Tag: Tough History Coming

THIS Was Caused by a Video

KevinLeave a comment

…I think it’s safe to say.

Cook’s Postulate is:

The key to understanding the American system is to imagine that you have the power to make nearly any law you want. But your worst enemy will be the one to enforce it. – Rick Cook

Dinesh D’Souza, vocal critic of Barack Obama and creator of the film 2016: Obama’s America, has just been given that lesson in spades.

D’Souza has been arrested and indicted for violation of campaign finance law. Specifically:

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D’Souza around August 2012 reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to the candidate’s campaign.

The Justice Department in the form of the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, proclaimed:

As we have long said, this Office and the FBI take a zero tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process.

The mind simply boggles.

Nothing was done about voter intimidation in Philadelphia.

Nobody at Justice said “boo” when the Obama campaign accepted unverified credit card donations during his re-election run.

Not a peep out of the DoJ when Al Franken “won” his Senate race through voter fraud.

The list of “corruptions of the electoral process” are long and have been getting longer each year, but NOW the DoJ is ON THE JOB!

Like when the Bush DoJ prosecuted prominent lawyer Pierce O’Donnell for illegally contributing $26,000 to John Edwards’ presidential campaign the same way D’Souza is now accused.  O’Donnell accepted a plea deal and got “60 days in prison, a year of supervised release, 500 hours of community service, plus a $20,000 fine.”

I’ve been reading Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, and one thing he points out early on is the power the DoJ has to coerce people into being witnesses:

Prosecutors are able to structure plea bargains in ways that make it nearly impossible for normal, rational, self-interested calculating people to risk going to trial. The pressure on innocent defendants to plead guilty and “cooperate” by testifying against others in exchange for a reduced sentence is enormous – so enormous that such cooperating witnesses often fail to tell the truth, saying instead what prosecutors want to hear. As Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz has colorfully put it, such cooperating defendant-witnesses “are taught not only to sing, but also to compose.”

Can’t wait to see who the prosecution will be dragging out as witnesses.

A recent Gallup poll indicates that “trust in government” is at an all-time low, with 57% of those polled indicating the trust the government “not very much” or “not at all” when handling domestic problems. But when queried on their faith in the Judicial Branch, 62% of those polled said they had a “great deal” to a “fair amount” of faith.

I think that’s about to change, too.

No matter what, the DoJ has bottomless pockets, and unless some high-powered law firm agrees to represent him pro bono, D’Souza doesn’t. 

It’s called “Lawfare,” and when practiced by the government against its citizens, it is particularly vicious. I have very little doubt that this is what is going on in the prosecution of D’Souza. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not. I DO know that when the Left is profiting, not a word is said, not a soul is prosecuted. When it’s their ox being gored, SOMEONE MUST PAY! And, honestly, I do not doubt that the Obama administration through the Holder Justice Department is exercising “the Chicago Way” here. As Glenn Reynolds put it:

Is there anything this administration does that isn’t politically motivated?

In other words, I know who I trust, and it isn’t the .gov.

UPDATE:  Read this.  Had enough yet?

Quote of the Day from Erik Prince, ex-CEO of Blackwater:

“Look,” he says, grasping to end our talk on an optimistic note, “America can pull its head out at any time. That happens at the ballot box. Ballot boxes have consequences still in America.” He continues: “But the American electorate has to actually pay attention, has to turn off the Xbox long enough to pay attention. Otherwise they’re going to continue to elect the government they deserve.”

Sarah Hoyt is as Optimistic as Bill Whittle

KevinLeave a comment

Read her post, Cassandra’s Fate.

Interesting take.

Pullquote:

Our current clowns didn’t take over a country in such dire straights that their fumble-footed rule is an improvement. Yes, they did what they could through the eight years of GW Bush (and well, he didn’t help much) to make it seem like we were back in dustbowl years. But again, people know what they lived through and what their neighbors lived through.

These days most of the people on the net going “it was worse under Booosh” are either obviously mentally ill or paid to say so. (And there aren’t as many of them as there used to be.)

Worse, while all the initial successful totalitarians of the twentieth century came from what could be termed the “middle class” these precious flowers ain’t. In fact, they are so far off the middle class, they think it’s a rhetoric flourish “And the middle class.”

They are in fact from the uptiest (totally a word) of the upper crust (yes, do tell me about Obama’s impoverished ghetto childhood living with a bank manager. Pfui.) and so out of touch with the middle class it might be a foreign land.

So the Democrats Pushed the Button

KevinLeave a comment

They detonated the “nuclear option” and, violating the rules of the Senate, violated the rules of the Senate.

Over at Quora.com someone asked the inevitable question:

The U.S. Senate Democrats have enacted the “Nuclear Option” for many judicial and executive branch nominations. What do you think of this?

My answer:

What do I think? 

I think what the Democrats thought in 2005:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkXjYohzAOY?rel=0]
They were right then.  Fascinating that they’ve all changed their minds now.

They’re so certain they’re right, that Progressivism is the equivalent of salvation and any opposition to it is evil, they practice…

…politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the  human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for  it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various  socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion,  which our future historian calls “politicism”. In all its forms, it  defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on  characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control:  ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal  relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies.  To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral  justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be  afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

It’s taken us two and a quarter centuries to get to this point, but the Republic is finally dead.  We’ve finally achieved “democracy,” which John Adams warned:

…while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy.  Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and  murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century

Welcome to the Twenty-First.  Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Thomas Sowell Calls Them “The Anointed”

KevinLeave a comment

I ran across an interesting essay today.  Published at Bloomberg.com, it’s entitled Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays. Excerpt:

Complex human societies, including our own, are fragile. They are held together by an invisible web of mutual trust and social cooperation. This web can fray easily, resulting in a wave of political instability, internal conflict and, sometimes, outright social collapse.

Or, as the GeekWithA.45 put it some time back, “Entire societies can and have gone stark raving batshit fucking insane.”

How does growing economic inequality lead to political instability? Partly this correlation reflects a direct, causal connection. High inequality is corrosive of social cooperation and willingness to compromise, and waning cooperation means more discord and political infighting. Perhaps more important, economic inequality is also a symptom of deeper social changes, which have gone largely unnoticed.

Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The “1 percent” becomes “2 percent.” Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.

—

Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives — the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as “elite overproduction.”

Please read the whole essay, it’s not long.

The gist of it is what Thomas Sowell observed back when he wrote Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy.  (OK, one more quote from the piece):

A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions.

The “elite” and “elite-wannabes” are what Sowell refers to as “the Anointed.” They’re better than the rest of us because they went to the right schools and know the right people. As that quote from Sultan Knish in the header of this blog says, they 

…see themselves as the individuals who have been ‘liberated’ to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it’s because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it’s because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem.

Eric Hoffer observed about such people, they end up as government bureaucrats, bunny inspectors – overeducated mid-level functionaries angry at their lot in life and willing to take it out on the “great unwashed” public. And “Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.”  Listen to what he told Eric Sevareid:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOUXSPpN_eE?t=45&w=560&h=315]
The author of the piece doesn’t forecast systemic social collapse, but he does predict – well, one last excerpt:

We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. And because complex societies are much more fragile than we assume, there is a chance of a catastrophic failure of some kind, with a default on U.S. government bonds being among the less frightening possibilities.

Isn’t that cheerful news.

And now you understand why gun and ammo sales have been astronomical for the last five years.  “Less frightening,” indeed.

Quote of the Day – Og the Neanderpundit Edition

KevinLeave a comment

From a comment to Tam’s post If schadenfreude had calories, I’d weigh 300 pounds:

I would be inclined to believe you are correct, and that this whole debacle is purely incompetence, and had no reason or logic behind it, but that isn’t what concerns me. Have you seen what liberals can do with incompetence? Incompetence is their milieu; the left can build shining towers out of incompetence while the sane and competent are barely keeping a roof over their heads. However this breaks, it will break bad for us.

Quote of the Day – Angelo Codevilla Edition

KevinLeave a comment

Democracy has no cure for a corrupt demos. Politicians’ misdeeds taint them alone, so long as their supporters do not embrace them. But when substantial constituencies continue to support their leaders despite their having broken faith, they turn democracy’s process of mutual persuasion into partisan war. — Lies Corrupt Democracy

RTWT – most especially the comments.

And this is a good place to repeat one of the quotes up on the masthead:

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been “liberated” to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it’s because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it’s because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. — Sultan Knish

What About That Quaint Idea of “Separation of Powers”?

KevinLeave a comment

So the Democrats ram through – without a single Republican vote – the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” and Obama signs it into law on March 23, 2010.  Before passage, Nancy Pelosi laid this one on us:  “We have to pass it so you can find out what’s in it!”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU?rel=0]
Well, now we know what’s in it:


About 11.5 million words of regulations from the 906 (PDF) page law (2700 pages as published for the consumption of Congress) that, again, apparently nobody read prior to voting for. (Thanks, Nancy!)

And, in direct contrast to Obama’s promise that the legislative negotiations behind this law would be aired on CSPAN…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVkzm0YPAc?rel=0]
…the actual negotiations took place away from cameras, and with major influence from the lobbyists that Obama told us would not stain his presidency.  Even the Daily Kos objected. 

And then he told us that the “penalty” for non-compliance with the ACA requirements was NOT. A. TAX.

Then it survived a Supreme Court decision which said it was only constitutional if the “penalty” WAS. A. TAX.

And in July of this year when problems with implementation began to become apparent, Obama unilaterally gave businesses a one-year extension on their legal mandate to conform with the law.

Wait a minute. This is a LAW. Part II, Section 1511 specifies what “Employer Responsibilities” are, effective “calendar years beginning after 2013.”

Congress has not voted on this change.

And today, after his repeated promise that “If you like you plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” turned out to be as false as his CSPAN transparency promise and his “not a tax” declaration, he’s done it again with respect to the individual mandate.

Even Howard Dean wonders where he gets this amazing power:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPI7rABWI9c?rel=0]
It’s not like this is anything really new, though. The Justice Department certainly isn’t going to go prosecuting anyone that Obama doesn’t want prosecuted.

But this isn’t rule of law. This is Obama granting “special dispensation” – a power not given to the Office of President under the Constitution. The Legislative branch passes the laws, the Executive signs or vetoes them, and the Judicial branch tries and punishes violators of those laws.

But we’ve reached a point where the President can just say “never mind,” and nobody calls him on it.

What do you call that form of government again?  Because it’s certainly not a Constitutional Republic.

Quote of the Day – .Gov Shutdown Edition

KevinLeave a comment

From a comment at Instapundit:

All this havoc wreaked through the Park Service. Consider that for a moment. The National Park Service has managed to barricade scenic vistas in North Dakota, piss off World War 2 vets in DC, and keep small children from getting home to their parents after school in Tennessee. And it’s just the Park Service! Imagine if the federal government were as omnipresent and powerful as the left wishes it were. “Sorry; we’d love for you to have your kidney transplant, but the government is shut down. All because you pesky citizens wouldn’t behave!”

But holy crap, it’s the Park Service! The absurdity is stupefying. Just the thought of using something as innocuous as the PARK SERVICE to cause so much damage–all for the sake of causing damage and pissing people off–confounds the mind. It’s like a confederacy of clowns on tricycles, swarming over the nation, wreaking havoc with balloon animals and confetti–because those are the only tools at their disposal.

But, in any case, Obama’s intended lesson was meant to be, “See how awful life is without your Federal Family?” But the lesson learned–I hope–is, “See how awful your Federal Family can make your life if you tick it off?” We’re not seeing the absence of government; we’re seeing an excess of bad government.

But only if you go online and look for it.

My brother posted this picture on Facebook a day or so ago. Pretty much says it all:

Quote of the Day – Barrycade Edition

KevinLeave a comment

From Dave Carter at his Ricochet post When the Bleeding Heart Becomes the Iron Fist:

Welcome to liberal utopia, where barriers are not erected against terrorists or illegal aliens on our nation’s borders, but rather against citizens, and where wheelchair-bound veterans enroute to honor their comrades face tighter security than terrorists enroute to murder a US Ambassador. This is where up is down, wrong is right, illegality is celebrated as progress, and where Constitutionalism is derided as racist. No longer relegated to the fever swamps of academic fancy, utopia has acquired real estate and made known its demands.

“Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual…” the First Lady warned us, and she wasn’t just whistling Alinsky either.

As usual, RTWT.

I’m reminded once again of something from an earlier piece, True Believers, wherein I quoted Glen Wishard from his (currently abandoned) blog Canis Iratus – specifically his post A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century. That quote was this (emphasis in the original):

The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls “politicism”. In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

“…politics as a theology of salvation…. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation…and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies.”

Well, we know for sure who Barack’s enemies are now, don’t we?  And doesn’t “no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy” pretty much describe today’s Political Class?

But When a Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations…

KevinLeave a comment

Let’s see…

First there was the “Barrycading” of the WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial and Lincoln Memorial, and the not-so barricading of the WWI Memorial.  Then there was the not-National Park that was closed by the National Park Service, and the parking lots for Mt. Vernon were closed, even though Mt. Vernon is also not run by the Park Service.  Then the National Park Service evicted people from their homes and houseboats on Lake Mead.  If that’s not petty enough for you:

The National Park Service placed cones along highway viewing areas outside Mount Rushmore this week, barring visitors from pulling over and taking pictures of the famed monument.

But there’s more!  Unknown to me before today, I discovered that the Pentagon spent $5.5 billion in the days leading up to the “government shutdown,” and  I was told today by a reliable source that the Marine Air Station in Yuma, Arizona has been “flying every aircraft in its inventory” over the last several days – beginning last Friday.  Also apparently the “government shutdown” has caused Catholic priests in military (to) face arrest for celebrating Mass.

And in what is quite possibly the single greatest example of .gov hubris in modern history,

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was “closed” due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.

Yup. The government is trying to close the ocean.

As one Park Ranger has been quoted:

We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.

This shot pretty much sums up the whole thing for me:

photo Lincoln_outrage.jpg
I was blog-surfing tonight, and I visited /var/log/otto as I do about once a week or so. In Otto’s post from Thursday, Fence Sitting is No Longer an Option was this:

This morning on the radio they played clips of Obama and company comparing Republicans and Tea Partiers to terrorists … I was in the car with my wife – who doesn’t actively follow the political scene, but she’s not ignorant either – and after hearing the clips she said, “He’s trying to start a civil war.” And you know, I don’t think she’s wrong. He has to frame it correctly, of course, he can’t look like the bad guy, but he’s got the American media in his pocket, they are his puppets and they do what he says. The international scene is a distraction from what he wants to do- crush the American way and any who would defend it. He doesn’t attack any international crisis with the relish and enthusiasm he attacks and mocks his political enemies. I say Obama, but he has a huge array of like-minded comrades both in and out of government. They are a real and present danger. They want an uprising so they can crush it. I don’t doubt this any longer.

It certainly appears that way. The Media Narrative™ is that hordes of violent, racist TEA Partiers who hate the .gov and have been stockpiling weapons and ammunition are just waiting for the spark that will give rise to anti-government riots.

And Obama has fired up the grinder and is throwing all the sparks he possibly can.

I don’t see another explanation, do you?

Edited to add:  Brietbart has a more complete list of closures and other idiocy.

Update, 10/7:

Folks who live in the Great Smoky Mountains have just about reached their breaking point with the federal government.

“It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” said Ed Mitchell, the mayor of Blount County, Tenn.

Almost?

“We were founded on a declaration of independence. And they are about to push the people to the line again.”

Nearly a third of Blount County is inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So when the federal government shut down the park, it also shut down one of the area’s chief sources of revenue.

The National Park Service also closed the Foothills Parkway, a major thoroughfare in the county. The closure came without warning and left the local school district scrambling to get children back to their homes.

The children live in the eastern Tennessee community of Top of the World – serviced by School Bus 49. Normally, the bus travels along the Foothills Parkway. Other roads leading to the isolated mountain community are impassible by bus.

“It’s dangerous,” said Nancy Kemp, the spokesperson for Blount County Schools. “It’s very curvy and straight up the mountain. It’s just not a safe route.”

One local resident told Knoxville television station WBIR that the alternative roads are “white knuckle routes.”

“White knuckle”? That’s RACIST!

So much for “Doing it for the CHIIILLLDDDREN! Of course, if a busload of kids dies in a horrible accident, the media will report it as being the fault of House Republicans the TEA Party.

As Instapundit says:

If the press covered Obama the way they’d cover a GOP President who did this kind of thing, he’d be toast. But they don’t, because they’re on his team. Just think of them as Dem operatives with bylines and you won’t go far wrong.