"When You Say Nothing At All" (opens in separate window)

the remaking of america

friday, september 1st, 2023

We are in the midst of one of the most radical revolutions in American history. It is as far-reaching and dangerous as the turbulent years of the 1850s and 1860s or the 1930s. Every aspect of American life and culture is under assault, including the very processes by which we govern ourselves, and the manner in which we live.

The Revolution began under the Obama administration that sought to divide Americans into oppressed and oppressors, and then substitute race for class victimization. It was empowered by the bicoastal wealth accrued from globalization, and honed during the COVID lockdown, quarantine-fed economic downturn, and the George Floyd riots and their aftermath. The Revolution was boosted by fanatic opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump. And the result is an America that is unrecognizable from what it was a mere decade ago.

Every aspect of American life and culture is under assault.

Here are 10 upheavals that the Left has successfully wrought.

Free expression. In large swatches of American society -- particularly the corporation, the media, the government, the public schools, and the university -- it is suddenly dangerous to speak freely. At a DEI workshop, politely object that “whiteness” does not account for all the challenges of “marginalized peoples,” and you will become either ostracized, reprimanded, or perhaps fired.

Suggest to a class that man-made climate change and the state remedies for it, are still under debate—and your career and livelihood are endangered. In 2020, state that Covid lockdowns would do more eventual damage than the virus -- and your career was through. Express doubt that there are more than two biological sexes, and if an athlete or high school principal you will be shunned or rendered professionally inert.

The Left is coming for your Rights.

The government, in league with social media, censors the news. “Liberal” universities often first require McCarthy-era type “diversity” statements for one to be hired. Commissars review syllabi to spot incorrect or improper speech or insufficient DEI zeal.

The Left now seeks to modify the First Amendment, and its empowerment of “hate speech,” defined as most anything impeding the progressive project. The state and the universities properly issue word lists of approved vocabularies.

The old ACLU or Sen. Church Committee would now probably be deemed rightwing. The methodologies of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover are the preferred models, once they were rebooted to the right cause.

Freedom isn't free. All gave some, some gave all.

The Weaponization of Justice. Administrations and their efforts to stock the justice department with supporters come and go. But in the last decade the Left has viewed the Department of Justice as a political extension of the party -- whose unchecked power must properly be directed to hurt enemies and help friends. No wonder Eric Holder described himself as Obama’s “wingman” and became the first Attorney General to be held in contempt for ignoring a congressional subpoena.

Never in U.S. history have the Department of Justice and sympathetic state and local prosecutors indicted a leading opposition candidate and likely nominee of one of the two major parties, and at the beginning of a presidential campaign. Donald Trump is currently charged with nearly 100 felonies by at least two prosecutors. He likely eventually will be hit with more than- 500 indictments, from four prosecutors, every one of the latter with a long record of either leftwing associations or Democratic service.

The mass murderer Charles Manson faced less legal exposure. No one believes Trump would have been indicted on such counts—most of them involving allegations from years past—were he not running for President.

One count that Donald Trump is not charged with is bribery, or taking money while in office, a crime cited as impeachable in the Constitution and germane to the accusations that Joe Biden and his family raked in millions from foreign governments due to the improper use of his prior Vice Presidency. For what reason did Joe Biden lie that he never discussed his son’s business? Why did Hunter complain to his daughter that Joe demanded half of his own grifting income? Why would a Vice President serially call disreputable American grifters and foreign corrupt oligarchs? Can Joe’s lifestyle ever be reconciled with his reported income?

If your karma runs over your dogma, you might be a demonKKKrat.

Given such asymmetry in the application of the laws, conservative or even apolitical Americans are apprehensive that any political prominence will draw the attention of government in effort to either indict or bankrupt them with legal expenses.

The last four FBI Directors have either admitted they lied under oath, or preposterously under oath claimed ignorance or amnesia about events directly under their control. Or they simply stonewalled subpoenas and testimonies about alleged FBI crimes.

The former CIA Director admitted to lying twice under oath. The FBI hired social media corporations to suppress election-cycle news deemed unhelpful to the Left. The agency, along with Democratic operatives, helped hatch the election-cycle conspiracy of the 2015-2016 Russian-Collusion hoax, and the 2020 Russian disinformation laptop hoax. The FBI played a central role in many of the 2024 indictments. In other words, the FBI along with the DOJ, has sought to warp three presidential elections in a row.

On the prompt of a Joe Biden campaign official (and now Secretary of State) and a former interim CIA director, 50 former intelligence officials lied to the electorate that an authentic but incriminating Biden computer was a likely Russian plant—a fact known to be lie but not disclosed as such by the FBI.

The Attack on the Supreme Court. Once the Court achieved a more or less predictable conservative majority, the Left sought to diminish it in a variety of ways. It has called for packing the Court with leftist jurists to create a new 15-justice bench. Leftist law professors in the Ivy League, in neo-Confederate nullification and insurrectionary style, call for the nation to ignore Court rulings on abortion and affirmative action.

The Senate minority leader led a throng to the doors of the court, threatening justices by name: “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Protestors now mob the homes of individual justices hoping to intimidate them and alter their upcoming opinions -- confident that the Department of Justice will exempt them from any legal consequences of such felonious behavior.

The media routinely accuses conservative justices of improper or illegal behavior, without worry about the emptiness of the charges. A traditionalist justice now accepts that a controversial ruling can result in media charges that he is corrupt, in shrieking protestors mobbing his home, in a mob assembling at the doors of the Court, in disruptions during Court hearings, in politicians issuing threats to his person, in congressional calls to alter the century-and-a-half make-up of the Court, and in Ivy League law professors urging the country to ignore majority decisions.

In sum, a conservative jurist must be careful where and when he goes out in public.

The Media-Democratic Fusion. If one were to listen during the last few years to NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, PBS, MSNBC, or CNN, or read the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, or the Los Angeles Times, then one would have believed the following:

A) Donald Trump worked with the Russians to throw and win the 2016 election. As part of that skullduggery, frolicking amid prostitutes he urinated on a Moscow hotel bed to spite Barack Obama. B) He was mentally incapacitated as president and should have been removed under the 25^th Amendment. C) In 2020, his campaign once more worked with the Russians to create an exact replica of Hunter Biden’s laptop, replete with dozens of lurid fake photos and hundreds of cleverly doctored emails to smear the Biden family and aid his own reelection effort. D) Trump as chief conspirator preplanned a violent and armed insurrection that sought to storm and permanently occupy the government, violently hijacking the balloting and seizing the presidency—resulting in the murder of a Capitol police officer and the subsequent deaths of other traumatized officers.

E) For the last eight years, none of Trump’s political opponents have ever destroyed subpoenaed evidence, conspired to hire foreign nationals to compile false and lurid files on him to subvert his political campaigns, or used their political offices to help solicit foreign money for family lobbyists. F) Trump is the first major candidate and politician who allegedly overvalued his real assets to obtain a loan that he repaid; the first to have concluded non-disclosure agreements with potential embarrassing liaisons; the first ex-president to remove sensitive files to his personal residence; and the first to phone a state official to whine about the integrity of the vote count. G) He is the first losing presidential candidate or major politician to question an election result or to seek redress through government agencies to rectify the purported corruption of the balloting.

In sum, for the first time in American history, nearly all the major communication and journalistic networks have been fused with a political party. They believe the new role of the media is to advance a shared progressive cause, oppose and even defame common opponents, and feed their audiences things that are not, and cannot possibly be, true.

The Destruction of Common Law. By defunding the police in major cities, and by showering leftwing district attorney candidates with millions of dollars in campaign funding, the Left systematically eroded the law as we know it in our major cities.

As a result, downtowns are after-dark, no-go zones, as once great metropolises resemble veritable combat theaters. Cities are becoming depopulated as consumers and businesses no longer find it safe to conduct commerce. Criminals and homeless now routinely break the law with impunity. Public violence, defecation, urination, fornication, and injection do not even rate as misdemeanors.

The Left has redefined violent crime to such an extent that shoplifting is no longer actionable. Flash mobs that take over streets and swarm to loot stores are rarely if ever arrested. Security officers who apprehend thieves or intervene to stop violence are more likely to be prosecuted than criminals themselves. There is no longer any immigration law; it has been utterly destroyed by Joe Biden. Seven-million illegal entrants flood into the U.S. and, along with the Mexican government, make demands on their hosts to accommodate their illegality.

In sum, in blue states and at the federal level, leftwing prosecutors and justices decide to enforce or ignore statutes, pile up or reduce indictments, increase or decrease punishments not on what the law entails, or evidence directs, but on the race, class, or ideology of the perpetrator, usually in connection with the particular status of his victims. If asymmetry in race, class, or ideology is suggested, then the law must modulate in redistributive fashion to contextualize the crime and criminal as a victim rather than a victimizer. The result is the veritable destruction of law and order as we once knew it.

The Erosion of the Military. Rarely has the American people polled so little confidence in the U.S. military. It perceives the Pentagon mission largely one to greenlight social change through the rapidity of the chain of command, not necessarily to maintain deterrence, much less to win all its wars.

The Left has ensured that our armed forces are underfunded, short on munitions and weapons, and military officers are used to promote progressive social agendas. Officers expect to be promoted or stalled on the basis of their views on race and gender.

Those who traditionally died at twice their numbers in the general population in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are ostracized and in near record numbers leaving, while their friends and relatives are no longer enlisting in the military.

Former Pentagon four-star officers violated the Code of Uniform Military Justice in attacking a sitting president with the harshest invective, invoking comparisons to Hitler and Mussolini, again predictably from a leftwing point of view.

The public expects the Joint Chiefs to be both appointed on ideological considerations, and from time to time even to free-lance to contact enemy counterparts should they feel a conservative president is dangerous to world peace.

There is no longer any social stigma or legal jeopardy for retired officers in working as defense contractor lobbyists or board members, after revolving from or soon back to the Pentagon.

Sexes. The heterosexual male and female, marriage, and the nuclear family are all to be suspect. There are three sexes or perhaps still more. English language pronouns are inadequate to reflect sexual diversity.

So adherence to such ossified languages is career endangering. An epidemic of childlessness, singlehood, and collapsing fertility rates are either of no national importance or illustrate the preferred non-nuclear family model. Powerful hormonal drug regimens and permanent radical sex-change surgery should be the choices of minors alone who know best when they choose to transition to another sex. Graphic sex manuals and drag queen shows with simulated sex acts can perhaps acculturate preteens to the dangers of growing up in an oppressive “normative” binary society.

Sex, but not race, is constructed, and thus a matter not of biology but of individual choice.

Race, Not Class. Racial inequality and lack of parity are due to “whiteness.” Racial quotas, segregated dorms, graduations, workshops, and safe spaces are exempt from civil rights statutes given they are necessary to achieve equity. Integration and assimilation are the opiates of the masses. Apartheid and segregation are misunderstood modalities, and thus, if enlightened, sometimes necessary corrective measures.

Reparations are to supersede ineffective affirmative action. Wokeness liberates us to see how race explains everything in America, past and present. At universities and in popular culture “proportional representation” of various ethnicities and races is no longer sufficient remedy.

Instead reparatory hiring and admissions are required to atone for prior generations of discrimination. It is taboo to suggest that cultural conditions not just race accounts for inequality. Everything from meritocracy to promptness to physical fitness is racist in nature, requiring DEI experts to expose and inform about the systemic nature of American racism.

Debt is a Construct. Modern monetary theory proved that annual deficits and national debt are just a state accounting challenge. So printing more money is an act that properly diminishes the value of existing capital improperly horded by parasitic profiteers. Spreading the ensuing cash wealth to the more deserving and victimized is long overdue social justice.

At any time, the national “debt” can be deconstructed by renouncing usurious bond obligations, appropriating private retirement accounts, or further inflating the currency—if governments are committed enough to social justice.

Universities. It is now heresy that universities should be places of disinterested inquiry and inductive investigation. They can properly instead become a valuable tool in ridding society of racist and sexist forces, platitudes about free speech and equality under the law, and the tyranny of private property, capitalist profiteering, and white, male heterosexual Christian oppression.

So the role of a university is to create a brief safe space in which graduates can leave with proper training about the terrible history of the United States and the ways in which it must be dismantled and then be rebuilt by the properly trained experts from the ground up. Counterrevolutionaries or deluded liberals and their quaint adherence to a racist and archaic Bill of Rights have no place on these islands of progressive resistance.

None of the above was true at the millennium; all are now—with more still to come.

A Day In The Life.

The t-storms and thunderous rain woke me at 5:30a on Friday, so I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee and had a light breakfast, took two 50mg Tramadol and a 300mg Gabapentin for various pains, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage, 68° outside, fed the squirrels and checked the leftover errands list. Clean as a whistle. Sherry will stop by to visit after she finishes working at her daughter's nearby shop.

I tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show" 6-9a, and at 9, the "Chris Plante Show", 9-12noon. The AccuWeather.com maps showed a massive front moving thru and we'd be in it for another 35-40 mins. It's getting lighter later, as we move toward the Winter Solstice in late December. The days, weeks and months are moving by, all too quickly.

He's really pissed off.

Yes, I watched the saga of Trump arriving in Georgia, being arrested and booked, and then leaving the state, after a long 17-vehicle motorcade, to and from the sheriff's offices. It was pitiful, and maddening. The leftist, commie, socialist, racist, marxist, fascist filth have officially bit-off much more than they can chew, with the now 4th bullshit, false indictment. I'm not a "Trump Fan", but will always vote for him, if he's running for POTUS.

Lahaina Maui Hawaii body count update: 123 dead. They're finding more and more dead inside the burned-out cars littering the roads, including whole families. There are still 650 children listed as missing, from one of the locaL grade schools. Nice job, demonKKKrat admin scumbag murderers. I hope the survivors and relatives sue the demoKKKrat government and corrupt electrical company into oblivion!

Remember Sarah Palin from Alaska? She's now saying we're heading for another civil war, only it won't be very "civil", this time. Heh. It was last time, either.

Finally, about 11:30a, the massive t-storm front passed thru the area and headed to the Atlantic Ocean. It was nice to see partial blue sky, but the humidity was just oppressive. Hey, it's still Summer in the Mid-Atlantic Region, which is little compared to the West, Southwest and South, right now. I had a *extra large plate* of Chinese food for lunch, started to tire out from the morning's coffee wearing off, and laid down on the LR couch.

Only an hour on the couch, I got up and had some leftover morning coffee, and began some computer "house cleaning" and maintenance work, for 2+ hours. Sherry called and stopped by around 5:30p, when she should have been relieved by one of the business' owners at 4p. We relaxed and talked until almost 7, when she left. I had a bowl of Sis' York County Chicken Corn Soup, watched "Gold Rush Paydirt w/ Freddy & Juan" and "Hoffman Family Gold" until 11, then switched over to Discovery+ for some episodes from season 12. Lights out at 12:30a.

The Left is coming for your Rights.

Sleeping-in until just after 8a on Saturday, I made coffee, had a smoke in the humid garage with the oscillating tower fan running at full-blast, fed the squirrels, and fired-up the office-sunroom computer. It was 73°, 75% humidity, and cloudy, with a t-storm moving-in from the west. I lounged around until 11:30a, ran a couple errands and caught the rerun of several "Chris Plante Shows"

on local WSBA 93.9 FM/ 910 AM, had lunch and hit the LR couch to TRY for a couple hours. It turned really hot -- 90° and 79% humidity -- so I closed-up the condo's window blinds and office-sunroom's 4ft x 9ft shades. I have temps set at 73° in the condo.

Oh crap, my Rite Aid Pharmacy is in danger of closing? Sociopath Biden's leftist gov't is still coming for your AC unit, oven, dishwasher, washer-dryer, ceiling fan... and now they're coming for your beers. Get ready.

Locally, the damaged homeowners' residences in York County, won't be eligible for low-interest loans to repair their homes, despite two tornadoes touching down and doing damage, in York County. Remember, Trump won and you know it!

Q: How do you separate the Saudi Arabian men from the boys? A: With a crowbar.

Alas alack, I couldn't get any sleep, so after 30mins, I did chores and listened to some of CP's podcasts from last week. After dinner, I watched the news,l did paperwork, took a walk around the condo complex, and watched some documentaries on the 60s, on History Channel. By 11;30, I was nodding-off, and unplugged for the night. I have an F1 Grand Prix (of Netherlands) on at 9a, on F1-TV or ESPN. Woo-hoo!

Awake at 6:45a on Sunday, I made coffee, took the 3 pain pills, had a couple of smokes in the cool 64° garage w/ oscillating fan, fed the squirrels, and tuned in to some of last week's Chris Stigall's podcasts on iHeart Radio. (If you want my username & password to take full advantage of the site's offerings, email me, and I'll send them.) I really enjoy the new Kona Blended Coffee -- the Blended is $17.50/lb vs Single Origin at $52.75/lb -- and am drinking the Blended now, with a lb of "Dark Knight" Coffee ready to fill the really old, pristine (and highly collectable) Starbuck's container.

The Dutch (Netherlands) Grand Prix started promptly at 9a (my time) and had rain for the first 20 laps (of 72) and was clear sailing until 10 laps to finish, when a torrential downpour wiped out the track with 2-3" of water, and the race was RED FLAGGED (stopped). After the rain passed, the final 8 laps were completed; good race. I went back to some of the talk shows I occasionally drop in to listen, and it was all about Thursday's "GOPe Clusterrfuck Debate" crap, so I killed it. I can't listen to anymore of that crap. Time to do 2 loads of laundry.

Q: How do you separate the DNC from the media? A: Same way.

I watched an IMSA (Int'l Motor Sports Ass'n) Race from Virginia Int'l Raceway, a beautiful road course set in the lush Virginia countryside, and an IndyCar Race at the World Wide Technology Raceway, in Madison, IL, had dinner, caught the day's news and watched more "Gold Rush: Hoffman Family Gold" until 12:30a. Lights out.

Up at 7a on Monday, a partly cloudy, humid, 66° morning. I made the new "Dark Knight" Coffee, had a mug with smokes in the garage, tuned into the "CS Show", 6-9, and scanned the weather and news sites. It was excellent, dark, bold, full-roasted flavor. Hard to believe that next Monday is already Labor Day, and that kids are back in school, as we head into another Fall and Winter. Hey, "tempus fugit". After the "CP Show" ended at 12 noon, I left for my weekly trek down south to Dallastown, to DeVono's Cleaners, to drop-off/pick-up a load, and do 2 other errands.

The more they indict,
the more we unite.

"Step back in time with us as we unveil a mesmerizing journey through 1930s America like you've never seen before! While the Dustbowl was heating up in the southwest, the country as a whole was fighting through the Great Depression. All the while, Americans were living their day-to-day lives, and getting on as best as they could. In this captivating video, we've meticulously colorized a collection of stunning photographs that capture the essence of a tumultuous yet resilient period in American history. From bustling cityscapes to serene countryside vistas, witness the contrast between hardship and hope that defined an entire generation. Discover the intricate details of everyday life as we explore the highways and byways of the past, complete with corner gas stations, storefronts, and bustling city streets. Journey through snapshots of the stunning architecture that emerged during this era, from Art Deco skyscrapers to quaint suburban homes. Each frame is a window into a world where innovation and creativity thrived despite adversity. Join us on this mesmerizing visual journey, as we honor the legacy of the past and celebrate the indomitable spirit of the American people. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to experience the 1930s in an entirely new light." (The History Lounge YT Video)

Imagine if you will, a virus so smart it attacks every 4 years during presidential elections.

Home by 1:30p, as I was unloading the Jeep, I'd forgotten to stop at Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market in nearby Hallam, so I'll go there tomorrow; I was tired, needed some lunch, do another load of laundry and hit the couch. I need more delicious peaches. I'll go tomorrow. Oh shit, here we go again with the Covid-19 bullshit. It's never been about curing a virus (which medically can't be done), it's always been about their power over you and me. It still is. Beware. No more shots for me! NONE!

I had a massive late lunch, around 2:30, of almost the last of the Chinese food from last week's trip to Emerald Garden, with Sherry. After a few hours on the LR couch, I had some condo chores to do, finish the load of laundry, and enjoy the mild late-Summer weather before closing the condo at sunset. I had some of Sis' PA Dutch Chicken Corn Soup for a light dinner, watched NEWSMAX's "Right Side with Chris Plante" and Fox's "Jesse Watters", and switched-over to Motor Trend's "Chasing Classic Cars", which I hadn't seen in years. I watched a boatload of episodes until 12 midnight, and bagged it for the day.

Awake at 7a on Tuesday, it was a heavily-overcast, 68°, cool morning, and it looked like we'd had some light rain overnight, as my beach chair and ashtray on the back patio were wet, so I used the garage for smokes. With coffee, I scanned the news and weather sites on my computer, had some smokes in the dry garage, as a light rain started just as the lawnmower crews arrived. Sucks to be them.

Bacon-Egg-Cheese
Pull-Apart Bread

Remember the Maui Hawaii Wildfires, which obliterated the island and the town of Lahaina? Instead of blaming "climate change" as the lowlife, lying dirtbag demonKKKrats did. The HEOCO (Hawaiian Electric Co) has finally admitted it was their live power lines crashing from the Hurricane to the north, which sparked the fires, in which there are still 600+ children missing, from a local school. And the demonKKKrats are silent, now. And they're still blaming White Colonialism; natch, it's Whitey's fault. NOTE: Google has scrubbed 99% of the original stories about the original wildfire, and has only left the "Climate Change" BS up on the search results.

I left at 12:30 for Rite Aid Pharmacy and Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Market, and got some great stuff at the farm market facility. Tender Pulled Pork, Jarred Fresh peaches in Syrup, Bacon-Cheese-Egg Pull-Apart Bread and a Peck of Fresh-Picked Peaches (nice facility at their orchard and farm), so I'm well-stocked, with all the goodies in the 'fridge. After a big lunch, a 2½ hour snooze was just what the Dr ordered.

Are blacks finally waking-up about voting for more demonKKKrats, and going to turn out for Trump in 2024? I doubt it. As a voting bloc, they're notoriously unreliable and stupid, to the Truth. Enjoy the wonderful "demonKKKrat Plantation" for another 100+yrs, folks.

After some garage clean-up, I watched "The Equalizer 2" on FX-TV, and then the season finale of "Justified: City Primeval". I dialed-up the weather maps on AccuWeather.com, and checked the hurricane's progress; I'd hate to be living along that Gulf Coast, as they're going to take quite a hit. (Damn that "Global Warming/ Climate Change" crap!) I stayed up until 1:30a to watch Hurricane Idalia CAT 3's progress reports, and was slowly fading, so I unplugged for the night.

Up at 7a on Wednesday, a cloudy, 73°, *Excellent Air Quality*, humid start to the morning, with 84° forecast for the day. I made coffee, turned-on FoxWeather's unending (since yesterday) coverage of the hurricane. Our local zipcode regional weather maps showed t-storms along the East Coast, with all other weather systems being pushed south-->north while the hurricane is in force. Lots of tornadoes for the people in the "dirty" path (windward) side of that CAT 3 storm down south, as it slams into land and is downgraded to a CAT 2. The "storm surge" water was bad, and whole areas underwater. The property destruction is going to be immense. By 9, I'd tuned into the "CP Show"; how much hurricane stuff can I watch?

I left for Weis Market at 12:30p, got minimal stuff, and it was 1:45 until I got back. Huh? How the heck did it take that long? No matter. I unpacked, had a large lunch and took a 2hr nap on the LR couch. After some minor condo chores, I tuned the TV to History's "American Pickers" for the evening, watched until 11, and called it a day.

Awake at 7:15a on Thursday, it was a sunny, cool 62°, breezy morning, with a forecast high of only 80°. A taste of the coming Fall? I fired-up the Chemex® coffeemaker, had a couple smokes on the back patio, tuned into the "CS Show", and checked the day's list. 11:30a Dr's app't down south, so I'll be leaving earlier than usual, due to so many Summertime road construction chokepoints. Damn, my email is hung-up somewhere; I'm just getting yesterday afternoon's/evening's note, right now, at 10:30am. Damn. Old meme: "Never let anything electronic know you're in a hurry." I left at 10:50 for points south and the Dr's appt.

Back at 12:30p, after the 11:30a app't, I made BBQ for lunch, with the Bacon-Egg-Cheese
Pull-Apart Bread, and had a slice as a piece of toast. Sherry stopped by at 2p, and we drove down to nearby Springettsbury Twp Park for a short walk, and then over thru nearby Hallam to Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market to get some goodies. Back at my place, I refrigerated the perishable stuff, and we sat and talked in my office-sunroom until 5:30p, when she left.

I watched the 6p news on Fox, had some dinner, and watched some TV until 11, and called it a week.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and it's clear, so Sherry and I scheduled 2 afternoons to ourselves; very nice. Hard to believe it's already September. Hey, Tempus fugit! (Time flys), and as we all get older, the years go by even faster.

What The Trump Indictments Are Really All About (Hint: Not What You Think).

Let’s cut to the chase: the tsunami of anti-Trump indictments isn’t aimed to ensure that he is the 2024 GOP nominee, nor to stymie him with a tangle of competing, distracting, and wildly expensive court battles at the height of primary season. Though either could be the result.

This scribe informed you, last summer, of the purpose of the scorched-earth campaign that also encompasses the January 6th Committee farce, psychological terrorism against Capitol protesters, and harassment of former Trump officials and advisors.

Quoting your correspondent back then: “(T)his overkill is really about inoculating Democrats regarding efforts already underway to rig elections in 2022 and beyond. The precedent is set: identifying future Democrat-favoring voting irregularities risks being labeled a promoter of Trump-variety ‘false claims’ and plagued, persecuted, or even prosecuted as an ‘insurrectionist’.”

You know the charges being brought against America’s rightful chief executive, his advisers, and his allies are as genuine as dime-store pyrite when an individual who has committed no espionage is charged with 31 counts under the rarely used Espionage Act – once hammered by the ACLU as “a fundamentally unfair and unconstitutional law.”

Or when a federal Special Counsel slams the same individual with vague charges of conspiracies to “Defraud the United States,” to “Obstruct an Official Proceeding,” and “Against Rights,” plus “Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding.” All based on allegedly asserting “knowingly false claims (of) outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”

And when requests for phone numbers, appearances at legislative hearings, tweets about those public hearings, press conferences, and a nationally televised presidential speech(!) are all considered “overt act(s) in furtherance of (a) conspiracy” under the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. Allegedly committed by a “criminal enterprise” including highly respected attorneys, the White House chief of staff, elected officials acting in investigative capacities, and a PR guy.

If governments at all levels, to maintain their hold on power, can coordinate the criminalization of:

hush money payments regarding a one-night stand made under a valid legal settlement
exercise of presidential discretion established by Congress and determined by federal courts to be nearly absolute
privileged legal advice to, and public or private political advocacy on behalf of, the sitting chief executive
lobbying state and federal officers to engage in investigations and/or consider legal or constitutional theories, no matter how novel
entering the Capitol during a protest on the open invitation of, and accompanied by, law enforcement officers – and in some cases, simply being nearby
and most of all, engaging in the constitutionally protected right of free speech …

… then who will risk representing or even speaking out on behalf of victims of stolen elections, knowing the cost could be humiliation (e.g., planned arrest and release of mug shots of the Georgia defendants), crushing expense, career jeopardy, and potential deprivation of freedom (pre-detention solitary for January 6 defendants, all the Georgia defendants facing mandatory prison terms)?

Though there's a high degree of ad hominem animus here, remember: the term “derangement syndrome” was coined around similar antipathy toward the White House’s prior Republican occupant – now affectionately embraced by leftists.

Whether this melodrama’s central figure was named Donald Trump or Donald Duck, the true objective is nth-degree cancellation. Not of those targeted by blatant abuses of power. But of the Constitution and consent of the governed.

Especially when the actions’ basis – alleged “false statements (Georgia)” and “knowingly false claims (of) outcome-determinative fraud” – is itself “knowingly false” and misleading.

Stipulated: mountains of evidence exist of election fraud, exemplified in respected political scientist Claes Ryn’s definitive analysis shortly after the election and recently related to the Georgia charges in these pages and elsewhere.

But as this contributor also previously underscored, The Donald needn’t prove fraud to cast sufficient doubt on the election outcome to bury the core charge.

He must only demonstrate that votes were cast outside of lawful processes intended to avoid fraud – the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s essential holding in declaring that illegal election changes rendered the state’s 2020 result “illegitimate.”

A petition to the U.S. Supreme Court by 18 states insisted that irregularities in said Badger State and three others “cumulatively preclude knowing who legitimately won the 2020 election.”

And that “these flaws affect an outcome-determinative number (emphasis added, Special Counsel Smith) of popular votes in a group of States that cast outcome-determinative numbers of electoral votes.”

Moreover, High Court Justice Samuel Alito asserted that a separate Pennsylvania challenge had “national importance,” citing “a strong likelihood that (a) State Supreme Court decision violates the federal Constitution.”

Let’s summarize: Wisconsin’s highest court declared its 2020 results “illegitimate.” A Supreme Court justice sniffed state constitutional violations. And eighteen state attorneys general asserted that no one could know who won in 2020 due to state electoral “flaws.”

Yet Trump et. al. engaged in “knowingly false claims” sufficient to sustain indictments that could result in lifetimes behind bars?

Quod erat demonstrandum: these abusive legal actions aren’t intended to vindicate truth nor preserve the electoral process. But rather to ensure that, repeating Sen. Lindsey Graham’s November 2020 warning, “there’ll never be another Republican president elected again.”

Left-Wing Rage: Don’t Pretend It Doesn’t Exist

The Southern Poverty Law Center has its “hate map” of conservative groups that it hopes to marginalize if not kill off entirely. Meanwhile, the feds are looking for vicious, bloodthirsty right-wingers under the bed. But a university survey recently found that the left is more prone to political violence than the right. It’s exactly what we have come to expect from a group that is so sure of its superiority and the importance of its agenda that it’s willing to break an infinite number of eggs so that it can make its authoritarian omelet.

The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats’ June survey of 3,543 adults has produced a lot of data noise but it also includes some useful information. Of course the media want to ring the bells over one finding in particular: an increase in the percentage those who agree that “the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” According to the project, in early April only 4.5% of those polled agreed with that statement. By late June, though, it had risen to (a rounded-up) 7%, “the equivalent of an estimated shift from 12 million to 18 million American adults.”

The media-wide implication is that the growing support for using force to put Trump back in the White House is fueled by the extremism (and dare we say “semi-fascism”?) of Republicans and MAGA followers. A prime example of this bias is found in the headline over a story in The Hill. It reads “More say violence could be necessary to restore Trump to White House.”

A closer look at the data, however, show both Democrats (4.5%) and independents (7.8%) agree with the statement. So it’s not just Republicans who would be sympathetic to the use of force in favor of Trump. Isn’t that a point worthy of highlighting?

There’s another figure that raises concerns that the media don’t seem to care much about: 9% of Democrats “strongly” agree that “the use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” and another 7.1% merely agree. That’s a total of 16.1%, compared to the total of 9.5% of Republicans who strongly agree or just agree that force is justified to hand the presidency back to Trump.

Again, isn’t this a fact that needs to be emphasized?

Seems that the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats didn’t want that known as well, since the only mention of it was in a data table buried in the report. At the same time, it played up the increase in the numbers of those who would abide by the use of force to reinstate the Trump presidency, claiming that it “likely reflects the response of more intense commitment to Trump following the announcement of the federal indictment against him.”

Democrats’ inclination to use violence to achieve their goals was also seen in the results of other questions:

More than 16% of Democrats think force is justified to restore the federal right to abortion.
More than 22% Democrats agree that “the use of force against the police is justified to prevent police brutality against black Americans and other minorities.”
More than a quarter of Democrats would approve of the use of force “to protect the voting rights of Black Americans and other minorities.”

To paraphrase novelist Tom Wolfe, the dark night of political violence is always descending on conservatives and Republicans, and yet it’s primarily a hallmark of progressives and Democrats.

The Biden Family Syndicate’s Racketeering Enterprise.

A violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) can be proven by evidence of a pattern of criminal activities such as bribery, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and fraud committed during a span of years by multiple people in an organized enterprise. That description fits the Biden family syndicate’s nefarious course of conduct during the last decade to a tee.

The evidence already gathered shows that the Biden family syndicate engaged in pay to play schemes leveraging Joe Biden’s power and “brand” as vice president in the Obama administration to sell to foreign oligarchs and industry leaders invaluable access and influence over U. S. policy. Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop provides a treasure trove of information evidencing how these schemes worked. Bank records provide more evidence of the Biden family syndicate’s money laundering, while firsthand accounts by former Hunter Biden business associates outline Joe Biden’s central role in his family’s business affairs.

A decade of influence peddling, money laundering, lies and coverups.

As the Democratic Party’s candidate for president during the 2020 election, Joe Biden deliberately deceived voters into thinking that Hunter’s laptop containing potentially incriminating information about the Biden family syndicate’s activities was nothing more than Russian misinformation.

After becoming president, Biden turned a blind eye as top law enforcement officials in his administration carried out a multi-pronged coverup. The evidence shows how they tried to shield son Hunter from any serious consequences for his wrongdoing and to impede the investigation of any leads implicating President Biden himself.

Taken together, as described in more detail below, these activities form a pattern of illegal conduct by the Biden family syndicate that adds up to racketeering.

The Biden Family Syndicate’s Pay to Play Schemes

As vice president, Joe Biden was the “brand” used by his family syndicate to lure foreign oligarchs and businesses looking to influence U.S. policy into handing over millions of dollars, which ended up in Biden family bank accounts. The evidence shows that Hunter Biden was the bagman. He can be charged with directing the laundering of monies paid by the foreign influence seekers through shell companies that one or more of his business partners then transferred to Biden family members.

According to congressional testimony by Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, Vice President Biden joined phone calls with Hunter and various of his foreign business associates at least twenty times. He also dined with Hunter and his foreign business associates at a fancy Washington, D.C. restaurant. It defies common sense to believe that they were merely discussing the weather and other pleasantries during these multiple encounters, as claimed by Joe Biden’s defenders.

Ukraine

Vice President Biden used several pseudonym e-mail accounts to secretly communicate with Hunter regarding both family and official government business, including providing advance notice of official communications that he was scheduled to have with Ukrainian leaders. The co-mingling of family and government business regarding Ukraine, the country for which Vice President Biden was the Obama administration’s point man, is highly suspicious. All this time, Hunter was making loads of money for himself and the Biden family syndicate off his father’s name and contacts.

Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma, a major Ukrainian energy company, in the spring of 2014. He was paid approximately $1 million per year for serving on Burisma’s board of directors, despite having no experience or expertise in the energy field.

Burisma and Mykola Zlochevsky, Burisma’s owner, were under investigation by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin for alleged corruption. Zlochevsky and another high level Burisma official, Vadym Pozharsky, sought help from Hunter Biden and asked him to call his father. On or about December 4, 2015, Zlochevsky, Pozharsky, and Hunter Biden “called D.C.,” according to congressional testimony provided by Devon Archer.

Just three days later, Vice President Biden arrived in Ukraine. The vice president issued his quid pro quo ultimatum that unless Shokin, the prosecutor investigating Burisma and its owner, was immediately fired the United States would not go through with $1 billion in loan guarantees.

Biden’s excuse that he was simply following U.S. anti-corruption policy in Ukraine is laughable, especially since other Obama administration officials gave Shokin’s office high marks for its progress in fighting corruption. Nevertheless, Biden got his way and Shokin was gone by March 2016.

On top of all this, a trusted FBI informant implicated Joe Biden in an alleged criminal bribery scheme while he was vice president. An FBI 1023 reporting document referred to Mr. Zlochevsky’s claim that he was “pushed to pay” two Bidens five million dollars each. Another Burisma official was quoted as saying that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

As for concealing the payments made to the Bidens, Mr. Zlochevsky said that he did not pay the “Big Guy” directly, noting that it would take investigators ten years to track the payments down. Bank records document the web of shell companies through which monies from foreign sources flowed to Biden family syndicate members’ bank accounts.

According to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, “The total amount from Ukraine to the Biden family and their associates is $6.5 million.”

China

Hunter Biden flew with his father on Air Force Two to China when the vice president went there for official business in 2013. Hunter’s purpose for accompanying his father was to cultivate personal business with a Chinese partner, whom he introduced to his father. “Twelve days after he flew to Beijing, Hunter Biden joined the board of a just-formed investment advisory firm known as BHR (Bohai, Harvest and Rosemont), whose partners included Chinese entities, including the man he introduced to his father,” the Washington Post noted in an August 1, 2023 article.

Money started to roll in from China while Joe Biden was still vice president. And the seeds were planted to expand the flow of Chinese money to the Biden family syndicate after Joe Biden left office and became a private citizen, including from CEFC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate, and its executives.

Mainstream media in President Biden’s corner continue to maintain that there is no evidence that the president directly benefited financially from his son’s foreign business dealings. But that claim does not hold water. None other than Hunter himself complained that he had to turn over as much of fifty percent of his “salary” to “pop.”

Moreover, a firsthand account by one of Hunter’s former business partners, Tony Bobulinski, refutes the lie that Joe Biden had nothing to do with his son’s business dealings.

“I have heard Joe Biden say he has never discussed his dealings with Hunter. That is false. I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden,” Mr. Bobulinski said in October 2020, shortly after the New York Post first reported on Hunter’s abandoned laptop on October 14, 2020. One e-mail revealed a business venture Hunter was pursuing that involved China’s largest private energy company and proposed percentage equity stakes that certain individuals would receive, including asking “10 held by H for the big guy?” Mr. Bobulinski made it clear that the “big guy” (the same phrase used by Burisma’s owner) was none other than Joe Biden himself.

During his first 2020 presidential campaign debate with then-President Donald Trump, Joe Biden lied when he flatly declared that his son Hunter had not earned any money through business dealings in China. In 2023, during the court hearing regarding his failed plea deal with the Biden Department of Justice, Hunter himself admitted to the contrary that he had received substantial amounts of money from Chinese sources.

Joe Biden’s outright lie, which earned him four Pinocchios from the Washington Post, is evidence of the “big guy’s” consciousness of guilt.

Joe Biden’s Election Fraud

After the New York Post broke the story about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and revealed some of its shocking contents less than a month before the 2020 election, his father’s presidential campaign went into panic mode. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then senior advisor to the Biden campaign, was the impetus behind the misleading October 19, 2020 “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails” signed by fifty-one former intelligence officers. This statement claimed that the New York Post’s reporting had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

It turns out that the former intelligence officers’ public statement was disinformation used by the Biden campaign and Joe Biden himself to mislead Americans voting in the 2020 presidential election. During Joe Biden’s debate with then-President Donald Trump on Oct. 22, 2020, Biden referred to the public statement to rebut Trump’s reference to Hunter’s laptop as “the laptop from hell.”

“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this — he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan,” Joe Biden exclaimed.

High tech companies used the former intelligence officers’ statement as a pretext for censoring the posting of the New York Post story on their social media platforms.

Polls have demonstrated that a significant number of voters would likely have voted differently had they known the complete truth about Hunter’s laptop. This could have made all the difference in the final outcome of the election.

Joe Biden’s and his campaign’s deliberate efforts to keep voters from knowing the truth about the big guy’s and his family syndicate’s nefarious activities fraudulently prevented the voters from making a fully informed decision when exercising their right to vote.

The Coverup Continues

After Joe Biden became president, any possibility that his son’s pay for play influence peddling schemes and alleged money laundering would be fully investigated and prosecuted under the law went by the wayside.

Career IRS investigators were blocked at every turn from following the evidence wherever it might lead, including to President Biden himself, according to IRS whistleblowers’ congressional testimony.

The Department of Justice let the statute of limitations lapse on charges that could have been brought for tax evasion arising from payments Hunter received from Ukraine, etc. while his father was vice president.

After five years of investigation, U.S. Attorney David Weiss was inclined to let Hunter off the hook “without requiring a guilty plea on any charges,” the New York Times reported, until the IRS career investigators blew the whistle. Then his office agreed to an outrageous sweetheart deal with Hunter’s attorneys. The deal would have had Hunter plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges with no jail time and take part in a diversion program in lieu of being charged with a gun-related felony. The president’s son also would have been granted sweeping immunity from any further charges relating to the matters that had been under investigation, including Hunter’s work as an unregistered foreign agent. But the deal unraveled after U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika shot it down.

President Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, thereupon promoted the compromised David Weiss to the position of Special Counsel to continue running the Biden investigation, rather than follow regulations and select an independent person from outside the Department of Justice. This move ensures more soft treatment for Hunter and more coverup of any criminal wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

From Joe Biden’s days as vice president until now there is more than enough evidence to bring RICO charges against the Biden family syndicate, including against the “big guy.” As the saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down.”

Docs Offer Glimpse Inside Censorship Industrial Complex.

Welcome to the Censorship Industrial Complex. It’s rather like the old “military industrial complex,” which was shorthand for the military, private companies, and academia working together to achieve U.S. battlefield dominance, with the R&D funded by the government that buys the final product.

But the censorship industrial complex builds algorithms, not bombers. The players aren’t Raytheon and Boeing, but social media companies, tech startups, and universities and their institutes. The foes to be dominated are American citizens whose opinions diverge from government narratives on issues ranging from COVID-19 responses to electoral fraud to transgenderism.

When first exposed a few months ago, many of the actors and their media defenders perversely claimed that they, as private entities, were acting out of concern for “democracy” and exercising their own First Amendment rights.

However, the records and correspondence of an advisory committee to an obscure government agency tell a different story. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) has obtained through a public records request documents of the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working with government personnel in a much closer relationship than either they or the media want to admit. Several advisory committee members who appear throughout the documents as quasi-federal actors are among those loudly protesting that they were private actors when censoring lawful American speech (e.g., Kate Starbird, Vijaya Gadde, Alex Stamos).

But the advisory committee members met often and worked so closely with their government handlers that the federal liaison to the committee regularly offered members his personal cell phone and even reminded them to use the committee’s Slack channel. Your average concerned citizen doesn’t have a Homeland Security bureaucrat on speed dial.

What were they working on? CISA’s “Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-information” (MDM) subcommittee discussed Orwellian “social listening” and “monitoring,” and considered the government’s best censorship “success metrics.” Who was to be censored? CISA was formed in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic “threats.” Meeting notes record that Suzanne Spaulding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said they shouldn’t “solely focus on addressing foreign threats … [but] to emphasize that domestic threats remain and while attribution is sometimes unclear, CISA should be sensitive to domestic distinctions, but cannot focus too heavily on such limitations.” So CISA should combat “high-volume disinformation purveyors before the purveyor is attributed to a domestic or foreign threat” and not worry so much about First Amendment niceties.

More telling is the group’s attitude toward what it called “mal-information” – typically information that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Dr. Starbird wrote in an email, “Unfortunately current public discourse (in part a result of information operations) seems to accept malinformation as ‘speech’ and within democratic norms …” Therein lies a dilemma for the censors, as Starbird wrote: “So, do we bend into a pretzel to counter bad faith efforts to undermine CISA’s mission? Or do we put down roots and own the ground that says this tactic is part of the suite of techniques used to undermine democracy?”

It is chilling that there is no consideration of whether the information is true or of the public’s right to know it. “Democracy” in this formulation is whatever maintains the government’s narrative.

Accordingly, the group discussed recommendations for countering “dangerously inaccurate health advice.” It contemplated the roles of the FBI and Homeland Security in addressing “domestic threats,” and a CISA staffer felt the need to remind the subcommittee “of CISA’s limitations in countering politically charged narratives.”

CISA couldn’t censor all the people the advisors wanted. And it could face the same outrage that greeted President Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), led by singing censor Nina Jankowicz. Americans didn’t want that body deciding what they could say, and Biden shut it down within three weeks. CISA’s advisers were acutely aware their work could be conflated with that of the DGB, and even considered changing the name of the MDM subcommittee. Dr. Starbird noted in an email that she’d “removed ‘monitoring’ from just about every place where it appeared” and made “other defensive word changes/deletions.” Similarly, Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde “cautioned the group against pursuing any social listening recommendations” for the time being.

The group also sought cover from outside and inside the government. They spent an inordinate amount of time talking about “socializing” the committee and its work – something DGB apparently hadn’t done. And like a partisan campaign, they looked for natural allies. Meeting notes record that they sought to “identify a point of contact from a progressive civil rights and civil liberties angle to recruit as a [subject matter expert].”

A government committee that seeks partisan allies, obfuscates its purpose, and can’t even be honest about the nature of its members’ participation is going to sort out online truth for Americans? Welcome to the Censorship Industrial Complex.

The Republican Debate Was Unsatisfying Because No One Addressed The Most Important Issue.

The first Republican debate was a disappointing disaster—for the candidates and America. Not one of the questions addressed the elephant in the room. In fact, the list of questions selected by Fox News, which likely received enthusiastic approval from the Democrat Party, helped highlight the elephant. Candidates were asked about a viral blue grass song, inflation, Ukraine, China, Israel, and other foreign relations issues, crime, energy, the border, climate change, abortion, and more. But as important as these things are, they pale by comparison to the single most important issue, the one posing the greatest threat to our Republic since the 1850s.

?The greatest threat to our Republic, to our democracy, to our country as we know it is the unholy alliance that has been exposed between the Democrat Party, federal agencies, and the media—resulting in the greatest level of corruption we have ever witnessed.

Saying this just a few years ago was called a conspiracy theory. But sadly, we know that this cabal’s most significant effort—Russiagate—involved almost innumerable illegal acts of conspiracy, perjury, collusion, propaganda, and censorship. These were often requested and/or committed, not by a rogue staffer or two, but by top leadership in governmental agencies. The debate moderators didn’t ask a single question about or even mention what many call the greatest political scandal in our nation’s history.

Russiagate was not an isolated scandal that is now old news. Rather, it was a very large signpost showing a deep level of corruption within our government. That corruption has not faded away. Quite the contrary.

Given that Democrats, the media, and government agencies didn’t experience negative consequences for their behavior, they’ve now reached new, unprecedented lows in their willingness to ignore the law.

They target Republicans and conservatives for harassment and prosecution, putting the two-tiered justice system on full display; pushing false narratives about a pandemic for their own benefit; urging partisan propaganda and censorship; ignoring the exploding violence and theft in our cities; ignoring immigration law; pushing to indoctrinate our children with Marxist theories about race and gender while punishing parents who object; applying those same theories to destroy our military by replacing merit and readiness with wokeness as the top priority; illegally and arbitrarily dismissing hundreds of millions of dollars in student loans; and ramping up using the DOJ to eliminate not merely political opponents but anyone who supports them, including their lawyers. Yet again, not a single question or mention of these issues in questions to or responses from candidates.

While the moderators did not have any of this on the agenda, and the ridiculous 30- and 60-second windows provided precious little opportunity for the candidates to provide any sort of detailed answer, the candidates themselves are not blameless. Even with these limitations, they could have worked parts of the evidence into many of their responses, starting with the very first question put to them about why Mr. Anthony’s soulful lament has been so well received. To his credit, Vivek Ramaswamy at least decried the massive growth of government, the FBI in particular, albeit referencing their redundancy as opposed to their corruption.

A candidate could have kick-started the debate on the first question, calling out the corruption enriching those men north of Richmond. A strong candidate would have pointed out that there is already enough evidence for any objective jurist or journalist to conclude that tremendous corruption enriched the Biden family. Far more evidence exists for this than was ever involved in the predicate for Russiagate.

A strong candidate could have refused to play along with the hand-show for the loyalty pledge and perhaps parried the question with a response, “It’s the wrong question. How about asking how we stop the DOJ persecution of political dissidents in the first place?” That likely would have been the most memorable line of the debates and drawn the most applause.

In fact, in response to just about any of the questions, an effective candidate could have pointed out that the candidates’ views, values, experience, or plans for action as president are completely irrelevant if the current corrupt cabal is allowed to continue unchecked. He (or she) would point out that any one of them could easily be the next in line for frog-marching, mug-shotting, and imprisonment. They could all have pointed out that dealing with any given subject, from inflation to foreign relations to handling COVID, requires an uncorrupted system. Our Constitution demands, and our republic requires, fair and balanced political and justice systems. Most Americans do not believe we have that today.

The Democrats want us to ignore this elephant, of course. They want us to behave as if this is just another normal debate in the middle of a normal election cycle. Fox News and the Republican candidates obliged them. It is not a normal election cycle. It is a referendum on whether we will return to a constitutional republic, or whether we will support the huge and growing corruption that now permeates our society – starting with the uppermost leadership.

The critical questions for candidates are: Do you recognize the dangers of this unholy alliance/cabal, and where would this rank on your list of priorities? What are the most serious examples so that the public can understand what’s at issue? Where is it manifested most significantly? What would you do to get rid of it?

Instead of these overwhelmingly important questions, however, what we have received so far are mere distractions and more evidence of the cabal.

As Seen On TV.

Streaming services have taken over the way people watch TV at home, and as a result, the broadcast TV commercial has become a dying art. Luckily, the Internet Archive houses a collection of Classic TV Commercials, with just over 17,000 different ads dating back to 1949. Ranging from the expected (cars, food, beauty products) all the way to the bizarre (innovative mops and vitamins for baldness -- you read that right), here's a compiled small sampling of the treasures in this collection for your enjoyment.