Greg Price @greg_price11
·
This is a MASSIVE win that will have major implications in the most important swing state in 2024.

The PA Supreme Court has a 5-2 liberal majority.

Yet they just ruled 4-3 that it's illegal to count misdated mail in ballots, overturning decisions made by liberal lower courts.

James Blair @JamesBlairUSA
🚨BREAKING: Pennsylvania Supreme Court just overturned a lower court and ruled that counting undated mail ballots is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Huge Election Integrity Win!
5:07 PM · Sep 13, 2024

Florida has long been the most prominent battleground in the ongoing struggle between the rights of parents and the elitists who wish to violate them.

The latest skirmish in this war centers on HB 1069 which, among other things, gives parents and taxpayers more of a say in which books and materials are made available in public school libraries. //

The law empowers parents to raise objections to certain types of material. These objections would be taken into account by the district, which will work with the community to decide whether the content will be removed, restricted, or allowed.

This has nothing to do with censorship, as folks on the left contend. It has everything to do with parents being able to decide what their children are learning in the schools they fund through taxes. It is a process through which local communities have a stronger voice in what their children are seeing and consuming in the state’s educational institutions.

For most people, this concept is a no-brainer. Parents are the ones responsible for raising their children. Moreover, schools are funded using money taken from parents in the form of taxes. Why shouldn’t they have more of a say in what schools are teaching their children? //

The suit complains that Florida’s law requires books to be removed without consulting “trained professionals, such as teachers or media specialists.”

The notion that only governmental and corporate “experts” should decide what books are appropriate for school libraries smacks of elitism. This perspective implies that only our betters are equipped to know what our children should and should not be learning in class. //

The plaintiffs cannot win this lawsuit. It is not just about books. It is about parental rights. Corporate and governmental interests should not supersede the rights of parents to determine how their children are raised and educated just because there are some folks who want small children to view sexually explicit content.

If appealed, I think it is likely that the SCOTUS will deny certiorari. California and Hawaii will continue to restrict citizens from carrying in public and it seems likely that state legislatures, hostile to the 2nd Amendment will deem more areas “sensitive” making concealed carry permits almost useless in some states.

What has been constantly and conveniently ignored by state legislators and courts in California and Hawaii is that citizens who take the time and effort to get a concealed carry permit aren’t abusing it – or shooting people in public without good cause.

And criminals don’t apply for concealed carry permits because - they are criminals. //

Black Magic
an hour ago
Thank God I live in PA which has extremely good concealed carry regulations, though I still question why the other Constitutional Rights are not so encumbered, i.e., I don't think there should be such encumbrances on our Constitutional Rights.

Having said that, I am still anticipating when it is finally adjudicated and approved by the Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to halt my concealed carry rights at the state line and I am still wondering why it is that, I believe it is the 14 Amendment (which ensures equal protection), insures interstate cooperation in licensing driving for instance, but stops my ability to defend myself when I leave my state.

Trump has previously said he felt this should be addressed and corrected and I look forward to that.

The framers knew full well that many rights would face perpetual jeopardy, and by enshrining them in the Constitution and creating a system that divided power both between branches and between state and federal governments, they had crafted the surest check possible against future infringement.

While the separation of powers in the national government is often touted in civics and by politicians of all stripes, the federal system, with its two sovereigns — federal and state — is increasingly ignored or forgotten. States absolutely have the power to protect the people if the federal government is violating their rights. This is precisely what Missouri did in enacting SAPA.

Missouri’s law was a clear shot across the bow in the brewing debate over gun control at the federal level and how states could respond. These lawmakers, and leaders such as former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and current Attorney General Andrew Bailey, foresaw the danger of a Harris presidency before it was even conceived.

These leaders made clear to current and would-be federal tyrants that Missouri would protect the “promise of liberty” and fight to preserve the critical “tension between federal and state power.” It is a much-needed check against tyranny and abuse, as the U.S. Supreme Court has previously affirmed. Groups such as Gun Owners of America have aggressively supported SAPA and encourage Missouri to stick to their guns by seeking full review of this terrible decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This statement caught many by surprise because of the commonly held belief that a guilty plea forecloses any appeal. But, while a plea forecloses most issues that might be raised on appeal, it does not foreclose all of them. Lowell, an experienced and able lawyer, understands this and clearly plans to pursue an appeal to overturn Biden’s tax convictions.

In federal court, the vast majority of guilty pleas are entered pursuant to plea agreements between the government and the defendant, in which the government makes certain concessions such as dropping some charges or agreeing to limits on the sentence. In return, the government usually demands that the defendant waive the right to all appeals, and to habeas corpus filings post-conviction. //

Thus, in most cases, a guilty plea in federal court does mean that there will be no appeal.

Further, because a waiver of appeal rights is standard in most plea agreements, the federal rule of criminal procedure governing pleas requires the court to address this issue and ensure that the defendant understands that he or she is waiving the right to appeal – but only if there is a plea agreement that addresses waiving appellate rights. //

The law provides that unqualified guilty pleas do constitute a waiver of the right to appeal the vast majority of claims that there were defects or errors in the case prior to the plea. Thus, defendants cannot appeal on any ground that challenges factual guilt, evidentiary errors, procedural errors, and even most constitutional errors.

Defendants can still appeal certain kinds of claims even with a guilty plea, however. These exceptions to the usual rule that the plea waives the right to appeal basically fall into three categories.

First, a defendant can almost always appeal on the grounds that the court itself lacked jurisdiction over the case. //

Secondly, the defendant can appeal based on claims that the government lacked the power to prosecute the person in the first place. These are usually constitutional claims, such as immunity, double jeopardy, selective prosecution, or an argument that the charged statute is unconstitutional in some way. These appeals are permitted because they question the legality of the prosecution itself, not whether the person engaged in the charged conduct.

Thirdly, the law provides that the right to appeal certain defects in a criminal case simply cannot be waived by a defendant, whether there is a plea agreement or not. These issues lie at the heart of the functioning of the criminal justice system. So, for example, a defendant cannot waive the right to appeal an illegal sentence (such as one that exceeds the statutory maximum), or the ineffective assistance of the defense lawyer, or misconduct by the prosecutor in the case or the plea bargaining process.

Chutkan made clear that the case would not be tried prior to Election Day in November. //

From a practical standpoint, this schedule should not affect Trump's campaigning ahead of the election. What it will do, however, is inject into the the media coverage all manner of negative assertions (and innuendos) regarding Trump, the 2020 election, and January 6 — which, for the Dems, is likely the next best thing to actually having the trial take place ahead of the election. Buckle up.

A Pennsylvania court Friday sided with left-wing special interests, blocking the state from enforcing part of a law that required mail ballots to be properly dated in order to be counted. //

The majority opinion, however, while citing “prior litigation,” stated that “the date on the outer mail-in ballot envelopes is not used to determine the timeliness of a ballot, a voter’s qualifications/eligibility to vote, or fraud. Therefore, the dating provisions serve no compelling government interest.” //

The RNC plans to appeal the decision, according to a statement from Election Integrity Communications Director Claire Zunk reportedly obtained by Votebeat Pennsylvania reporter Carter Walker, which notes how both “[t]he Pennsylvania Supreme Court and US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have both upheld Pennsulvania’s dated ballot requirement.”

The judge who oversaw Trump's initial attempt to remove the case to the Southern District of New York in 2023, Senior Judge Alvin Kenneth Hellerstein, issued a four-page order denying Trump's latest request. In the order, which may be viewed in its entirety below, Hellerstein states that he has no jurisdiction to determine the propriety of the Manhattan trial — that determination is for the New York appellate courts to make. //

My holding followed an evidentiary hearing where The People showed conclusively that Mr. Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for advancing the hush money payments, including two checks signed in the White House by Mr. Trump. I held that Mr. Trump had not satisfied the burden of proof required to show the basis of removal. My holding of a hush money reimbursement remains true regardless of who has the burden, whether The People or Mr. Trump. Nothing in the Supreme Court‘s opinion affects my previous conclusion that the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority. //

anon-zxna Billy Wallace
11 minutes ago
All of this completely ignores the fact that "hush money paid to an adult film star" is not in any way a crime.....

Professor Jacobson, in our previous post, analyzed the case thusly:

One important part of the complaint is that it puts in issue Media Matters’ longstanding tactic and business model of targeting advertisers…

This could give X discovery not just of what Media Matters did here, but its other efforts to attack advertisers at other platforms because Media Matters disagreed with their politics.

Keep in mind this case is in Texas. Think about how a Texas jury will feel if X is able to prove its allegations.

Did Media Matters engage in this subterfuge and fraud? Obviously that verdict will work itself out in court, but it would not surprise me in the least, having covered Media Matters for over a decade. Founded originally by the toxic David Brock, with an infusion of cash from George Soros, Media Matters has poisoned our politics as much as anyone else. They are bullies who found a weak spot in the conservative media armor, that advertisers were afraid of controversy, so all Media Matters needed to do is put advertisers in the hot seat and they would flee. //

O’Connor rejected Media Matter’s arguments for dismissal, including that it can’t be liable for business disparagement by reporting truthful statements. O’Connor said X had sufficiently alleged that Media Matters had acted with “actual malice” based on statements criticizing the platform…

The Media Matters report at the center of X’s lawsuit was published online in November. The organization said it found advertisements by IBM, Apple, Oracle and Comcast’s Xfinity placed alongside posts touting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

X sued Media Matters in November in federal court in Fort Worth…The lawsuit alleged the Media Matters report was published “with the intention of harming X and its business.”

Shiva Ayyadurai is fighting to get on ballots, but the naturalized U.S. citizen from India fails to meet a key constitutional requirement. //

In the complaint, Ayyadurai argued that the First Amendment guarantees his right to run for president regardless of the Constitution’s pesky qualifications. And he asserted that such a qualification has been “abrogated and implicitly repealed” by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. //

allowing a foreign-born, naturalized citizen access to the presidential ballot changes the Constitution without the benefit of amendment.

Attorney General Merrick Garland boasted on Friday how his office has prosecuted nearly 1,500 Americans for protesting the 2020 election, warning others they may face similar lawfare should they raise any concerns about the administration of the upcoming November election.

Speaking at a press briefing, Garland essentially said the Jan. 6 prosecutions should serve to remind Americans what happens if they raise questions about an election.

“I think our prosecutions have made clear what we think about people who try to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, which is [an] essential and fundamental element of our democracy. //

The Washington, D.C. bar recommended that Trump-era DOJ official Jeffrey Clark be suspended for at least two years because he drafted a letter to Georgia officials in which he said the DOJ “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the [2020] election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.”

Notably, the 2020 election in Georgia was certified, though the State Election Board passed a motion this past May finding Fulton County double-scanned 3,075 ballots. The board did not issue a rule on the 17,852 votes that were, according to a complaint filed by Kevin Moncla and Joseph Rossi, allegedly missing ballot images in the county.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, who previously penned a Fourth of July masterpiece of a decision in the Murthy v. Missouri (f/k/a Missouri v. Biden) First Amendment case, issued a ruling declaring that Kennedy and his charity had standing to pursue a claim against the government for violating their First Amendment rights.

U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita dismissed two machine gun charges against Tamori Morgan, who was indicted in 2023 for possessing a model AM-15 .300 caliber machine gun and a conversion device known as a “Glock switch” that can make a semi-automatic weapon fire at a similar rate to machine guns.

During trial, Morgan’s lawyers argued that these firearms are protected under the Second Amendment, a claim that Broomes upheld. He ruled that machine guns qualify as “bearable arms” under the Second Amendment and that the state failed to demonstrate a historical precedent that justifies the regulation of these weapons.

There is currently a debate over the efficacy and safety of using progesterone to reverse the effects of Mifepristone, a drug used to induce abortions. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists referred to the procedure as “unproven and unethical.” //

On the other side of the debate, the Charlotte Lozier Institute discussed other studies showing that the treatment is safe and effective. //

DaveM
5 hours ago
I find it interesting that abortifacient agents intended to kill babies in the womb are considered "safe" but medications intended to stop the abortifacients from killing babies are considered "unsafe"

OK, that's a lot of text, but the writers raise an interesting point. If they are correct in how this is done, there's potential here that billions - billions of dollars may have been funneled to Democrat candidates, supporters, and donors. And here's the catch; that 1977 change in the law means it may actually be legal.

With liberals, it often seems that it's opposite day. When they say they want to prevent the spread of misinformation, what they really mean is they want to spread propaganda and suppress truth. When they say they simply want people to be tolerant of other cultures and beliefs, they work to implement the most intolerant institutions imaginable. When they say they want to fortify an election, it means they want to ensure a pre-determined outcome.

Since January 6 they've been shouting that they need to protect democracy and taking action on multiple fronts to do the opposite, as Tucker Carlson and Victor Davis Hansen expertly outline in the newest episode of Tucker on X. In his monologue, Tucker said:

Liberals are now telling us they plan to protect American democracy, and that's the clearest possible sign that they intend to end it. //

This is not a legal proceeding. This is a grotesque parody of the system our forefathers created, the fairest in the world, that in the years since has been seized by power worshippers like Arthur Engoron. This is a dangerous moment. Without a legitimate legal system, people no longer follow the law, and the country will collapse.

This is not about Trump. This is about preserving the United States of America. But Trump is at the center of the story.

The group that submitted the petitions Friday did not submit an affidavit identifying paid canvassers by name, as required by state law, Thurston wrote in a Wednesday letter to Lauren Cowles, executive director of Arkansans for Limited Government, the ballot question committee supporting the proposed constitutional amendment.

State law also requires ballot question committees to provide “a copy of the most recent edition of the Secretary of State’s initiatives and referenda handbook to each paid canvasser” and to explain to canvassers the legal requirements for soliciting signatures before canvassing begins.

AFLG did not fulfill these requirements while the sponsors of other proposed ballot measures did, Thurston wrote. //

The AFLG appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which ordered a recount of the signatures. That recount certified 87.675 signatures as legitimate and Thurston's decision was upheld. //

Today's ruling seems to have put the issue to rest for this election cycle.

“We find that the secretary correctly refused to count the signatures collected by paid canvassers because the sponsor failed to file the paid canvasser training certification,” the majority wrote. //

Having lost the fight to create a US Constitutional right out of whole cloth, they are now working to enshrine the right to infanticide in state constitutions. There are nine other states with pro-abort constitutional amendments on the ballot in November: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota. A pro-abort amendment was added to the Ohio constitution in 2023. //

C. S. P. Schofield
42 minutes ago
While I believe that abortion should be legal, under clear restrictions, I fully expect to see it widely banned before I die, simply because the Abortion Establishment is arrogant. They had decades to persuade the public and instead condescended and relied on a SCOTUS ruling that any amateur student of Law could have told them was built on thin air.

Even since Roe was overturned, they have not realized that they must play by the rules. They preach to the choir and indulge in peruse fantasies like THE HANDMAID’S TALE, an unoriginal piece of thinly disguised Dom/Sub pornography that stole its central repressive theocracy from Heinlein’s future history.

If the Pro-Life forces can refrain from mirroring the arrogance of the Abortion Establishment, they will continue to win most of their goals, until legal abortion is available only in a few Deep Blue strongholds.

And, as the Kermit Gosnell scandal proved, there isn’t necessarily any great difference between a legal abortion clinic and the ‘back alley abortionist’ of legend.

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“You guys have no idea how painful it is to … be forced to watch it all unravel”
Captured my feelings: “You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel. The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves.” (Peachy Keenan on X)

Posted by William A. Jacobson
Saturday, August 17, 2024 at 08:30pm
99 Comments
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https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1289512762733785088
On June 25, 2024, I wrote about tweets I saw from Gad Saad, “The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history”:

“When the leaders hate their civilization more than their enemies do, the civilization is doomed. Never before has history witnessed such a gargantuan self-inflicted death of a civilization that was an existential light in an otherwise world of historical darkness.”

Remember: War is coming to every corner in the West. It might take 5 days, 5 years, or 50 years but it’s coming. The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history. Save this post.

I just saw another series of tweets from an account Peachy Keenan along the same lines, but to me more personal:

You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel.

The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves.

Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the most beautiful person you know slowly mutilate themselves.

The reason everyone on Earth wants to move here is because if you squint your eyes, this country still basically “looks” the same, is still powerful, etc.

But we are running on the fumes of the past.

Paradise is no longer paradise after the barbarians rape, burn, and pillage everything not nailed down. And I’m talking about the barbarians in DC, not the ones galloping over the border.

I feel that sadness frequently.

To have grown up in the late 60s and 70s in hindsight was the best fortune I ever had. I wrote about it when I attended my high school reunion a few years ago, My ’70s Show Revisited – 40th High School Reunion [warning, image of me in a leisure suit, NSFW]:

No high school experience is perfect, but Roslyn and Roslyn High School in the 1970s were great places to grow up….

The Vietnam war wound down just as I was entering high school, and the draft would be abolished just before I would have to enter. Selective service registration was not yet in place, so we were in that gap.

What I most remember was the freedom of movement. “Be home for dinner” was about all the parental monitoring we had. We hitchhiked, hung out at Jones Beach and the Roslyn Duck Pond, and once we got wheels, pretty much roamed around unencumbered.

We didn’t have personal computers (those were just a few years away) though some of my classmates were early tinkerers who went on to great success in computer science. We also didn’t have cell phones — those were more than a few years away, so we weren’t constantly monitored. Thankfully, we also didn’t have social media. Whatever normal cliquish and catty behavior took place wasn’t amplified as it is now.

That’s not to say we didn’t have the usual growing pains, including in high school. But all in all it was a great time and place.

I wish I had the answer to stop the unraveling.

Some replies to the Peachy Keenan tweet, a lot of them seem to be from Gen X-ers, not late stage Boomers like me:

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99 Comments Education, Gad Saad, Higher Education, Immigration
Comments

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6 0rhhardin | August 17, 2024 at 8:38 pm
I take it as more opportunities for irony, satire and the like. Unfortunately 1/3 of the population has no sense of humor and they vote.

Avoid sarcasm though. The humor form of adolescents. And women (“something is wrong and you have to figure out what it is because I can’t be bothered”).

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0 0rhhardin in reply to rhhardin. | August 17, 2024 at 8:41 pm
Need a book like “US Politics and the Rise of Cosmic Irony.”

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0 0Thane_Eichenauer in reply to rhhardin. | August 17, 2024 at 10:12 pm
Read The Wall Speaks by Jerr.
http://TheWallSpeaks.com

@jerr_rrej
·
Jan 12
Here is a list of things that men think are masculine but are feminine:

1. Anger
2. Machismo
3. Lack of sexual restraint
4. “Bravery” in showing emotion
5. Sarcasm

https://x.com/jerr_rrej/status/1745881175443275975

Log in to Reply
0 24rabid wombat | August 17, 2024 at 8:39 pm
Someone recently went through a life defining moment rose and said:

‘Fight, fight, fight’

Your choice, fight or roll over and die.

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0 14LukeHandCool | August 17, 2024 at 8:43 pm
I’m the same age as you, Bill, and I saw that tweet earlier today and it hit me the same way, too. It was a great time to grow up (except for 1970s fashion).

Our second grandchild was born on Tuesday, and I worry about the world our grandchildren will live in.

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0 6William A. Jacobson in reply to LukeHandCool. | August 17, 2024 at 8:54 pm
Congratulations! You are catching up to me.

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0 1LukeHandCool in reply to William A. Jacobson. | August 18, 2024 at 12:56 am
I don’t think we’ll ever catch up to you. You had a real baby boom going on in your family!

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0 8Paddy M in reply to LukeHandCool. | August 17, 2024 at 9:07 pm
Maybe conservatives should’ve worked to actually conserve something in the last 30 years.

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0 10ChrisPeters in reply to Paddy M. | August 18, 2024 at 12:22 am
Conservatives did. The problem was that they were under attack from both the Democrats AND the RINO’s.

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0 3rhhardin | August 17, 2024 at 8:53 pm
Western culture is actually being preserved by East Asians (Korea, Japan, China), if you follow classical music on YouTube. They abandon their traditional music and take up excellence in Western classical music owing to its intellectual content. Here four Koreans, e.g., that came up the other day, set to the cool second movement of Debussy’s quartet in g minor.

https://youtu.be/5VMQuHMq8QQ?t=382

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0 0JRaeL in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 12:15 am
Thanks for the link. There are some dang fine Japanese shred guitarists as well. If you also like Western music in a different direction.

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0 1JRaeL in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 12:20 am
Christian imagery and themes are also quiet prevalent in Anime. Which I suppose could be another example of Western culture being preserved by East Asians.

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0 0Dimsdale in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 12:05 pm
My child is in the local high school band, showing enough aptitude to advance to first trumpet after a year of playing.

Then we saw some videos of Japanese high school bands. Simply. Amazing.

And why? They practice, they study. The high school “band” members at her high school are simply trying to get out of gym. Honestly, there are about five members that are good, the rest are a joke. They could be good, but have no desire to do so.

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0 8JohnSmith100 | August 17, 2024 at 9:05 pm
For me growing up was 50s and 60s, I launched my first business in 69. I remember a time when gas was 25 cents a gallon, by 72 I was making and wasting $50 K a year, and lost all of it by 73. Yet I was able to bounce back in a few years.

Those opportunities do not exist today. It is far more difficult to rise above wage slavery.

I am thinking about Soro’s MO, and that he and others are profiting from undermining economies.

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0 3alaskabob in reply to JohnSmith100. | August 17, 2024 at 10:30 pm
50’s and 60’s for me also. Even though times turned tough in the mid=60’s for my Dad and me…. still great times to be alive. There was purpose to and for living. Simpson-Masoli was a major hit. Congress promised only one time… right.

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0 12SRF | August 17, 2024 at 9:06 pm
Yes, it’s unraveling. Our government and societal relationships look like a mash up of late Imperial Rome and a middle school student council. I am a bit older than most of the commenters here. Born in 51 in Ohio, when Detroit was the richest city in the country, and the Great Lakes region was not yet the Rust Belt. Draft lottery #31 in ’69 upon HS graduation, so I was going regardless. Was fortunate enough to get into the Military Academy and spent until 2000 in the Army, probably at the pinnacle of American economic and military and societal power, despite our internal problems. Watched and participated as the Army rebuilt itself after VN — found mission, people, equipment, doctrine, training necessary to establish the best Army in the world. Other services rebuilt and looked ahead as well. Military and other institutions could get things done. Despite the rot beginning in education, US education was the envy of the world and provided innovation, perspective, and the ability to set priorities and also say, “no.” Periodic outbursts across society were largely contained and addressed — sometimes not in the most effective or efficient way. Much less vitriol and parties weren’t completely captured by their respective radical fringes. We had the luxury of being the world’s super/hyper power, but we took it for granted and figured that there was nothing constant that we could not change. Big mistake in perspective on the world. Now and in the future we are going to pay for it. We better learn to recite “Ozymandias.”

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0 2Close The Fed in reply to SRF. | August 17, 2024 at 9:54 pm
The fringes are agitated enough to save us. The moderates are useless.

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0 3Paddy M in reply to Close The Fed. | August 17, 2024 at 10:09 pm
Moderates are definitely useless and have ushered in the current insanity.

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0 2Fuzzy Slippers in reply to Paddy M. | August 17, 2024 at 10:28 pm
I get your point, but if the moderates weren’t moderate, they’d land on one side or the other. Then what?

0 11Paddy M in reply to Fuzzy Slippers. | August 17, 2024 at 10:43 pm
Got me, Fuzzy. If moderates continually vote for communists, then they aren’t really moderate. Harris just proposed price controls and “””moderates””” are still up in the air.

2 4gonzotx in reply to Fuzzy Slippers. | August 18, 2024 at 4:43 am
If you consider yourself a “moderate “ in todays world,

Your just ignorant

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0 12JRaeL in reply to SRF. | August 18, 2024 at 12:31 am
I was telling my daughter today that it used to be that when you were graduated from high-school you were ready to start the adult part of your life. The choices being find full time work, join the military, or college, get married or a combination of those. Now it appears to me that many younger people are in a state of perpetual adolescence. The current state of the economy only makes it harder to leave that. Ask yourself what happens when there are no more grown ups. Political charlatans like Harris find pickings easy enough while there are still some adults to expose them. In a world of teen angst, petulance, and demand for instant gratification they get to become gods.

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0 3Dimsdale in reply to JRaeL. | August 18, 2024 at 12:11 pm
And even more sadly, the faculties of the universities are staffed by people that have no or very little practical experience in the real world. They have been, and remain, perpetual adolescents, asking the government (their parents) for handouts so they can continue their “research” and propagandizing the skulls full of mush that come before them in mandatory “core” classes.

I was stunned when I was in the belly of the beast, a local state college. And this was when “political correctness” was the worst problem we had.

On a more happy note, many of the students I engage are most definitely conservatives.

Maybe there is still hope.

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0 0AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to SRF. | August 18, 2024 at 8:11 am
🫡

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0 9Andy | August 17, 2024 at 9:09 pm
I do. I do exactly.

All fleeing the west coast know exactly what it is like.

Saying goodbye to family and friends who either inwardly or outwardly know say they would like to flee too….

The saddest part is seeing it destroyed by lickspittles who are confused on which bathroom to use. Morons whose weaponized stupidity has emptied the jails and turned vibrant cities into open air drug markets.

In high school- they would bus us to the Seattle Science Center and then Pike Place Market and let us run around unsupervised for 4 hours about twice a year 10th, 11th, 12th grade. I wouldn’t set foot w/in 60 miles of that space now.

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0 7AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to Andy. | August 18, 2024 at 8:14 am
“Morons whose weaponized stupidity has emptied the jails”

Those morons are just making space for those of us who will not comply.

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0 11jimincalif | August 17, 2024 at 9:12 pm
Born in ‘58 here and I feel the same way. I weep for my four children, but especially my four grandchildren. Even if by some miracle Trump wins and the deep state does not succeed in assassinating him, it’s just a bump in the road on our path of self destruction. I am looking at my copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on my wall. Every day I see it and marvel at what the signers of that document did. I wonder what I should do to honor their legacy. I just don’t know. That was a unique inflection point in human history. Can it happen again? Can we make it happen again? If so, how?

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0 5Close The Fed in reply to jimincalif. | August 17, 2024 at 9:55 pm
Get involved. And start creating social groups with the like-minded. And I don’t mean online.

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0 5AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to jimincalif. | August 18, 2024 at 8:23 am
Please remember. Only about 3% of the population participated in the successful fight for our independence.

About 10% of the population fought during the civil war to maintain the republic and free slaves (among other things).

An equally small percentage of Russians participated in their October Revolution.

We have a choice. We can fight to maintain independence, or we can let others fight for our subjugation.

I prefer to fight to maintain what our forefathers bequeathed us.

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0 5Hodge | August 17, 2024 at 9:19 pm
Who is John Galt?

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0 4Paddy M in reply to Hodge. | August 17, 2024 at 9:42 pm
Good question. Conservative, Inc. would deem John Galt as untoward. We know that much.

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0 3henrybowman in reply to Hodge. | August 17, 2024 at 9:52 pm
The real question is: where?

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1 5CommoChief in reply to henrybowman. | August 18, 2024 at 5:59 am
The spirit of Galt; independence, self reliance and individual responsibility is probably within the many small hobby farms with their own well, stocked ponds, gardens, orchards and so on. Lots of folks trending in this direction all over the place. One thing is for sure, if your neighbors are voting in a monolithic d/prog gov’t every election cycle then you ain’t anywhere near the ‘Gulch’ and should probably begin figuring out an alternative.

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0 9RetLEODoc | August 17, 2024 at 9:47 pm
I also share your thoughts and emotions about the decline of our country and our culture. I remember and tell my children and grandchildren that my high school economics teacher told us that our generation was lucky to live at the peak of American power and influence as it was inevitable that after our generation the decline would come. He seemed overly pessimistic to the young students seeing the world of the late 60s but if anything, he may not have been pessimistic enough.

He likened it to family businesses where the first generation started and built the business, the second grew it and strengthened it, the third generation consolidated it and the next generations lived off the business and let it collapse and die.

Watching a culture and country that was built by the sweat and at times blood of our ancestors get reduced by the greed for power and wealth of the current ruling class is painful. I will soon be leaving the stage of this drama but I too fear for the future that my children and grandchildren will inherit.

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0 1Dimsdale in reply to RetLEODoc. | August 18, 2024 at 12:17 pm
From “the dismal science” to the “pragmatic science.”

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0 4healthguyfsu | August 17, 2024 at 9:47 pm
I’m not sure if Barbarians have the capacity to be corrupt and collude in such devastatingly treasonous methods.

I think Peachy is discrediting the nobility of Barbarians by comparing them to DC vermin.

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0 10PrincetonAl | August 17, 2024 at 10:12 pm
GenX growing up under Reagan yeah this does capture what we feel.

Pissing away the greatest country and gift in the world for stupidity.

We best Communism only to be losing to a mutated form of it that the dying Soviet Union infected us with.

It’s going to be a long road back and that’s if we are lucky and work hard.

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0 0Dimsdale in reply to PrincetonAl. | August 18, 2024 at 12:18 pm
“Marching Morons” here we come…

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0 12jb4 | August 17, 2024 at 10:27 pm
I am old as s**t and grew up in the 1950’s. IMO the period after Korea and before the JFK assassination and the Vietnam War was the best.
– No hot wars.
– A public school education in NY City was excellent. Young children walked to and from school by themselves.
– No crime to speak of. No big deal for a kid to walk alone to a neighborhood candy store.
– Most families could afford a home and a mother did not have to work.
– Moral values were strong, families routinely practiced their religion and ate dinner together.
– The TV was an exciting, miraculous invention, in a society not consumed by electronic and social media. People still read books.
– In the winter nothing beat walking to the neighborhood pond with your friends and going iceskating.
– The music of the era was fabulous.
Ah, nostalgia. However, on substance, I think no later period had all of these items. In particular, I think the 3 assassinations in the 1960’s – JFK, RFK, MLK – the Vietnam War and the terrible inflation of the 1970’s changed the country permanently. For example, I purchased my home in 1984, when mortgage rates were 13%. Gone were the days when a home could be bought on one income and most mothers did not have to work.

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0 6AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to jb4. | August 18, 2024 at 8:29 am
True.

But even today, young people bemoan the fact that rising prices and inflation place buying a house out of their reach.

Yet, they want to vote for the very people who caused inflation, who forced two income families, and who now want to have price controls.

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0 3Patriot Dan | August 17, 2024 at 10:30 pm
Professor,

I know we are in seemingly, unprecedented, times but I have great hope and expectation because of the Lord Jesus Christ in my life:
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19, KJV).

It appears as though the next eleven months will have their difficulties, but I expect we and the nations will weather them for the better.

On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

When darkness veils His lovely face
I’ll rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy day
My anchor holds within the veil
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
, , ,
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Traditional / Terry Butler
On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand lyrics © Mercy/vineyard Publishing

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0 2The Gentle Grizzly in reply to Patriot Dan. | August 18, 2024 at 8:40 am
Some will be in church, praying.

Others will be fighting the battles that need fighting.

We all will make our choices.

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0 5TrickyRicky in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 8:54 am
Sorry, not a binary choice. I expect many in the battles will be praying as well.

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0 1The Gentle Grizzly in reply to TrickyRicky. | August 18, 2024 at 11:17 am
True.

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0 0Dimsdale in reply to TrickyRicky. | August 18, 2024 at 12:19 pm
Many because we are in the foxholes right now…

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4 5rhhardin | August 17, 2024 at 10:34 pm
The cause is news as a profit center instead of a loss leader to contribute to the prestige of the network. As a profit center they found their 24/7 audience with Jessica in the Well, namely soap opera women. Instead of reading daily about Liz and Richard in the tabloid, they follow the news.

It’s an entertainment choice, and it’s calling itself news, which makes the audience feel even better.

Women prioritize feelings (hence soap opera’s attraction), and men prioritize structure (avoidance of perverse consequences). The Founding Fathers were structure guys, not feelings guys. The female end of the Supreme Court is feelings. (So guys are better at running big systems and women are better at small systems like neighborhoods and households. Stereotype is the too-strict father.)

Hence the collapse of everything through feminization. Amy Wax has a milder diagnosis – the rules of the nursery and kindergarten brought to the academy – but it goes deeper. Feelings attracts eyeballs of women and you can sell those eyeballs to advertisers. Democrats just supply soap opera in return for votes, in a sort of business arrangement with the media.

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0 5jb4 in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 10:20 am
Interesting perspective. I fault the MSM far more directly and have considered them the primary danger for years. By aligning themselves with the Democratic Party and its values, they have abandoned what I regard as a major value of journalism and the media, to bring accountability to Society. IMO if the light of day had been shined on Biden and Harris, Biden’s incipient dementia in 2020 would have kept him from running and Harris’ obvious incompetence would have disqualified her. What this Society lacks is accountability, from the shoplifter in CA, to the Trans in women’s locker rooms and sports, to the politicians at the top. What is not “right”, really isn’t right. Period. No excuses.

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0 0Dimsdale in reply to jb4. | August 18, 2024 at 12:20 pm
Conservative = independence; leftiam = dependence.

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0 0Dimsdale in reply to Dimsdale. | August 18, 2024 at 12:20 pm
Leftism.

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0 12Ghostrider | August 17, 2024 at 11:17 pm
How did America get here?

The other evening, a friend told me that he realized that nothing works in America these days. He is right.

This same guy has a severe medical issue but not an emergency. His specialist can’t see him until December.

When you call to get a prescription refilled, you have to listen to a message offering you the opportunity to go online or speak Spanish, then another telling you to call 911 if it is an emergency.

Our president is nowhere to be found, and the vice president is too dumb to sit for even a softball interview.

The FBI can only solve crimes committed by conservatives. The Secret Service is incompetent.

It recently took the post office two weeks to mail a card to a nephew who lives 4 hours away.

My bank did away with its drive-thru, and inside, there is one teller and long lines.

Doctors’ receptionists are often surly and unhelpful.

Every business has a phone tree, and if you finally reach someone, you can’t understand their heavily accented English.

And on and on and on.

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0 10steves59 in reply to Ghostrider. | August 17, 2024 at 11:35 pm
^^^^ I came here to say exactly this. I’ve taken to saying whenever I have the misfortune of conversing with a “Liberal” that “nothing is built, nothing is back, nothing is better.”
Everywhere we turn in society and business there is incompetence, and when the government is involved it is often malicious incompetence. Rule of law has been dumped in favor of rule by men (remember, we fought a revolution for rule of law). If you are a conservative, you are deplatformed, demonetized, depersoned, and eventually defenestrated.
And sadly this is all being done from within.
I’m waiting for that John Conner figure that will rise up and lead us in the fight against the DemocratLefty machine. I hope it’s soon, I don’t have a lot of time to wait.

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1 7AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to steves59. | August 18, 2024 at 8:34 am
“I’m waiting for that John Conner figure that will rise up and lead us in the fight against the DemocratLefty machine.”

He’s here, but most don’t recognize him. The left just tried to assassinate him.

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0 2steves59 in reply to AF_Chief_Master_Sgt. | August 18, 2024 at 9:18 am
I’d like to think you’re right, but unlike Conner, Trump still thinks he can defeat the Left from within the system. I no longer think that’s possible.

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0 14JRaeL in reply to Ghostrider. | August 18, 2024 at 12:07 am
Nothing brings out my longing for a rotary phone like hearing the words “Please listen carefully as our menu options may have changed.”

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0 1The Gentle Grizzly in reply to JRaeL. | August 18, 2024 at 8:36 am
And… I know of ONE instance where the menu options DID change. My primary care doctor office.

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0 4MDP in reply to Ghostrider. | August 18, 2024 at 12:46 am
We have something that is called a modern high efficiency washing machine that seems to not be able to get all of the load wet, let alone actually wash things clean with
Confidence. Someone in a office removed from the process thinks they know better than those who have been doing it for decades, whatever the “it” is.
The irony, thinking they were wise they became fools.

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0 0jb4 in reply to MDP. | August 18, 2024 at 10:26 am
Just wait ’til they bring that washing machine to prices of the items you buy.

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0 1Dimsdale in reply to MDP. | August 18, 2024 at 12:27 pm
The AI in the new machines will tell you the clothes aren’t dirty enough, and to wear them again.

I have a 30 year old washing machine, a basic Kenmore (remember them?). When my new LG had an electrical issue, I just swapped it in and it worked perfectly. Maybe I should sell the LG….

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0 2LibraryGryffon in reply to Ghostrider. | August 18, 2024 at 8:00 am
At least your nephew got the card. A customer at one of my jobs lost her son in 2022. He lived out of state. His ashes were being shipped to her and the post office lost them. Legally, they are the only people allowed to ship cremated remains.

I opted to pick up our cat’s remains at the vet hospital. If the USPS can lose a person, I don’t trust them with my pet either.

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0 1The Gentle Grizzly in reply to Ghostrider. | August 18, 2024 at 8:38 am
“When you call to get a prescription refilled, you have to listen to a message offering you the opportunity to go online or speak Spanish, then another telling you to call 911 if it is an emergency.”

When you go to the pharmacy to buy an “over the counter” decongestant you have to show a government ID and sign the mommy-may-I book before you can get the medicine. Even though the m3th cooks have gone on to other ingredients Uncle still thinks ephedrine ingredients need record keeping.

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0 1Dimsdale in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 12:28 pm
The same ID nobody can seem to scrounge up when it is time to vote?

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0 0rhhardin in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 3:07 pm
There are directions online somewhere for the chemical procedure to turn meth back into Sudafed.

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0 1rhhardin in reply to rhhardin. | August 18, 2024 at 3:15 pm
I used to buy 1000 phenylpropanolamine pills for $10.00 on a veterinary prescription (the drug store just handed over the whole unopened bottle). Used in treating urinary incontinence in female dogs along with DES. Both pills now banned apparently. I think the former went into Sudafed as an ingredient. Not only cold sufferers suffering.

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0 0Edward in reply to Ghostrider. | August 18, 2024 at 11:03 am
Amen. I find one area where government actually does something right (amazing, right?). When I need a script refilled from the VA I can go to the on-line My Health Vet website, select refill prescriptions, click on the med(s) box(es) and click “submit”. No phone tree, no speaking with a surly receptionist, just quick and easy refills mailed out.

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0 0henrybowman in reply to Edward. | August 18, 2024 at 7:37 pm
Now compare this with paying your Medicare premium.

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0 5JRaeL | August 18, 2024 at 12:05 am
Reading the comments I have to remind myself that the Fall happened in Paradise not outside of it.

No generation is spared the consequence of living in a fallen world. I doubt there has been a single time when some group of believers did not take the news of the day as proof the Apocalypse was at hand.

Are current events and societal changes accelerating the loss of paradise? Yep. Can it be slowed down? In patches, maybe. Overall, not a chance. Too many people yearn for that bone strewn path to Utopia. I know many will disagree but I believe we have left the battlefield and are now under siege. That means creating smaller worlds for yourself and your loved ones. It involves taking on a fortress mentality. While trying not to abandon charity, hope, and faith. That’s tricky.

I too grew up with more freedom. Some good, some bad. But at least I had the chance to learn the difference.

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0 3MDP in reply to JRaeL. | August 18, 2024 at 12:41 am
I find it interesting that Daniel is told that at the time of the end there will be vast amounts of information and that people will travel all over with abandon… those things are true of our time as never before.
If we seek to save our lives we will lose them, if we lose our lives for His sake we will find them. The original Israel was told to be careful when they grew rich not to forget the Lord their God… the culture largely has jettisoned Him wholesale and thinking we were wise we became fools.
I saw an ad today about how Harris has a history of being a tough prosecutor and will take on the border and the fentanyl problem….as if she hasn’t been part of the enabling of the same crisis, and they expect enough people will be so stupid as to believe it.

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0 4Herve Montague | August 18, 2024 at 2:13 am
Our colleges have been funded for decades by the same people who funded October7th.

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1 1Skip | August 18, 2024 at 6:03 am
Wish I remember where I saw this first and continue to thinking describes our situation the easiest way.

We are ithe looting the Empire stage

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0 1Rupert Smedley Hepplewhite | August 18, 2024 at 7:31 am
It ain’t over until WE say it’s over!

Found this in my mailbox this morning: https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/when-the-saxons-begin-to-fight?publication_id=30495&post_id=147720773&isFreemail=true&r=1tuj8g&triedRedirect=true

A little long but so inspiring.

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0 0Edward in reply to Rupert Smedley Hepplewhite. | August 18, 2024 at 12:27 pm
Thanks. I enjoyed seeing the Brits getting to the end of patience, though some of it was pretty dated with a reference to Tony Blair, who left 10 Downing in 2007. And it might well be a case of too little too late, as it will also be here if we don’t take back control of the political system. I can’t say I’m very optimistic of that happening any time soon.

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0 10CincyJan | August 18, 2024 at 7:55 am
I was born in 1949. It has taken the last awful decade of American politics to make me realize what a unique period of time post WWII was. Shared military service overseas united US males into a band of brothers that survived throughout civilian life. It took the misadventures in Vietnam to shake the inherent respect given military veterans. The underlying truth then was that American parents were not eager to have their sons die overseas. And so cracks appeared in the trust of government institutions. Today, after the disgrace of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the clear politicization of the DOJ, and the bald faced lies told the American people by their own government, there is little broad respect left for American institutions. That shining city on the hill has slid off its foundations..

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4 1E Howard Hunt | August 18, 2024 at 8:17 am
Never heard of Peachy Keenan. Sometimes I’m lucky that way. For chick reading I stick with Ann Barnhardt, especially on Sundays.

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0 0Arthur Chester in reply to E Howard Hunt. | August 18, 2024 at 12:56 pm
She’s bright. She’s thoughtful. She writes well. She seems to be mid-40s. I have no financial or personal connection to her. Check out her substack. Doesn’t cost you nothin, may slow the onset of what we all inevitably face: age-related crotchetiness.

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1 8The Gentle Grizzly | August 18, 2024 at 8:30 am
I was born in 1949. From my viewpoint, my country died November 22, 1963. Kennedy was, in fact, a so-so president but the man shown by the press was athletic, had this wonderful family, sailed, biked, and did all sorts of family type things. I sincerely believed then, and still believe now, that he gave this nation the attitude that there was not as single solitary thing we could not accomplish when we out our minds to it. That was already proven during Ike’s time (the transistor, polio vaccine, and more).

That all died with him/. In place of this dynamic man we got Lyndon Johnson, just another cynical crook soaking the American people for every penny he could for the benefit of himself and his gang.

I have other opinions about our downfall that I would share with you all, but won’t. First of all, it won’t change anything. Second, I will likely offend every single one of you with my views.

I have no real solutions. I just know that – as a (lapsed) Jew – when the trucks arrive I plan on taking out as many police as I can before I am gunned down or thrown in one of those trucks. And yes, it will be the police doing this, not the military. Just like last time.

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2 4AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 8:39 am
With Kennedy, at least we have “Camelot.”

With Harris, we’ll have “Cumalot.”

Proof of the decline and the debauchery from the Democrat party.

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3 0E Howard Hunt in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 8:43 am
Relax, Grizz.

Adolph allowed for honorary aryans, so your religious negligence and conservative views should easily earn you this exemption.

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0 2CincyJan in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 9:58 am
As a fellow 1949er, I can remind you that we were in the 8th grade when Kennedy died. It certainly did not occur to me that America had died with JFK in Dallas. For one thing, my Dad was still there, as fiercely Republican as ever, as determined as ever to safeguard the Republic. I knew it was a significant event, even as the news spread at school, but I certainly did not yet understand the horror of a political assassination. I have been a true believer for most of my life, as I suspect many MAGA supporters were. That we, the true believers, have lost faith in our government, signifies a real disaster for the United States. The most reliable underpinings of our society are disintegrating before our eyes,

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0 4jb4 in reply to CincyJan. | August 18, 2024 at 10:45 am
I was a young adult when Kennedy was killed. No one forgets where they were when they heard. Riding the NY City subway that evening was like being at a funeral. My wife, who is younger, could not understand why her parents were crying. It changed everything and the political hack, LBJ, and the Vietnam War made things worse. Men who fought in WW II were losing their sons in a war that had no justification.

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0 0Br2336 in reply to jb4. | August 18, 2024 at 1:15 pm
The military rationale for American involvement , as I understand it, was:

(1) The threat of communism was real.

(2) JFK had basically allowed Cuba to stay communist, 90 miles from the US. A complete abrogation of 140 years of the Monroe doctrine .

(3) The defense establishment had grown up since WWII with the one basic tenet that communism cannot be permitted to spread.

(4) The defense establishment knew that JFK was a slacker, and a not-serious person. Who probably come to power via voter fraud primarily in Chicago and South Texas.

And so — while the military might well have been willing to walk away from South Vietnam — maybe — once Cuba was permitted to stay USSR-aligned, the feeling was Well , we gotta draw the line SOMEwhere. Also, at the time, it was unimaginable that we could lose militarily in Vietnam.

JFK was viewed as a really young, really kinda incompetent inexperienced rich fratboy— and imho he was killed , from the pov of those who killed him, for the good of the country, and for the good of the world.

That was the logic.
That was the justification.

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0 2The Gentle Grizzly in reply to CincyJan. | August 18, 2024 at 11:47 am
I was brought up in a staunchly Democrat home, but outgrew all that crap because of Vietnam, and other things that brought about an awakening that went all the way through my 20s. It took a while, but, here I am.

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0 3Victor Immature | August 18, 2024 at 10:26 am
I’ve been thinking and saying this for a while. For me, I’m closer to the end than to the beginning, on the back 9. But for someone who is 35-40 and lived through America at it’s best but still has a way to go, they must be pissed and/or depressed.
There’s only one way out of this.

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0 5CincyJan | August 18, 2024 at 11:23 am
In my first post above, I ignored the thrust of Prof. Jacobson’s article – the pain of seeing the America we loved destroyed. Yes, it is almost unbearably painful. Certainly, it was excruciating when the realization first hit. It’s gotten better, I suppose. Perhaps I’ve grown used to it. Acceptance of the unacceptable. Where do we go from here? I wish I could see a clear path forward. I fear for DJT, whether he will survive to win the election, and, if he does, whether any one man can save the Republic in four years. The rot is pretty deep. There don’t seem to be any patriots left in DC.

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0 4The Gentle Grizzly in reply to CincyJan. | August 18, 2024 at 12:17 pm
It is not up to one man to save the republic. But, having DJT in place will provide the catalyst many will need to get the snowball rolling on taking things back.

It can start with telling a cop no, you can’t see my ID for the “crime” of eating my lunch at a picnic table in a public park.

It can be the people who are already fighting their school districts over library books and “gender affirming”.

It can be people pressuring the colleges to get rid of their DIE departments. Same with employers.

It can be many things, but, if people expect one man to do it all, then all is lost.

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0 0CommoChief in reply to The Gentle Grizzly. | August 18, 2024 at 6:24 pm
Correct. Each of has to be willing to our share. Those of us in the more sane States with sensible policies at local, County and State level have been doing so for a while now, which is why those Cray Cray policies have been held at bay. Those in other places have a higher hill yet to climb. What ain’t gonna work is waiting on someone else to save you. Expecting the voters in Red States to rescue folks from the State and local policies of the blue State politicians they keep electing is not gonna be fruitful. No one with any sense in a sane State wants to hand Congress the power to override existing State/local authority for fear the next time those blue State/blue enclave voters get a Congressional majority of their own.

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0 0Stuytown | August 18, 2024 at 11:26 am
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St. Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul

Leonard Cohen, The Future

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0 0Edward in reply to Stuytown. | August 18, 2024 at 12:45 pm
I looked up Mr. Cohen’s work. It’s a song and I looked up the lyrics (reading lyrics is easier and more accurate for my artillery ears). I find a good word for the work is “Dystopian”. I didn’t seek lyrics on the rest of his work in that album.

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0 7xleatherneck | August 18, 2024 at 12:14 pm
Born in ‘57

All societies are entropic.
All societies, eventually, tend toward disorder. Some, quicker than others.

The one, defining principle, that keeps a society cohesive, is a single dominant culture. Without that, we are doomed.

We have been moving away from that concept, for a long time. So long as we are on this path, our better days will be behind us….

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0 3The Gentle Grizzly in reply to xleatherneck. | August 18, 2024 at 12:18 pm
Much of that started with “Press 1 for English”.

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0 4Edward | August 18, 2024 at 12:31 pm
I grew in the ’40s and ’50s. Carried a weapon of war in a war (really, not Bravo Sierra) mid ’60s. I have been instructing the grand and great-grandchildren, to a greater or lesser degree depending on age, about what life was like in the US in the golden era post war to the riots of the late ’60s-70s. Have been doing the same with a 50 year old neighbor at the lake. Different world today, more’s the pity.

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0 1destroycommunism | August 18, 2024 at 12:48 pm
many children are ungrateful

so they take the riches of the parents/grandparents

and go through it like they were “owed” it and it will never run out

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0 2destroycommunism | August 18, 2024 at 12:51 pm
there are sooooo many laws in place

that it will take “lawbreakers” of a certain character to say

we are not hiring dei we re not pro affirm action

we judge people on their merits

the road to communism is now smooth

the road back to freedom is bumpy ..to say the least

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0 1jb4 | August 18, 2024 at 1:40 pm
I want to personaly thank Prof. Jacobson for posting this piece. IMO it is an important issue to think about, talk about and act upon, to the extent able. Having lived a long life, I shared my thoughts about what I thought was the best period, post Korea to the killing of JFK, which most here have not experienced; and the biggest danger I see, the MSM. It is hard to have any optimism over the obvious trend, so perhaps I should be grateful for not having many years left, albeit sad for my grandchildren.

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1 0AlecRawls | August 18, 2024 at 2:46 pm
The fall to this point would all have been prevented If the Supreme Court had ever started enforcing the Article 4 section 4 guarantee of a Republican form of government.

It is not necessarily too late even now, but this sword Excalibur, the most powerfully written provision in the entire constitution, the only guarantee in the entire constitution, must immediately be pulled from the stone and used to save us.

It was justice Brennan who sank the sword into the stone. Considering the possibility of a guarantee clause argument in Baker v. Carr (1962), Brennan wrote for the majority that he did not know what Republicanism is, and doubted that anyone would ever be able to figure it out: that they would be able to locate “discoverable and manageable standards” for adjudicating it.

But there already was such a standard. That was Alexander Hamilton’s definition of republicanism, which he articulated during in the constitutional debates in New York: “that the people shall choose who shall govern them.”

He even included a manageable standard of adjudication: that “representation is imperfect to the extent that the current of popular favor is checked.”

Thus any law, or any government procedure or action, that either intentionally or unnecessarily checks the current popular favor should be ruled unconstitutional.

There are two most obvious ways that the current popular favor can be checked. First, elections can be stolen by vote fraud or some other kind of election fraud.

One obvious example is the Democrats’ use in 2020 of 2000 mules to stuff ballot drop boxes in five key counties with far more than enough illegal votes to flip five key swing states to Biden.

Another is Arizona in 2022, disabling most of its election day voting machines, when Democrat election officials knew that conservatives mostly vote on election day while Democrats mostly vote early my mail.

The second obvious way to check the current of popular favor is to weaponize the powers of government to suppress political opposition, for instance by using unequal application of the laws to attack and disable leading political opponents, as with the Democrats’ numerous lawfare attacks on President Trump.

The sword has actually already been pulled from the stone, our lawyers just haven’t realized it. Hamilton’s definition of Republicanism was embraced (found to be “discoverable”) by the Supreme Court 11 years later in the 1973 case Powell v. McCormack.

Powell was a ballot access case that did not invoke any Republican guarantee clause arguments, and somehow the link to the guarantee clause was never made. The same thing happened in 1995 where the Supreme Court embraced Hamilton’s definition of Republicanism in US Term Limits versus Thornton, another ballot access case.

As already noted, the manageable standard of adjudication is stated right in Hamilton’s definition. A system of government is unrepublican to the extent that it’s laws and procedures block the current popular favor. No system can be perfectly republican, but the obvious standard of adjudication would be that shortfalls in the attainment of Republican government cannot be either intentional or unnecessary.

Of course it is also illegal under the First Amendment to steal elections (as that undermines rates of association for purposes of effective political participation) but this concern is given very low priority. Just look at how the disabling of the majority of election day voting machines in Maricopa County allowed to stand.

All indications are that it was intentional, but even if it wasn’t, only counting the votes of one political side is grossly incompatible with the Article IV section 4 guarantee that elections systems will do their best to accurately assess the current of popular favor.

If the republican guarantee was being enforce by the Supreme Court, it would have to be given higher priority than every other provision in the constitution. If it ever gives way to any other constitutional provision, the guarantee fails to be a guarantee.

By the meaning of words, it is the Constitution’s sword Excalibur that no other constitutional provision can stand against.

This seird Excalibur is already free. It has already been discovered by the court, and the manageable standards for using it are obvious to anyone who looks at it. It should be invoked in every suit from here on out against the Democrats’ attacks on our electoral system.

Every Democrat attempt to enable vote fraud, from mass mail-in voting the ongoing voter-registration of tens of millions of illegal aliens, it’s all blatantly unconstitutional under the republican guarantee, and everyone needs to start using it.

Another way to check the current popular favor is by the censorship regimes that Democrats have been trying to implement. Gateway Pundit’s suit against systematic government-orchestrated censorship was recently declined by the Supreme Court for lack of standing, of all things, just as the Texas suit against the use of unconstitutional voting systems by Pennsylvania and other states during the 2020 election was rejected for lack of standing.

“Are we not part of the United States,” cried Texas Attorney General Paxton. Yes you are, but for that to matter you would have had to sue under the one provision of the constitution that empowers all parts of “the United States” to act against unrepublican government actions.

The republican guarantee names the “United States” as its guarantor. Of course that means first of all, all three branches of the federal government, but it must also include every state, and even every citizen. We are all part of “The United States,” and therefore all have standing to sue on behalf of The United States.

Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We the People can never be excluded from it, as our now fully communist Democratic Party is currently trying finalize.

They succeeded in stealing one election from us, thanks to our Supreme Court’s long abominable lack of due diligence in upholding the Republican guarantee. They must not be allowed to steal another, or the loss of our republican form of government will almost certainly be total.

The founders gave us a sword Excalibur to defend our republican system of government. We must use it.

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2 0Milhouse in reply to AlecRawls. | August 18, 2024 at 4:50 pm
OMG, where to start?

First of all, no, it was not justice Brennan who “sank the sword into the stone”. That happened in 1849, in Luther v Borden. The Supreme Court ruled that the Republican Guarantee clause is not justiciable. It’s up to the president and Congress to enforce it and the courts can’t interfere.

Each house of Congress can enforce it by not seating members it believes not to have been properly elected, and if a house makes such a decision no court can order it to seat that member. (However if the house accepts that a member was properly elected and is qualified, but doesn’t want to seat him anyway, then the courts can and will order it to seat him. Powell v McCormick.)

The president can enforce it by sending troops into a state to overthrow a government he deems not republican. E.g. a stolen state election, or election rules he considers unfair. The only check on him is impeachment.

By the way, the Republican Guarantee clause only applies to the states, not to the United States. It would obviously be silly to charge the United States with guaranteeing that its own government would have a republican form. The constitution itself is that guarantee, and no better is possible.

Also, whatever else stolen elections may violate, they do not violate the first amendment.

Gotta go now. More later, probably.

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0 0AlecRawls in reply to Milhouse. | August 18, 2024 at 6:44 pm
Milhouse is wrong as always. Brennan got a lot right in Baker v. Carr. In particular, he wrote a very clear explication of why Luther v. Borden and other earlier cases were wrong.

That is, he pulled the sword from the stone. But then he sank it straight back in.

He explained how guarantee clause cases do not automatically raise the kind of “political question” conflicts with the other branches of government that had vitiated earlier cases. In particular, Baker v. Carr itself did not raise any such conflicts.

Earlier attempts to apply guarantee clause arguments to election law had all sought to overturn the results of a particular election on that basis, after the will of the people had already been polled and the results certified by the other co-equal branches of government.

That is where the “political question” conflicts were coming from in election law cases. But Baker was not trying to overturn any election result. It was an apportionment case where the plaintiff did not want voters in the adjacent congressional district (with a much smaller number of voters in it than his) to continue to have their votes count for much more than his did. He wanted his vote to receive equal weight in the NEXT election.

Brennan actually did a great job laying out that, if discoverable and manageable standards for adjudicating the republican guarantee could be found, then it could possibly be used to decide Baker’s case.

But equal apportionment was ruled out as a republican requirement, given that it is violated by the U.S. Senate.

At that, Brennan surmised that it was very unlikely that any discoverable and manageable standard of adjudication would ever be found, and the majority signed on to this.

It was absurd. There was no attempt at any kind of historical survey of the meaning of republicanism. No, “hey, does anybody know what the definition of republicanism is?” So they missed Hamilton’s definition. If they had seen it they would have realized immediately that it has broad application, requiring at the very least honest elections and no weaponization of the powers of government against political opponents.

Instead, since Brennan himself didn’t know what republicanism was, he just surmised that no one did and that no one ever would. Crazy.

Luther v. Borden was crazy too. As I said, a long history of Supreme Court failure to conduct basic due diligence regarding the most powerfully written provision in the entire Constitution.

As for the republican guarantee applying “only” to the states. Note that the Constitution gives it to the states to conduct all elections, federal and state. Thus any unrepublican election process, like mass mail-in voting, designed in a way that leaves wide open opportunity for mass vote fraud and election fraud, clearly undermines and hence violates the guarantee of honest elections (one of the requirements of republicanism).

Ditto for any weaponization of the powers of government against political opponents that occurs at the state level, as seen with the trumped-up prosecutions of Trump in NY and Georgia.

Finally, it is obvious that in order to fulfill the guarantee to the states that they shall not be subject to unrepublican government, the federal government can also not be allowed to engage in unrepublican actions.

Every state has the federal government over it. Thus if the federal government adopts an unrepublican form, such as by weaponizing the powers of the federal government against political opponents (as Biden-Harris are doing), then every state is subject to that unrepublican government, violating the guarantee.

Milhouse in reply to AlecRawls. | August 18, 2024 at 8:28 pm
Alex, that is a load of nonsense. The Rhode Island case wasn’t just trying to overturn an election. The rebels claimed (with justification) that RI did not have a republican form of government, so they held their own election and went to court demanding that their elected governor and legislature be recognized, as well as the congressmen they elected, and the senators their legislature elected. And the Supreme Court said that’s not justiciable. It’s up to Congress whether to recognize your congressmen and the president whether to install your governor in power. The judiciary has no role to play.

Also, the term “the United States” means the federal government. Nothing more and nothing less. It does not mean the individual states; only the entity that consists of their union. And it’s that entity that is to guarantee that the states have republican forms of government. It is not to guarantee that it itself has one, nor is it for them to guarantee that. The constitution itself is the only guarantor of that. The form of government that the USA has is the one the constitution mandates, and it makes no difference whether you call that “republican” or some other word. The constitution itself does not use that word for the government it establishes.

Two-Lane Roadways

If a school bus stops on a two lane road and the red flashing lights are activated and the stop arm is extended, all motorists MUST stop.

Multi-Lane Roadways with NO Barrier between Lanes

When a school bus stops on a multi-lane roadway without a barrier and the red flashing lights are activated and the stop arm is extended, all motorists MUST stop.

Multi-Lane Roadway with a Grassy and/or Concrete Barrier

When a school bus stops and the red flashing lights are activated and the stop arm is extended, only vehicles behind the bus MUST stop. Vehicles that are approaching from the opposite side are NOT required to stop.

After more than 15 years of insisting that "competition is only a click away," Google's antitrust mantra is no longer keeping the regulators at bay. //

In the past eight months, however, Google has lost two major US competition lawsuits: One brought by Epic Games over Google's grip on the Android ecosystem, the other brought by the Department of Justice over the Big G's market-dominating search advertising business. //

"What the judge made clear was that they [Google] have an overwhelming monopoly in search," said Kint. "And they've abused it." //

There's a real risk that a poorly targeted remedy would just allow some other data predator to thrive, or would degrade the overall ecosystem – as happened when wolves were removed from Yellowstone. Imagine a Meta operating Google Play, and what the privacy disclosures would look like then.