Porgressivism – Libertate Virtute (Virtue + Liberty)

December 2, 2024December 3, 2024

The Hunter Biden Pardon: Politics Produces Hypocrites (Or Hypocrites Produce Politics)

May be an image of 6 people and beard — Pres. Biden, son Hunter, and an inset photo of the Biden clan

Far removed from Plato’s dream of the “philosopher king”, and his notion of politics as an avocation for the wise and godly, is the harsher reality of self-dealing in politics. Biden finally did it: he pardoned his son. Are you surprised? If so, stay off the cable buying channels. Someone else should handle your finances.

Honestly, I expected Biden to do it, or arrange some deal with the incoming Trump. Did you really expect the son to spend a dime in penalties and serve a day in jail? The charade of high-mindedness from Biden and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was for the sycophants and the “unwashed masses”, which is how the party of the masses actually views their masses. My guess is that most of us aren’t shocked.

We’ve grown used to the truth of our politics: it’s long been a lucrative (as in “lucre”) career path, especially for long-in-the-tooth politicos like the Biden clan. FDR had a well-heeled aristocratic lineage, and thus his quasi-socialism was an act of condescending patronage for the plebes. But for LBJ, politics was his ticket out of the poverty of his Texas hill-country hardscrabble life. He sold himself by using other people’s money to purchase other people’s loyalty. Imagine it, using other people’s money to reward still other people, and all of it for fun and profit. Adjusted for inflation, upon his death, he was worth $100 million, quite a haul for a coarse back-slapping politician from Texas’s version of Appalachia at the time.

1960s Pop Culture: Lyndon B. Johnson: The Most Interesting & Crazy of Them All — The “LBJ technique” of haranguing a person to get his way.

Self-interest and greed are alive and well, particularly among people whose public platform has long been a bellicose attack on self-interest and greed. Nancy Pelosi provides another case in point. A scion of Baltimore’s D’Alesandro political dynasty, her elevated social caste helped bring her into marital union with Paul Pelosi of the moneyed class. Elite colleges, prep schools, etc., you get the picture. It’s a form of social incest. Power and money have always had a potent attraction. You don’t need feudalism or capitalism to make it happen. Quasi-socialism, as well as the unadorned kind, works too.

So, Nancy can regale us with the glories of a totalitarian lockdown by pointing to her $15,000 fridge filled with exotic, expensive, chic ice cream. No run-of-the-mill Dreyer’s for this gal. She gets her hair professionally coiffed while everyone else is shut in dealing with their zoomed children. Like the nomenklatura of the Soviet Union, the old aristocracy was swept aside to make room for the Party aristocracy. La noblesse oblige thrives under new labels. The flotsam always floats to the top no matter the political scheme.

Nancy’s Vacay On Taxpayers Dime: Shows Off 2 Huge Fridges & Tons Of Ice Cream | Opinion — Nancy’s refrigerator and ice cream during the lockdowns.

These paragons of equity- and equality-mongering, of concern for the poor and “oppressed”, end up rolling in the dough. So much so that they can no longer ravage Republicans as the party of robber barons. For at least the last few election cycles, the Democrats have nationally outspent the GOP by around 100%, or more. The Harris campaign had raised $2.15 billion when you add Biden’s billion in the early part of the campaign season, and still ran a $20 million debt. Trump’s paltry $338 million, about half of it from donations $200 or less, seems like an embarrassment in comparison.

The party of government is also the party of the hyper-wealthy. Their complaints about “money in politics” and their serial attacks on Citizens United were dropped from the Party’s talking points. It couldn’t be sustained when the Brahmins of wealth lined up behind them. So, the ritual excuses for the loss shifted to “misinformation” and “disinformation”. In other words, they want to censor views and information that they don’t like. It’s scandalous, but it’ll still has currency in Big Media. They demand censorship and an ongoing alliance with Big Money and Big Media. Why don’t they just come out and say it? They want Orwell’s Ministry of Truth [propaganda] and Ministry of Love [persecution] (from Orwell’s “1984”).

They don’t realize that many of their beliefs are revolting to a large swath of the public. There’s too much out there to turn your stomach. Transgenderism – the idea that you can feel and think your way into another sex – is to be assisted by taxpayer dollars and forced into anything designated “woman/girl”. The Leviathan is the strong arm for gender confusion and porn to adolescents.

They wrecked the economy, which everybody has experienced at the gas pump, utility bill, and supermarket. As for crime, they only seek ways to facilitate it, not combat it. People look around themselves and see disorder, filth, and violence. Who wants to raise their kids in that?

The fact is, they suffer the disadvantage of their own minds. Fewer want what they’re selling. It doesn’t take a genius to roll out the videotape. And they gaslight us by calling it “disinformation” and “misinformation”. They demand that campaigns keep it airy, abstract, filled with generalities. “Joy”, joy about what? Trump is Hitler, and it’s the end of “our democracy”. When you confront them with their own statements and actions, they demand a Ministry of Truth. Who’s the real danger to democracy?

Here’s the truth: big government breeds big money in politics which breeds more big government. More big government breeds more lucrative avenues for the unproductive, people who produce nothing but the myriads of ways to take money and opportunity from one group and give it to their voting blocks. Now that’s the real scandal.

In all of this self-dealing, is there any wonder that they save their own from the hoosegow? That’s a minor matter compared to what they have in store for the rest of us.

May be a doodle of text

RogerG

Sources:

1. Charles C.W. Cooke’s piece in National Review provides some insight into the scam that is our politics: “The Misinformation Racket”, 11/21/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2025/01/the-misinformation-racket/

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024

The 1990s Mass Psychosis

McMartin Preschool Trial on emaze — The child sexual abuse mania that began in 1984 but would stretch into the 1990s

“Against stupidity we have no defense. Neither protests nor force can touch it. Reasoning is of no use. Facts that contradict personal prejudices can simply be disbelieved -indeed, the fool can counter by criticizing them, and if they are undeniable, they can just be brushed aside as trivial exceptions.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“All one’s neighbours [sic] are in the grip of some uncontrolled and uncontrollable fear. . . In lunatic asylums it is a well-known fact that patients are far more dangerous when suffering from fear than when moved by rage or hatred.” — Carl Jung

Was there something in the water during the 1990s? Episodes of mania abounded. Looking for causes, Bonhoeffer emphasizes a stubborn belief in things that aren’t true, a kind of stupidity. Jung looked to the role of fear in animating a broad sense of hysteria.

Either way, certain periods of history seem susceptible to a kind of mass psychosis. The 17th-century Salem Witch Trials were but one example. Throughout the Reformation period, executions by burning at the stake were frequent except in the 16th-century Dutch Republic and northern Poland-Lithuania, so much so that one historian referred to the two as “state[s] without stakes”. The climate-change frenzy of today is only the latest episode in the recurring epidemics of madness. Though, the 1990s, for whatever reason, exhibited multiple occurrences.

From the 1980s into the 1990s, across the country from California to Florida, child day-care was allegedly and suddenly plagued with the most fantastical charges of child sexual abuse. Janet Reno rose to fame from Florida DA to Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, and then her oversight of the Branch Davidian siege and inferno in Waco, riding her “Reno method” to secure many false child-abuse convictions, alongside ruined lives, numerous lawsuits, and subsequent legal judgments that nearly bankrupted many guilty local jurisdictions (see #1). It was a disaster all around.

May be an image of text — he PBS website for “The Child Terror” which chronicled the frenzy about child sexual abuse at day care centers

May be an image of 1 person — Janet Reno, Florida DA and US Attorney General, a key figure in child-abuse mania and the Waco inferno

May be an image of fire and text — The inferno at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco in 1993

Then in 1996 during the Atlanta Summer Olympics came the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Security guard Richard Jewell was turned from hero to goat by the FBI’s fixation on him as the culprit, all recounted in Clint Eastwood’s 2019 film, “Richard Jewell” (see #2, #3). In this case, a powerful institution fell under the spell of the “somebody within” trope to single-mindedly focus on Jewell, going so far as claim that he was afflicted with a mysterious “hero syndrome” (or complex), hounding him and placing his life under a microscope only to discover the real offender a couple of years later. Organizations can suffer from a self-imposed group myopia among its “professionals”.

May be an image of 8 people and text

Credentials and training don’t immunize a person from half-baked notions taken as truth. Today, we see entire professional associations oblivious to the necessity of a block-chain of evidence that ties it to a relevant conclusion, the essence of science. Instead, we’ll see them endorse the fashionable ideas of many of their broader demographic peers and stubbornly persist in logical quicksand.

Then we have the JonBenet Ramsey murder case from 1996. The phenomenon repeats itself. Netflix has brought the incident to light in “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?”. Watching all three episodes makes clear that the treatment of the case by law enforcement has much in common with the 1990s’ day-care child abuse mania and the Jewell persecution. The case had gone cold because of the time wasted by Boulder PD detectives on a preoccupation with the parents, one or both, as the killers. If that wasn’t enough, the media played along in wild speculations about the family as they were fed derogatory leaks in order to intimidate the Ramseys into confessions. Delinked from empirical evidence, CBS’s “60 Minutes” went on a wild ride to blame JonBenét’s older brother only to suffer at the wrong end of a lawsuit.

May be an image of 2 people, television and text — On Netflix

Similarly, after a few years, the Boulder PD’s lead detective on the case tried to make another kind of killing by writing a book that tried to accomplish what the Boulder DA and PD couldn’t in a court of law: pin blame on the parents. Like the 60 Minutes’ smearing of the brother, this too ended in a lawsuit with the author and publisher penalized with a sizeable award for the Ramseys.

Don’t think for a moment that we have progressed beyond these barbarities of a few decades ago. Remember the 2020 summer of riots fueled by a noxious, mysterious, hidden, and unconscious racism? What of transgenderism and the assertion that one can feel or think themselves into another sex, all assisted by the rhetorical hocus-pocus of “sex-at-birth” and the invention of a separation of gender from sex? It’s hard to imagine a greater child abuse than placing our children under its spell and sanctioning chemical and surgical interventions and transgender mind manipulation. Welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau (see H.G. Wells’s story)

May be an image of 5 people, fire and crowd — The 2020 George Floyd riots in Portland, Ore.

George Floyd protests: crowds gather in Washington, DC — Protest in Washington, D.C., June 2020, against “racism”

MAGA has its own fancies. Tariffs are seen as a ticket to national prosperity. They want America to be great again while abandoning Eastern Europe to Putin. Reunionizing the workforce to gain the political allegiance of union bosses and boasting of a return to fiscal sanity while avoiding the trainwrecks of the entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, half the federal budget) is proof that Alice isn’t alone in her Wonderland. They like armies and navies so long as we don’t do anything with them. It doesn’t get much more insane than this.

There’s more. Climate change has the same popular pull as were charges of heresy for the Spanish Inquisition. Think about it. To get from a gradual increase in atmospheric temperatures to herding everyone into electric vehicles and the experiences of blackouts and bankrupting utility bills requires the hasty conclusion that humans are bringing an end to Gaia. The empirical relationship between the apocalyptic hucksterism and warmer weather is, to put it kindly, shaky.

Will any of the so-called remedies do any good? For every 100 electric cars sold in California, China is building a new coal-fired electricity plant. Ditto for India. Any estimates of climate improvement from the bankrupting of the California population are nothing but proof that 17th-century witchcraft is alive and well. Yet here we go with Biden bringing California absurdities to the nation.

Three decades on, we’re still as foolish as ever. Don’t go around holding your head high. Mass psychosis might be in our social DNA. Higher ed, more college degrees, greater “professionalization”, more credentials, and exuberant education spending is hardly a cure. It’s proven to be an accelerant. The country’s next mass mania is just around the corner.

RogerG

Sources:

1. An excellent rendition of this gross prosecutorial misconduct during the time can be found at “The Child Terror”, Frontline, PBS, at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terror/.
2. The Wikipedia page on “Ricard Jewell” affords a description of the basic facts.
3. “THE ‘HERO SYNDROME’”, Sergeant Ben D. Cross, Arkansas State Police, 11/1/2014, at https://www.cji.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/the_hero_syndrome.pdf
4. “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey?”, now showing on Netflix; website at https://www.netflix.com/title/81705443

November 24, 2024December 1, 2024

It’s the Beliefs, Stupid!

MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024 after the election was called for Trump. — MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough called “the scope and scale” of Trump’s victory “sweeping.”

In the 1992 political war room of Bill Clinton, James Carville famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” It became a cliché. To a certain extent, it’s a key factor this year. But more lies underneath the public’s fixation with the economy. A troubled economy can be the product of the wrong sort of beliefs. Furthermore, a constellation of beliefs underlies a whole range of issues as a person addresses their ballot. At this point, it’s gone way beyond the economy. It’s the beliefs, stupid!

While blaming the other side for economic problems can catapult a party to victory, as it did for Clinton in 1992, it can also hide disturbing party ideas that’ll only appear once in office. It didn’t take long for Bill Clinton to uncloak the Democrats’ fetish for government control of almost everything – in this case, healthcare, 17% of the economy. Remember Hillary Care? People didn’t vote for this in 1992. It brought to an end the nearly 40-year Democrat reign of the House in 1995. Welcome to Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Forward to 2024, in the attempted postmortem of Democrat losses, donkey party enthusiasts can’t come to grips with the reality that this radical Left version of the party isn’t popular. For instance, transgenderism swiftly took corporeal form under their tutelage and began wrecking girls’ sports, their bathrooms and locker rooms, and in tandem with the propagation of gender ideology in the schools, adolescents were exposed to porn and gender “transition”. Gender confusion for children and Hustler-grade picture books aren’t winners. Duh!

What were they thinking? The Democrats chided Republicans for bringing it up as if the issue was concocted out of thin air by the GOP and Democrats have nothing to do with it. Really? Rachel Levine (born Richard) as Asst. Health Secretary, Biden’s “God bless you” to Dylan Mulvaney after his endorsement decimated Bud Light, a transgender celebration at the White House, and the manipulation of Title IX to sanction XY “girls” in every place with a Girl/Woman identifier are but a few eyebrow-raisers while parents watched their daughters losing to girls of the XY variety in women’s sports. A hard volleyball smash to the face by an XY “girl” changed a real girl’s life forever. Women’s track and swimming were distorted beyond recognition. Women’s Olympic boxing was nearly turned into a murder scene.

May be an image of 11 people — Transwoman Rose Montoya, who bared her/his breast implants at the June 2023 White House pride event.

May be an image of 2 people, people playing voleyball and text

The muddle of broad American sentiment on transgenderism began to crystalize into general opposition, particularly when asked about specifics. The view hardened as we approached the November 5 election. In 2024, after discussion intensified and baleful stories of the ill-effects of transgenderism accumulated, support for the reality of sex at birth increased to sizeable majorities (65%) (see #1). In 2023, almost 70% of respondents to a Gallup poll viewed biological sex to be the determinant of athletic participation (see #2). YouGov in February 2024 chronicled large majorities opposing the “transition” (“gender affirming care”: psyche control, chemical and surgical interventions) of their children by authorities.

Not only were their daughters threatened by the donkey party but government was herding them into cars that they didn’t want and delivering bankrupting energy costs all around. It seemed that the worst of California had come to their neighborhood, their garage, their schools, the intimate spaces of their homes, in many more ways than the price of eggs. The border was erased and the illegal immigrants were rewarded with plane and bus rides to the interior. Towns and cities and schools and housing and streets were flooded with foreign nationals who simply walked across without our approval (violating our laws). Crime spiked. Who voted for this in 2020?

But somehow, much of the after-election analysis skips all of this and wonders into incoherence. Typical of the foolishness was AP’s Matthew Brown in his “An influx of outsiders and money turns Montana Republican, culminating in a Senate triumph” of 11/22/024 (see #4). He essentially blames newcomers and outside money for Montana Democrat Sen. John Tester’s loss and the state turning red. In fact, as of October of 2024, the Tester campaign had outspent Sheehy $69.6 million to $19.7 million. Groups external to the candidates’ campaigns, all of it outside money, broke roughly even between the two. Adding it up, Tester had the money advantage (see #5).

May be an image of 1 person, dancing and crowd — Supporters cheer at election night watch party for Republican Tim Sheehy

May be an image of 2 people — Sheehy delivers his victory speech

It showed. Sitting on my perch in northwest Montana, I watched 4-5 Tester ads for every Sheehy one, whether streaming or broadcast.

And what of those “newcomers”? “Newcomers” don’t automatically turn a state red. “Newcomers” attracted to Santa Fe/Taos ambience and the “Rocky Mountain High” turned New Mexico and Colorado reliably blue. It’s also quite possible that the migrations of the 1990’s and the early 2,000’s (to NM and Colorado for example) are politically and philosophically different from those of the last decade and a half. The bulk of recent relocators could be classified as “refugees” fleeing the shift to the radical Left on the west coast, myself included, to outposts in Idaho and Montana. Once again, it comes down to beliefs.

The west coast shifted hard Left after the end of the Cold War. The state of Governor Ronald Reagan began to resemble today’s Venezuela more than the Beach Boys. The counterculture rose to prominence as the governing philosophy. The phenomena spread to Oregon and Washington State.

What was true of the west coast simultaneously occurred in metropolitan areas and college campuses across the country. Our cities became hotbeds of grime and violence. Blue states became infatuated with climate-change ideology and its attendant central planning. Taxes, regulation, and misgovernance spread like wildfire, including the literal wildfires.

Colleges morphed into satraps of the Frankfurt School. What’s that? Marxist academics in the 1920s and 1930s coalesced in Frankfurt, Germany, and formed a “School”, a Marxist think tank hewing to the reformulated Marxism of the Italian Antonio Gramsci. It came to the U.S. as its advocates fled Hitler and took positions in America’s elite colleges such as the University of California, Harvard, NYU, etc. Thus, “woke”/critical theory/CRT/DEI arose as a rigid orthodoxy throughout academia. It’s everywhere, unquestioned, inescapable. It passed down the social digestive tract from faculty to student to K-12 to the commanding heights of the culture. You can’t watch an ad, or most anything from Disney, without exposure to it. The c-suite is consumed by it which explains why, for instance, Wells Fargo ads are filled with their various ways to reinflate the housing bubble of 2007-8, and Big Sports’ infatuation with the oppressor/oppressed schtick.

This Leftist groupthink is manifest in urban nodes where we also find the training schools – the colleges – and corporate headquarters. When put into practice, the orthodoxy drives people away. The consequences overwhelm any initial surface appeal. Local economies are warped as sensitive groups like the middle class, the skilled trades, and manufacturing flee to more hospitable states.

Media people such as the AP’s Matthew Brown, infected as they are with the orthodoxy, don’t get it. The dynamic of push/pull is as evident in politics as it is in economics. People are pushed every bit as much as pulled in a particular direction. Maybe “pushed” is more powerful this time around. Could it be that voters were more repelled by the what the Democrats have become than any great affection for Trump? In other words, has the Democratic Party become repugnant?

If so, well, we’re back to, “It’s the beliefs, stupid!”

RogerG

Sources:
1. “Cultural Issues and the 2024 Election: 5. Gender identity, sexual orientation and the 2024 election”, Pew Research Center, 6/6/2024, at https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/06/gender-identity-sexual-orientation-and-the-2024-election/
2. “More Say Birth Gender Should Dictate Sports Participation”, Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup, 6/12/2023, at https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx
3. “Where Americans stand on 20 transgender policy issues”, Taylor Orth, YouGov, 2/16/2024, at https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/48685-where-americans-stand-on-20-transgender-policy-issues
4. “An influx of outsiders and money turns Montana Republican, culminating in a Senate triumph”, Matthew Brown, AP, 11/22/2024, at https://apnews.com/article/montana-republicans-wealth-democrats-8a1fdd90ef328701127d8a21ebb82dd3
5. “Montana Senate race shatters spending records at $309 per registered voter”, Aubrie Spady, Fox News, 10/24/2024, at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/montana-senate-race-shatters-spending-records-309-spent-per-registered-voter?msockid=287a0b967a9564c61c991f537b2f65ee

November 21, 2024November 21, 2024

The Los Angeles Nullification Crisis of 2024

May be an image of 4 people and text — People sit at City Hall as the Los Angeles City Council meets to consider adopting a sanctuary city ordinance in Los Angeles, Calif., November 19, 2024. (photo: Daniel Cole/Reuters)

Yes, history seldom repeats, but there are recurring similarities in events mingled with the unique contemporary twists. Post November 5, a historical pattern reemerged in the gambits used by locally empowered militants to thwart federal authorities and their delegated powers. Prior to the Civil War, it was called “nullification”, as in the Nullification Crisis of 1832. Today, “sanctuary city/state” is the favorite nomenclature for thwarting the federal exercise of federal powers. Where else but in the deepest of blue California – Los Angeles specifically – can a city council mimic the 1832 South Carolina legislature?

Clearly, Los Angeles hates Trump as South Carolina came to hate Lincoln. “Hate”, indeed, is the proper word. What else can motivate a claque of local politicos to such extremes?

On November 19, a sanctuary city ordinance passed on a 13-0 vote of the Los Angeles city council. Strangely, history is rhyming with the 1832 South Carolina legislature and their Ordinance of Nullification, only LA is targeting federal immigration law instead of a tariff. Admittedly, there are differences between “nullification” and “sanctuary city”, but let’s not forget that the intent is the same: the thwarting of the enforcement of constitutionally sanctioned federal law by state or local governments. In that sense, sanctuary from immigration law has much in common with sanctuary from a tariff law.

May be an illustration of text

At a time of the uncertain delineation between state and federal powers in the Constitution, South Carolina hung its hat on the idea of the country as a compact with states having the power to prevent enforcement of federal laws that they declare unconstitutional and against their interests – i.e., nullification. The notion can be traced back through the ruminations of Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and the cultural elites of the antebellum South. California’s Democrats come by the idea honestly. This latest generation of Democrats running sanctuary cities and states is following in the footsteps of their slave-owning political ancestors.

Southerners had the approval of 19th-century states’ rights apologists. LA is hiding under the Supreme Court’s Printz v. US of 1997: states and localities can’t be compelled to expend their resources for federal initiatives (i.e., gun background checks). So, what is to be done when city employees are asked to expend work hours to honor a federal subpoena for the taking into custody of illegal immigrants in their jails? Or to prevent the mayor from announcing an ICE sweep before the onset of it – an obstruction of justice – as Oakland’s mayor Libby Schaaf did in 2018 (see #1)?

According to the radical LA city council member Hugo Soto-Martinez on his link at the city’s website back in 2023, city employees would be empowered to obstruct federal immigration authorities “unless it’s legally required” to do otherwise (see #2). I assume that means some kind of judge-approved warrant. The feds will have to have their ducks fully aligned before they will be allowed to enforce federal immigration law in Los Angeles. If a suspect turns violent, it’s a grey area as to whether the city employee is forced to remain a spectator.

These latest firebrands have to be very careful that they aren’t setting the stage for another Gettysburg. The upshot of the first go-around in upsetting the Constitution (1861-5) was that nullification and secession are losers. The 1865 mad dash by federal authorities to bring into custody Jefferson Davis could be repeated this time with Hugo Soto-Martinez’s name on the arrest warrant.

What is a Perp walk - YouTube — Not Hugo Soto-Martinez, but you get the picture.

If the State of California, proudly grasping South Carolina’s brass ring from 1832, interferes in like manner – for they have their own nullification-lite ordinance in SB 54 (see #3) – it too might be forced to choose between their political obsessions and The Constitution. They too, like LA, must tiptoe between noncooperation and obstruction. And, really, is there a practical difference?

Clearly, nullification and sanctuary city have the same purpose which is to thwart the enforcement of federal law. Under Trump, or any sensible chief executive, local caterwauling about the “safety of our residents” can’t work as an excuse for the nation’s people to be obstructed in the enforcement of their laws. This isn’t merely a conflict of jurisdictions. It’s settled: federal immigration powers are exclusively the province of the federal government, period. No state or locality can pick and choose which ones, especially if delegated by The Constitution to the federal government, will be enforced in their jurisdictions.

If certain states and localities are deluded otherwise, there might be more than a few perp walks to a federal detention facility and federal district court. Wouldn’t it be rich to see a manacled Mayor Karen Bass, or the 13 members of the city council, or Gov. Gavin Newsom, or AG Rob Bonta, or the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature in ICE vans on their way to the nearest federal detention facility? Next time, LA and California voters, show signs of a better understanding of your place in our federal system of government. South Carolina and the ten other states of the old Confederacy learned that lesson the hard way. Are you next? You might be in for another “Lost Cause”.

Welcome to the LA Nullification Crisis of 2024.

May be pop art of 3 people and text — Here’s looking at you LA city council

RogerG

Sources:

1. “Oakland’s Mayor Warned Her City Of An ICE Raid. She Doesn’t Regret It.”, Hamed Aleazaz, BuzzFeed News, 12/26/2018, at https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/oaklands-mayor-warned-her-community-about-an-ice-raid-she
2. “What does it mean to be a ‘Sanctuary City’?”, Hugo Soto-Martinez, 3/11/2023, on the City of Los Angeles website, link to Hugo Soto-Martinez, at https://cd13.lacity.gov/news/what-does-it-mean-be-sanctuary-city
3. “California Sanctuary Law Divides State In Fierce Immigration Debate”, Samantha Rafelson et al, NPR, 10/17/2018, at https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/657951176/california-sanctuary-law-divides-state-in-fierce-immigration-debate#:~:text=SB%2054%2C%20called%20the%20California%20Values%20Act%2C%20essentially,law%20and%20other%20cities%20actively%20defying%20the%20state.

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024

The Election Was a Rejection of California

Why the focus on California? Simple, California is the head of the progressive snake. Its ideological tendencies permeate the national Democratic Party. Our Vice President, and their losing candidate for president, was politically bred in the specialized, socio-political one-party petri dish of – you guessed it – California. California Democrat muckety-mucks populate Biden’s executive branch posse with a left coast view of the world.

Let’s take a look at California’s election results to get a hint of the chaos and what could have been in store for the rest of us. Wait, they aren’t finished counting in the golden state, and won’t be till Dec. 3, maybe not even then. Speaking of chaos. The state has turned itself into a model of election incompetence, and the national party has adopted it, seizing the COVID panic as an excuse to nationalize the falderol. Much vote fraud was legalized, or made easier to go undetected. Mail-in ballots, election season instead of election day, ballot harvesting, a profusion of provisional ballots, failure to clean voter rolls, and, here’s the kicker, the “curing” of ballots, were pioneered in California.

What’s the “curing”? “Curing” is how the entrenched party discovers new votes. First, the state’s Democrat honchos know the state’s blue precincts, for there are many, and target the “curing” on them. “Curing” refers to seeking out a voter who didn’t properly submit their ballot – missing signature, unmatched signatures, wrong envelope, etc. – and is allowed to correct the mistake (Hmmmm!), and, all of a sudden, a Republican victor on election day wakes up to their loss a couple of weeks later.

Millions of dollars in Democrat war chests exist to fund the cherry-picked treasure hunt. Gov. Newsom has millions left over from his recall treasury to devote to combing blue precincts for more votes. Interesting question: Why vote in elections that have more in common with the shams in Maduro’s Venezuela? California, Californezuela.

If Venezuela’s lefty caudillo, Nicolas Maduro, was California’s governor – no, it’s not as crazy as you think – he’d probably adopt Gov. Newsom’s appropriation of John C. Calhoun. Remember the nullification crisis of 1832? South Carolina asserted the power to prevent the enforcement of federal law (the tariff) within the state at the urging of the influential John C. Calhoun. That’s “nullification”, and blue state fiefdoms in the mold of California have been doing a form of it for decades regarding immigration law. Newsom doubled down on nullification-lite when he blustered after the election (see #1 below), “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack [after Trump’s victory] — and we won’t sit idle.”

What freedoms? The “freedom” to obstruct immigration law by blocking the cooperation of state and local authorities? The “freedom” of government employees (teachers, administrators) to hide from parents the porn curriculum in third-grade classrooms or the transition of their daughter into a son, all backed up by the Democrat AG Rob Bonta? The “freedom” of XY “girls” to occupy girls’ spaces and sports? The “freedom” of the state to undermine out-of-state parenthood by its self-designation as a transgender sanctuary state for minors from anywhere? The unlimited “freedom” of a woman to end the life of her baby up to the exit from the birth canal, maybe after, who knows? The “freedom” of the state to force you onto government mass transit or into dopey EVs? The “freedom” to experience bankrupting utility bills, blackouts, brownouts, and hypothermia after the nuking of nuclear power and fossil fuels? The “freedom” of the state to be the missing link in the supply chain from ship to shore at its ports by mandating EV 18-wheelers and locomotives, something that doesn’t exist or is impractical beyond measure? The “freedom” of the state to run you out of business? The “freedom” to pay more for everything and fewer jobs to accomplish the feat? The “freedom” to be harassed on everything you say or do, especially religiously? Thanks, Newsom, for the “freedoms”.

Biden followed the California script. Biden’s version of fiscal responsibility is additions to the national debt going from $1 trillion every 100 days in 2021 to today’s $1 trillion every 200 days. Either way, your kids are being robbed.

California is tax-happy and adores the issuance of gobs and gobs and oodles and oodles of bonds. Propositions 2 and 4 (school building, water/flood/drought projects) on the California ballot appear to be headed for approval. It’s astounding that the state’s current budget of $311 billion and its panoply of taxes, taxes everywhere aren’t enough. $25 billion in more debt will be added to the outstanding total state bond debt of $79 billion, and more than $1.6 trillion if you combine state and local obligations (see #3).

California pulls out its credit card, and so does Biden/Harris/DNC; only the feds have a much more robust one, one without limit. They can gin up the money supply by making dollars appear out of thin air. They’ve got a Federal Reserve. Thus, they borrowed California’s fiscal philosophy to achieve new heights of inflation. The old Keynesian adage of spending in bad times and saving in good times was jettisoned. It’s just the spending now, no need for the saving. With the pandemic over and recovery well under way in 2021, and Biden filled with delusions of FDR grandeur, the Democrats jumped at the chance by piling $6.17 trillion of new debt onto the backs our kids (see #5). What did we get for it? Problems . . . and a few EV chargers. Sounds like California.

The country became a goat rope in the manner of California. Every celestial grouping in the radical-left progressive universe was hyped up on taxpayer dollars and deficit spending. It was enough to make drunken sailors appear judicious.

They were doing everything but the bottom-line function of government’s existence. Namely, safety and security. We have a Vice President who personally gave money to bail out rioters, under the euphemism of “protesters”, who were responsible for making hell zones of our metropolitan downtowns. It did nothing but cause the price for out-bounded U-Hauls to skyrocket.

All kinds of bedlam were celebrated on Capitol Hill and the White House. Gatherings of the transgendered were held at the White House with participants exuberantly baring their surgical scars and implants to the world and the assembled press. In the midst of the 2020 riot season and later, the Democrats went full neo-Marxist in Capitol kneelings, calls to defund the police, “reimagining” policing, and full DEI racism. Hiring practices throughout the executive branch were altered as part of the war on merit. A candidate for air traffic controller was golden so long as they exhibited the appropriate intersectionality.

As for the border, it became the apex of bedlam. Not only was the border patrol turned into the Welcome Wagon, but the border jumpers were rewarded with gifts and jet flights to the country’s interior to the chagrin of local officials. Certainly, in this instance, crime does pay. And to think that there’s an entire wing of the Democratic Party devoted to California’s favored position on immigration law, which is decriminalization. They’d like it to be the equivalent of a jaywalking ticket. Harris, their choice to accelerate the misrule, tried to hide her own calls for California-style immigration chaos but failed. Chaos, chaos everywhere, from girls’ bathrooms to the border.

This election was a repudiation of the worldview of 60-65% of the California electorate. The rest of the country rejected the state’s favorite daughter and its approach to governance. When the donkey party decided to go full California, the rest of the country said, “Whoa, whoa there! We won’t sign onto a California neo-Marxist revolution.”

There, that’s my take on what happened November 5.

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RogerG

Sources:

1. “‘We won’t sit idle’: Newsom goes on offensive against Trump”, Wes Venteicher, Politico, 11/7/2024, at https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/07/newsom-california-legislative-session-trump-resistance-00188119
2. “2023-24 State Budget”, State of California, at https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/2023-24EN/#/Home
3. “Overview of State Bond Debt Service”, California Legislative Analyst’s Office, 2/27/2024, at https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/798
4. “California State and Local Liabilities Total $1.6 Trillion”, Edward Ring, California Policy Center, 2/28/2022, at https://californiapolicycenter.org/california-state-and-local-liabilities-total-1-6-trillion/
5. “U.S. debt by president: dollar and percentage 2024”, Annabel Burba in Consumer Affairs, 11/7/2024, at https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/us-debt-by-president.html

November 8, 2024November 12, 2024

California Dreamin’ or California See Ya?

Poll: 40% of Californians are thinking about leaving the state – HotAir — (Photo: AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

It’s “See ya”, or so it seems according to the outlook for the 2030 census. Don’t expect California’s current allotment of 52 congressional seats to stay there. It lost one after the 2020 count. The next census will probably be more brutal (see #2). Look at the map below.

After the last census, the numbers were explained away by the state’s chattering classes by emphasizing that the state actually gained population. It just didn’t grow as fast as others, they say. Yes, but according to the website San Fransisco Gate, its population has been generally static since 2017 while our country’s South and Southeast have blossomed (see #1).

Something about population decline: it doesn’t happen in a mad dash for the exits, all at once. The gradual slide begins with a birth dearth and flights to other areas of the state. Whereas before, the state benefitted from foreign migration, not, mind you, an influx from other states. That has slowed, so the total population numbers start to bend south (see #3).

Now add the numbers who’ve skedaddled. Who’s left the state entirely? It’s the socio-economic backbone of any state: the middle class and families. Even the left-of-center California Public Policy Center acknowledges the shrinking middle of the demographic pyramid. Raking in all the numbers results in a guesstimate (California Dept. of Finance) of a decline of over 57,000 in 2023 alone. After that, they expect the numbers to rise, which is normal, but not enough to keep from losing additional seats (see #4).

Thus, by the 2030 census, hopefully, the rest of the country will be saddled with 4 fewer Adam Schiffs (now a plague on the US Senate). One outcome of the last election is that the state of Gavin Newsom is slipping into irrelevancy. Really, who cares how California votes, even if they’re still counting at Christmas time? As far as the race for president goes, there are more than enough states who don’t want to be like it. The so-called “blue wall” has given way to a red wall abutting the socialist republic. Whew, what a relief.

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RogerG

Sources:

1. “What everyone is getting wrong about California losing a congressional seat”, Amy Graff, San Fransisco Gate, 4/27/2021, at https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2021-04-California-House-Seat-Census-Population-16133275.php
2. “2030 Apportionment Forecast – 2023”, The American Redistricting Project, 12/19/2023, at https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2030-asof121923/
3. “California’s population shrank in 2020, but don’t call it an exodus”, Ben Christopher, Cal Matters, 5/27/2021, at https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/05/california-population-shrink-exodus/
4. California Dept. of Finance: Report P-1A, “Total Projected and Estimated Population for California: July 1, 2020 to 2070”, at https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fdof.ca.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F352%2F2023%2F07%2FP1A_State_Total.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

November 6, 2024November 12, 2024

Trump II, a Mea Culpa of Sorts

Harris and Trump want to strengthen the middle class. It could use the help | CNN Politics

Right now, in the aftermath of victory or defeat, things look rosy or depressing. Clear away the fog of euphoria or sadness. Settle down. Here’s what I take from the results:

I was wrong about Trump’s chances. I overplayed Trump’s negatives. Not that he doesn’t have any. He’s got plenty. Not that he wasn’t the weakest general election candidate in the GOP stable. He still is. The fact remains that the country is center-right, and the Dems fell off the left cliff. Trump had the advantage of a thoroughly discredited opposition party. At this moment, I wonder if the great bulk of the country just had enough of the left’s culture war; its eco-assault on the kitchen table, shelter, the gas tank, electricity, and the family sedan; and the socialist spending spree fueling an out-of-whack economy.

Thus, this was actually a change election, a dash away from what the Democratic Party has become. Trump didn’t have to be loved. He only had to be viewed by a majority as better than the alternative. Now, no longer facing a billion-dollar smear campaign and a recent history of radical left policies to lambast, I expect Trump’s negatives to eventually revert to norm. Where I went wrong is in not recognizing the very simple and smart calculus of it being either him or them.

But don’t forget, tomorrow is another day.

And don’t dismiss the fact that the Republicans were better organized this time around. The craziness of running an election during a pandemic, and given the Democrats’ chomping at the bit to “never let a crisis go to waste” by pushing through wild election law changes, left the Republicans flat-footed in 2020. Legislative changes were made at the state level to smooth the rough edges, but the asinine mailed ballot remains. Still, kudos to the RNC. It’s proof that even Republicans are open to life’s lessons.

Will Trump II be a repeat of Trump I? The guy may be either more unhinged or older and wiser. We’ll see. Will he be as stubborn as Biden, who forced an Afghanistan bugout at all costs, in imposing a rash of protective tariffs on friend and foe alike? All of this without addressing our own role in hampering American manufacturing. American mismanagement, unions, and regulation did more than Asia to wreak havoc on GM and USX. Will he sellout Ukraine to Putin? What about federal spending which is putting America on a path to Argentina? Early indications aren’t promising.

Storm clouds, many of them possibly of Trump’s own making, loom over a second term. Good luck, America.

Oh, and I don’t blame you for not listening to me.

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RogerG

November 5, 2024November 12, 2024

The Democracy Prattle

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Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is hot across streaming channels proclaiming “democracy is on the ballot” in a dash to get everyone to vote. Well, Eddie, if there are people who shouldn’t have driver’s licenses, there are people who shouldn’t vote. If you don’t care enough to know anything, don’t plague the rest of us with your choices. Also, not voting can be very rational and the best option.

It’s more than that. Democracy is not on the ballot. Democracy is a factor in our system of governance, not the determinant, especially when we choose a president across the 50 different states. Eddie, it’s a republic under law. 50%-plus-one isn’t how we govern ourselves. We choose representatives by popular vote in single districts apportioned to each state after every census per The Constitution. Senate representation, though, is equal among the 50 states, regardless of the number of warm – and maybe not so warm – bodies on its sacred soil, and is not subject to amendment (Article V, last phrase). The Electoral College ensures that we are governed by more than New York City, California’s coastal plain, and Chicago’s Democratic political machine.

Eddie needs a civics education. And maybe some History too. The dividing line between a mob/mass tyranny and democracy is a blurry one, shifting with the groupthink tides. Popularly elected tyranny is still tyranny. The late 18th-century Parisian mobs – the soldiers of the Reign of Terror – and going back further to the Melian Massacre (416 B.C.) by Athens are but two examples of popular brutalities. History is festooned with democratic inhumanities. The Jews have been victimized by them for centuries.

As we gear up for the November 5 election, two things stand out about our “democracy”: the drive to circumvent the states in the Electoral College in the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” (NPV) and the simple fact that the popular vote is a fiasco. The second one undermines the first.

The NPV is an enthusiasm of the Left (liberal, progressive, socialist, whatever) due to the occasional breakthrough of the Right in the Electoral College. They’d like to close off any avenue of escape from their clutches each 4-year election cycle. With the NPV, the choice of president would reflect the norms of the Acela Corridor, Chicago, and the California coastal plain. All other urban nodes imitate them. That’s right, run up the score by hook or by crook in a few congested spots and, voilà, the mayor of Los Angeles is next in line to be president. I jest . . . or am I? (See #3 below)

30-point margins in New York and California might do the trick. Right now, these two states are shedding residents like my dogs shed hair in the summer; yet, they still possess a wreaking left-wing critical mass to make a neo-Marxist the betting choice to run the executive branch and much more. Xi is more popular in these places than a Republican.

Any state to vote for this thing (NPV) outside these hotbeds of left-wing activism is by implication violating their oath of state office in sacrificing the choice of their people to the whims of New York and California. It’s an impeachable offense, or should be. It’s probably unconstitutional as well. The NPV violates the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause, and as a compact, it must be approved by Congress. This one skips over Congress.

The compact is a conspiracy among states equaling 270 electoral votes to gang up on the others. It creates the likely scenario of someone with the barest of majority to lock in the presidency, even though he or she reflects the worldview of only a quarter of the states.

How accurate is that popular vote? Who knows? These left-wing one-party states don’t clean their voter rolls, exceedingly complicate the voting process by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, and created barriers to voter verification. Once deposited and stripped of its envelope (if mail-in), the ballot from whatever source, by whomever, cannot be retrieved from the humungous pile. The culprit could even be convicted of vote fraud but the vote will still count. It’s untraceable.

May be an image of book and text — Mail-in ballots

How often does this happen? Who knows? It’s rarely found out due to the nature of the secret ballot – a godsend but makes the fraudulent vote untraceable once deposited. Since the process is so loosey-goosey in these states, the malefactor must admit to it and bring it to the attention of authorities before anything is done, but the illegal vote will still be counted.

Left-wing donkey party registrars and secretaries of state try to allay fears by saying that voter fraud is so rare. The percentage number is bogus. They take the number of discovered incidents, which are infinitesimal, against the total number of votes cast to produce a statistical piece of nonsense. It’s a lie because they, and no one, can ever know the full picture of fraud given the way they have set up and run show. Without a culprit standing out like a sore thumb or walking up to them and admitting to the crime, life goes on and the donkey party candidate wins by 30 points. There’s your “virtuous” national popular vote.

We have a recent and shameful example (see #1 and #2 below). A University of Michigan noncitizen student voted and submitted his ballot. Later, he asked for it back, maybe after realizing that it was illegal, or simple second thoughts. Only then were authorities aware of the criminal act, when the offender brought it to their attention. And he won’t be getting it returned; it can’t be; it’s dispersed into the ocean of early-vote ballots.

What happens in a close election when a tidal wave of ballots flood the thousands of local voting bureaucracies around the country? Well, get ready for a months-long battle in the media and courts as our embarrassment of a “democracy” plays out in full view to the rest of the world. Recently, we have a habit of close presidential elections. In 1960, JFK beat Nixon by a scant .17% in the popular vote. The 1968 election was won by Nixon by .7%. Trump and the Dems have been locked in an evenly matched embrace since 2016. This election might continue in this pattern. Our democracy is a debacle.

That’s our “democracy” for you. We get to vote on things and offices that we don’t understand. Campaigns don’t inform, only gaslight us. Every election is not decision time. It’s a looting expedition in how much we can load up on the national debt, and thus on our kids, or on the backs of the “rich”. The NFL has a 5-month season, just like our election “seasons”. Ballots are thrown about in the mail; monster blue states won’t verify identity; and early voting is a ticket to rashness.

I long for the days when we had a deliberative republic. We elect representatives to debate, deliberate, and decide the great issues before the republic. We choose a chief executive that reflects the wishes of a broad swath of the country, and who stays in his lane of the administration of the laws. And all within a matrix of rights. Instead, we’ve gone from republic to shame.

Good luck, America.

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RogerG

Sources:

1. “Joint statement of Secretary Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Savit on charges filed in noncitizen voting case”, Michigan Department of State, 10/30/2024, at https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2024/10/30/joint-statement-of-secretary-benson-and-washtenaw-county-prosecutor-savit-on-charges-filed
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty of National Review for the information and sources In “The Election Crimes of 2024”, 11/4/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-election-crimes-of-2024/
3. “The National Popular Vote Idea Is Unconstitutional and Should Be Abandoned”, Peter J. Wallison, National Review, 6/27/2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/the-national-popular-vote-idea-is-unconstitutional-and-should-be-abandoned/

November 3, 2024November 12, 2024

Montana’s Californization

May be an image of 3 people and crowd — Sen. Jon Tester (D, Mt.)

*Californization: noun, becoming more like California in the mind and NOT necessarily in its geo-spatial characteristics, such as Bozeman morphing into “BozAngeles” merely because it grows to accommodate an influx of interstate refugees. Far worse and much more troubling is the manipulation of a state’s popular biases, even their prejudices, to adopt California policy preferences.

I am fearful that America is being bribed and forced to be more like California. California used to be held in high esteem, the “shining city on a hill”. That’s certainly no longer true. The state is synonymous with dysfunction, decay, decline, and colossal misgovernance. It’s hemorrhaging refugees to other states, most of them middle class and families. Its social and economic life is feudalizing. Its electorate over decades has consistently chosen to eviscerate its quality of life. The result is a basket case, a Third World state within the world’s premiere First World nation. The question is, are electorates in other states desirous to join the “golden state” in this internal Third World?

My newly adopted home state of Montana could be getting ready to make the slide. No, the influx of new people or urbanization aren’t the culprits. It’s big, big campaign money from radical plutocratic barons in progressive bastions (Silicon Valley for instance) who have an outsized role in selling California-style dysfunction to the rest of the country, the same people who’ve made their urban bubbles and bi-coastal expanses unlivable, unaffordable, and inhospitable.

They’ve perfected a deceptive style of political packaging to pour their money into: sell California’s one-party jungle primary with a well-funded Montana ballot initiative (CI-126); sell California hedonism by sanctioning through another Montana initiative the elimination of the inconvenient consequence of sex: the baby (CI-128). Just think, in it, one human being would be legally empowered to destroy another with few, if any, restraints.

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The libertine deep pockets of California and New York prop up Jon Tester. As such, Democrat Senator Jon Tester has a campaign war chest 4 times his opponent. He’s a reliable vote for his party’s main policies and leadership, the same ones that seek to remake the country in California’s image.

They try to sell this dumpster fire of thought to the “rubes” by using the rustics’ vague social and political prejudices against them. Don’t like wealthy out-of-staters? Well, figure this: Tester uses his out-of-state millions to bash his opponent as an out-of-stater. Wrap your mind around that. And put a double-hex on his challenger by attaching “wealthy” to the pejorative. Class warfare works, even in red states.

Why are these progressive billionaires and zillionaires so interested in showering millions on Tester’s reelection? Answer: he thinks and votes more like them than us.

May be pop art of text — Tester: a two-faced Janus

The numbers are astounding in the effort to keep the guy in the Senate. According to Open Secrets, Tester vacuumed up $32.6 million in contributions in the first 3 months of 2024, about 70% of it are high-dollar (over $200) and a quarter, probably more, from super zips in California and New York (See #1 below). His Republican opponent, Tim Sheehy, garnered a mere $2.1 million. Clearly, a call went down the Dems’ deep-pocket pipeline to Big Entertainment, Big Finance, and Big Tech and up gushed the dough. The Democrats’ richly endowed blue-bubble political war machine have the wherewithal to have you vote for your own demise.

No wonder streaming anything results in a deluge of Tester spots. Ditto broadcast. Tester has more cash than he knows what to do with. The estimated $315 million to be spent on this Senate race makes it per capita the most expensive in history, $487 for each one of the state’s 648,000 registered voters (See #2 below).

With cash like that available to the initiative front, they can flood the screens, your text message platform, and airwaves with a tidal wave of appeals to popular prejudices which are crafted to have you vote for California dysfunction. The license for unlimited abortion (CI-128) is couched in anti-government verbiage by people who have the rustic look, waiting to manipulate our prejudices. Bear in mind that the reality is actually about one generation claiming the power to take the lives of those in the newest. Appalling. A country appearance and mannerisms disguise the push for California debauchery.

I suspect that the gambit sells. Our blue bubbles are mired in a deep quagmire of their own making. But in vast stretches of red states lies a population with their own dark strains of thought. Protectionism in tariffs and subsidies are popular. Interstate xenophobia lurks below the surface, ready to be exploited by the dump trucks of cash from blue-state bastions.

If the Big Lie succeeds, expect your children’s fortunes to worsen, and you won’t have a clue that you had a hand in it.

*P.S.: This piece was written before the November election.

RogerG

Sources:
1. “Tester outraises GOP rival in high-stakes Montana Senate race”, Jim Cloutier, 4/25/2024, at https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/04/tester-outraises-gop-rival-in-high-stakes-montana-senate-race
2. “Voters Drowning in Ads From ‘Obscene’ Amounts of Cash Flooding Montana U.S. Senate Race”, AP, USNWP, 10/29/2024, at https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2024-10-29/voters-drowning-in-ads-from-obscene-amounts-of-cash-flooding-montana-u-s-senate-race

October 31, 2024November 12, 2024

Jon Tester is a Democrat. Don’t Forget That.

May be an image of 7 people and text — en. Jon Tester (D, Mt.) at the far right and Sen. Chuck Schumer (center) at the lectern

Sen. Jon Tester is a Democrat, duh! As a Democrat, and after the great national ideological sorting by party that has taken place over the last few decades, that says a lot about him. Where are the conservative Democrats? They’re gone! He insists on being a Democrat while one is left groping for a reason. He runs as a Trumper when running for reelection back home, and he absolutely fits the MAGA-clichéd look: grizzled, flat top, overhanging belly, pickup truck with gun, white farmer. But he votes as a national Democrat, which is nearly identical to being a California Democrat.

Being a Democrat today (California or otherwise) ranges from taking on the policy preferences of Europe’s Social Democrats – i.e., socialist – and enviro-extremist Greens – i.e., socialist – or the UK’s Labor Party – i.e., socialist – to the neo-Marxism of AOC, Elizabeth Warren, etc. His ads stress the part of the far-Left agenda that will sell in Montana: class warfare, interstate xenophobia, and abortion, abortion, and more abortion. If a person ever sat down to actually give them some thought, they’re a collective hot mess.

For instance, an endless Tester spot plugging his support for abortion-and-more-abortion shows him gently touching a baby in her mother’s arms. Think about it: pushing abortion and a mother with baby. It’s the logical equivalent of joining matter and anti-matter. The baby can’t understand how close she came to not being in her mother’s arms, or anywhere. The baby’s existence hung by the delicate thread of whether her mother would use her “right” to end her existence. The scene is so bizarre. But it sells in a state hung up on the freedom of the individual to exterminate the next generation.

It’s more than this. He takes the party line on January 6th, which is as close to a party sacrament as one can get. Babylon Bee satirizes it as “January 6: The Most Deadliest Day” [sic]. What did Tester say on its anniversary in 2021? He released on his website the following: “January 6, 2021 was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history . . . .” (see the full statement here: https://www.tester.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/pr-8833/)

Please watch the Babylon Bee’s parody for counterpoint and perspective. Go to the link:

Jon Tester is a California Democrat in muddy boots. Looks great but people like him are destroying our way of life. Montanans have a guy in Washington who looks like Montana but votes to turn us into California.

*P.S.: Facebook doesn’t like the Babylon Bee or the New York Post, which included a story on Tester raking in Lefty California campaign cash. A quarter, maybe more, in his treasury came from California. You’ll have to search “Montana Democrat Sen. Jon Tester rakes in cash after California soiree, New York Post” to get the story. Censorship is alive and well on Facebook.

RogerG