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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comparisons to ancient cultures and empires and their downfalls seem to be popular. Perhaps they seem eerily prescient. Here is one from a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Are We The Byzantines? (Victor Davis Hanson, The Daily Caller) — “The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become. – So far neither have Americans.” — to make hist point, What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws? (Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Creators Syndicate) — “the right to think as you wish is a natural right and thus is immune from governmental reach. The natural rights of persons, which the Ninth Amendment states government shall not deny or disparage, means that there is no moral or legal basis for government condemnation of ideas or thoughts. This includes, of course, all thoughts, even — especially — those that are negative about the government. … What we see here is not only the government breaking its own laws, but the manifestation of a culture in federal law enforcement that it needn’t abide the Constitution or federal laws or even societal norms when it engages in prosecutions or surveillance for national security purposes. … Which is more harmful to personal liberty — thinking and wishing the government ill, or agreeing to uphold the Constitution and then assaulting it?”

On groupthink, there’s The Unanimous Shurtleff Decision Is Extremely Important (Mark Tapscott, PJ Media) — “everybody’s freedom to express their religious beliefs and principles, or lack thereof, in public and private is stronger today. We should all be thankful for this.”

Then there’s the adamant support for the decline. Rand Paul Storms Out of Committee Meeting After Dems Play Dirty With Firefighter’s Jobs (Brandon Morse, Redstate) — “”made it clear that he won’t sit by and participate in Democrats making up the rules during a Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday. … Democrats didn’t want to be caught voting against firefighters, so their strategy was to alter the language of bills as often as they pleased to avoid putting themselves on record.” — And also on the government front is the fact that Incompetence rewarded, throughout the U.S. government (Uldis Sprogis, American Thinker) — “The only hope of surviving this civilizational decline in government is a return to emphasizing individual moral or ethical and achievement excellence … Keep rewarding incompetence with no accountability and you will only get more of it until there’s some form of a lashout public reaction, or a gradual decline into economic and ideological slavery. That is what will come next.”

As for personal liberties, government following its own laws and other such nonsense: Questioning the January 6 Aftermath (Jacqualine Henry, American Thinker) — “Instead of advocating for censorship, America’s politicians need to start digging into these questions and share the findings with their bosses, We the People.”

Other items to note – mark your calendars Prescription Take Back Day – Join Together Northern Nevada — ELEMENT NAMES: The etymology of the periodic table – YouTube — Things You Didn’t Know About Python Dictionaries • Python Land Blog — stretch your mind!

On the J6 brouhaha:

Jacob Chansley saved us all (Tadas Klimas, AmericanThinker) — “What the Democrats had planned on J6 — January 6, 2021, the day the votes were made official at the Capitol, never happened.

Proud Boys J6 Sedition Trial Halted After Leaked Chat Logs Show FBI Agent Said Her Boss Ordered Her To “Destroy Evidence” (Chris Menahan via Information Liberation, ZeroHedge) — “The feds’ political persecution of the Proud Boys took a wild turn after unintentionally leaked chat logs from FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller revealed she said she was ordered by her boss to “destroy” “338 items of evidence.”

A ‘Spill’ of FBI Secrets (Julie Kelly, American Greatness) — “Confronted with messages the Justice Department attempted to conceal, Nicole Miller, one of the lead FBI investigators assigned to the Proud Boys case, was on the verge of admitting that the FBI monitored privileged communications between one defendant and his attorney in 2021. … Rather than express outrage at the fact that the FBI was spying on what is commonly considered privileged communications protected by the Constitution, [judge] Kelly instead gave prosecutors time to concoct a face-saving strategy—and that they did. … the government’s explanation as to why FBI agents were spying on email correspondence between a defendant and his attorney then apparently sharing that intelligence with prosecutors handling the case should alarm all Americans.”

Of Cabbages and Kings (Jeff Goldstein) — “Once through the looking glass, one begins to see the trees for the forest. Turns out, that’s a good thing for cabbages. For kings, though? Not so much.” — “I don’t think the GOP would be overplaying its hand at all by keeping that newly-released footage in the public consciousness. … These prisoners should be immediately released on remand, their cases reviewed, and their counsel given access to all video and any other discovery material that may prove useful to their defense.”

The J6 Committee’s Obstruction of Justice (Ted Noel, American Thinker) — “We are all familiar with the fact that members of Congress are constitutionally immune from prosecution over what they say during the time they are debating in the House or Senate (Article 1, §6, clause 1).” — “The J6 Committee members are not just left-wing blowhards. They have obstructed justice, which I presume is not protected by the Speech and Debate clause. It is a felony and should be prosecuted post haste by an incoming Attorney General in a new Republican administration. Congress must never be allowed to think that they are immune from the laws that are used against the rest of us.”

J6 defendant who walked into Capitol through an open door, spent less than a minute inside and left when asked by a Capitol Cop, faces prison (Thomas Lifson, American Thinker) — “By any standard, the treatment of January 6 defendants has been a disgrace to the Department of Justice, the DC federal bench, and the Constitution. Scores of people have been held in inhumane conditions in the DC Gulag, denied their constitutional right to speedy trial, and denied access to exculpatory evidence. The blanket media coverage excoriating them as “violent insurrectionists” has prevented these constitutional outrages from becoming a national scandal.”

Other issues:

The 10 Rules Of Propaganda (Brian Maher via DailyReckoning.com, ZeroHedge) — “A daily scan of the newswires calls to mind three or more of these propaganda rules. On some days, six or seven. On others still, all 10.”

“No Squeeze” at Stanford: President and Law Dean Issue Apology that Omits One Critical Thing… (J. Turley) — “Judge Duncan was right to be confused. A law school dean was legitimating an attack on free speech and supporting the claim that hearing opposing legal views on issues like the Second Amendment is harmful to students. … Much has gone “awry” in higher education but it is not a question of managing a room but managing free speech.”

Here We Go Again (Doomberg) — “For those that have been in and around alternative energy research for the better part of long careers, nothing makes the eyes roll harder than loud proclamations of breakthrough advances in battery technology.” — “the incentives to exaggerate the meaning of otherwise pedestrian technology advances are strong – funding, tenure, and fame await those who are profiled in such pieces, while humility is often the root cause of a stalled career.”

What The Media Did To America Is Far Worse Than The Pandemic Ever Was (Eddie Scarry, The Federalist) — “In “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People,” Krakauer maintains that the corruption of the national press is mostly a matter of groupthink, geographic location (Washington and New York), and ego.”

How The Republican House Can Prevent Medicare Price Controls From Becoming Death Sentences – Issues & Insights — “Beginning this year, a new panel of federal officials will choose 10 brand-name drugs on which to impose price controls, with more to follow each year. … But price controls have knock-on effects. … It’s on House Republicans to show the public just how disastrous these command-economy principles will be.” — the facism isn’t on the right these days.

First Thing We Do, Let’s Blame ‘Deregulation’ – Issues & Insights — “Whenever a disaster strikes, you can bet that a story will soon appear blaming “deregulation.” So it was in the immediate aftermath of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. And so it is now with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.”

It’s a self own. Read carefully. Do Masks Prevent COVID? (Spoiler Alert: Of Course, They Do) (Henry I. Miller, ACHS). The first thing to note is the ad hominem. The consider the “of course” in the title. Then look to the ambiguities, lack of objective measures and excuses. The reliance on “Concensus” and “experts” is also telling  — “The bottom line: Don’t take everything you read – especially ideological journalists’ accounts of scientific or medical articles – at face value. Be circumspect about which interpretations you accept, whose advice you take, and whether there exists a consensus among experts.” — good advice not taken.

The professionals in the study of the mind and behavior should be having a field day studying what is on parade but, it seems, they are subjects of the experiment rather than dispassionate observers. Consider the question Just how unjust is our system of justice? (Patricia McCarthy, American Thinker) — “This past week both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland were called before House committees. – Both of them are evil little trolls who are each a master of dissemblance” — 

“The despicable, mocking “testimonies” of Wray and Garland should jump-start anti-progressive activism among all Americans; these men and their minions are malevolent. They have contempt for the American people. They have no respect for our Constitution, our system of justice as it is meant to be, or our reverence for equality of opportunity. They defend allowing abusive protesters to harass Supreme Court Justices; they send FBI goons with guns to arrest a pastor who prays near an abortion clinic and to the homes of anyone who was present in D.C. on Jan. 6 but they allow Antifa and BLM rioters to operate with impunity.  They support the two systems of justice as exactly how things should be; they are elites, we are deplorables.  Comply and be quiet or suffer the consequences.  Our system is unjust; it’s Stalinist and it’s a tragedy.

That justice, Education – history- is taking a hit, too. Politicized Black History And The Great American Shakedown (Kathleen Brush, American Thinker) — “Before the 1970s, cruelty narratives were largely uncontested. Then, cliometricians analyzed mountains of historical data to refine and, sometimes, refute accepted slave history. … These cliometric analyses, though, are ignored because anyone contesting the “extreme cruelty” narrative is presumptively “racist.” However, those with common sense and open minds would find Fogel’s and other cliometricians’ conclusions logical because they reflect the planters’ overriding motive: making money. Cruelty cut into profits.” — Liberia is dredged up to provide another example for contrast and comparison. — “Bastardizing American history and slandering white people is itself racist, and it sullies the legacy of all who fought for liberty, from the abolitionists to Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King.”

In the wings for Nevada is yet another exposure of RCV. The lesson is that when you make things complicated and complex you create opportunities for fraud and misuse as well as avenues for error.  Utah Considers Ranked-Choice Voting Despite Disastrous Record (Victoria Marshall. The Federalist) — “Despite disastrous outcomes in Alaska, Maine, and multiple U.S. municipalities due to ranked-choice voting, Utah is considering legislation to follow their steps.” — It’s another one of those ‘sounds nice feel good’ things that doesn’t stand scrutiny or experience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The failure of absolute democracies in history was a less in the founding of the U.S. government. Mob rule, the two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner fable, and ‘scientific consensus’ all highlight the need to build protections for the rights of minorities in how a government is structured and operated. That is a major source of conflict in today’s politics. Like a toddler pushing the limits of what is allowed, the law and politics are both pushing the rules and customs to find weak spots and to create them if possible.

Alinsky suggested making your opponents live by their own rules [rule 4, see Bolen report]. It seems the word did not get to his friends. Pelosi started a war Jeffries has to finish (David Winston, Roll Call) — “Certainly, there have been times when creating a new precedent has been warranted. … Democrats, especially Nancy Pelosi, should have learned from Reid’s mistakes. When breaking precedent, be careful what you wish for. … No one is arguing that Speaker Pelosi didn’t have the power to do what she did. But was it the right thing to do? Her legacy now includes becoming the first speaker to strong-arm a select committee into existence and dictate its composition without the participation of the legitimate minority party leadership. – And it was a major unforced error” — Democrats Hate Being Held to Their Own Standards: Committee Assignments Edition (Guy Benson, Townhall) — “some of this is the ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’ effect.  If Democrats didn’t want Republican leaders to pick and choose which of their members could serve on certain committees, they should have left those decisions to the GOP in the last Congress.  Once the die was cast on the other side, it became inevitable that reprisals would follow … Pelosi and company pried open this Pandora’s box, and now they may have to live with the results.” — 

Instapundit » Blog Archive » NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Media outlets keep promoting ‘forest defenders’ and ignoring that they shot … is about the ‘whole truth’ being hidden by the media. Are you up on the Atlanta Antifa riots? Major reporting is trying to make it a Floyd type episode – not the real one but the created on. At least the governor is taking the Leftist violence seriously by calling out the National Guard. The fabrication, rationales, and distortions have another exposure in Eggs and weather cause blood clots; ‘stroke season’; and ‘sudden cardiac arrest’ forms for high schoolers (Olivia Murray, – American Thinker) — “Read on for the most notable of the chart-topping absurdities” — and here’s another one: British government data reveal very similar Covid hospitalization rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated people in many age groups (Alex Berenson) — “The British government calculated that to prevent a single case of severe Covid, nearly 1 million healthy adults under 50 would have to receive a booster.”

Paradigm shift sometimes seems to be getting rather stale but consider BELICH: Republicans Need a Tech ‘Manhattan Project’ to Win in 2024 and Beyond (RedState obnoxious warning) — “Republicans Stuck: Broken Paradigm, Old Mindset … In a world where data-driven profile marketing is now the norm, list value lies in the quality of the relationship and its common factors. … The direct mail mindset is not compatible with modern expectations, and it needs to be retired. … The Democrats operate technology the same way they run their cultural infestation, by running many, many teams, some unwittingly, all in the same direction.” — There are some indications that this is happening in the voter fraud area. It is also a major issue for sites like Redstate, Townhall, Epoch Times, and many other information sources as they struggle to find ways to monetize their efforts and transition from traditional newspaper and broadcast models to something more appropriate for websites and podcasts.

The topic today is trust, like in “can you trust your government?” Consider REPORT: Putin Wants to Buy U.S. Weapons Left in Afghanistan — But There’s Even More (Stephen Green, PJ Media) – looks like the U.S. is providing supplies to both sides. — “The Department of Defense estimates the total value of the gear Biden left behind at a whopping $7.12 billion, and now Putin is reportedly offering to buy whatever he and the battered Russian Army need.” … “this would be more of a weapons swap than a cash deal. The Taliban would give up its Western gear in exchange for diplomatic recognition and Russian weapons. Undoubtedly, ammo, spares, and replacements for Russian equipment would be easier for the Taliban to get hold of than for the Western stuff they have now.”

The pandemic is doing its part: Deborah Birx Openly Admits to Lying About the COVID Vaccines to Manipulate the American People – RedState obnoxious warning. — “One of the strangest parts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been all of the public health “experts” who openly lied to the American people while expecting to be lauded as heroes in response. Certainly, most have witnessed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s grotesque level of arrogance over the years, with numerous examples of the good doctor admitting to lying in order to get the outcome he desired from the public. For his efforts, he’s got magazine covers and million-dollar awards.” — That’s Science? Congress Must Probe The Rationale For COVID Mask Mandates (Robert E. Moffit via RealClear Wire, |ZeroHedge) — “the subcommittee must concentrate more on “The Science” than on Dr. Fauci. Throughout the pandemic, federal officials who claim to represent “The Science” gave mixed messages. This left citizens eager to follow “The Science” frightened and confused.” … “a word of caution. A scattershot, highly inflammatory process of congressional investigation will not serve the American people well. Lawmakers should not allow themselves to transform these necessary probes into tiresome “gotcha” political theater—a powerful temptation in our polarized political environment. Rather, House and Senate investigators need to target the specific rationale for each of the major federal policy recommendations over the past three years, with a view toward forging positive legislative changes that would enable the federal government to perform better when the next pandemic hits America’s shores.” — CDC Officials Who Spread Misinformation Apologized To Source Of False Data But Not To Public: Emails (Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, ZeroHedge) 

Election integrity cannot be left out of this parade, either. How Democrats Stole Pennsylvania in 2020 (Emerald Robinson) — “Despite Congress’s failure to act, Pennsylvania could well go down as the worst case of election theft in our country’s history.” — “These findings show a shocking disregard for accuracy in our most important democratic process, our elections. While a very small fraction of error is expected, a 37 percent anomaly rate is entirely too high. 52 percent is mind-boggling.” — Then there’s The Real Differences Between the Biden and Trump Document Troves (Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics) which provides a ten point list to consider. One should also not forget the committee selection brouhaha, which centers on dishonesty and rationalization and has the Santos epic for a distraction.

Things are popping. In Arizona, the appeals court is looking to expedite the election fraud appeal. The latest classified documents scandal is registering. The pandemic panic is being revealed.

And now there is What The January 6 Videos Will Show (Julie Kelly via AmGreatness at ZeroHedge) — “one of the government’s own witnesses confirmed under defense cross-examination that “agents provocateur” were heavily involved in instigating the events of January 6. ,,,It was a stunning admission, representing the first time a top law enforcement official stated under oath (to my knowledge) that a coordinated, experienced group of agitators engaged in much of the mischief early that day.” … “The recordings, Gaetz said in an interview this week, “would give more full context to that day rather than the cherry-picked moments that the January 6 committee tried to use to inflame and further divide our country.” … “More importantly, the footage will indicate which cameras were disabled before the protest.”

“Not only is it necessary to expose the truth of January 6 but to exonerate innocent Americans whose lives have been destroyed in the aftermath.

The reason given for withholding the video is security. –“Thomas DiBiase, general counsel for Capitol police, the technical owner of the video trove, signed an affidavit in March 2021 objecting to the widespread dissemination of footage “related to the attempted insurrection.” DiBiase claimed the agency wanted to prevent “those who might wish to attack the Capitol again” from accessing interior views of the building. – The Department of Justice subsequently labeled the footage as “highly sensitive government material” subject to strict protective orders in court proceedings.”

Security is a ‘go to’ excuse for avoidance of transparency. This is seen from boarding up windows at election centers to censoring video. The Freedom of Information Act requests have been one avenue to find out what is being swept under the rug as well as revelations such as the Biden laptop and the current Twitter document release. It is one of several tools being used to avoid culpability. The Arizona case provides an example of another: denial. The problem with trying to deny reality is that when it catches up with you it can be merciless.

Dazed and confused when words mean things except when they don’t. ‘Equity’ Is Not The Same As Fairness (Andrew I. Fillat and Henry I. Miller, Issues & Insights) — “It hides behind high-minded platitudes but is at its core a tool for corruptly accruing and wielding economic and political power.” … “Never mind that these policies and equity itself contravene the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment under the law – not results – and various civil rights acts that bar all discrimination based on race, color, or creed – not just “bad” discrimination.” … “The Golden Calf of Equity is an idol and fraud that must be melted down, never to be resurrected.”

Whither science? The ‘Final’ Short-Term Word on COVID (Deane Waldman, American Thinker) — “When one applies the scientific method to data about COVID, vaccines, and Washington mandates, one conclusion is inescapable.  Everything Washington said and did was wrong and unscientific.” … “There are dozens of embedded URL references provided herein to verify the assertions made.  Readers: Decide for yourself what is fact versus propaganda.  Based on evidence, decide who spoke truly and who did not.  Most important, decide what to do with that knowledge.”

Then we have the latest Biden scandal. Some are trying to figure out how to make sense of what is being revealed. Others are trying to figure out how to make it fit with their world view. The Latest Attempt to Sanitize the Hunter Biden Scandal Will Turn Your Brain to Mush (Bonchie, RedState) — “The New York Times just delivered the surest sign yet that something is going to eventually cook off.” … “even putting aside any disagreements I have with the conclusions asserted by the Times, would a Republican have ever gotten this type of treatment? The answer is obviously no. The nation’s largest newspaper put multiple reporters on a story to produce thousands of words largely meant to excuse the most powerful family in the country, even as they are forced to admit in the same story that crimes likely were committed. I mean, come on. That’s a level of privilege that is only given to the most connected Democrats.” — There is much twisting and turning as new details emerge. Third Find of Biden Classified Documents Shows How Bad the Problem Is (Nick Arama, RedState) — “I wanted to clarify the alleged timing of the various finds.” … “Prof. Turley raises a great point at this juncture, given what a mess this is: why are Biden’s private attorneys still allowed to root through everything? … Turley also notes that not only were they kept in unsecured locations, but they have probably moved around to more than one place. … Not to mention, all the people who may have had access to them in the house, the garage, and at the Penn Biden Center, and wherever else the documents may have been since Biden wrongly removed them years ago.”

There’s 2 kinds of people: those who seek to construct and build and those who seek to destruct and destroy. Steve Almond’s Failed Ambush of Laura Ingraham (A.J. Rice, American Thinker) highlights an example. — “The media want to reward Almond for this because they don’t like Laura Ingraham. But he shouldn’t be rewarded. Opportunists like him should face the music they want to force on others. Cynically attempting to tear down someone else’s success should never be rewarded.” — Another example, perhaps not as explicit, is CNN’s Gangel: Biden’s Classified Docs ‘Looks Terrible,’ ‘Political Gift to Trump’ (Pam Key, Breitbart) — “CNN reporter Jamie Gangel said Monday on “The Situation Room” that reports that President Joe Biden had classified documents from his time as vice president in his personal office was a political gift to former president Donald Trump.” — All Jamie sees is Trump and reality is disappointing because it doesn’t support the desire to destroy Trump. 

Yet another approach to the media’s ‘gotcha’ destroy those they don’t like approach is described in the report Liberal media is trying to protect the FBI from hard questions about illegal surveillance (Andrew C. McCarthy, New York Post) —

“Besides addressing the crisis at the southern border, there is no more urgent matter for the new Republican House majority to direct its attention to than the conversion of the federal government into a progressive cudgel against civil rights. And there is nothing less surprising than the media-Democrat complex’s determination to strangle the probe in its cradle.

In the left’s playbook, everything is either about race or Donald Trump — if not both. So as night follows day, with House Republicans poised to establish a much needed Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Democrats and their press accomplices are framing the panel as an adjunct of the 2024 Trump presidential campaign.

They can’t be allowed to get away with that. … 

The media-Democrat complex would like you to believe the corruption of the government’s law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus is just Trump propaganda. … 

These are not problems that need addressing for the benefit of Trump. They need addressing for the survival of our constitutional order. … 

Of course Republicans must go about this in the right way. This should not be Jan. 6 committee-style theater. These should be real bipartisan probes, with cross-examination and robust debate. But the weaponization panel is essential, and Republicans must not be cowed by those who want to stifle an investigation and our rights along with it.

Of course! That illustrates McCarthy’s bias. Since when have the Republicans put up a show trial based on false premises like the just terminated 1/6 committee? Is Jourdan as dishonest as Cheney or Shiff? Is the new Speaker of the House and majority as tyrannical as the previous?

The question is what the House can do about it. 

Realizing costs can sometimes be painful. Trump Hatred Is Not Cheap (John Green, American Thinker) illustrates the hazards of being sold a bill of goods. — “Pat has her reasons — which make perfect sense to her. But that level of Trump hatred does come with a price tag. It didn’t take long to realize that the Trump alternative — Joe Biden — came with some hidden costs of his own, that Pat didn’t know about. Now that we’re two years into his presidency, we can actually quantify some of those costs.” — “It’s none of my business what Pat spends her money on, and avoiding Trump’s quirks clearly has some value to her. But almost $69K — to avoid mean tweets. Wow, she must have more disposable income than I do!” — A specific example is that the Biden Admin Quietly Admits Canceling Keystone Pipeline Killed Thousands Of Jobs And Billions Of Dollars. (Mike LaChance, Gateway Pundit) — this comes from a “Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement”

On the election front, the pot still simmers. A Mulligan for the Supreme Court (Bill Markin, American Thinker) points out that SCOTUS has several cases to consider to try again:

“The Court refused to consider the case, not on the merits of its argument, but on a technicality, claiming that Texas had not demonstrated a “judicially cognizable interest” in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.

“As a result, we have seen nearly two years of the rapid destruction of our nation, including fiscal irresponsibility that has led to staggering inflation, a steady decline in the stock market, enactment of policies that have reduced us from energy independence to a nation that must look to countries such as Venezuela and Iran to meet our basic needs and, perhaps most frightening, the politicization of the Department of Justice (including the FBI) into organizations resembling a third-world police state.

This doesn’t yet touch the 1/6 delusions and rights violations. January 6: A Day That Will Live in Alchemy (Julie Kelly, American Greatness) — “In a feat of political sorcery—fueled by lies, cover-ups, and careerism—the Biden regime has transformed an unruly, four-hour protest into an act of domestic terror.” 

“So, what exactly did these alleged “domestic terrorists” do? They entered the Capitol through open doors as police officers stood by. Carrying no weapons, the couple took photos inside the Rotunda and wandered through some hallways; surveillance video shows Holly Christensen talking to a Capitol police officer. At another point, Scott Christensen chatted with a D.C. Metro police officer, a conversation captured on a body-worn camera. Police led the pair toward an exit door about 45 minutes later without arresting them. … 

More than 950 people have been arrested and charged so far, a figure expected to at least double by the time the dust settles.

Some of the detachment from reality is exposed — “Biden, who has difficulty telling the truth about the circumstances of his own son’s death, shamelessly perpetuates the falsehood that Sicknick and several other police officers died as a result of January 6. (In his statement, Garland claimed five police officers died.)” — Perhaps those who face trial should argue for a change of venue so they can get trial by a jury of their peers. The Washington D.C. jury pool has not demonstrated that it can provide such a jury.

The 1/6 left narrative keeps leaking. Once the House gets its leadership defined, the issue will be how much of the witch hunt over the last two years will be made public. Meanwhile, the metal detectors and other 1/6 symbols are being removed. Then there is the political persecution. Army Vet Christopher Alberts Clubbed in the Back of the Head on Jan 6 – Then Feds Arrest Him, Lie to the Court, and Are Caught Hiding Video – PLEASE HELP CHRIS ALBERTS! All of this feeds into awareness. For a catalog of The Coup We Never Knew (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness) maybe — “we are beginning to wake up from a nightmare to a country we no longer recognize”

There are wild speculations about that football player who collapsed on the field. Cardiac Arrest in Athletes (Robert W Malone, substack) — “What is known and knowable” — is a good place to start to understand the situation. — “I truly believe that giving his physicians and trainers space to work professionally is critical: we need to allow them to do the tests, diagnostics and whatever procedures need to be performed outside of the glare of corporate media AND internet armchair physicians. We won’t get the details we would like at the moment we would like, and that is just the way things are.” — one of the contentions is a preemptive defense in the media sort of like their before-the-facts that a shooting has to be a MAGA far right plot. Get the facts first and qualify the conclusions with the extent of what is actually known. This leads to An example of liberal thinking: My recent conversation (H.P. Smith, American Thinker) —

“Logic and Truth (read: facts) mean absolutely nothing to people who live their lives based on feelings and victimhood.  When your reality has been built on a foundation of sand, you can’t allow even the smallest amount of truth to erode it away.  Today’s liberals are so incredibly out of touch, because they’ve been fed a steady diet of lies and narrative from the media, which they dominate, that they’re no longer capable of discerning fact from fiction.  Their sources of information have been peddling said fiction as fact for decades, and it’s only getting worse.

“This is what we’re up against, not even as conservatives, per se, but as thinkers. Thank goodness for the small rays of light we get from independent journalists, those who seek the truth (and the reawakening of Twitter).

For an example of just how far this delusion will go, Remember the Hysteria Over Trump’s Tax Returns? (Byron York, Townhall) — “what about the big reveal? What about the secrets of Trump and Putin hidden deep inside the tax returns? What about the national security implications of Trump’s relationship with Russia, also in the returns? What about all the fevered speculation about Trump and Russia that would be confirmed in that big stack of IRS documents? — Two words: Never mind.” — This leads to some optimism and the suggestion to Resolve to Be Undefeated (J.B. Shurk, American Thinker)) — “It is not that I have unwavering optimism that all will be well; it is that I know that the more of us who accept reality for what it is and then proceed to tackle it accordingly, the more quickly we will achieve our goals.” — “Nobody ever said wisdom comes cheaply.  As Mamet identifies in the warrior’s ethos, first we understand our circumstances honestly, then find the correct response, and finally, execute that response faithfully.”

Thought your income tax filing was confidential? Think again. The Left has upended law. precedent, and common decency and shown that you can be a target if they feel they need ammunition to slime you.  Trump’s Tax Returns Have Been Released, and the Press Squee With Excitement (Bonchie,  – RedState) — “In an unprecedented abuse of power, Democrats in the House of Representatives decided to seize a private citizen’s taxes and dump them out into the public for no legitimate reason whatsoever. … this was simply yet another episode of “get the bad orange man.” But because everything is stupid, we are going to have an entire news cycle about this topic for the umpteenth time. … To be sure, there’s nothing of note in the tax returns. How do I know? Because the Democrat-led committee that released them has spent the last year going over them with a fine-toothed comb, desperately searching for anything they can nail Trump with.” — On Final Day Of Power, House Dems Release 6 Years Of Trump Tax Records; GOP Warns Of Retaliation (Tyler Durden,  ZeroHedge) — “The big question, of course, is whether the GOP turn the now-‘weaponized’ IRS on President Biden… or his son?”

As for what is revealed: About those Trump tax returns…  (Jack Hellner, American Thinker) — “The media have been seeking to destroy President Trump since he began running for office. They spread the known lie about Russian collusion for years. They lied about what he said in Charlottesville, and now they lie about his taxes.” — “When a personal tax return shows an adjusted gross income less than zero there are no itemized deductions. Therefore, no charitable deductions are shown. … The media knows that Trump donated his presidential salary every year, so why would they put out headlines that show he donated zero in 2020?” — “Why is there no interest in examining the Biden family taxes to see where, or if, the kickbacks were reported?”

On the culture front, there is the idea that Government by Gimmick Won’t Last (J.B. Shurk, American Thinker). — “Our whole human story is a repeating pattern in which power accumulates, empires emerge, power corrupts, divisions grow, and empires come crashing down.” — 

“By distorting the meaning of words, Western governments have destroyed their legitimacy.  For this reason, Westerners who wish to fight back can start by doing three things: (1) reject appeals to authority; (2) embrace the role of “conspiracy theorist” or any other derogatory label governments use when they seek to manipulate the public; and (3) consciously choose to elevate virtue, morality, and the pursuit of excellence in life.

The issue of slavery is a blunt and dishonest weapon. The often-missed meanings of the Three-Fifths Clause (Bob Ryan, American Thinker) clarifies  the — “” -negative assumptions … Those who make such assumptions have no idea how wrong they are.” — “If people were taught the truth about the Three-Fifths Clause, there would be no negative assumptions made about the importance of what it actually did. — It did not codify slavery or refer to Black people as being three-fifths human. What the Clause did was greatly reduce representation in the House by slave owning states and made clear that slaves were people.” — in other words, it was a step in the right direction fostered by Christianity and promoted by those imperialist colonials, especially those of British background. The evolution of God and man in the West (Eric Utter, American Thinker) provides a catalog of the assault on reality to add to the 3/5 ignorance. — “To Democrats/Progressives/Leftists/Marxists, God is out, replaced by those who believe they know better than any old God ever could. Ironically, they, too, are deeply religious, but they worship themselves. Hypocritical, virtue signaling, arrogant, ignoramuses… they mock Christianity and God’s will… and beckon us to submit to them.”

Elections continue to fester. The Left is after Lake now that a judge has ruled against her. It seems incontrovertible proof of very closely interpreted law with prior precedents is needed to pursue election fraud. So now the Left wants fines and other money and also the law licenses of any lawyer with wrong views of the case. Jay Valentine says — “This week, leftists and RINOs admitted, under oath, that they changed the print settings, on election morning, so Republican votes would not be tabulated, on the one day most Republicans vote — and the Maricopa County judge said “…it wasn’t intentional.” — and wonders about The End of Free Elections? — “We cannot stop election commissions from changing print settings, but we can keep them mostly honest on election rolls by reconciling one government database with another and forcing the government to make them match — constantly.” — There is an effort, The Fractal Team, is reconciling government databases and pursuing corrections on a county by county basis.

What’s driving the effort to clean up voter rolls? Harvesting Low-Effort Votes Is Working Great For Democrats, So They’re Going For More (Victoria Marshall, Conservative Review) — “Republicans must be wary of Democratic efforts to fortify elections in 2023 and beyond. … Republicans must realize election integrity is not a seasonal push nor a battle isolated to 2020. Rather, they must be on offense for years to come.” — It is this never ending push on many fronts that created Biden’s Unopposed Imposition of Stalinism (Ed Brodow, American Thinker) — “None of this is happening by accident. … “The average American is fed up with being browbeaten by a bunch of crazy left-wing radicals,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Fed up is one thing, doing something about it is another.” — “Biden is able to get away with this outrage because millions of American voters are pathetically uninformed. In our world, critical thinking is not a treasured commodity. If we taught people to distinguish fact from fiction, Biden couldn’t get away with his lies and deception. … What disturbs me the most about Biden’s Stalinist policies is that our citizens have become unwitting collaborators. … This lack of concern is a message to the Biden gang that they can continue to demonstrate contempt for voters without consequence.”

The FBI has professors Turley and Hanson in dismay. Hanson wonders What Will the FBI Not Do? (American Greatness) and — “Who watches the watchers?” … “The FBI is now, tragically, in freefall. The public is at the point, first, of asking what improper or illegal behavior will the bureau not pursue, and what, if anything, must be done to reform or save a once great but now discredited agency.” — Turley notes the telling response of the FBI and suggests that When the FBI Attacks Critics as “Conspiracy Theorists,” It’s Time to Reform the Bureau — Elon Musk is noted as concluding that all those ‘conspiracy theories’ about Twitter turned out the be true. The documentation he released proved the point with emphasis and that is why the question of what to do about it is gaining traction.

Another facet of this corruption is The Omnibus Spending Bill Scam (Paul E. Scates, American Thinker) — “The Founding Fathers didn’t include a provision in the Constitution for the removal of federal office-holders once they are elected.  They assumed an informed electorate would ensure they didn’t elect such people.  But when the majority of Americans are so willfully politically ignorant and apathetic that they spend less time deciding on who to vote for than on what to have for lunch, the absence of such a provision becomes a real problem. … George Orwell describes us perfectly: A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.” — The problems with the budget, its in your face lame duck ‘up yours’ approach, the procedural malfeasance that produced it, and its long term implications are all popular topics for discussion. But, like the Arizona election and the FBI response to the Twitter reveal, and the Senate minority leader shenanigans, the defense is awesome and massive and inane yet (seemingly) accepted by those Orwell accomplices. Is frustration mounting? What will happen? How far will it go?

Neo came up with the idea a few days ago that both sides were seeking Truth. The reality is that one side, the Left is trying to create truth while the, the Right is trying to find it. Truth can be ideology but that is not as issue in the current dialog. Truth as opposed to false witness is what is at stake right now.

The election integrity fracas continues to raise questions and wonder. Judge Peter Thompson Rules Elections with Broken Machines in 60% of Precincts and No Chain of Custody for Ballots Are Free, Fair and Certifiable (Jim Hoft. Gateway Pundit) — “Here again, are the key points ignored by Judge Thompson in Kari Lake’s lawsuit.” —  Kari Lake failed to meet a standard that is impossible to meet (Ted Noel , American Thinker) says — “She presented uncontroverted testimony that the dimensions of the ballot on Election Day were changed from the dimensions that were tested before the election. … As Kari Lake noted, the election was run “outside the law.” Yet Maricopa County Judge Peter Thompson ruled that Lake didn’t meet her burden of proof.” … “The appellate court ought to realize that errors involving fully ten percent of the entire voting electorate are larger than those assumed by the earlier courts, rendering their precedents inapplicable. … Given the facts on the ground, no presumption of election regularity can logically be maintained.  But granting Lake a victory at this point is a bridge too far.” — BUT The Dismissal of Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit Shows Voter Disenfranchisement No Longer Matters (Rachel Alexander, Townhall) — ”The trial court judge in Kari Lake’s election lawsuit predictably threw out her case on Saturday, putting on a sham trial that on the surface looked fair to the general public that doesn’t know any better, but to legal minds was a travesty of justice.”

There Certainly Was an Insurrection, But Not by Trump (Brian C. Joondeph, American Thinker) — “Was Trump behind the “insurrection” as Reps Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney insist? Or was the federal government fomenting insurrection? And was January 6 part of a long pattern of government insurrection going back decades?” — “What’s the common theme? Government agencies actively promoting one favored political party while damaging their political enemies, Soviet-style, to influence elections and disrupt Constitutionally based government. In other words, an insurrection.” — Don’t Buy What Democrats Are Selling as Reality (Bruce Kaufman,  American Thinker) — “We live in a topsy-turvy world, where true reality is often altered and replaced with a new surreal Democrat reality.” — “Beware!  If you believe in the Democrats’ faux reality, you do so at your own peril!  The spider will have caught you in its web.”

Seeking truth, the honest to reality witness kind, is why We Must Know the Past (Jeffrey Folks, American Thinker) — “What critical theorists refuse to admit is that they themselves, with the freedom of speech that they so often abuse, are the beneficiaries of the American experiment.  They are even less likely to admit that the woke thinking they encourage would establish a new social order in which large swaths of the population would be relegated to second-class citizenship or worse” — “Critical theorists are quick to discover flaws and to magnify them into crimes like suppression and even genocide.  The only ones whom woke thinkers find to be innocent are themselves, when in fact woke thinking is leading America toward authoritarianism based on racist, sexist, and queer criteria for membership in the new elite.”

Professor Turley notes one of the indicative behaviors of the guilty in “Conspiracy Theorists…Attempting to Discredit the Agency”: The FBI Attacks Critics Objecting to its Role in Twitter’s Censorship System. — “It is not clear what is more chilling: the menacing role played by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Twitter’s censorship program or its mendacious response to the disclosure of that role.” — “The statement shows an agency that is still engaged in framing public opinion and echoing the narrative being advanced by the White House. … There was a time when that was not a “conspiracy theory.” — The Valley and the Swamp (G. Murphy Donovan, American Thinker) notes that — “Truth does indeed often hide in plain sight … The real value of all those Twitter email dumps so far is that we now have probative evidence for what many already knew.” — 

“No surprise, then, to hear that the Intelligence Community and the FBI deny that they censor news or selectively enforce the law.  The FBI doesn’t just think it is above the law; it now knows it.

“The first great tragedy of the 21st century is the soft coup against America, a joint venture between Big Tech and Big Intel, where tactics and operations formerly reserved for foreign enemies are now used against American citizens.

This gets into the same league of rationalizations as in the question Did The Ways & Means Committee Play The Supreme Court On Trump’s Tax Returns? (Josh Blackman, Volokh). In this one, the rationalization is about proper IRS function but the goal was voyeurism into the private affairs of a citizen. That gets into a String of errors in federal statistics favoring Democrats raising concerns of manipulation (Ben Whedon, Just the News). — “A recent string of errors and apparent discrepancies in federal statistics has raised concerns that such metrics, long regarded as irreproachably nonpartisan and credible, may have fallen prey to manipulation in favor of the incumbent Democratic Party.” — “The Immigration Court’s failure to respond to or address TRAC’s findings of significant data quality issues regarding minors is particularly concerning given the highly sensitive nature of children facing deportation,” — The quiet on these three issues is also telling and why The Election Integrity Battle Must Be Won before It Is Fought (Mac Madden, American Thinker) — “Republicans should have learned that once the votes are cast, it is nearly impossible to litigate fairness.  They did not.  It’s fair to say that in spite of all the talk after the 2020 election about fixing election integrity, very little was  done that actually improved things.” — “We need a strategy.  What’s a strategy?  A strategy answers the following questions: What are we going to do?  When are we going to do it?  Who is going to do it?  How much will it cost?  Where will we get the money?” — On that end is Trump issues a fiery rebuttal to January 6 committee. (Andrea Widburg, American Thinker) — “The 845-page report looks comprehensive, but it’s not, and that’s one of the main points Trump makes in his statement.” — That is why the minority issued its rebuttal, too, — The Senators are feeling it, too. Omnibus Bill: Don’t Get Mad, Get Even ( Renee Parsons, American Thinker) — “There is a general consensus that a dozen or so U.S. senators who are mostly aligned with the America First movement have screwed up royally by allowing the 4,100-plus-page omnibus $1.7-trillion budget to be adopted”

What’s is sometimes missed is that the noise level on all these behaviors is rising. We’ve reached terminal velocity: Washington state bureaucrats bemoan ‘rational thinking’ (Olivia Murray, American Thinker) — “As I scanned the curriculum, it was clear that the overarching theme really is “Ignorance is Strength” — albeit conveyed in a myriad of ways.” — also see It’s Time To Tell The Truth About Colonialism In Africa (Casey Chalk, Federalist) — “Historian Bruce Gilley’s provocative book, ‘In Defense of German Colonialism,’ makes a compelling case that many historical narratives surrounding Africa are motivated by politics, not facts.” — That is cited as A scholar is trying to give more dimension to Africa’s colonial history (Andrea Widburg, American Thinker) who expands the theme with — “As Steven Pinker explains in a book I never tire of citing, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, all Stone Age societies (that is, societies without wheels, with minimal tools, and without stable habitation) have developed in the same way: They form tribes that engage in constant warfare with surrounding tribes.”

“History is interesting because nothing is all good or all bad. Leftists, with their relentless demonizing of the West and their glorification of the non-West, not only make history boring, but they also set up unnecessary conflicts in the modern era while denying agency to both colonizers and colonized.

Another example of the distortion of history is the story about the Keystone Pipeline Allowed to Reopen, Media Continues Lying about Spill. (Ben Wetmore, Gateway Pundit). This was about an oil spill in Kansas exaggerated by the ideological opportunists. Meanwhile ‘baby, it’s cold outside’ — but that’s another phenomena being subject to hyperbole and a tool for rationalizing fact free ideologies.