Category: Public Policy
We Are SOOOO F*cked

We Are SOOOO F*cked

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If you live in America, as I do, and you feel like the bottom monkey in that photo, no one would blame you. That might be true in some other countries right now, too, but I’m relating it mostly to my own country.

Watching the latest missteps, blunders, malfeasance, general incompetence, obvious dementia, and shameless dishonesty of what passes for our current Administration, there is not a day nor night that goes by that I don’t hold my hands to my head and say, “We are SOOOO fucked.”

Usually multiple times. It’s so bad sometimes I have to cover my eyes, unable to witness the latest travesty to waltz across the tube. And this from someone with a pretty strong stomach when it comes to horror scenes. Unfortunately, these horror scenes aren’t cinematic, but are Washington’s version of reality.

One has to wonder how what is supposed to be the most powerful country on earth has allowed itself to sink to this level. Actually, it can all be explained, and if you read my last post (which, if you haven’t, you need to now), you’ll understand precisely how it happened, just as you would if you’ve been reading my posts over the past several years.

No, it’s not a conspiracy theory (for which I have exceedingly little patience) to say it’s all part of a huge and far-ranging plot. No, it’s all been documented. And the plotters are already warming up for the next scene in their grand scheme to once more pull a fast one on the American public. One can hope we’re now inoculated to their schemes, perhaps more than we’re inoculated to the virus that is the single biggest thing the Democratic Party has going for it, but the cynic in me is not encouraged, despite the pundits’ blather to the contrary.

Now it is true that most American voters don’t believe the senile Jell-O Joe Biden is in charge in the White House, or anywhere else outside his self-delusional imagination, and that majority has to have grown even more watching some of his latest, if rare, and excruciatingly embarrassing, public performances. Anyone who has had an even passing brush with dementia in a loved one or otherwise knows what they’re witnessing. Of course, we should all be concerned that the country is being run by a shadow government, but the even bigger concern should be how that shadow government is driving the ship of state straight for the rocks, full speed ahead.

Their intent was pretty clear even before Jan. 20, and the evidence of what it consisted of was plainly manifest when, in one day, Jell-O Joe, at the direction of his handlers, whoever they are — and I do have some theories — undid four years of progress. Now, six months and a week and some into this horror show, it’s hard to even decide on an order for listing the most egregious elements which cross all fronts, domestic and foreign. So let’s just look at some of them, not in any kind of strict order.

The Border

Whose name is on those t-shirts? Can you spell Biden?

For me, it’s a toss up, which is more concerning, our troubled foreign policy, the huge upsurge in violent crime, or the catastrophe at our southwest border. In terms of immediate impact on the country and its inherent barbarity and inhumanity, I’ll go with the border. Jell-O Joe made it clear that our border would be open to anyone who goes to the trouble of crossing it, regardless of legal right to do so, and the hordes of border crashers — about a million in the first six months of this year alone, and heading to a new all-time record of 2 million by the end of the year — have been sure to quote him as having personally issued their invitation. And along with them has come a flood of illegal drugs, including enough deadly fentanyl sufficient to kill a large percentage of the country, illegal weapons, women and children being sex trafficked, violent criminals, and a wave of tens of thousands of new COVID infections. The Mexican cartels smuggling all those illegals have profited hugely, in the billions of dollars, from this free-for-all, and they didn’t even have to contribute to the Democratic Party or be a son of the President to cash in on this bonanza.

All the elements of what the Democratic Party seeks — a flood of future new illegal voters, augmentation of the permanent underclass on which the party depends for its very existence, and a wave of new COVID infections on which to build fear and set the stage for stealing the 2022 mid-term elections as it did in 2020 — are there, in plain sight. Well, plain sight, if the mass media cared to show what actually is going on along the border, especially along the lower Rio Grande. But of course, unless you’re watching Fox News, you may not have seen the mass of humanity, from more than 100 countries all over the world, pouring across our non-existent border every day since Jan. 20. And if you think this is only a border problem, consider that the Administration has been secretly busing and even using the military to fly illegal aliens all over the country.

To put things in perspective, consider that a million people is more population than six states. It would be the population of the 12th largest city in the country, between San Jose and Fort Worth. By the end of the year, at the current rate, two million people will be more than the population of 14 states and it would be equivalent to the fifth largest city, between Houston and Phoenix. Add the new numbers to illegals already in the country, and you’re looking at outnumbering all except the top few biggest states. Do the math, and you’ll see why this utter mockery of U.S. law is being allowed, oaths to faithfully execute the laws be damned. Adding insult to injury, you appoint a feckless Vice President who couldn’t care less about the border as the Border Czar, and a Homeland Security Secretary whose last concern seems to be security of the homeland, and who has no problem blatantly lying about what is going on at the border.

Crime

On the chance you haven’t been on an extended underwater cruise aboard a nuclear submarine or getting your news from CNN or MSNBC, you’ve been aware of surging violent crime around the country. Consider, if you will, these numbers which compare 2021 rates with 2020 rates, which already had surged in many cities compared with 2019:

Atlanta – Homicides are up 58% and shootings are up 40%

Portland, Oregon – Homicides are up 533% and shootings are up 126%

New York City – Homicides are up 13% and shootings are up 64%

Los Angeles – Homicides are up 22% and shootings are up 51%

Chicago – Homicides are up 5% and shootings are up 18%

Philadelphia – Homicides are up 37% and shootings are up 27%

Overall, 37 cities with available data saw an average increase in murders of 18% in the first three months of this year, compared with 2020. In Austin, murders are up 79%, rising from 19 to 34 in the first five months, year-to-year.

Police cars line up in Baltimore, one of the few big cities run by Democrats for decades where the murder rate hasn’t surged in 2021. Of course, the FBI already ranks it second in the nation — only St. Louis outranks it — with a higher murder rate than El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, from whence so many of those illegal migrants allegedly are fleeing crime.

Blacks are victims of these homicides and shootings to a disproportionate degree. While last summer’s widespread violence and lawlessness and the insane call to “defund the police” certainly set the stage for this surge, legislative, judicial, and prosecutorial abandonment of cash bail and releasing known and accused criminals to roam the streets have played no small role in the surge in violent crime, including aggravated assault, in dozens of cities across the country, from New York to Philadelphia to St. Louis to Los Angeles. A sane person would say more, not fewer, police were needed — including the 81 percent of black Americans who want the same level of, or more, policing — and would think a prosecutor’s job is to (speak of radical ideas) prosecute criminals, and not release them out on the streets to victimize more innocent citizens. Instead, George Soros financially backs these renegade prosecutors, the Dems blame it all on Donald Trump, and Jell-O Joe blames it on legal gun ownership instead of looking at their own incompetence and failed policies. This band of inveterate liars even had the chutzpah to say it was Republicans who wanted to defund the police. But, of course, we were talking about sane people, weren’t we?

Foreign Affairs

It’s called the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. But have you seen who is next in line?

If the worst thing about our current shift in foreign policy was a return of the apology tour that began under Barack Obama, things in this arena wouldn’t be too bad. But when we are berated by China for our alleged human rights abuses, and we just sit there and take it, and say nothing when Beijing mows under the rights of Hong Kongers and threatens Taiwan and Japan, that’s a more serious issue. And what can you say when the Commander in Chief has to resort to index cards to explain U.S. policy toward North Korea, or when the same said CiC keeps mixing up Syria and Libya on an international stage? What I’d say is that we’re in the proverbial deep doo-doo.

Biden restored $235 million in aid, frozen by the Trump Administration, to the Palestinians, and within weeks Hamas rockets were launched by the thousands onto Israel. For their good behavior and peaceful attitude, he added another $38.5 million to sweeten the pot and ostensibly pay for more rockets, which Hamas buys from the Iranians and other sources.

Of course, that’s just chump change compared with the $3 billion in funds that Biden unfroze so they could be returned to Iran. All part of the Administration’s plan to revive the disastrous nuclear agreement with that country. After all, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism which has vowed death to America and to Israel wouldn’t dream of using all that money for any nefarious purposes. Would it?

We’re pulling out of Afghanistan, which might not be the worst idea were we do to it in a controlled and honorable way. Instead it’s like we just discovered we passed our stop on the Metro and need to jump off the train and call an Uber at the next station. Never mind the carnage that many Afghans, who stood by us and supported us through the 20 years of this seemingly endless engagement, already are facing, or the abandonment of perhaps the best government the Afghans have had, ever.

Now no discussion of our misadventures in foreign affairs would be complete without mention of Secretary of State Antony Blinken inviting the UN, that bastion of human rights, to investigate “the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia” in the U.S. After all, the UN’s Human Rights Council includes such bastions of human rights as China, Cuba, Libya, Eritrea, Algeria, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. And let’s not forget Mauritania, where slavery is actively practiced to this day. Don’t you feel all fresh and clean, confessing your sins to these paradigms of liberty and justice? What? You don’t? You MUST be a racist!

Energy and Inflation

Under Trump, America became energy independent for the first time in 62 years. It felt pretty good knowing it wasn’t Saudi princes or Russian oligarchs profiting when I filled up at the pump. But that couldn’t be allowed to persist under Biden, and one of his first acts was canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, keeping the oil it would have carried from Canada on less environmentally sound trains and trucks, and XTing as many as 11,000 good paying union jobs (which he likes to blather so much about). Now while America and its close ally Canada doesn’t need a pipeline, in Biden’s world, Putin, Russia, and Germany do, so he greenlighted Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline by waiving sanctions against the company building it, Nord Stream 2 AG, and its German CEO, Matthias Warnig. Oh, did we mention that Warnig is a close ally of Putin, is a former East German Stasi intel officer, and has served on the supervisory boards of major Russian companies? Now who is Putin’s puppy?

Homelessness isn’t just hidden away any more.

You may have noticed, as I have, how it’s costing you nearly 60 percent more at the pump than it was a year ago, and in some places, like California, gasoline is approaching $6 a gallon, more than in many European countries. Also rising are electric rates, up more than 20 percent in my case, and it’s not all due to the rising cost of petroleum. And if you miss those wild wonderful Jimmy Carter years, we’ve even experienced fuel shortages and lines at the pumps.

Rising energy costs are just one factor fueling inflation, which is surging at rates not seen in 13 years and, in some categories, in 30 years. Along with fuel, consumers are seeing increases in categories as diverse as food, vehicles, home purchases, and construction materials. Record federal debt — currently standing at $28.5 trillion, and climbing — and gratuitous federal payments that make it more attractive for many workers to stay home than go back to work add to the upward pressure on prices. We’ve — by “we,” I’m referring to our illustrious Congress, which the American public holds in even lower esteem than it does the mass media — now come to talk about trillions like they’re rounding errors. Can anyone spell Weimar Republic?

COVID

Finally, in this round-up, we come to what has been the national obsession of the past 18 months, COVID-19. If one wants to be generous, the best one can conclude is that the Biden Administration has succeeded — and that “success” lies in sending out incredibly mixed and confusing signals. If one looks closer at the facts, little of the twisting and turning public pronouncements make any sense, and both the hypocrisy of the Administration’s positions as well as their real purpose come into focus. While bleating about wanting more people to get vaccinated, the Administration comes out with new “guidelines” telling vaccinated people to again wear masks under certain circumstances. Never mind that a fully vaccinated American has a higher chance of being hit by lightning or bitten by a shark than contracting COVID-19, much less dying from it. By the CDC’s own numbers, breakthrough infections — not deaths, just infections — occur in one of 10,000 people. That’s .01%. Deaths from COVID in fully vaccinated individuals are even more rare. Yet we’re supposed to change our behaviors once more over this supposed new threat.

Much hoopla is made of the Delta variant of the virus, but what isn’t being said is the fact that this variant, while more contagious than initial variants, is less deadly. Far less, for vaccinated individuals. Those in power don’t want you to know that, but even in Britain, where this variant took off after its introduction from India, they’re acknowledging this fact.

If you’re expecting consistency from the likes of CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — who seems to have roughly the intelligence of your average chihuahua and kowtows to the party line, whether it comes from the White House or the powerful American Federation of Teachers — you’re not going to get it. Any more than you’ll get it from the Exalted Poobah Anthony Fauci who, among a litany of flip-flops that could occupy an entire piece, lies to Congress about the NIH’s possible role in creating COVID-19 in the first place.

Meanwhile, while studies show that having contracted COVID-19 conveys natural immunity in most cases, we have absolutely no information on how long the immunity granted by vaccination lasts or whether booster shots will be needed. One would think that finding some evidence addressing these questions would be a top priority.

Some people feel you just can’t be safe enough. That’s how the Administration wants you to be.

If you’re confused by the messaging coming out of the White House and its own version of Baghdad Bob, spokesbabbler Jen Psaki — who tells you to follow the guidance just because they told you to — look behind the scenes to see what people in power do. This might reveal their true motivation. Remember what I said up above about all those infected illegals being allowed in and then shipped all over the country? And how they’re indicative of how the Administration really isn’t serious about limiting spread of COVID and is a key piece in the Dem plan to create the nationwide fear and panic to steal the 2022 mid-term elections, like they did the Presidential election of 2020? If you have the bad habit, as I do, of applying logic to what people do, it’s hard to avoid coming to this conclusion.

Another indication of how little the Administration really cares about your well-being is the recent decision by the Justice Department to drop its investigation into the 15,000 COVID nursing home deaths in New York, or similar huge death counts in other Dem-controlled states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, while limiting its investigation in New Jersey. Anyone who felt sorry for Attorney General Merrick Garland not making it to the Supreme Court can drop their regrets now that we see he’s just one more hard-left Dem apparatchik. So much for justice, even for the dead or their families.

Me, I’m happy to live in the free state of Florida and to have a governor not subject to the whims and wishes of the White House and the Democratic Party. I just hope all those people fleeing here from the unfree states don’t bring their stupid political ideas with them. As a country we might be like that bottom monkey in the photo, but here we’re hanging on as long as we can, trying not to be screwed any more than we are, anyway.

And make no mistake: We all are.

Photo credits: Featured photo by cottonbro on Pexels; used with permission. Biden Let Us In by Washington Examiner; used under Fair Use. Baltimore Police Cars by Bruce Emmerling on Pixabay; used with permission. Historic political cartoon, source unknown; used under Fair Use. Downtown Tent by Adam Thomas on Unsplash; used with permission. Masked Couple by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash; used with permission.

Beginning with this post, I’ll also be posting on Substack in my new community there, Issues That Matter. Follow me here, and there.
Nothing to be Proud of

Nothing to be Proud of

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In October 2002, following the Chechen siege of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow and the deaths of as many as 204 hostages and 40 Chechen terrorists when the Russian government pumped poison gas into the theater, my Albanian friend Laura called me. She was angry at how the siege was ended, with the deaths of many innocent people, and outraged at the Russian government’s attempt at claiming the use of the poison gas was necessary to end the siege and that the operation was “carried out brilliantly.”

What she said to me after that has stayed with me ever since. Paraphrasing her quote as best I can, she said, “There are things that are done wrong in the United States, too. But the United States fixes them, makes them right. That is the difference between America and Russia.”

At that moment, hearing those words, I never in my life had felt so proud of my country. That my friend, who had grown up under Communism, flourished under capitalism, and had experienced close up some of the inner workings – good and bad – of our government from when I had been posted to the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, had such a positive view of the United States, impressed and pleased me beyond what words could express.

Now, 18 years and some weeks later, in the aftermath of what has gone on in this country over the past four-plus years, and all the more in the aftermath of a scandalous Presidential election and the events leading up to it, I don’t think I’ve ever been more ashamed of this country. I am sorry to say, I think the country has become a parody of its former self, a sham, as fraudulent as the election we just went through, and we have nothing – nothing – to be proud of. Whatever values and strengths this country held before have been so run into the mire of corruption and shameless power grab that they are gone, and whether they ever can be recovered is very much an open question.

I’ve waited a week after the election to write anything about it, any kind of summation of what happened, what didn’t happen, and my response to it. But the election is just a symptom, a result, of a much greater sickness afflicting the nation. That sickness – and it’s not the coronavirus, it is an illness much more grave – is rampant, will remain rampant, regardless who finally is victorious in the election. Honestly, I have been so discouraged about this country and its prospects for the future, no matter how optimistic I try to be, I’ve had a hard time mustering the focus to write anything coherent. It’s even hard to find a starting point, there are so many things wrong in so many ways. I’ll make a stab at putting something out now.

A fraudulent election

I have no problem calling the recent Presidential election a fraud, just as I predicted it would be. I’m not talking about the numerous instances of voter fraud or electoral malfeasance that have occurred in a number of states. Those are bad and widespread enough to merit concern all by themselves, not that it’s the first time in U.S. history that they have gone on, and President Trump’s legal team is challenging some of those that could more likely determine the outcome of the election. No, I’m talking about the entire electoral process, which was designed to create chaos, doubt, and open the door to a Democratic power grab. But what would one expect of a party that dedicated itself over the past four years to the removal of a duly elected President and installed its presidential ticket through would can only be described as surreptitious back-room deals involving party elites and power brokers? Combined, it is the biggest political fraud ever perpetrated on the country.

As I’ve said before, Biden’s real running mate was the coronavirus, which was exploited to create this electoral debacle. There was no real reason why people couldn’t vote in person on Election Day, as has been the rule for a very long time in this country. But fears of the virus provided the perfect excuse for state after state to jump on the mail-in band wagon, setting the stage for the current mess. I had grave concerns about this, as did the President, and we both were right.

By declaring widespread mail-in (or, the bigger problem, mail-out) voting, the only outcome that could be predicted was a disastrous result, especially in states that had never done this before and were ill-equipped to run and manage a massive influx of mailed-in ballots. Those states had weak safeguards in place to avoid multiple voting, stolen votes, voting by dead people, and people who moved to other jurisdictions, not to mention weak processes and insufficient staffing to tabulate the ballots, but this was exactly what those who engineered this mess wanted. In the actual analysis, they have no respect for a fair vote but only sought power.

We now have several states still counting votes a week after the election, with no end in sight. To say this is Third World in nature insults Third World elections. I was an election observer on two different occasions in Albania, one of the poorest and least developed countries in Europe, especially in the 1990s, and even with written paper ballots the results were known the same night. The same in Algeria during my posting there, where results were known by the next day. What we have in this country now is a national disgrace, along with being a fraud, and every American should be ashamed of this travesty.

The accounts of electoral problems are legion. Poll watchers in Philadelphia and Detroit and elsewhere being denied access to observe the vote count, as they are everywhere permitted to do by statute. As many as 40,000 ballots suddenly showing up in one place, every single one of them for Joe Biden. Saddam Hussein would have been proud of such a result, as I’m sure Kim Jong-un would be, too. In Michigan we have a computer glitch that changed Trump votes to Biden votes, and that software was used in half the state’s counties, and in some 28 other states, too. Also in Michigan, poll workers being told to back-date ballots. Envelopes being separated from mailed-in ballots, eliminating the ability to check when they were mailed. And on and on and on.

President Trump has every right to challenge these problems, but he’s criticized just days into the process by the pro-Biden jackals in the mass media and is accused of not wanting to yield power. None of them criticized Al Gore who, in 2000, carried on for 37 days claiming to be President-elect when, in the end, George W. Bush was ruled to be the winner. And that fight involved just one county in one state. The current malfeasance stretches across a number of counties in at least a half-dozen states. So Trump is the bad guy, but Gore wasn’t? And why isn’t Biden calling for a proper outcome of the election, whatever it might be? Doesn’t the confidence of the American people in its electoral process matter enough? Instead, he claims victory.

Pennsylvania is the epicenter of the problems – just as I predicted it would be – and unfortunately Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberal members of the Supreme Court he sided with just about guaranteed it would be a mess. The U.S. Constitution, Article II Section 1, gives state legislatures the right to set electoral process in their states. When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unilaterally changed the voting rules, it should have been an easy decision for the the U.S. high court to slap them back. Failing to do that and holding the case in abeyance, once Election Day rolled around it became a matter of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, and whether the mess in the Keystone State can be unraveled is very much in doubt at this point. There is even talk of canceling the entire electoral results in the state, it is such an intractable mess.

I’m also wondering why the Justice Department has not stepped in to some of the more egregious situations. It is the right of every American for their vote to be protected, and that includes protection from having the power of their vote stolen by electoral misdeeds and illegal votes cast. That falls to the Justice Department in the face of local officials, such as again in Philadelphia, openly flaunting court orders. Why the reticence to intervene?

All that said, I can feel good about my own state, Florida, in which more than 11 million votes were cast – almost the entire population of Pennsylvania – and results were known the same night. Whatever issues plagued the state in previous elections have been fixed, thanks in large part to Gov. Ron DeSantis. If Florida can fix it’s problems, so can other states. And it’s time for some sort of more coordinated approach to voter registration and the whole electoral process. As things stand, they’re an embarrassing and catastrophic hodge-podge.

The other issue that I think has to be raised for future elections is the whole question of early voting, not just mail-in voting. U.S. electoral law, in Chapter 2 of the U.S. Code, sets Election Day as the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Get it? Election Day. Not Election Season or Election Month or whatever. There is a real reason for having a single election day, with all votes to be cast on that day save for any cast by legitimate absentee ballot, with those counted on or by Election Day. Remember how that was? I do. And I voted in person on Election Day and, you know what, it went fine and I lived to tell about it. The whole virus thing was a sham and a fraud, and that it was allowed to be a factor in the election is yet another disgrace casting its shadow across the nation.

The Biggest Crisis: Media Corruption

I have been saying for years, long before the election of Donald Trump, that the biggest problem facing this country isn’t political but rather the bias and corruption in the mass media. In principle, political problems can be fixed (assuming, of course, a fair electoral process). But without honest and accurate information provided to the electorate, the entire process fails. As I’ve written, democracy dies in darkness, and that’s what we’re seeing right now.

How many American voters got to hear about the corruption and illegal activities of Joe Biden, or the Hunter Biden laptop and the emails it contains laying out the former Vice President’s abuse of power for private gain? Maybe 10 percent? Maybe fewer? Most of the national media – and by extension, local media – not only didn’t cover the story, but when it came up in passing they outright lied and said it was a product of Russian misinformation, which is demonstrably false. Backing up the “Blue Wall,” Twitter and Facebook blocked reports about the laptop and Biden corruption, froze accounts, and censored legitimate reports. Only the New York Post, Fox News, and some online sites with integrity reported the story. The British media carried it more than the American media did. If you didn’t have access to one of those outlets, you never heard about what might be the biggest scandal in political history of the past century (yes, bigger, by far, than Watergate).

Between the concerted cover-up of this story and an election that spread over weeks, the anti-Trump establishment kept the electorate in the dark to influence the outcome of the election. And this same corrupt media protected Biden, content for him to mostly stay in his Wilmington basement, ignoring the obvious signs of his growing dementia, and unwilling to ask him any questions beyond fluff. Who needs Russian or Chinese or Iranian intervention when we have CNN, MSNBC, the major networks, the print media, and Big Tech?

I am astounded when I hear some praising Biden’s “spectacular” campaign. What planet do these people live on? What campaign? It was the biggest non-campaign in American political history. And in reality, anyone with more than two functioning brain cells knows it’s not Biden who will be the real actor in the White House. It will be the largely unpopular Kamala Harris. And people question why I say the Dems depended on people being imbeciles for their victory.

For four years the media, the late night talk shows, and the chattering class spread lies and misinformation about Trump, and those lies and that misinformation echoes through the populace, building on itself. And it’s extended to everyone associated with Trump, to anyone who supports Trump, to anyone who votes for Trump. Being one of those maligned by these despicable characters, I am more than sick of the lies, the bullying, the slander, the threats, the ridicule, the browbeating, and all the rest. I am tired of being called a racist because I support Trump, tired of being called a racist for opposing Obama (that goes back 12 years). The media has cultivated nothing but division and hatred in the country. They have fostered violence. Anti-Trumpers, biolstered by these hateful lies, have threatened to kill (and have actually done so) Trump supporters. The media has this on its head. And it is shameful beyond words.

And now Biden and the Dems and the media say we should forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones? They’ve gone so far as to spread the lie that it is us who want to be forgiven. That is how delusional and dishonest these people are. And some, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are calling for taking names to punish those who worked for the Trump administration. Well, take note: I, and many tens of millions like me, don’t bargain with or submit to those who would steal our democracy from us and turn us into a one-party conformist state adhering in lock-step to a most radical leftist agenda. And I don’t make peace with haters and liars and frauds who refuse to acknowledge and repent of their hate, their lies, their fraud.

Now there are signs that even Fox News is being steered by top management away from being the one contrarian network one can count on to find out what is really happening in the country. I am reminded of how Putin, unhappy with the coverage of the Dubrovka Theater debacle by NTV, the last of Russia’s independent nationwide TV stations, forced a change of management there, effectively silencing dissent. If Fox News goes the same way, we are truly lost.

As the free flow of information is systematically strangled, so is our democracy strangled.

The Bigger Shame on the Nation

The even bigger shame will be all the actors who broke the law, lied under oath, fostered the Russia Hoax, and attempted to bring down a duly elected president in a brazen coup attempt. That it has taken so long to bring these people to justice is a travesty and a shame. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy AG John Durham had ample time to complete investigations and seek convictions. That they haven’t done so underscores my belief that this country has a two-tier justice system – if one can even still use the term “justice,” except in irony – and the likes of Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strozok, John Brennan, James Clapper, and, yes, Joe Biden, all of whom, and others, committed criminal acts worthy of prosecution, will be allowed to skate scot-free if Trump winds up losing the election.

There is something seriously wrong with our judicial process if so much time and resources can be poured into endless investigations with zero results. Or maybe that was the intent all along. Whichever, this is yet one more national scandal, as is the misuse of the FBI and the nation’s intel agencies for political purposes.

Adding insult to injury, some of these reprehensible characters, such as Brennan, already have been offered positions in the Biden transition team. The expectation is that the cover-up will be complete and all the misdeeds will just go away. And, mark my words, there will be prosecution efforts directed against Trump and others in his administration if Biden takes power. This has to be infuriating to anyone who cares about some semblance of justice.

In the final analysis, I think the country has failed itself. All of this was preventable, but decisions were made and actions taken, fostered by ill intent and the power of special interests over the course of decades, that have taken us down a path leading us away from core American values of fairness and honesty and accountability and transparency and justice. And I am left never more ashamed of my country and with nothing I can offer my friend Laura, or anyone else, to show we are better than any other corrupt country.

Featured image: Aggression, John Hain, Pixabay. Used with permission.
Disgrace, Gerd Altmann, Pixabay. Used with permission.
Black-backed Jackal, Geran de Klerk, Unsplash. Used with permission.
Hopeless, Gabriel, Unsplash. Used with permission.
The Future of America Lies in Your Hands: Vote!

The Future of America Lies in Your Hands: Vote!

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The choice for America hasn’t been more clear in more than a century and a half. Not since the election of 1860, which led to the victory of Abraham Lincoln, the subsequent Civil War, and the eventual end of slavery, has there been a more impactful election.

The choice can be stated in simple terms: If you’re willing to accept and be complicit in the biggest fraud ever attempted in American political history, then Joe Biden is your guy. If you want to continue the push toward a stronger America, toward sensible economic policies, and toward policies that recognize global realities and how strength promotes prospects of peace without kneeling to the country’s enemies, then Donald Trump is your guy.

I know, I know. You don’t like Trump’s tweets. You don’t like some of the off-the-cuff things he says. You don’t like the name-calling. I don’t either. But if superficial things like that influence you more than things like policies, confronting the political elites (of both parties), mental and physical competence, and not being taken in by bald-faced political fraud, then go ahead and vote for Biden. And don’t complain later when, on the outside chance that Biden wins, you see what you’ve actually voted for. And it won’t be peace or prosperity or togetherness or justice or any of those nice-sounding things. You’ll find how much you’ve been snookered.

If you’ve been following my blog postings over the past two-plus years, you would know why Joe Biden is an utterly unacceptable candidate for President. You would have seen accounts of his misdeeds – all since confirmed in recent revelations – and you would have seen the reasons why he has earned a criminal investigation on a number of counts. And you would have seen the duplicitous and hypocritical and deceitful tactics of the Democrats in Congress and their lackeys in the mass media.

Scary Stuff

If that isn’t enough to dissuade you from voting for Biden, you would have seen the evidence of the man’s ever-more-frequently obvious mental deterioration, rendering him unfit to hold the nation’s highest office. Despite his campaign handlers’ best efforts to keep him sequestered in his Wilmington basement, when Jell-O Joe is allowed out to speak to a smattering of supporters and neutered media representatives, he has taken to speaking – not just in his usual gaffes and misstatements – but in what can only be described as “tongues.”

Here is just one example of that. Listen to it yourself.

And another.

And lots more cited here.

And it’s not just mental. Listen to his labored breathing as he spouts gibberish here.

Scary? I think so. This is the man who would have his finger on the nuclear button. That should get anyone worried. Very worried, indeed.

The inescapable conclusion is that Biden’s supposed running mate, Kamala Harris, is the real candidate, and Jell-O Joe is just a placeholder. He’ll be in the Oval Office until his deteriorated mental state becomes impossible to any longer ignore, and then he’ll be eased out of office with Harris taking over officially. And meanwhile, both Biden and Harris, considered the most liberal member of the Senate, will be subservient to the will and insane policies of the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren. Never mind that Harris couldn’t even muster enough support to make it as far as the primaries or that she is widely disliked, even despised, across the full range of the political spectrum. She, and the radical left, and the Dem power brokers, are whom you’ll really be voting for.

A Tale of Two Campaigns, A Tale of Two Americas

The photos above graphically illustrate the tale of two campaigns, and the two Americas they represent and appeal to. Both photos were taken at recent rallies in Georgia. The top image is the Trump rally held in Macon on Oct. 16, following earlier rallies, attended by tens of thousands of people, the same day in Fort Myers and Ocala, Florida. The bottom image is the Biden rally held in Warm Springs on Oct. 27. In contrast to the vibrant and raucous gathering of thousands of avid supporters – typical of all Trump rallies – we see a smattering of supposed Biden supporters, some of whom are actually reporters, isolated in 38 – count them, 38 – circles, to enforce social distancing, outside on the grass. Compared to a garden party, it looks more than silly. Later the same day, Biden attracted his largest crowd of his campaign, such as it has been, at a drive-in rally in Atlanta – 771 people in 365 cars.

This really is the choice put to voters: Which America do you support? A lively and growing and vibrant and courageous America, or an America afraid to even breathe, cowered into fear, locked down and looking forward to the “dark winter” promised by Biden? An America of hope, or an America of despair? An America where the individual is treasured, or one in which the individual is submerged and devalued and canceled in the dismal swamp of identity politics? An America of tolerance and fairness, or one in which venom and hatred and division are fostered by a corrupt political-media establishment? I know which one I’ll be voting for when I go the polls tomorrow. Do you?

I honestly have no idea how the election will turn out, which of those narratives America will choose. If you believe most of the polls – I don’t – Biden will win. Of course, those same polls said Hillary Clinton would win in 2016. So much for that theory. If you go by the enormous enthusiasm shown to Trump, whether in rallies or in the many impromptu displays like car and boat parades held around the country, contrasted with the lackluster showing of support for Biden, Trump has to take it. If you use such anecdotal approaches as I use, like my Yard Sign Theory, there will be places solidly for Trump and others solidly for Biden. Do the Trump yard signs outnumber the Biden ones? Based on my limited observations in different places, I’d give the nod to Trump.

Something like 90 million voters have already cast their votes, in mail-in, absentee, and early voting. I remain opposed to early voting in most cases since vital information, like what the Hunter Biden laptop contains, often comes in late in the game. I’ll go in person to my local polling place tomorrow and cast my vote, as I’ve been doing in most elections since my first vote when I was 18. I don’t know if we’ll know a winner by late Tuesday night. I suspect not. I suspect, unless there will be enough clear results in sufficient states to determine a clear winner, we may wait days, weeks, perhaps months to know who the winner is determined to be as Americans’ faith in their political institutions is further eroded. I hope that isn’t how things go, just as I hope there won’t be violence in the aftermath of the election, but I have my doubts about both. Many cities already are boarding up in anticipation of that violence.

In any case, I hope the sensibility of the country comes through and voters wind up picking the only acceptable candidate on the ballot. I hope they do that even if it takes having to grit their teeth and accept a candidate who is less than perfect. The alternative is too incomprehensible, too horrible, to even think about. And I hope that sensibility carries through down the ballot, too, to keep the Senate in Republican hands and to turn the House. The country doesn’t need more gridlock, nor does it need the one-party state the Dems have in mind for it.

And it’s not just the future of America that lies in the balance. In many respects, it’s the future of the world. I have had non-Americans writing to me to stress that point, and their concerns and fears mirror my own.

Readers of this blog probably know more about the issues and the opposing views of reality than most. Now go out and apply that knowledge and vote.

Featured image: Donald Trump in Omaha, Anna Reed, The World Herald; Joe Biden in Bristol Twp., Pennsylvania, Darryl Rule, LevittownNow.com. Both used under Fair Use.

Trump at campaign rally in Tucson, Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star; Masked Joe Biden waves in Bristol Twp., Pennsylvania, Darryl Rule, LevittownNow.com. Both used under Fair Use.

Trump campaign rally in Macon, Ga., Getty Images; Biden campaign rally in Warm Springs, Ga., Independent Sentinel. Both used under Fair Use.
Applying RICO to the Biden Crime Family, the Dems, and the Media

Applying RICO to the Biden Crime Family, the Dems, and the Media

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At the end of my last piece in this space, I promised to discuss why, and how, the RICO statute – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – can and should be applied to the Biden crime family, the Democratic Party which has protected and furthered it, and the mass and social media that have engaged in a deliberate cover-up of its criminal activities. That’s what I will do in this piece.

Let me make some things clear up front. First and foremost, this is not about partisan politics. This is about corruption and crime that goes so deep that every American, regardless of political preference, needs to be not just concerned, but outraged. As a matter of disclosure, I will say that I support Donald Trump and will vote for him on election day, not so much because I am a huge fan of Trump – though I have more reasons to be one this time around than I did four years ago – but because the alternative is utterly unacceptable, and should be to any right-thinking voter. The pity is that so many people have already early voted without full knowledge of key facts that may have influenced how they voted.

Second, I’m not going to try to detail all of Joe Biden’s wrongdoing. That can take (and has taken) books. I’ve laid out in some detail much of the wrongdoing in my posts over the past year, and I urge to you read the primary stories where I laid out the corruption fostered by Biden in Ukraine and China. Many of the conclusions I drew then and in subsequent stories concerned how Biden’s son Hunter exploited his father’s position as Vice President of the United States to further his own business and profit interests. We now have compelling evidence that not only confirms what I detailed in those pieces, but that goes further to clearly and unambiguously implicate Joe Biden himself in clear abuse of his position and illegal profiteering, with the extent of the wrongdoing taking in many more countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

“Plausible deniability”

Rather than simply repeat information that now is publicly available – though repressed by most in the mainstream media and censored and blocked by the social media giants – I urge you in the strongest terms to go directly to the primary sources (links below) for confirmation that this is not just speculation at this point, and it decidedly is not Russian disinformation, as frauds and liars such as Calif. Rep. Adam Schiff would try to mislead you into believing. Both John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI, the latter of which seized the Hunter Biden laptop in December 2019, have confirmed that the emails are not the product of Russian misinformation.

Foremost in your own investigation, if you did not watch it in real time as it aired on Fox News on Oct. 27, spend the time to listen to Tucker Carlson’s hour-long interview with Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner with the Bidens, who lays out exactly the highly dubious nature of the Bidens’ business activities and Joe Biden’s role in them (Bobulinkski, among other things, confirms that it is Joe Biden who is referred to as “the big guy” and “the chairman” in the emails contained on Hunter Biden’s laptop):

Tucker Carlson interview with Tony Bobulinkski – video and transcript of the full interview on the RealClear Politics site

Read and download the full report (below) of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance – focus especially on the summary, and on pages 65-87 of the report:

Final Report – Homeland Security/Finance Committees

Read the transcript of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s speech to the Republican National Convention in August in which she outlines the corruption of Joe Biden and the Biden family

And read the stories in the New York Post about the emails and other items on Hunter Biden’s laptop:

The initial Oct. 14 story about how emails reveal how Hunter introduced a top Burisma official to his father.

Oct. 15 story detailing Hunter Biden’s murky business dealings in China

Oct. 16 story about Hunter’s troubled life and pained soul

Oct. 23 story about how Biden business group eyed N.Y. Gov. Mario Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer for deals

Oct. 27 piece by Michael Goodwin in the Post about Joe Biden meetings

See an index of more of the Post‘s Hunter Biden stories

At one point in the Carlson interview, Bobulinski, a former Naval officer, said this:

“And I’m — I’m thinking about the Biden family, like, how are they doing this? I know Joe decided not to run in 2016, but what if he ran in the future? Aren’t they taking political risk or headline risk?

“And I remember looking at Jim Biden [Joe Biden’s brother and a campaign adviser, and one of the main beneficiaries of the Biden family business] and saying, how are you guys getting away with this, like, aren’t you concerned?

“And he — he looked at me and he laughed a little bit and said, ‘plausible deniability.’ ”

You may recall that the administration of Richard Nixon attempted – unsuccessfully, as it turned out – to cover its tracks during Watergate through application of “plausible deniability,” and it’s been used as a form of cover by the CIA going back to the Kennedy administration.

The RICO Act

The RICO Act was passed in 1970 to combat crime conducted as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. It targets organizations, and not just individuals, engaged in such criminal activities as illegal gambling, money laundering, bribery, kidnapping, extortion, sex and drug trafficking, murder, counterfeiting, and embezzlement, among others. To obtain a RICO conviction, the government must prove two or more covered criminal acts over a 10-year period, and must show that a defendant was invested in, maintained an interest in, or participated in a criminal enterprise that was involved in interstate or foreign commerce.

Read the full text of the RICO Act here

If you look at the Biden situation, referring to the above sources, several elements appear to fall under the RICO Act:

  • An ongoing enterprise
  • More than two instances of possible criminal activity
  • Involvement in interstate or foreign commerce
  • Potential criminal activities, including:
    • Extortion (using U.S. public funds, adding an additional level to the offense)
    • Bribery
    • Money laundering
    • Tax evasion
    • Violation of FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act)
    • Violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
    • Sanctions violations (negotiations to acquire a percentage of the Russian state-controlled energy company, Rosneft)

Any of the actions of the Biden family would be bad enough, but what becomes a matter of grave national concern are the deliberate and coordinated actions of the Democratic Party, Party-affiliated PACs, the mass media, and social media, to cover up the various potential offenses committed by Joe Biden, a candidate for President of the United States, and to prevent a large percentage of the American electorate from gaining knowledge of those offenses. This could have lasting impact on the country, and given the criminal nature of the actions being concealed, these parties are implicating themselves in their conduct and, therefore, should also be investigated for RICO violations.

If you have any doubt that this cover-up is deliberate and coordinated, all you have to do is consider that no mainstream broadcast network, other than Fox News, has spent any time reporting on any of this. Even worse than the usual lack of any kind of journalistic vetting of Biden or his running mate, you would have heard how the whole email thing is a product of “Russian disinformation.” Never mind the enormous resources and time the media spent on the last bout of “Russian disinformation,” waged allegedly to support Trump, which turned out to be a complete hoax. This time around, this matter is far from a myth or a hoax, but no attention is being given to it by the mass media. Publicly supported NPR went so far as to state outright that they won’t cover the Biden email scandal.

It has been credibly reported that officials of Democrat-controlled PACs called major media chiefs following the Bobulinski interview and threatened that they would have no access to a Biden administration if they carried any news of the interview. The result: Zero minutes of coverage on any media network outside Fox News. This goes beyond mere journalistic malpractice, which has become a commonplace. This is extortion, and by being complicit in it the media has become an accomplice to a crime. Given the national interest in the outcome of the election and the ability to make valid judgments about the candidates, and the very real possibility that a Presidential candidate could be compromised with America’s leading adversary, Communist China, I would argue this should at minimum merit a RICO investigation, and possible prosecution, by the Justice Department.

As troubling, Tucker Carlson is reporting as I’m writing this, on the night following the Bobulinski interview, that a package of original documents associated with the case, shipped cross-country from New York to Los Angeles by major national private courier, arrived opened and empty, and a thorough investigation by the courier company could not reveal what happened to the documents or who was involved in absconding with them. These are tactics more associated with Communist China or the former Soviet Union. But this is what is happening in 2020 America, a week before the most critical election in our time.

Bobulinski is reported to be staying at a location remote from his family in order to help protect his family from attacks.

Be aware that at no time has Joe Biden or his campaign denied the existence of the Hunter Biden emails. The best they can do is try to discredit how they came into the possession of the Post, which, of course, is Russia, Russia, Russia. Keep in mind that the U.S. had a Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resign his office exactly 47 years ago this month for corruption that is probably vastly eclipsed by Biden’s corruption. How the country has changed since that time, when such things were taken seriously. What is happening now with the media refusing to cover a major corruption story is unprecedented. The overseas media is covering this story more than the American media, which is scandalous.

Jack Dorsey lies under oath to the Senate

In my earlier post, Democracy Dies in Darkness – which I consider perhaps the most significant piece I’ve written in my 50-plus-year journalism career – I expressed the alarm every American should share at the way the social media giants, Twitter and Facebook foremost among them, have suppressed the Post stories, and retweets of them. On Oct. 28, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey lied under oath to Sen. Ted Cruz, falsely and repeatedly claiming the block against the Post had been lifted. It has not been lifted, and the Post went on to relate how other media outlets were content to stand by as Twitter attempted to get the Post to essentially retract its documented stand, not unlike what would happen in an authoritarian state.

Along with being investigated for RICO violations, one hopes that Cruz and other senators to whom Dorsey lied make a criminal referral for perjury naming Dorsey.

“The time for talk has passed,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. “Take away the special status given these tech companies.”

Hawley has been a consistent critic of the tech companies, and an advocate of removing the Section 230 protections afforded them and which shield them from liability based on their biased actions. But as Hawley pointed out, it was two hours into the hearings when Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act even came up, indicative of how Congress has not shown any resolve in doing anything substantive to rein in the enormous power – and damage being done to our democracy – of the tech giants.

Already in a Brave New World

It would be inaccurate to say that we are facing loss of our democracy if these things are allowed to continue. In effect, we are already there, and we have clearly entered this Brave New World where truth is turned on its head and thought control is forced on us. Should there be a Democractic victory, as illegitimate as it might be, in next week’s elections, we are facing entrenchment of these things on a permanent basis, as I described in my last piece where I asked if America is ready for the one-party state Party leaders have in mind.

Perhaps, you might ask, how people can be so ready to sell out their own country and its freedoms in favor of an authoritarian enemy and system? But consider how for decades there were many Americans – and these included journalists, teachers, scientists, artists, and others – who sold out to the former Soviet Union. They did this in support of their ideology, their view of what a “just” society might look like, their belief, as misguided as it was, that Soviet Communism represented a better solution for the country.

Why should we be surprised now that there are those today – including those same categories of people who sold out to the Soviets, and maybe now throw in some politicians, corrupt and otherwise, too – who are ready to toss in with our leading adversary. That includes one of the two candidates for President of the country. After all, Joe Biden himself has said it: “Come on, man, I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.”

Again, the state of affairs in 2020 America.

Featured image: Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, Larry Downing, Reuters. Used under Fair Use.

Tony Bobulinski, Fox News. Used under Fair Use.

Jack Dorsey on the cover of the New York Post of Oct. 29, 2020. Used under Fair Use.
Is America Ready for the One-Party State?

Is America Ready for the One-Party State?

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That is the question that everyone who goes to the polls or mails or drops off their ballot – unfortunately, millions of people have already voted, their minds already made up, apparently, even as vital information continues to come in – should be asking. Is America ready for the one-party state? The danger of that is more than real – it is imminent – should the Democratic Party gain control of the House, the Senate, and the White House in these elections.

How do we know? The party’s leaders, such as they are, both actual and ad hoc, have told us that is their intent. There is no room for lower categories of people, such as rural dwellers, Republicans, or <gasp> Trumpites in the elitist, “progressive” America they foresee and are planning for you.

Before we parse how this outcome might come about, let’s consider how bad an idea this is. And it is.

The one-party state: A very bad idea

One-party states aren’t a new idea, but they have proven to be a universally bad idea wherever the concept has been (and in some cases, still is) implemented. When we think of one-party states, we think of Communist countries, such as the former Soviet Union, Cuba, the PRC, North Korea, and a number of formerly Communist satellite countries in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. Or we think of totalitarian dictatorships, such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan. But there have been plenty of lesser-known examples, especially in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The idea of the one-party state was widely touted as an embodiment of “national unity” in the initial post-Colonial stage of many former European colonies, particularly in Africa, though also elsewhere around the world. In Africa, they were based on the traditional African concept of consensus, where decisions were to be taken by universal agreement. Some were based on the power of the “strong man,” and were justified as ways of organizing otherwise disorderly societies. But wherever and whenever they have existed, what single-party states amounted to were kleptocracies where the ruling elites were able to bleed their countries dry, enriching themselves and their own tribes, families, or party powerful, impoverishing and repressing the bulk of their populations.

While far from extinct, the general trend worldwide has been away from the one-party state. For instance, a map of one-party states on the African, Asian, and South American continents reveals far fewer of them than existed just 30 or 40 years ago. There are some examples where things went the wrong way, such as Venezuela, but in general the trend has been away from them. There are good reasons for this, not the least of which is that they are dysfunctional, and eventually are either rejected by the population through political pressure or overthrown violently. In some cases – Taiwan and South Korea come to mind – the one-party dictatorship yielded to a multiparty democracy as their economies and political consciousness grew. We see similar cases in a number of formerly Communist countries in Europe, though the transition there took place much more suddenly than in Asia, where it required decades of transformation and evolution.

In the United States, we gravitated to essentially a two-party system, with a smattering of small and largely ineffectual third parties, and this has been the pattern for most of the country’s history. But there are examples of essentially single-party rule in the United States, too. There was the “Solid South” in which Democrats ruled all the Southern States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A key element of that one-party state was Jim Crow and disenfranchisement of blacks across the region.

In contemporary times, there is the one-party stranglehold exercised by the Democratic Party over most large cities in the country. Depending on machine and identity politics, there hasn’t been a Republican mayor or administration elected in these cities in anywhere from a half century to a century and a half. During this time, poverty, crime, maladministration, and corruption have all festered in most of these Democrat-controlled cities. For more on this version of the one-party state, I urge you to read my piece Back to the Plantation, which details the deleterious effects single-party rule has had and how it depends on maintaining a permanent underclass, and includes links documenting all these realities.

Whether in Africa or in Chicago, Asia or Baltimore, Latin America or Detroit, it is a kleptocracy that this kind of single-party rule creates, fosters, and entrenches, at enormous cost to the bulk of the population.

If you want to see the results of one-party rule at the state level, one need look no further than California, which has become essentially a one-party vassal state of the Democratic Party. Despite it possessing one of the largest economies in the world and being home to powerful Big Tech, it also has the distinction of possessing (according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure) the highest poverty rate in the country, six of the 10 least educated cities in the country, two of the 10 most dangerous cities in the country, a number of the worst-run cities in the nation, and the biggest homeless population of any state. So-called sanctuary cities provide protection to illegal aliens, including violent criminal offenders, while prejudicing against protecting law-abiding citizens. And to achieve these remarkable accomplishments, the state has the highest state tax rate in the nation and enormously onerous regulations. There shouldn’t be any wonder why Californians are fleeing the Golden State in droves, sadly, in too many cases, taking their stupid ideas with them.

But California is exactly the model that the Democratic Party has in mind to transform the rest of the country into. Are you ready for it? Let’s look now how they intend to accomplish this.

How the Dems plan to turn the country into a one-party state

None of this is a mystery. All of these steps have either been specifically stated by leading Dems, or – as in the case of Presidential candidate Jell-O Joe Biden and his running mate and President-apparent Kamala Harris – telegraphed by refusing to tell the American public what is planned. In their refusal to answer the question, they’re telling you what is planned. Dem Senatorial Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the real power in the House (both of New York, another near-one-party disastrous state) both have said that all options are on the table.

“It will be a decision that comes to the Senate,” Schumer has said. “We first have to win the majority before that can happen . . . but everything is on the table.”

So what is on the table and what decisions do Schumer and AOC have in mind? These:

Eliminating the Senate filibuster: For most votes to pass the Senate, it takes 60 votes due to the ability of either party to filibuster any given bill. This comes under what is known as the Cloture Rule. That is a big part of why deliberation can go in much longer and take more compromise for legislation to pass the Senate than the House. But by various means, including majority vote, the filibuster can be eliminated. Known as “the nuclear option,” this would allow Dems, even holding a narrow majority in the chamber, to take it over absolutely. If they also hold the House and the White House, anything they do is virtually guaranteed to pass and become reality.

Adding new states to the Union: Under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution, Congress can pass legislation admitting new states to the Union. With a majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic President, the way would be open to add the District of Columbia (long a Dem issue and Dem stronghold) and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (another Dem stronghold) as the 51st and 52nd states. And there wouldn’t be anything to stop them from adding other territories, such as American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, as states, if they thought it would benefit them politically. The idea would be to add two new (ostensibly Democrat) senators from each new state.

To give you some idea how crazed some of these people are, there actually is a proposal to carve D.C. Into anywhere between 127 and 150 neighborhoods, and admit each as a separate state. This isn’t a satire in The Onion, for instance, but an idea put forth in a serious article published in the Harvard Law Review. With all these new Democrat senators, the way would be cleared to completely alter America’s electoral process, including elimination of the Electoral College, transferring the Senate’s power to a new body where all citizens have equal representation, and an alteration of the Constitutional amendment process to ensure that amendments can be made by states representing the majority of Americans. This lunacy is presented as “a modest proposal to save American democracy.” Never mind that America’s Constitution and the representational republic as a union of sovereign states it created have served the nation for 233 years. These crazy liberal law professors have a better idea. Can’t you see it? And you wonder why radicalized college kids are burning down the cities?

Elimination of the Electoral College: An adjunct to the idea of adding new states to the Union is eliminating the Electoral College. As anyone educated in Constitutional matters knows, the President of the United States is not elected directly by the people, but rather by the states, as represented by electors sent to the Electoral College. Each state decides how those electors are allotted. In some states, it’s “winner takes all” of the popular vote. In others, they’re apportioned according to the proportion of votes won by each candidate. Various restraints on the behavior of electors to vote independent of the vote of their state have been imposed by courts and legislatures, but in the end, these are the people who choose the President. While it might seem like a good idea to eliminate the Electoral College, what will result is that a few big states will wind up dominating the rest of the country, more than they do, anyway. Given the huge differences in values between residents of the various states, the end result might suppress any chance of the smaller states, and their residents, to have any real influence on the nation. The Founding Fathers were clear in their desire to avoid a “tyranny of the majority” (in the words of James Madison) through creation of a republic and a representative form of democracy. There is an expression that a democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what’s for dinner, and protection of minority rights is essential if freedom is to be preserved in the U.S.

Packing the Supreme Court: What “packing,” in this case, means, is adding additional justices to the Supreme Court. Neither the Constitution nor any law sets the number of Supreme Court justices. Since it was established in 1789 with six justices, the High Court has varied from a low of five to a high of 10 justices. It has had nine justices since Congress set that number in 1869. An odd number avoids tie votes. Now, upset with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett by President Donald Trump to fill the vacancy created by the death of long-time liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who herself opposed packing the Court), the Dems are openly talking about adding additional justices – “packing the Court” – that would be appointed by a Democratic President and confirmed by a Democrat-controlled Senate. The last time this ploy was attempted was in 1937 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, reelected by a large majority in 1936, attempted to add additional justices to counter the existing justices who had been ruling against parts of his New Deal legislation. The move proved tremendously unpopular and failed, and it was viewed as what it was: An undemocratic power grab. Make no mistake: The current Democratic talk of packing the Court, adding several new justices to it, is no less of an undemocratic power grab.

When asked whether voters deserved to know his position on packing the Court, Joe Biden’s answer was clear: “No they don’t.” It shows what Biden, and his party, thinks of voters, and anyone stupid enough to accept that attitude and answer will get what they deserve should Biden be elected.

Those four changes, by themselves, would be sufficient to create a one-party state in the U.S., with the now-radical Democratic Party ruling the country. Add the near-complete sell out of the mass media and social media in support of the Party, and we’re looking at a Chinese-style totalitarian state.

Are you ready for it?

How far off is this?

I was asked this question recently, how long might it take for the Democrats to create this one-party state. The person asked me how many years it would take to implement. He was surprised when I answered that, if the Dems win the House, Senate, and White House in the elections already under way, we are probably months, not years, away from it. I don’t envisage any delay on the part of the rabid Democrats who now hold sway over the party. Given the absolute power of holding two of the three branches of government, no Constitutional constraints to their actions, what amounts to a supportive state media, and with their left flank biting at their heels, I expect the partisan power-hungry likes of a Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and AOC and the Squad to act very quickly and not to allow the opportunity to pass, as the opportunity was lost in the initial years of the Obama Administration when the Dems held both houses of Congress.

A lot has changed since 2008. The mass media and social media have even more clearly lined up as a partisan force, blinding much of the country to what really is going on. And the Democratic Party, both those elected to Congress as well as those pulling the strings behind the Biden-Harris candidacies, have become far more radical. Once they do away with the filibuster and exercise the nuclear option, any restraint they faced 12 years ago will be obliterated. And the rest will follow from that.

As I see it, the only thing standing between us and a one-party state is to vote against Democrats at every level, for every office, and most especially voting for Republican Senatorial and House candidates and for the re-election of the President. And that is coming from someone who has always considered himself a political independent (and still does) and someone who previously mostly voted for Democrats. Things have changed in the party, they have changed in the country, they have changed in me – and hopefully, if you voted for Democrats before, they have changed in you, too.

Otherwise, I have to again pose the question: Are you ready for the one-party state?

Coming Next: In my next posting I am going to outline why the RICO statute – Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – can and should be applied to Joe Biden, the Biden family, the Democratic Party, several mass media and social media organizations, and specific individuals within them, given the organized conspiracy to commit and cover-up egregious criminal activities by Biden and the Biden family, for which clear evidence now exists. Stay tuned and watch this space.

Featured image: Blue America, University of Florida. Used under Fair Use.