National Guard

 

If an individual or an organization want to maintain their credibility they must not lie.  If because of circumstances they must lie the lie must be at least credible.  Telling an implausible lie not only destroys credibility it opens the subject to ridicule.  Over 25,000 National Guard were dispatched to Washington D.C. to provide security for the Biden inauguration.  They were the subject of two incidents causing damage the Biden Administration's credibility and opened it up to ridicule.  The treatment of the National Guard brings to mind Rudyard Kipling's poem Tommy.

The first incident involves the large number of National Guardsmen turning their backs on the President's motorcade.  This is based on a video tape taken from a vehicle in the motorcade.  Reuters did a "fact check" of the video and determined that the National Guard did not turn their back on the President.  They claimed, "Social media users have been sharing a video shot from a vehicle that shows some National Guard soldiers facing away from the road as Biden’s motorcade drives past them.  The users claim that the National Guard has “turned their backs” on Biden, suggesting that this action is a display to show their rejection of the President. Their positioning, however, is standard protocol for this sort of duty."

This "fact check" could have worked a few decades ago.  In the internet age if fails completely.  People have access to the video and can judge for themselves.  Who will they believe: their won lying eyes or the experts at Reuters fact checking department?  The behavior of the National Guard was somewhat disappointing.  Someone must have been in charge of the overall operation.  An average NCO could have done a better job or organizing their appearance.  This is partially excusable because of the understandably low morale induced by this situation.  The Guard should have been in formation and standing smartly at attention when the motorcade passed.  Perhaps every tenth man would have his back turned scanning the area for possible danger.  An officer at the front of the formation should be saluting as the motorcade passed by.

Instead, more than "some" of the Guardsmen had their backs turned.  It was a significant number and possibly a majority.  They were not in formation and some groups looked like they were just milling about.  Not one individual saluted.  In support of their "fact check" Reuters quotes Nahaku McFadden, media operations chief for the National Guard Bureau of Public Affairs.  McFadden claimed, “These National Guardsmen were on duty with a mission to protect the president against potential threats.  Some are facing out to ensure the safety of all.”  Again, the video is available.  

The first second incident involves the billeting of Guardsmen in a parking garage.

The Capitol Police told the NY Times, “As Congress is in session and increased foot traffic and business is being conducted, Capitol Police asked the troops to move their rest area outside of the Capitol.”  Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted that she was informed that the "Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen (Guardsmen?) and they will be allowed back into the complex tonight."  This would suggest that the decision to move the National Guard was made by the Capitol Police.  However,  Senator Chris Murphy claimed, “I just got off the phone with the acting Capitol Police Chief who insists there was no general request for the Guard to vacate the building.”  One commentator tweeted, “For the last week my battalion has been sleeping on the floor in the Senate cafeteria. Today the Senate kicked us out & moved us to a cold parking garage."

Sen. Mike Lee acknowledged that the Capitol Police were in charge but wondered if they made the decision on their own.  The public relations impact of this decision should have been obvious.  It certainly should have been decided on a much higher level. Apparently one unit for 5,000 Guardsmen contained just one electrical outlet and one bathroom. The National Guard is a military organization whose member are prepared to lose their lives if necessary.  They are certainly tough enough to sleep on concrete when it’s necessary, but was this necessary?  From San Francisco to New York mayors are finding space to put homeless people in luxury hotels.

The treatment of the National Guard reveals several problems with the current administration.  Many people in this administration hold the military in utter contempt.  It also reveals a lack of foresight that will be repeatedly displayed resulting in embarrassment downplayed by the press.  It further diminishes the credibility of the press and their "fact checking".    

Could This Be Frankenstein

Demonstrations and riots will not stop with the Biden/Harris administration.  They present a real danger to government as we now know it.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in on 20 January.  It has been obvious for some time that this would take place.  On January 18 a protest in NYC resulted in 29 people being arrested and eleven police officers being injured.  The election of Biden/Harris does not appear to have diminished the desire to demonstrate.  Vice-President elect Harris has recognized this claiming: “This is a movement, I’m telling you.  They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be — everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.”  Progressives have created these protest organizations.  Now that they are in power will they be able to control them? They may find that they have created a Frankenstein monster.

There are many reasons why the demonstrations will not be easy to stop.  Social injustice and police brutality are only a small part of the reason for demonstrating.  Many people riot to escape boredom which has been intense with the Corona lockdown.  Many view riots as a fun pastime.  Riots can also be an opportunity to pick up some new tennis shoes or a wide screen TV.  There are few penalties for rioting and some municipalities actually encourage protests.  Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was not the only major who instructed officers to allow protestors to express themselves and that “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.”

Will the administration be able to satisfy the demands of the demonstrators?  That is unlikely.  1960s radical Jerry Ruben famously said,  “Satisfy our demands and we’ve got twelve more. The more demands you satisfy, the more we got.”  It is in the nature of radical movements to never be satisfied.  Being sympathetic toward the protestors does not necessarily protect individuals.  Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan learned that their support of the demonstrators did not give them immunity from attack.

These protest movements have hundreds of millions of dollars in cash.  They are organized.  They are led by people who want to tear down society.  The administration will be relying upon demoralized and defunded police departments to control the chaos.  Even without the defunding of the police law enforcement efficiency will be reduced.  What officer would jeopardize his carrier to make an arrest if he could avoid it. Why arrest someone who will be immediately released. This is happening across the country.  Are Antifa and BLM going to stop protesting and take up gardening?  That is unlikely.

The administration may be unaware of the dangers presented by this movement they helped create.  The progressive constitutional monarchy in France was overthrown by a more radical movement.  It was replaced with Robespierre the guillotine and the Reign of Terror. The Kerensky government which replaced the Czar in Russia was overthrown by a more radical movement.  This new regime was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions.  Where are America's Robespierres, and KGB chiefs, Dzerzhinsky, Yetzov, Beria, and Yagoda?  Our elite might believe in American exceptionalism in that we don't produce such individuals.  They are wrong.

There are countless examples individuals who would be eager to fill these roles.  Failed Democrat congressional candidate Moe Davis asserted, "Screw they go low, we go high bullsh*t.  When @NCGOP extremists go low, we stomp their scrawny pasty necks with our heels and once you hear the sound of a crisp snap you grind your heel hard and twist it slowly side to side for good measure.  He needs to know who whupped his ass."  CNN contributor and liberal "intellectual" Reza Aslanis calling for the "eradication" of over 70 million Americans: “The President is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And his evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.”

The French constitutional monarchy and the Kerensky government failed due to the economic and political turmoil at their time.  Biden/Harris need to be aware that if they crash the economy they may be removed.  Ironically, this would quite possible be done by their own creation.

It's A Brave New World

 Macaulay Culkin supports calls to have Trump cameo edited out of ‘Home Alone 2’  

Karl Marx - "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

George Santayana - “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it” is attributed to the American philosopher 

Prosecutors say Kyle Rittenhouse flashed sign adopted by racists, seek to ban him from bars, drinking

So Many Racists!

Kenosha County prosecutors' motion asks a judge to ban Rittenhouse from “publicly displaying symbols and gestures that are associated with violent white supremacist groups and from associating with known members of those groups, particularly the Proud Boys.” 

 

The Sinification of Joe Biden

 

Vogue Cover of Kamala Harris Disappoints

When was the last time a man underwent this kind of fashion scrutiny. Is this not sexist?  But “stupid tennis shoes”? Those are not stupid tennis shoes. They are the kind that cost over $500 and only our betters can afford to wear. Where is Lynn Yeager? She did such a great job on praising Chewbacca’s fashion sense. It is difficult to make giggles look serious. As for the lighting she may want to get some advice from Governor Ralph Northam.

The Evil Spawn of Mikhail Bakunin

 It will be unnecessary to defund the police or order them to stand down.  They will stand down on their own because of government policies.  This will have disastrous results.

19th Century Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, “The brigand is the true and only revolutionary in Russia.”

Throughout the Trump Administration whenever the President was contradicted by a member of the bureaucracy it was remarked that "a member of his own Justice Department" or "a member of his own intelligence community" disagreed with him.  These government agencies were never part of "his" administration.  They were controlled by the Deep State and for some strange reason he often appointed members of the Deep State to run these agencies.  U.S. presidents depend upon approximately 2 million federal employees to carry out the agenda voters elected them to implement. Donald Trump was frequently criticized for having more faith in Vladimir Putin than his own intelligence community.  Yes, that intelligence community that was attempting to have him impeached.

One of the most powerful branches of government is the Department of Justice.  This department is largely composed of "progressives."  This is revealed by the fact that its employees donate overwhelmingly to progressive organizations.  One of President Trump's greatest accomplishments was his nominating a large number of judges to the federal judiciary.  He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court. Recently we have witnessed how ineffective that has been.  The judiciary both federal and state has been compromised and this will have disastrous results. We are witnessing a dramatic increase in crime and this is only the beginning.  Assistant District Attorney in Queens County, N.Y., Alice Vachss, commented on this problem in the justice system in the early 1990s: "There is a large, more or less hidden population of what I later came to call collaborators within the criminal justice system."

There are two aspects of judicial system corruption: a sympathy for criminals and a hostility toward conservative groups.  David Horowitz describes the former in his book, Radical Son: "The prison movement that Fay (Stender) founded was built on the common radical premise that outlaws were rebels, that there are no criminals, only political prisoners."  That latter can be described as the Cardinal Richelieu technique:  Richelieu asserted, "If you give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men I will find something in them with which to hang him."  Every attorney who defended Donald Trump, every individual who signed an affidavit on voter fraud and the President himself will be prosecuted.   Innocence is no defense as Senator Ted Stevens, General Michael Flynn and many others have learned.  Many of the innocent will confess to various crimes as Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev did during the Stalinist show trials.

The situation in the state and local level is possibly worse.  San Francisco's District Attorney Chesa Boudin is the son of members of the domestic-terror group Weather Underground.  He has adopted rules making it harder to prosecute suspects.  He allowed a repeat offender on parole which resulted in the death of two women. Last August five District Attorneys published an op-ed in Politico.  They proclaimed, “Our criminal legal system was constructed to control Black people and people of color. Its injustices are not new but are deeply rooted in our country’s shameful history of slavery and legacy of racial violence. The system is acting exactly as it was intended to, and that is the problem. We should know: We’re Black, we’re female, and we’re prosecutors. We work as the gatekeepers in this flawed system. And we have some ideas for how to fix it.”  Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey sees riots in a positive light: "Yes, America is burning, but that's how forests grow."  She blames "institutionalized racism" for the violence.  Multnomah County's District Attorney Mike Schmidtdropped charges against hundreds of people arrested for offenses like interfering with cops, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and rioting.  Philadelphia's Assistant District Attorney Isabella Aguilar believes, "Two party systems are for maintaining a white supremacist patriarchal colonial state" and Mitch McConnell has spent his "entire career blocking process and marginalizing oppressed communities. F**K YOU."

Deep State DAs view looting as a free speech issue.  Looting is actually a very constructive activity.  Vicky Osterweil, the author of “In Defense Of Looting,” argues that “looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society” and is a way to undermine the “white supremacy.”  Osterweil claims looting is a tool for justice that doesn’t really harm anyone.  Looting allows rioters to “demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free.”  Progressive DAs appear to share this sympathetic view of looters.  Seattle's city attorney Peter Holmes claims, "No city prosecutor is interested in sending an impoverished new parent to jail for stealing baby food."  Holmes appears to be mimicking Maxine Waters who said after the Los Angeles 1992 riots, “There were mothers who took this as an opportunity to take some milk, to take some bread, to take some shoes. Maybe they shouldn’t have done it, but the atmosphere was such that they did it. They are not crooks.”  Prosecutors must now consider looters’ “needs” when weighing criminal charges.

The compassion expresses for looters does not extend to the general public.  Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón had to apologize for telling the mother of a murder victim “It’s unfortunate that we have people who do not have enough education so they can keep their mouth shut for a moment so we can talk.”  DAs can be determined to get a conviction depending on the crime or the obvious innocence of the target.  The case of Mark and Patricia McCloskey is illustrative.  The lead St. Louis police detective investigating McCloskey refused to sign two versions of a court documents prosecutors had drafted.  His investigation revealed that the mob threaten the McCloskeys, was armed, and broke the gate to get onto their private property. 

Labeling and its consequences

In the press, intelligentsia, and on the left, Donald Trump and his supporters have been consistently referred to as terrorists, Klansmen, and Nazis.  

Arizona's Secretary of State Katie Hobbs labeled Trump supporters “his neo-Nazi base” in a tweet she posted in August 2017.  This tweet was left up for three years and two months.  Hobbs is the chief election officer of the state. She is in charge of the vote “counting” in Arizona.  She has also accused President Trump of attempting to “sabotage” the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to influence the election.  Can she be trusted to be impartial?

CNN’s plummily titled Chief International Anchor, Christiane Amanpour, recalled Kristallnacht, the infamous anti-Jewish pogrom carried out in Nazi Germany in 1938, by noting that President Donald Trump’s presidency has similarly been a “modern day assault” attacking “those same values.”  She claimed, "That tower of burning books . . . led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history and truth,” and: "After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden/Harris team pledges a return to norms, including the truth.”  The Trump administration's Kristallnacht and book burning were never covered by the press. 

 Beto O'Rourke compared Trump's rally in Greenville, North Carolina to Nazi Germany: "That's Nuremberg to me."

He wasn't the only one. Joe Scarborough discussing a Trump rally in North Carolina, “That’s the president, actually, from his Nuremberg rally from last night.”  It was another obvious reference to the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg.  

The Nazi talk went beyond that: Former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden compared President Trump’s immigration policies to that of Nazi Germany, too. “Other governments have separated mothers and children,” Hayden wrote next to a black-and-white photo of Auschwitz.  

Others dished out references to the Klan. Democratic congressional candidate from North Carolina, Moe Davis, stated “When @NCGOP extremists go low, we stomp their scrawny pasty necks with our heels and once you hear the sound of a crisp snap you grind your heel hard and twist it slowly side to side for good measure. He needs to know who whupped his ass.”  Davis compared Trump rallies to “Klan rallies” and “make American great again” hats to “new KKK hoods.”  For some reason voters in his district decided not to elect him.

CNN contributor and liberal "intellectual" Reza Aslan called for the “eradication” of Trump supporters. Aslan remarked that President Donald Trump "is a white nationalist terror leader. His supporters – ALL OF THEM – are by definition white nationalist terror supporters. The MAGA hat is a KKK hood. And his evil, racist scourge must be eradicated from society.”  The characterization of Trump supporters as an “evil, racist scourge” is reminiscent of the Holocaust.  In references to the genocide, identical language is used by historians, journalists, and human rights organizations.  Aslan also called for violence against the Covington Catholic High School boys.  He asked in a tweet,  “Honest question. Have you seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?”  Patrick Buchanan asserted, "To true believers in the revolution, the Right is not just wrong; the Right is evil."

"Historian" Jon Meacham claimed, "Donald Trump is a product of the white man’s, the anguished, nervous, white guys lizard brain."

"Comedian" Bill Maher made a joke about Trump’s mom having sex with an orangutan.  “To determine whether he is in fact the love child of a human woman and an orangutan from the Brooklyn zoo,” Maher said. “Look, I’m not saying your mother was repeatedly ****ing an orangutan back in the 1940s, I don’t know if that’s true I hope it’s not true.  But given your face, your physique and your intelligence level and of course your hair, the American people deserve some real proof that your mother did not spend most nights in 1945 covering her body in banana oil sneaking into the monkey cage and compulsively humping an orange orangutan.”

All of these pundits have remained employed and have been lauded for their courage for speaking truth to power.  Are their more egregious comments that would require someone to be fired.  Apparently, the answer is 'yes.'  Radio personality Grant Napear was fired by his radio station and resigned as the Sacramento Kings TV play-by-play announcer after his tweet that said “All Lives Matter” became public.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Singing Nuns, a traditional Catholic sisters organization, a hate group.  The Little Sisters of the Poor are also under investigation.

There is a danger in labeling.  A 2007 Clark University study of hate speech claimed, “Dehumanization is a frequent element of hate speech, and is used to vilify the target. It also has the effect of disinhibiting violence. Thus, dehumanizing descriptions of individuals and groups are an alarming signal of hate speech and the danger of future violence.”  After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing the late Washington Post columnist, David Broder wrote: “The bombing shows how dangerous it really is to inflame twisted minds with statements that suggest political opponents are enemies."  Floyd Corkins, a LGBT volunteer shot up the conservative Family Research Council headquarters in August 2012.  Corkins admitted he got his information from the Southern Poverty Law Center website.

Internet Company Bias

On October 28, 2020 Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google testified before the Senate's Commerce Committee.  Republicans called this hearing to question the CEOs about political bias on the internet.  Senator Ron Johnson asked the three CEOs if their employees lean to the left.  Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai could not answer the question, although Pichai had said in his opening statement, “Let me be clear: We approach our work without political bias, full stop.”  Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his employees do “skew” to the left.  Does this bias influence what is allowed on the internet?

The three CEOs contend that they do not censor information. They do, however, "moderate content."  Facebook has 35,000 content "moderators" and Google has 10,000.  Jack Dorsey has no idea how many “moderators” he employs.  One item “moderated” by Twitter and Facebook was an article in the New York Post about information on Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Senate Wicker stated, "twitter blocked all users including the House Judiciary Committee from sharing the article."  Zuckerberg claimed mention of the article was “moderated” because the FBI had warned Facebook about possible Russian hacks.  The President was also censored.  Senator Blackburn stated that twitter never banned Biden but banned the President 65 times.  Dorsey claimed, “We haven’t censored the U.S. President.”  She replied, “Oh yes you have.”  

Rachel Lerman of the Washington Post reported, “President Trump has repeatedly broken the rules with tweets about the election and the pandemic. Twitter has at times labeled those posts or even shielded them from view with a gray box and prevented them from being retweeted.”  Senator Mike Lee asked each CEO if they could name one prominent individual or institution from a liberal ideology that they had banned.  He did not allow them to avoid the question.  They could not.  Sundar Pichai gave an obscure example.

Does the “moderation” of information have an effect on elections?  Senator Ron Johnson was ridiculed for using a satirical example to illustrate bias in Twitter's policy. The Tweet read, "Senator Ron Johnson is my neighbor and strangled our dog, Buttons, right in front of my 4 yr old son and 3 yr old daughter.  The police refuse to investigate. This is a complete lie but important to retweet and note that there are more lies to come."  Senator Johnson contacted Twitter and requested the Tweet be removed.  They responded, "Thanks for reaching out. We escalated this to our support team for their review and they have determined that this is not a violation of our policies."  Senator Johnson may be overly sensitive about this tweet. It was humorous.  But he has a legitimate complaint.  It quite likely will have a small impact on his reelection.  A critic might respond, "No one is that stupid."  We all remember when Sarah Palin said, “I can see Russia from my house!”  Snopes claims it is "the quotes most strongly associated with former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin."  Palin never made the remark.  It was made by Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live.

Senator Cruz asked, "Mr. Dorsey, does Twitter have the ability to influence elections?"  Dorsey responded with a decisive, "No."  Either Dorsey is lying, or he is incredibly dense.  All means of information transmission impact the way people think, and therefore can influence elections. Former publisher of The New York Times Arthur Hays Sulzberger said, "A man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it" Of course all of this “moderation” is designed to protect us.  There is a large amount of hate speech and misinformation on the internet.  So many of us are just not intelligent enough to separate truth from fiction.  They are compelled to help us.  A problem arises with the people selected to provide this help.  Former East German Stasi agent Anetta Kahane is providing guidance on immigration policy.  A Google engineer mentioned by Senator Blackburn, Blake Lemoine, has written, “Some people are toxic and need to be cleared away so that our civilization can function properly.”  These CEOs are soft-spoken.  They give the appearance of trying to be objective, transparent, and reasonable.  Yet the people they hire are working to install the Deep State.  Their tranquil appearance is a technique used most effectively by Dorsey.  The Washington Post was able to report, "Dorsey maintained a calm demeanor as Cruz became increasingly agitated.  Senator Cruz is portrayed as the radical.  

These internet companies are privately owned.  They can censor whatever they want.  They can also broadcast whatever they want.  People should be able to deny the holocaust, claim the earth is flat and say the moon is made of cheese.  It is up to the recipient to determine the validity of the claim.  If a news source makes enough absurd claims it will cease to be listened to.  When a company fails to satisfy its customers in a market economy it encourages competition.  There has been significant growth in alternative internet sites in the last few years.  This is due in large part because these companies are not serving the public.