, the pigeon, and you’ve been had over and over again. “Do not underestimate the effectiveness of scams and cons. Good scammers are sociopaths. They can be extremely convincing.”

Kamala Harris exposed as a phony, once again over weed. Monica Showalter — “Pot has always been a fool-killer for phonies like Kamala Harris, our purported vice president. – Two of her most embarrassing, hypocritical political moments come down to pot, and now there’s going to be a third.

The Story Of George Floyd Isn’t A Story Of Good And Evil, But Does America Know That? Christopher Bedford — “It’s a story of hard streets, difficult decisions, heightened tempers, and hard drugs. It’s a story about human beings, our duties, our failings, and our weaknesses.”

Varieties of Legal Corruption. Clarice Feldman — “One might expect that bar examiners, judicial conduct boards, the state attorney general, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS would register some interest in what appears to be appalling legal violations by officers of the court and the judges , but I don’t see anything happening yet to check these outrages.”

The January 6th ‘Insurrection’ that Wasn’t. Ron Wright — “The “attack” on the Capitol started well before then President Trump finished his speech at the rally at The Ellipse. This attack was no spontaneous event as alleged by Democrats, the Media, and the Radical Left. It is evident to any police officer who has been on a police line this attack was preplanned when coupled with the intelligence compiled by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and other agencies. From the videos, this is self-evident, e.g., coordination, tactics in engaging the police lines, hand signals, gas masks, bear spray, goggles, helmets, knee pads, improvised weapons, and milk to neutralize crowd control gasses.”

Ashli Babbitt was shot because she wore a backpack. M. Dowling — “When a police officer, especially a white officer, kills a black person, s/he is held to an impossibly high standard. … In the case of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed in the Capitol riot of January 6th, no one is allowed to know a thing.”

Minneapolis City Council Sticks It To Chauvin. Paul Mirengoff — “Today, the city of Minneapolis announced a $27 million settlement with the family of George Floyd. The family had sued the city for the alleged wrongful death of Floyd.” … “Given its timing, the announcement looks to me like an attempt to prevent Chauvin from getting a fair trial, assuming there was ever any chance of him getting one in Minneapolis.”

“It’s scary that the power of multiple branches of government is being exerted this forcefully, and seemingly in concert, against a citizen who has been convicted of no crime. It’s also, I believe, a sign of things to come.

The guilt and victimhood of the fathers – reparations for slavery. neo — “Here’s what Oregon is contemplating: … I have quite a few questions.”

Retired Army Sgt. Kenneth Harrelson Arrested for Attending Jan. 6 Protests – Family’s Bank Account Locked Down, Wife Loses Her Job, They Are Frightened and Don’t Know What to Do. Jim Hoft — Here is Angel’s story.

Poll Finds Most Democrats Still Think Trump Stole The 2016 Election – Why Aren’t They Being Canceled? I & I Editorial Board — “does anyone remember any company canceling contracts with a Democrat for not wanting to certify the 2016 election results? Or endless articles about how Democrats undermined democracy? Or attempts to silence Democrats spewing falsehoods on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube?” … “The only difference between Democrats under Trump and Republicans today is that Republicans have a stronger case for a stolen election than Democrats ever did. ”

“Which is the bigger affront to Democracy – some property damage by a handful of angry citizens, or an attempt by top federal officials to undermine and unseat a duly elected president?

When Kenosha Might Have Burned Again, Local TV News Coverage Calmed the Flames their Broadcast Networks Fanned. Rabbi Elliot B. Gertel — “Because of the strong case for self-defense and for the need to prevent the taking of the children under any circumstance, dictated by the warrant, both Graveley and Wray insisted that they could not make a criminal case against Officer Sheskey, even though Jacob Blake was, tragically, paralyzed from the waist down by the shots.”

“I was curious about national coverage of the press conference by the traditional three broadcast networks on their January 5 evening news, so I taped those programs in advance.
…
In all fairness to the network reports, they were aired around two hours after the press conference began. But how could they have missed the key points?
…
I checked on how Milwaukee’s “big three” network news outlets covered the press conference in their 10:00 news programs. They did a creditable job — indeed, a yeoman job when one factors in the failures of the national and Chicago coverage.

The U.S. Military Just Became A Political Attack Machine Against Joe Biden’s Opponents. Patrick Swan — “The federal government just used its publicly employed career professionals to target a working journalist for professional destruction.”

“Wait—the Trump Department of Defense never did any of this in response to those actual words of Rachel Maddow linked above: No spokesman denunciation, no coordinated reaction by senior military leaders, no complaint that she should keep her mouth shut because she never served a single day in uniform.

The Trump DoD never did any of this. But Joe Biden’s DoD just did.
…
It is unseemly, of course, for a DoD spokesman to so venomously misrepresent what an opinion journalist said and then to question why the journalist dared to say it. This is even worse than that. It is an atrocious assault on the operation of a free press to then coordinate a department-wide propaganda campaign to smear a journalist for saying things he didn’t and to dissent from DoD policies with words he did say.
…
The military’s reputation has suffered a tremendous self-inflicted hit. We must use our voices to ensure those running it understand this is never to be repeated.

Maternity Flight Suits and Other Admonitions. Roger Kimball — “When the Gods of the Copybook Headings return maternity flight suits will not be part of the drama.” … “No matter what Lloyd Austin or the media tells you, the trouble with the U.S. Armed Forces is not political extremism but the enervating rust of political correctness.”

Instapundit on Roger Simon: All Red States Must Join Gov. DeSantis to Restrain Big Tech — “Through algorithmic manipulation, de-platforming and other noxious off-shoots of the tyrannical cancel culture these companies are changing history, reversing freedoms hard won since the Magna Carta, while having an unconscious numbing effect on our brains that eventually would render us a race of drones.”

For Democrats, It’s ‘Never Say Die’ on Passing Gun Control. Rick Moran — “If the definition of insanity is to do something over and over and expect different results, the entire Democratic caucus needs to be committed.”

North Carolina Supreme Court Upholds Judicially Mandated Speech And Censorship On Blog. Jonathan Turley — “The opinion in my view is an outrageous overreach of judicial authority and an attack on free speech. Yet the North Carolina Supreme Court has now upheld the sentence without any opinion.”

Courts Repeatedly Refused To Consider Trump’s Election Claims On The Merits. Bob Anderson — “The losing side needed to know that a fair shake was given, and that justice prevailed, even if it wasn’t the outcome they wanted. That did not happen after Nov. 3.”

“The election is over. There has been an inauguration. So why did ABC’s George Stephanopoulos feel the need to berate a U.S. senator and his audience with the demand, “Can’t you just say the words: This election was not stolen?” Why must he shout, “There were 86 challenges filed by President Trump and his allies in court. All were dismissed!”

Perhaps, the answer lies in the details of those cases, as much in how they were adjudicated as in the final rulings.
…
In reality, there were 28 unique cases filed across the six contested states by President Trump or others on his behalf.
…
we can recognize that many of the cases produced no useful information relative to election integrity.
…
At times, judges resorted to Clintonian wordsmithing to relieve a word of its recognized meaning.
…
The one thing many voters seem to have learned through the legal chaos is that it’s easier to commit election violations than to stop them. So the electorate remains divided—even after “86 election cases.”

Why Election Integrity Matters. Vince Coyner — “Specifically, the Founder’s Constitution worked because – by design – it was insulated from men’s passions.” … “Today, America sits and watches as Democrats essentially send the Constitution through the shredder.”

How Are Popular Uprisings Triggered? Mark Wauck — “The way I read that, YOU–you Trump voters–are the “deeper sickness”. Gurri wants to cure YOU, but for now he’ll settle with addressing the symptoms–meaning, Trump–and get to YOU later.” … “the Dems and their Corporate proxies are doubling down on their “delusional, ham fisted, authoritarian” tactics.”

Biden’s scary, boring, and bizarre address to the nation. Andrea Widburg — “On Thursday night, a masked Biden tottered down a long, empty hall to a podium. He then gave the most bizarre presidential address in American history.”

If This Week You Learned Biden is ‘Hopeful’ And Tucker Carlson Is Evil, Congratulations, You’ve Been Lied To. Christopher Bedford — “”

“If you hadn’t watched the president’s prime-time address, you might think it was something — anything — other than the most depressing, defeated, and resigned speech since President Jimmy Carter held the office. You might think he hadn’t devoted his third sentence to a baseless attack on his predecessor, and the entire rest of his address to death, sadness, loneliness, and despair. You might think he hadn’t literally threatened the American people, warning, “We may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track, please, we don’t want to do that again.”

Rather, to read The Washington Post homepage’s featured commentary on the address, you’d think “Much of that speech was about hope.”
…
If you’re wondering why you didn’t see any of this, don’t worry: It didn’t happen. But more and more, we all have to take a step back, throw some water on our faces, and look around in disbelief at the state of our corporate media.

The Blatant Fraud Behind The New $1.9 Tril ‘COVID Relief’ Law. I & I Editorial Board — “With the COVID-19 relief bill now signed into law, it can’t be any clearer that Americans have had the wool pulled over their eyes on what this really was all about.”

Biden Fires Eeoc General Counsel For Protecting Religious Rights. Paul Mirengoff — “What, then, is there to dislike about Gustafson? The only thing I can think of is her vigorous opposition to discrimination based on religion in the workplace which, in the context of one piece of EEOC litigation, has displeased LGBT activists.”

Criticizing Public Figures, Including Influential Journalists, is Not Harassment or Abuse. Glenn Greenwald — “As social media empowers uncredentialed people to be heard, society’s most powerful actors seek to cast themselves as victims and delegitimize all critiques.”

Department of Defense Prints a Disturbing, Unprofessional Attack on Tucker Carlson, Proving How Politicized They’ve Become. Nick Arama — “Tucker Carlson earned the ire of some on the left for saying something truly radical: that maybe pregnant women should be involved in a combat zone/be fighting wars. … He spoke about how, while China is building up their Navy to be reportedly bigger than ours, Joe Biden’s focus was…maternity flight suits and updating requirements for hair styles.”

The Real COVID Nursing Home Scandal Is Why Cuomo And Other Democrats Did It. Willis L. Krumholz and Robert Delahunty — “What’s worse than using political and legal authority to cause the agonizing deaths of a large number of elderly? Doing that as a cynical favor to monied corporate donors.”

Did The Shutdowns Save Lives? A Year Later, Statistical Analysis Suggests Not. Chuck DeVore — “There is no evidence shutdowns did anything but deepen the economic suffering, increase suicides, and prevent lifesaving medical tests and treatments.”

Australian Imams Stand Up for Sharia. Mark Durie – “The Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) attracted trenchant public criticism when on December 5 it released a guide on fostering, adoption and guardianship.”

“The problem is that sharia is in many respects fundamentally inconsistent with Australian community standards and laws. The outrage that political leaders have expressed over the ANIC’s document on fostering, adoption and guardianship is in reality outrage at Islam itself, and a rejection of its divine status.
…
The global rise of sharia is one of the big faith stories of the past half-century. Sharia is challenging Western legal systems and social structures in many ways, but we should be surprised by none of this.

Meghan Markle ‘didn’t do any research’ on the British royal family, exposing herself as a fool. Monica Showalter – “not just ignorant, but willfully ignorant, proud of her ignorance, flippantly stating she never did “any research,” as if that’s something to be proud of.”

Dems’ ‘Election Reforms’ Would End American Democracy As We Know It. I & I Editorial Board – “Yes, elections have consequences, and terrible bills like this certainly prove that. Anyone who voted for the Democrats in 2020 hoping for a “turn to the center” should by now be feeling mighty foolish. H.R. 1 is but one example.” … “Now for specifics. The list below from the Conservative Action Project shows H.R. 1 in all its radical ugliness.”

“Those who think that “woke” and “cancel” cultures and demonizing Trump supporters as “domestic terrorists” aren’t preludes to something awful are blind to the historical truth.
…
they all share in common: Their people get poorer and sicker, their economies slowly collapse, and their miserable citizens seek desperately to leave, all because they can’t change things through the ballot box. Short of violence, they can do nothing about it. Sadly, the “For The People Act” is a step in that direction.

Supreme Court Tosses Trump’s Last Election Appeals. Tyler Durden – “The US Supreme Court on Monday tossed the last of three cases brought by former President Donald Trump challenging his 2020 election loss, ending his quest for vindication through the courts – hardly any of which actually considered the evidence presented, and instead dismissed the cases on technical grounds.” The court has abrogated its duty.

Three Trump Foreign Policy Successes Biden Is Undoing. Joel B. Pollak – “for no apparent reason other than radical ideology and political spite.”

“In each case, former President Donald Trump was able to achieve goals that both parties had long claimed to share. And in each case, Biden has not only hurt the interests of the United States, but reduced the leverage that he might otherwise have had to pursue foreign policy goals unique to his administration.

Opposing Left-Wing Indoctrination Is Not Cancel Culture. Paul Bradford – “The Right no longer has the luxury to meekly protest as the other side brainwashes our youth.” … “some conservatives (and many liberals) make the bad-faith argument that resistance to wokeness is, in fact, “cancel culture.”

Media Using Same ‘Anonymous Sources’ Tactic for Capitol Hill Riot That Propelled Russia Hoax. Mike LaChance – “The term ‘according to sources’ has become a punchline, and people in media are the only ones who don’t get the joke. They used this dishonest tactic to push the debunked Steele dossier, the Russia collusion lie, and more.” … “Here’s how this game works.” … “The dishonest and lazy media is doing this for a specific and obvious reason.”

If You Want to Understand Why 5000 National Guardsmen Are Still in DC, Read the Indictment of Oath Keepers Involved in the Capitol Riot. Streiff – “With the Democrat-supported rioters, charges are being dismissed in droves. In the Capitol rioters’ case, the full weight of the federal government is being used to prosecute people for types of crimes that did not rate notice by federal law enforcement when committed by politically favored rioters.”

“As the cases move out of the bizarre and lie-filled media accounts (no “kill teams,” no zip ties, no beating a cop to death, no guns, no connection to Trump’s speech) and into the legal system, we see more and more of those accused of complicity in the Capitol riot are being released on their own recognizance pending trial.

FBI Investigation Finds No Evidence Any Republican Member of Congress Aided Capitol Rioters but the Damage Is Done. Streiff – “The last of the Capitol rioters had barely vacated the premises when Nancy Pelosi’s allies began slandering their Republican colleagues … This is just another of the completely false narratives peddled by the Democrats, the media, the National Review, the Bulwark, the Dispatch, and a bunch of pedo-enabling losers that have self-destructed.”

Biden’s ugly betrayal of the Iranian people. Neo – “That’s the title of this article by Mariam Memarsadeghi in Tablet … The article also goes into what seems to be the required paragraph of Trump-bashing, with such typical stuff as “The same democratic liberties and institutions which the Iranian people sought to achieve with American support, Trump often seemed to threaten at home.” No examples, naturally. Then it segues into a description of what Biden has done”

“There was never a moment’s question that this would be the result of a Biden presidency. Those who voted for him – and whether or not you think Biden won the actual vote, there were plenty of people who did in fact vote for him – either did not care about Iran, did not know about Iran, or considered getting rid of Trump the most important thing of all. Trump was a demon, and demons must be exorcised no matter what the cost might be.

On the Left, an Era of Fascist Magical Thinking. Michael Walsh – “The genius of the Left’s success in achieving their favored policy positions is found in their favorite tactic: first, posit a counter-factual and, second, act on it as if it were true — with maximum governmental force.”

There Is No Such Thing As “White” Math [zerohedge]. Common Sense with Bari Weiss – “In my position as a professor of mathematics at Princeton, I have witnessed the decline of universities and cultural institutions as they have embraced political ideology at the expense of rigorous scholarship. Until recently — this past summer, really — I had naively thought that the STEM disciplines would be spared from this ideological takeover.

“I was wrong. Attempts to “deconstruct” mathematics, deny its objectivity, accuse it of racial bias, and infuse it with political ideology have become more and more common — perhaps, even, at your child’s elementary school.
…
Unlike the traditional totalitarianism practiced by former communist countries, like the Romania I grew up in, this version is soft. It enforces its ideology not by jailing dissenters or physically eliminating them, but by social shaming, mob punishment, guilt by association, and coerced speech.

When it comes to education, I believe the woke ideology is even more harmful than old-fashioned communism.
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Finally, and most importantly, the woke approach to mathematics is particularly poisonous to those it pretends to want to help.

A Step Forward — Adding “Blue Anon” to the Political Lexicon to Stigmatize Idiot Pundits on the Left. Shipwreckedcrew – “it appears that a counter-attack has been successfully launched in some small way — if conservatives can unite behind it and make it stick.” … ““Blue Anon” is an apt descriptor for the nearly illiterate opinion-makers on the left who seem to be working overtime to come up with ridiculous theories to explain why it is that so much of the policy agenda of the radical wing of the Democrat party is so unpopular.”

The Wisdom in Knowing What We Don’t Know. Peter Arnold – “Regrettably, there is little knowledge — read that ‘verifiable facts’ — about treating COVID-19, about preventing its spread, about the facts of herd immunity, about its mutation potential, about any form of treatment, the efficacy of the vaccines and many other open questions. This has left experts, world-wide, to respond in ignorance to the demands of the media for comment.”

FBI Took Possession of Suspicious Ballots in Georgia in Early January and Ordered Them Destroyed With a Shredder. Joe Hoft – “We now have more information regarding this incident from individuals with knowledge of the events.” … “This investigation was thwarted by the FBI. The evidence was destroyed.”

Developing some perspective on the Capitol riot. Byron York – “In the last few days we’ve seen a series of hearings in the House and Senate on the January 6 riot at the Capitol.”

The Capitol Police Chief And Her Democratic Bosses Are Lying To You, All To Hold Our Capital Hostage. Christopher Bedford – “It’s because panic porn and agitprop are useful tools when you’re working as hard as you can to spread fear and distrust against the half of the country that disagrees with your policies.”

Explosive Testimony: National Guard General Confirms ‘Optics’ Reason for Weak Capitol Security on January 6th. Kyle Becker – “The National Guard general’s testimony should be watched and read in full to get a deep understanding of how it completely exposes many of the misleading narratives about the Capitol attack.”

Nobody’s Tax Returns are Confidential Anymore. Kenneth H. Ryesky – “Violations of taxpayer confidentiality by governmental employees and others are criminal offenses under I.R.C. §§ 7213 and 7213A.” …

“Courts have held that “[t]o compel the disclosure of tax returns, the movant must show that (1) ‘the returns are relevant to the subject matter of the action’ and (2) ‘there is a compelling need for the tax returns because the information contained therein is not otherwise readily available.'”

As matters currently stand, the Supreme Court’s allowance of disclosure is a precedent for future abuses by prosecutors nationwide. Nobody’s tax returns can truly be confidential anymore.

Why Do Federal Prosecutors Seem To Have A Problem With The Truth? Mark Wauck – “It’s almost as if politics somehow entered into this criminal prosecution. The big insurrection narrative is getting pretty tattered.”

Don’t Get Scammed By So-Called STEM Education. Tony Kinnett – “America’s STEM classrooms are devolving — wasting valuable class time with toys, barely applicable coding games, and victim-mentality nonsense.” It goes back to the seventies. “Why are so many public and private schools led down the paths of cheap entertainment and virtue signaling?”

“Major groups like the National Science Teaching Association assert women and minority groups are underrepresented in STEM fields in the United States and other Western nations, so someone must be discouraging these demographics from entering STEM while in school. The data shows that access and encouragement in STEM isn’t the problem, however. Many people simply aren’t interested in pursuing it as a career.
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The Racial Equity Institute and The Smithsonian are among many attributing the bedrock of quality STEM learning — perfectionism, a sense of urgency, the written word, and “only one right way — as white supremacy. In fact, if you aren’t teaching your students these social sermons constantly in STEM classrooms, you’re perpetuating “implicit bias.”
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Unfortunately, such messaging has consequences.

Students have to do it themselves and the best and brightest do tend to learn more out of school.

When A Great Democracy Politicized The Military. James S. Corum – “President Joe Biden has embarked on a revolutionary program to replace constitutional freedoms with a new social justice agenda. Supporting the radical agenda is his defense secretary Lloyd Austin, whose top priority is to politicize the military to eliminate “extremists.”

“So, what happens when the hard left takes control of the government of a great democracy and decides that the desired social revolution requires the destruction of conservative institutions and leaders, and then institutes aggressive policies to expel conservatives from the military? We have a good answer when we look at France from 1899 to 1914 when hard-left governments were in power.
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We see an interesting historical parallel today, with a leftist government under Biden behaving much like the French Premier Combes in trying to impose a radical leftist orthodoxy and crush the conservative half of the nation. In Defense Secretary Austin we see a man obsessed with the internal politics of the army, just like French General André, intent on purging the armed forces of “extremists” rather than focusing on foreign threats.

Stop the Balkanization of America. Civis Americanus – “It is always useful to have a single word with which to identify and marginalize the enemy in any kind of conflict, and “Balkanizer” seems to fit the bill.”

“Balkanization has already resulted in the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire. Balkanization is the reason for proposals for Scottish, Bavarian, and Catalan secession. This makes those who want to similarly Balkanize the United States useful idiots for foreign and domestic enemies of the United States. We need to marginalize them as such.

The Wisdom in Knowing What We Don’t Know. Peter Arnold – “Regrettably, there is little knowledge — read that ‘verifiable facts’ — about treating COVID-19, about preventing its spread, about the facts of herd immunity, about its mutation potential, about any form of treatment, the efficacy of the vaccines and many other open questions. This has left experts, world-wide, to respond in ignorance to the demands of the media for comment.”

What We Know And Don’t Know About The Events Of January 6th. Charles Turot – “It takes three days after any event to find out what happened, and 30 days to find out what really happened.”

“The dust storm of information and misinformation takes a while to settle in the perpetually-online United States. The truth lodges in fewer places now. … After 60 days, what do we, and don’t we, know about the events of January 6th? What we don’t know concerns me. When information that ought to be public isn’t, there’s a reason. It’s seldom good.

Turns out the new word to label what Turot describes is ‘irregularities’. This is especially true when dancing around election behavior.

Insurrection, 2016. John Hinderaker – “The Democrats’ pompous characterization of the mini-riot at the Capitol on January 6 as an “insurrection” is a transparent political ploy.” … “Actually, if you want to talk about insurrection, the violence and violent rhetoric that the Democratic Party marshaled after Donald Trump’s election in 2016 more nearly fits the definition.”

“With this outrageous conduct by Democrats taking place, one might think that leaders of the Democratic Party would be scurrying to disavow their supporters’ violence. But that isn’t happening.
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That is today’s Democratic Party: the vicious, the violent, the anti-democratic, the bullies. The fascists.

The Left’s Campaign Against Self-Defense. Janet Levy – “In the name of “social justice,” politicians and the judiciary in many cities and states are bestowing moral rights on violent left-wing and anarchist groups.”

“In stark contrast, prosecutors are bearing down heavily on gun owners who defended themselves at protests by militant leftist groups like Antifa and BLM. Under threat are the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the legal justification to act in self-defense.
…
the way biased prosecutors have responded to self-defense cases — all involving people menaced or attacked by Antifa-BLM protestors — is really a cause for worry.
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The final rulings on these cases will be a weathervane for the future of self-defense in the U.S. Americans could very well be in danger of losing their right to own firearms and use them for their protection.

Judge blocks bills limiting Beshear’s emergency powers. – “The Democratic governor’s administration made a “strong case” that the Republican-backed bills are likely to “undermine, or even cripple,” public health measures needed to protect Kentuckians from the pandemic, Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd said in his ruling.” A judge is asserting that a governor can ignore laws passed by a legislature? The voice of the people can be overridden by executive fiat? One could wonder whether the judge sees his job as deciding law or deciding on his own what he thinks right or wrong.

The upcoming show trial. Mark Wauck – “discusses an article by George Parry, Derek Chauvin’s Trial: Countdown to a Kangaroo Court … The idea of an “impartial jury” is laughable.”

Lange V. California Puts Tyranny In Play, And Your Rights At Risk. Gary M. Galles – “why don’t we take the 4th Amendment seriously, rather than look for ways to eviscerate it?”

Seriously?… FBI Director Chris Wray Testifies There Is No Evidence of “Fake Trump Supporters” at US Capitol During Riot. Jim Hoft – “Antifa-BLM organizer John Sullivan was at the US Capitol and bragged about wearing a MAGA hat during the riots where he broke a window and stormed the US Capitol.” … “Obviously, the once-great FBI and Chris Wray cannot be trusted.”

on the obsession:

Happy Texas Independence Day! Will Woke History Cancel the Alamo? Bryan Preston – “As we hit the 185th anniversary of Texas Independence and the fall of the Alamo, then the rise of Texas, we have a problem. Some are revising the story to put slavery front and center, when it was not. It was an issue, but not the primary issue” … “One need not be a historian to know that slavery pre-dates the invention of capitalism by thousands of years.” … “Academic freedom is dying at the hands of critical race theory and cancel culture, which views history through a very narrow, modern Marxist lens that condemns capitalism but overlooks communism’s true, current slavery (in China, for instance), and ignores its ghastly historic body count.”

Was COVID-19 Our Neutron Bomb? Victor Davis Hanson – “If Biden and his team get what they wish—a neo-socialist, big government transformation—we will enter tough times. But not yet and perhaps not until after 2022.”

‘Cancel Trump’ Culture Is Toxic, Juvenile, and Dangerous. Stephen Kruiser – “On Friday I highlighted a specific incident that sought to cancel President Trump even in death. Today we’ll look at the pathological mental deterioration behind that, as well as some more petty and ignorant manifestations of this metastasizing Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“The Democrats are in control of the federal government right now and they have no clear vision for the United States of America other than hating Donald Trump. That would be myopic and stupid in the best of times. With the pandemic still upon us and the economy in dire need of a comeback, it’s a recipe for long-term disaster.

And they don’t care. The tantrum is the priority and it shows no signs of letting up.

In Wake Of His Death, Media Smears Rush Limbaugh For ‘AIDS Update’ He Repeatedly Apologized For. Chad Felix Greene – “It seems that rather than attempt to hold Rush Limbaugh eternally accountable for his sins, this one in particular, what should matter most is the context and his apology.” … “One of the remarkable truths about those who hold a visceral hatred of Rush Limbaugh is the high likelihood they have never listened to his show or read any of his books. ” … “Leftwing activists often lecture us on the importance of personal growth and redemption, yet they stubbornly feel entitled to withhold forgiveness when it politically suits them.”

“It seems that rather than attempt to hold him eternally accountable for his sins, this one in particular, what should matter most is the context and the consequence. Limbaugh engaged in his typical blunt and bombastic style to comment on how the gay movement chose to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in its early years. Once he realized he was unfairly harming innocent people he never meant to insult or mock, he stopped, apologized, and donated money to help end the HIV/AIDS crisis. That is what should be remembered.

Language, Crime and Trial by Headline. Peter Smith – “We do know that Trump had evidence for his claim. And to say he didn’t have proof is rather like saying my black eye is not proof that I was punched in the face. But it is evidence, numbskulls.”

Court Docs Show Facebook Played Much Bigger Part In Capitol Riot Than Parler, Yet No Consequences. Rachel Bovard – “If any single platform can be fingered as the favorite of the rioters, it appears to be Facebook. Yet Facebook remains unmolested by app stores and untargeted by opportunistic politicians.” … “Arbiters of Truth Push More Fake News” … “And that is because this issue is not really about content moderation policies. It’s about narrative control.”

“Big Tech can shut down your speech, but also your ability to make money in America. They can ban you from the public square, as well as from the avenues and infrastructure of capitalism.

Looks like SCOTUS has abandoned the Constitution as “moot” in regard to elections.They set it aside as irrelevant before the election. The message is that the Law does not matter.

Rush Limbaugh: Death Of A Giant. I & I Editorial Board – “His witty, often acerbic commentary had been a daily anchor to reality for many Americans, tired of the mainstream media’s lies, bias and prevarications.” … “perhaps our best tribute of all to Limbaugh would be to make sure that flame never goes out.”

The Indispensable Man. Mark Steyn – Rush Limbaugh, 1951-2021 – “I owe Rush the biggest break of my career in America, and I owe him even more for sticking with me after the CRTV breach of contract when certain extremely prominent figures on the American right were bombarding him with multiple texts and emails to fire me from the guest-host’s slot. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to have gone along with that. But he didn’t. And that’s the only reason I’m still around today.”

The First Step Towards Righting America Is Refusing To Believe The Left About Anything. Jesse Kelly – “My point here is not the lies. The left lies. All communists do. Lying is simply part and parcel part of the ideology. My point is that we are in very serious trouble right now in the United States of America.”

“We no longer have the option of riding the initial news cycle and accepting it at face value. Our failure to hold the line and speak hard truths has made the left’s job of cementing a lie in the minds of the people infinitely easier. From now on, when the next major event arises, let us resolve to set the narrative ourselves instead of being consumed by it.

Nick Sandmann Documentary ‘Rush To Judgment’ Chronicles Disturbing Covington Catholic Media Smear. Gabe Kaminsky – “A new film does a deep-dive into the 2019 Covington Catholic event that was a media creation, and it’s worth your time.”

The New York Times’ Brazenly False ‘Fact Check’ About Trump’s Impeachment Trial. James D. Agresti – a fisking.

The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot. Glenn Greenwald – “Insisting on factual accuracy does not make one an apologist for the protesters. False reporting is never justified, especially to inflate threat and fear levels.”

Should a ‘9/11-style’ Commission Investigate the Capitol Riot? Byron York – “what is striking is that, even as Pelosi calls for an investigation, a number of government agencies are stonewalling the public on some of the most basic information about the events of Jan. 6.”

“Finally, one last word on the description of the still-unformed commission. It is universally referred to as a “9/11-style” commission. Pelosi undoubtedly likes that because it helps cement in the public’s mind an equivalence between the riot and the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. In both, Democrats say terrorists attacked America. But be reasonable. There is simply no comparison in scale, motivation or anything else between Sept. 11 and Jan. 6.

Howard Root: A Letter To My Prosecutors. Scott Johnson – “Howard tells the story of his case in the riveting memoir Cardiac Arrest … With the fifth anniversary of his acquittal coming up, Howard has sent off a letter to the prosecutors in his case: Walter L. “Bud” Paulissen, Christina Playton, and Timothy Finley. Howard has authorized us to share it with Power Line readers. Here it is.”

Our Descent Into Collective Madness. Victor Davis Hanson – “the height of our collective madness is the current cancel culture. Its subtexts are “unearned white privilege” and “white supremacy.” … “The common denominator with all these absurdities? An ungracious and neurotic elite whose judgment is bankrupt and whose privilege is paid for by those who don’t have it.”

I Am Insane. Don Boudreaux – “The following conclusion is now firmly set in (what remains of) my mind: If humanity’s reaction to Covid-19 is sane and rational, then sometime in the past 11 months I’ve lost my mind and I am now certifiably insane. If, instead, I remain reasonably in touch with reality and rationality, and am not completely insane, then most of my fellow human beings are utterly bonkers-mad.”

They murdered him for not wearing a mask. Rudd-O.com – “The greatest evils are always committed in the name of the greatest good.” … “the murderer and his accomplices were possessed by egregores.” … “perverse ideas eat human souls, then wear their skins — like meat costumes — in order to act, to spread, and to prevail.”

Faith over fear. Jeffrey I. Barke – “adults across this country have caused a lot of unnecessary harm to their children during the pandemic. We have taught them to be afraid; we have indicated that they should not question authority; we have shown them how to be obedient to the government. We have suggested to them that any sacrifice in the name of community health is acceptable. We have even modeled a path forward — the easiest way to get along is to go along, to shut up and obey.” … “The excessive caution is not just a matter of “better safe than sorry,” as some would have it. It is both wrong and abusive to force masks on our children and our communities in the name of good intentions.

I am not one to talk about my religious beliefs, but if there were ever a time that America needs a spiritual revival, it would be now. We will not be rescued from our current malaise by any politician or statesman. No magic bullet is coming along to put everything back to the way it was. Our only path forward now, it seems to me, is through faith over fear and a return to our Jewish and Christian roots — roots that brought us our Declaration of Independence proclaiming clearly that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — rights that come not from the government.

This Basic Math Shows How Wind Energy Failures Contributed To Texas’s Deadly Power Loss. Daniel Turner – “We can learn from what happened in Texas if we have a serious and necessary conversation about renewable energy. But will we?”

Texas Windpower: Will Negative Pricing Blow Out the Lights? (PTC vs. reliable new capacity). Josiah Neeley – (This post, originally published at MasterResource in November 2012, is reposted verbatim for its relevancy now) “Texas need not abandon wholesale competition and move toward a capacity market. But this will be difficult to avoid as long as the PTC is in place. Congress should allow the PTC to expire; if not, we may see the end Texas’ world-class energy-only electricity market.”

Rush Limbaugh is no more. His wife describes the loss this morning on his show. Rest in peace, Rush.

Lies About Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick Ominously Foreshadow Democrats’ ‘Truth Commission’. Joy Pullmann – “It is plain to anyone with eyes to see that in this nation justice is not being equally applied. If people don’t think this is a problem, they are part of it.” … “We can expect that the lies and coverups that already have occurred related to his death will be magnified across every other fact related to these events.”

“Kamala Harris’s support for obvious injustice is not by any means an anomaly. It is openly supported by all her party’s prominent leaders, including those in media. Their appetite for using this violence to smear and destroy nonviolent political opponents and the rights and legal procedures that protect all of us — such as our freedoms of association and speech — can only be described as hellish.

Our nation clearly has a massive problem with equal justice under the law. It is a problem that many of our political leaders refuse to see and indeed seem deeply invested in making much, much worse.
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This situation is deeply dangerous and utterly untenable. It is an open provocation to further violence. Every single American should utterly refuse to get into this mental cattle car.

Unbelievable. Mark Wauck – “What a bunch of snakes Trump was surrounded with! The scope of the plot against the President is simply mind boggling.” citing Jon Solomon: FBI’s desperate pretext to keep spying on Carter Page.

“This is just so far beyond outrageous. Not just for what it says about the FBI–that goes without saying. Rather, it’s the scope of the plot against the President and the extent to which the coup plotters were willing to trash every aspect of the rule of law that we as Americans should hold dear.

“Where The Hell Are We?” – Biden’s CNN Townhall Disaster Ignored By Mainstream Media. Tyler Durden – “In his first such public appearance since the campaign, President Biden joined CNN’s Anderson Cooper on stage last night in Milwaukee in a town-hall-style discussion. It did not go well” … “during the car crash exchange, Biden claimed that former military and former police officers are fueling the “growth of white supremacy,” while claiming President Trump refused to condemn it”

California’s Multibillionaires Intend to Conquer the World. Edward Ring – “To understand what the establishment (of which Joe Biden is a mere figurehead) has in mind for America, we must first understand the Golden State.”

“There is a populist movement around the world that ordinary Americans are joining. It transcends race and in many respects transcends ideology. It has two predominant features. The first is the desire for nations to retain their sovereignty and cultures, and determine their own fates. The other, equally significant, is a growing faith and respect for the power of the individual, and the power of human creativity, to successfully address the challenges we all face without war, and without succumbing to the tyranny of oligarchs—whether they’re living in California or Beijing.

Ultra-Woke Indoctrination In Government Schools Is Closer Than Most Realize. Mark Wauck – “Stanley Kurtz has a lengthy article about what so far looks like will become law in Illinois–Ultra-Woke Illinois Mandates Are Top Threat to U.S. Education. Here’s how he sets up his detailed analysis:”

The closing of the American mind. Daniel Davies – “They hoped that removing classical “Western” works from their curriculum would attract more students. That decision accentuates a trend that has been underway in American colleges, too: eliminating courses that many students claim glorify Western imperialism, capitalism, and chauvinism. The students, and often faculty, demand that colleges take down portraits and statues as well.”

Environmentalists Want Renewable Energy, But Not Power Lines. Alex Berezow – “The only thing that most environmental groups like the NRDC and Sierra Club do is complain, file lawsuits, and block things. They’re never part of any solution.”

Post-impeachment, NYT retracts story about Officer Sicknick killed by Trumpster with fire extinguisher. Monica Showalter – “fresh after the slapdash, failed second impeachment of President Trump, the New York Times has withdrawn the rawest element of its story” … “Here’s how bad that New York Times retraction was, as reported by Red State”

Biden lies about Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s death. Andrea Widburg – “Trump was a boaster, a puffer, and an exaggerator, but he was always straight about the essentials. Biden, on the other hand, is a stone-cold liar.”

Trump acquitted. Neo – “But the US Congress has covered itself with shame, as far as I’m concerned.” … “The case for voting “guilty” was tremendously weak, but that was no impediment to every single Democrat senator casting such a vote. I guess that’s an example of the Democrat way of unity and healing.”

The ‘Insurrection Hallucination’ and How We Got There. Clarice Feldman – “It’s no secret the media has lots of ways to gaslight you. One of those is failing to report significant happenings. Another is booking and quoting people whose views they want to advance because they target those they dislike. Yet another is spreading outright lies, … This week, despite their best efforts, a lot of those lies and liars have been unmasked.”

Yes, Acquittal Is Vindication. Roger Kimball – “The pandemonium at the Capitol was not the cause but merely the pretext for the unprecedented second impeachment by the U.S. Congress of a single individual.”

“I think that an acquittal is a vindication. I know that there are some intermittently conservative organs that disagree. They believe, or at least they say, that Trump’s acquittal does not mean he was vindicated. The proposition that Donald Trump is in the wrong is an analytic truth for them. Like the proposition “all bachelors are unmarried,” they regard it as a necessary truth. It is something inarguable.
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There is, as I have noted elsewhere, a lot that we do not know about the fracas at the Capitol on January 6. One of the reasons for our ignorance is the highly inaccurate accounts of the event.
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The lies form a distorting web through which it is difficult to discern the reality of what actually happened.

The Morning Briefing: Post-Apocalypse GOP 2021—Graham’s In, McConnell’s Out. Stephen Kruiser – “Let me begin with the second thing first: “They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.” With one sentence, the man formerly known as “Cocaine Mitch” has signaled that he’s decided to throw every devoted Trump supporter who still has questions about the myriad irregularities in last year’s election under the bus.” … “the highest-ranking Republican in the United States Senate told almost 75 million members of his own party to go straight to hell.”

McConnell’s Impeachment Ploy Was Not Statesmanship, But An Attack On The Base — And Republicans Must Remember It Well. Christopher Bedford – “Friday’s floor speech was no quick tantrum: It was the last stupid moments of the minority leader’s plan to purge the GOP of Donald Trump.”

“I think his speech is an outlier regarding how Republicans feel about this, “Graham said Sunday. “…The process they used to impeach this president was an affront to the rule of law… The trial record was a complete joke, hearsay upon hearsay, and… if you use this model I don’t know how [Vice President] Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if Republicans take back the House because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open. So we’ve opened Pandora’s Box here and I’m sad for the country.”

The ‘Sound And Fury’ Of Trump’s Impeachment Trial Signifies Something Sinister For America. John Daniel Davidson – “Trump isn’t really on trial here, everyone who voted for him is.”

Graham’s Gambit on Witnesses — the GOP Has Better Trial Lawyers in the Senate Than Do the Democrats. Shipwreckedcrew – “The best defense in a trial before a jury is to attack the case that the prosecution doesn’t make.” … “That sets in the jurors’ minds the idea that I know more about how the investigation should have been handled than the investigators do, and that the investigators took shortcuts and ignored evidence. It’s not necessarily evidence of “innocence”, just the fact of ignoring evidence calls into question the completeness of what they did and their competence doing so.”

Trump Acquittal Shows Congress Is Not Exempt from the Constitution. Joel B. Pollak – “Lead manager Rep. Raskin (D-MD) said that because this was not a criminal trial, the legal requirements for “incitement” did not apply, the right to due process did not apply, and even the cherished First Amendment did not apply. In effect, Raskin argued, Congress was exempt from following constitutional principles.” … “Last year, House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) made the same argument.” … “it is encouraging that Democrats’ efforts to trample the Constitution, while claiming to defend it, failed both times they tried.”

The Wages of Trump Hatred. Victor Davis Hanson – “Hating Donald Trump in the hater’s eyes makes one moral. But in the real world, such pathological fixations usually result in abject immorality and moral decline.”

“Over the last five years, the pathology of Trump Derangement Syndrome has been widely described. It was more than a chronic disease and was often characterized by an array of rapidly advancing symptoms of deterioration in reasoning, emotional stability, and personal ethics.

Yet Another Big Lie Behind Biden’s $1.9 Trillion COVID Bill. I & I Editorial Board – “states across the country are reporting huge surpluses, thanks not only to previous federal COVID handouts (which totaled more than $400 billion) but because tax revenues are surging as the economy rapidly rebounds.”

New Hampshire Department of Justice Refuses to Investigate the Largest Voting Machine Counting Error in State History. Jim Hoft – The 3 a.m. van video has been dismissed as ‘normal business’ at an election counting center. Hoft provides more questions about another situation the requires yet more inventive dismissal and denial efforts.

Exposing Fact-Checker “Mistruths” on 2020 Election Lawsuits. Stu Cvrk – “fact-checking” has nothing to do with checking the facts, but rather is a tactic to discredit material that effectively undermines the Democrat-media narrative” … “Snopes is not alone in their leftwing bias. The same bias applies to the “fact-checkers” at Politifact, Facebook, Twitter, Washington Post, and other media-connected checkers and supposed ombudsmen. All are supposedly affiliated with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies’ International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), but they routinely and blatantly violate the number 1 principle of ICFN: a commitment to nonpartisanship and fairness. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

“The Democrat-media complex have been hard at work tamping down any outbreaks of truth about what transpired during the 2020 election. Leftwing fact-checkers are an important part of that full-court press and are purveyors of agit-prop. The AP article that fact-checked the Droz team’s 2020 election lawsuits spreadsheet is misleading at best and willful misdirection at worst. It can be ignored.

Why Math Is Racist. John Hinderaker – “This is actually a claim that is being made often these days: the sciences in general, and math in particular, are racist. The latest comes from Oregon:”

Impeaching the Voters. Editorial of The New York Sun – “Just to mark the point, it’s not our intention here to assert that Mr. Trump is innocent. It’s only to mark the part of due process that requires that the burden rest entirely on the House. It is asking the Senate to bar a former president from public life until the end of his days. The fact is that the Democrats are scared of a Trump comeback, and the House made no secret of it.”

Briefly Noted: The National Disgrace Of Our Politics. Mark Wauck – “This new low in our political theater has been exacerbated by the introduction of a military occupation of our capital city into the mix of outrages to the body politic, along with the attempt to turn the the latest liberal boogey man–no less than the former president and the 75 million people who voted for him–into non-persons.” … “I would like to note two articles that strike the proper note or chord.”

It Sure Looks Like the House Impeachment Team Doctored Evidence. Bonchie – “The allegation stems from a tweet by Jennifer Lynn Lawrence which was used by Democrats to allege she was calling for an insurrection.”

Bad week for Democrats of all stripes. Monica Showalter – “What could be the meaning of this string of collapses for the Democrats with all of this bad news for them rolling out?” … “The bottom line about election 2020 is that it was won by fraud. And from fraud a lot of problems that would naturally go away simply come back bigger.”

After a slow start, Trump’s attorneys had a barn-burning impeachment closing. Andrea Widburg – “”

“He opened by pointing out that Democrats improperly sat on footage of events in the Capitol to blindside Trump’s defense team and deny him due process. From there, he moved to the fact that the Democrat House impeachment managers outright lied about their alleged evidence, whether it was faked tweets or manipulated video. As part of this lambasting the Democrats for dishonesty, Schoen played for them Trump’s entire statement about events in Charlottesville, which the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) twisted into the disgraceful, defamatory “fine people” hoax.

Schoen demonstrated that Democrats have lusted after impeachment since Trump’s inauguration. The next thing he showed is that Democrats actively promoted violence in the street and have frequently and openly expressed their desire to commit actual violence against Trump, his supporters, and America itself. Moreover, to the extent Trump used the word “fight,” he did so in a purely political sense, which is something that Democrats have done repeatedly over the years:

Trump Defense Team Just Destroyed One of the Most Persistent of Democrat Lies. Nick Arama – “one of the other things that the defense did was call out one of the House Democrats’ lies, a lie that Democrats have continued now for years, a lie that Joe Biden said was part of the very reason he ran. That was the “very fine people” lie.”

Hitler as a Military Strategist. Michael Evans – “The greatest victory of the German army,” the Israeli historian Omer Bartov wryly noted in 1991, “was won on the field of politics, where it managed to return from the most murderous military action in German history all but unscathed.”

Maximum Pain for Net-Zero Gain. Michael Green – “The new Net Zero Jobs report from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) highlights the industries and electorates most at risk of job losses by the 2050 target year, making visible the tensions within and between the major parties on climate policy.”

Am I a Guinea Pig in an Evil Scientist’s Experiment? Don Boudreaux – “Some unseen scientist, likely evil, is studying what happens to human beings if a relatively small number of us experience reality in a completely different manner from how the majority of humanity experiences the same reality.” … “Is the unseen experimenter testing to see if, as a result of this powerful hallucinogen, I and my fellow guinea pigs will go insane?”

But first: A Message From Rush Limbaugh to President Donald J Trump presented by Sundance.

What We Are Doing To Our Young People Is A Crime. John Hinderaker – “I listened in on a zoom parents’ mtg with a MN (DFL) senator tonight.” … “However bad/sad/depressing I thought it would be, it was worse”

Defining bigotry down? Jake Tapper and Chris Hayes Lose Their Minds ‘Inciting’ Against GOP and Reveal Next Step to Control the Narrative. Nick Arama – “This guy and his network have done everything they could to undermine the duly-elected president of the United States for the past four years with crazy conspiracy theories long debunked.”

Who’s Crazy? John Hinderaker – “Democrats are busily trying to portray Republicans as crazy extremists and conspiracy theorists.” … “But where do we look for maximum craziness?” … “There was a time when making such reckless, extreme, and–to say the least!–unsupported claims about one’s political opponents would have been considered far out of bounds by pretty much everyone. No longer. When is the last time you have seen a Democratic politician–any politician–denounce even the most hateful and potentially violence-producing rhetoric from a fellow Democrat?”

Instapundit: Look, guys, any honest person who knew math knows. I know the left and the right who hates Trump loves to lie to themselves that “everyone hates Trump.”

‘Time’ Returns to the Scene of the Crime. Tony Thomas – “Here’s another example of Time‘s spinning . See if you can spot the inconsistent logic:” … “what Time omits is the last piece in the jigsaw – how the mail-in votes were tampered with. Maybe when the players start boasting about that aspect of coup, we will learn from Time what went on.”

Time Magazine Uses Interesting Word to Explain How 2020 Election Was Pretty Much Rigged. Matt Vespa – “the piece said this wasn’t a rigged election, it was merely “fortified.” … it does give Trump some validation in the sense of the anointing aura that engulfed the nation, especially its news media. As ballots were still being counted, this was permeating the media coverage.” … “ou have to love the linguistic gymnastics here.”

Left Admits Election 2020 Was “Fortified” The Democrat Way. Nina Bookout – “hey believe that they will never ever be challenged again. We need to prove them wrong. We have to and we MUST fight for our Republic. Our future depends on it.”

The Art of the Steal. Rick Fuentes – “For the entire country, the legitimacy of the past presidential election remains an open wound that will not soon heal.” … “On November 3, we went to bed in America. On November 4, we woke up in Venezuela.”

PolitiFact Warps Reality About Left-Wing Activist Inciting Capitol Riot. Anna Lynn and James Agresti – “video footage indisputably proves that Sullivan encouraged people to storm and vandalize the Capitol.” … “In contrast to PolitiFact’s claim that Sullivan’s calls to “storm” and “burn” down the Capitol don’t constitute incitement, PolitiFact has not fact-checked any of the hundreds of Congressional Democrats who declare in their impeachment resolution that President Trump incited the riot.” … “PolitiFact also uses a dishonest debating technique called a “straw man.”

Why Has Trump Not Been Charged With Criminal Incitement? [via zerohedge] Jonathan Turley – “Donald Trump may be the most convicted man never charged in America.” … “What was touted by many experts as a slam-dunk criminal charge has now joined a long list of alleged crimes that once were nightly cable-news sensations.” … “The disconnect between legal analysis and legal reality matters little in today’s media.”

“There is no crime of incitement for legal analysts who exaggerate or oversimplify criminal provisions; the public can be whipped into a frenzy with claims of easy prosecutions or slam-dunk charges. Many people are addicted to rage and these claims, even if illusory, feed that addiction. It is all entertainment until someone actually tries to bring a prosecution — and that is when reality sets in.

What to Expect from Trump’s Upcoming Impeachment Trial. Jonathon Moseley – “You will be watching something like playing the Super Bowl in five minutes, with the best of players slipping and falling all over each other. No one can elegantly mash a two- to four-week trial into only a couple of half-days, while the Senate also conducts other business in the morning. compression will harm Trump’s due process.”

ICYMI: Palm Beach Town Attorney Sides With Trump; Says He And Melania Can Live At Mar-a-Lago. Chris Donaldson – “The vengeful resistance appears to have suffered another setback as efforts to run former President Donald J. Trump out of Mar-a-Lago have come up far short of their objective.” … “You do have to give the Trump haters one thing: they are persistent in their obsession and Trump’s helipad at the property is the next target”

Supreme Court Enjoins Some California Restrictions On Worship. Paul Mirengoff – “A “science-based policy” that somehow eluded “scientists” in every other state.” … “There’s not a lot that I’m looking forward to in the public sphere during the next few years. But I am looking forward to more shrill, hypocritical dissents from Judge Kagan.”

Why are the Democrats Acting So Guilty? John Green – “The reason allegations of a “stolen election” linger is that there are mountains of irregularities that have not been addressed.”

Debasing the Constitution: Why Chief Justice Roberts is Not Presiding over Trump’s Impeachment Trial. William Levin – “Schumer is a different story. His statement is the reasons people despise the oiliness of politicians, saying just enough to sound reasonable, for unwarranted ends.” … “Justice Roberts is not presiding in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump because he has no constitutional authority to preside. It is not a choice.”

A Made-For-TV Impeachment Trial. David Catron – “The facts and Constitution favor Trump, so the Democrats will rely on melodrama.”

The Thirty Tyrants. Lee Smith – “The deal that the American elite chose to make with China has a precedent in the history of Athens and Sparta.”

America Is Rocketing toward the Health Care Precipice. Keith Jackson – “It has had to focus its priority away from the doctor-patient relationship and more toward appeasing ever-expanding federal and bureaucratic control. Doctors and patients are pawns caught in a game of power.”

Should COVID Vaccines Be Mandatory? Alex Berezow – “There are five criteria to consider before deciding if a vaccine should be mandatory. So far, COVID vaccines only satisfy two of them, which is why they should not be mandatory.” This is about ‘mandatory, not advisable, and barely touches on the age issues.

Big Lessons From The Rapid Development Of COVID Vaccines. Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath – “fears are understandable, but ultimately unwarranted. Biopharmaceutical researchers can deliver a safe and effective vaccine faster than ever because of intense industry collaboration and decades of private-sector innovation.”

Biden’s Banana Republic. I & I Editorial Board – “The Democrats and allied activists are itching to shut down speech they don’t agree with, but do it under the cover of preserving and honoring “truth.” … Maybe they’re engrossed only with their version of the truth – their own fantasies and efforts to indoctrinate an entire population.” … “A country and a culture are in trouble when those in authority allow only one voice to be heard, when they decide what is acceptable speech and what isn’t, when the controversial and the unpopular are treated as crimes to be punished.”

Ideological Horror. – “While the genre of the striking new film Dear Comrades! would seem obvious (a political drama), it can also be described as a horror film.” … “The amount of paranoia and repression taking place is incredible. The party members consider the general populace as both childlike and a serious threat.” … “The film dramatizes the emotional and personal costs that millions paid for their belief in communism. … that reality hit not when a geopolitical theory or economic system was debunked, but because those with a conscience admitted that they heard the screams.”

They escaped totalitarianism twice, only to see it again in America. Matt Rowe – “Let me tell you about my wife’s family, formerly oppressed immigrants who came to this country legally, and love the USA as only formerly oppressed immigrants could.”

FBI criminal complaint on Capitol incursion used Photoshopped 4-chan hoax picture as evidence. Thomas Lifson – “Just when you thought the FBI couldn’t fall any further, the Bureau utterly, hilariously, and luridly beclowns itself.”

What we don’t know about the Capitol riot. Byron York – “The storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters was four weeks ago. In that time, it has become perhaps the most important factor in our politics, and particularly in the upcoming impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. But there are a lot of basic facts that we do not know about the riot. It is not clear when we will learn them.”

Democrat Lawyers Claim Voting Machines Stole Election for House Republican. Daniel Greenfield – “NY-22 is a demonstration of what a long and grueling process a forensic examination of the votes in one House race looks like. – It’s also been an extended class in Democrat election hypocrisy.”

“Democrats are obviously allowed to make such arguments without being accused of incitement, sedition, or being deplatformed. But that’s always the case. We have two sets of rules. Those two sets of rules are becoming more obvious than ever and that’s leading to a profound distrust in the system. If the pundits who keep talking about reality really want to zero in on the origin of conspiracy theories, they might start with their own double standards.

Mike Lindell Releases Explosive Documentary on the 2020 Election – “ABSOLUTE PROOF” Film Includes Testimony and Interviews from Experts on Historic Fraud in 2020 Election. Joe Hoft – “This effort was a culmination of the work of many individuals who wanted to expose the fraud in the 2020 election for President of the United States.”

Election Fraud? Many Conspiracies Arise from a Rational Foundation. Jocelynn Cordes – “Lorenzo Valla and he was born in 1407. His claim was that a certain document the papacy used to justify its temporal powers over the Western portion of Christendom was a forgery. It was allegedly composed in the 4th century by the Emperor Constantine himself, but Valla showed that it actually had to have been forged centuries later.”

“But that’s not what interests me about Valla’s critique, for he doesn’t begin his attack with these technical points, and while they’re definitive, there’s something else that demands attention. When I first considered writing an essay on Valla I thought the most important thing was to point out (for the benefit of our college-educated illiterati) that conspiracies to commit fraud aren’t new. If young people received an actual education, this case of a Renaissance humanist exposing a massive fraud concocted centuries earlier would be tucked away somewhere in their minds to be recalled whenever they heard contemptuous dismissals of “conspiracy theorists.” They might even consider the possibility that, as Paul Joseph Watson has pointed out, “. . . conspiracy theories are just inconvenient truths that the political establishment wants to remain hidden.”

But then right before our very eyes this extraordinary election fraud took place, and it was in the reaction of fraud deniers to this epochal event that my attention was forcibly shifted to the specific way in which Valla approached his thesis.

Time Publishes an Astonishing Story About a ‘Cabal’ and ‘Shadow Campaign’ That Helped Biden Win. Stacey Lennox – “The recounting of the story in Time is longer than a chapter in many novels. Time says additional details will be provided in a series of articles over the next several days. This article is an introduction.”

“What is described in the entire story has nothing to do with democracy or the consent of the governed. Instead, it represents a bargain between unions, corporations, activist groups, and the political elite. It is a precursor to the triumvirate of unions, big business, and the government becoming more evident every day. Put another way, the political elite, the very wealthy, the bureaucracy, and those willing to subsidize struck a bargain.

TIME Claims a Secret Cabal Manipulated the 2020 Election to Stop Trump, and People Have Questions. Bonchie – “This seems like the sort of thing you don’t say out loud but, like a serial killer, many in politics are just too absorbed in their own egos to not try to take credit for their deeds.” … “none of this is especially groundbreaking to those who have been paying attention. … Yet, the hypocrisy is still a bit much.”

Why The Time Election Narrative Is Good News. Mark Wauck – “The true giveaway is the lie about “changing” rules and laws.” … “Trump’s attorneys are directly addressing the falsehood that the Time article attempts to propagate–that rules and laws were “changed”. No they weren’t changed, say Trump’s lawyers–laws can only be changed by state legislatures. Acting in deliberate contravention of the election laws is, quite precisely, election fraud.”

Why are Democrats so scared of Donald Trump when they just defeated him? Glenn H. Reynolds – “In a nation returning to “normalcy,” does Congress cower behind armed troops and 12-foot fences? Does a party securely in control try to enlist tech firms and media to snuff out voices of opposition?” … “The Democrats aren’t acting like a party secure in its position; they’re acting nervous and insecure and lashing out at any perceived threat.”

“A normal, secure, sensible Congress would be moving to make sure voting is trustworthy, installing safeguards to reassure those with doubts. But we don’t have a normal, secure, sensible Congress. That’s too bad for everybody.

The Left Is Calling the Capitol Riot An ‘Insurrection’ and a ‘Coup Attempt’ for a Reason. Scott Morefield – “What they are doing is methodically intentional, and the reason is crystal clear. They want to paint a dark, ominous picture of the American political landscape, one that firmly places anyone who questioned the 2020 election or even supported former President Donald Trump as not just political adversaries, but enemies and even outlaws who want to overthrow a democratically elected government.” … “If they can paint the right as insurrectionists and coup plotters, they can then justify any method to stop and/or punish the insurrection and coup plotting.”

Clarity In Trump’s Wake [via zerohedge]. Angelo Codevilla [at AMGreatness.com] – “The United States of America is now a classic oligarchy. The clarity that it has brought to our situation by recognizing this fact is its only virtue…” – “Russians and East Germans under Communists Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in the 1970s lived under less ruling class pressure than do today’s Americans. And their rulers were smart enough not to insult them, their country, or their race.” There is need for care in the bias in this essay as Codevilla succumbs to the TDS narrative (without evidence) in parts. He does hit the China virus, election 2020, the cancel culture, and other tools of the oligarchies at play.

“Machiavelli’s lesson is that the clarity of situations such as he mentions, and such as is conservative America’s following the 2020 election, is itself valuable. Clarity makes illusions of compromise untenable and points to self-reliant action as the only reasonable path. The people might or might not be, as he wrote, “all ready and disposed to follow the flag if only someone were to pick it up.” But surely, someone picking up the flag is the only alternative to servitude.

So much. So heavy. It’s just beginning to get hot.