What Kind of King?

The central figure of Christmas – with all due respect to Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Frosty – has been and continues to be Jesus Christ, whose birth is marked by this universally recognized holiday. Both the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures of the Bible speak of Him as the King of the Jews, King of Kings, and most importantly, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”, a phrase magnificently set to music in George Frideric Handel's masterpiece, “Hallelujah Chorus” from the Messiah:

And He shall reign forever and ever
King of kings (Forever and ever)
And He shall reign (Hallelujah! Hallelujah!)
And He shall reign forever and ever
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
And He shall reign forever and ever

Let us briefly look at what kind of a King that Jesus was and is:

What kind of circumstances – Earthly princes and kings are born surrounded by the trappings of wealth and privilege, in grandiose palaces of finely cut stone and marble that are erected in the center of the seat of power, but this unassuming king was not born in luxury or attended to by the best midwives and doctors in the land. Rather, He was born in the neglected rural village of Bethlehem (as predicted centuries earlier by the Prophet Micah).

Forced to travel in her 9^th month, for purposes of the Roman census, Mary and Joseph were forced to take shelter in a stable for her to give birth. The young couple even had to use a feeding trough as a bassinet for their baby. This was not the typical king.

Luke 2:6-7 “And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

What kind of proclamation – The birth of a king is typically announced with much fanfare to the powerful and the mighty. His presence would be proclaimed to noblemen, princes, and princesses; to commanders, generals, and scholars; to the glitterati and the illuminatti - but not this king. We probably all recall that the first announcement of His birth was to lowly, despised, and unimportant shepherds.

Well... not exactly. You see, while the social status of shepherds suffered due the nature and hardship involved in working continually with outdoor animals, these shepherds were different. The shepherds of Bethlehem were charged with the important task of raising the special animals perfect enough to serve as sacrificial Passover lambs. In fact, it was the kind of dirty job only Mike Rowe could fully appreciate. But it also foreshadowed a somber future for the little king Jesus.

The story continues in the book of Luke:

8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

What kind of ruler – Earthly kings 'Lord it over' their subjects. They busy themselves building cities, commanding armies, and conquering territories, as did Solomon (I Kings 9:15-22). They also erect palaces and monuments to themselves, even demanding godlike worship of themselves, as did Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. (Daniel 3:1-7)

But even though he would have been within his rights to do so, Jesus didn't wield such earthly power or claim an earthly kingship. When directly questioned before Pilate, who was himself a Roman king, Jesus responded thus to the question, “Art thou a king?”:

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. (John 18:36-37)

Rather, this king asks for voluntary submission and then rules in the hearts of his subjects; and one day, we know not when, He will rule, reign, and restore justice to his creation:

Isaiah 9:6-7 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.”

This will be a wonderful day for those counted among His people, and Scripture beckons us to willingly turn and come to Him. The Bible says, now is the time for repentance, “behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (I Corinthians 6:2).

My friend, would you turn, repent, and join me and so many others in following Him?

 

 

Who's in Charge Here Anyhow?

This is a piece, the ideas for which, have been simmering in my mind for a while now.  Unfortunately, the more time I spend observing, the more obvious the problem has become.

Every week there seems to be some sort of new policy blunder or verbal faux pax committed by the current inhabitant of the White House.  This continual incompetence on display within the Executive Branch only reinforces what many of us had suspected well before last year's primary season - that Joe Biden struggles mightily in the area of mental acuity and capacity.

But now, the fact that the Emperor has no clothes is even being hinted at by as unlikely a source as the editorial page of the New York Times (12/14), whose center-left opinion columnist Bret Stephens was granted permission to call into question Biden's "fortitude" by publicly noting his often rambling incoherence, frequent mental lapses, and inability to inspire confidence. (1)   Mind you, this is no small thing.  It is rare indeed that the country's farthest left major newspaper would drop the protective shield instinctively reserved for their political allies and allow a dissenter to breach their Praetorian Guard-like defense of a Democrat Chief Executive.

What is on display for all to see is a seemingly aimless meandering from one disastrous policy failure to another and one incomprehensibly self-destructive executive order after another.  That, in combination with reports of a major rift between the President and his toxic Vice President in the midst of their plummeting poll numbers - all does little to inspire confidence with the American people.  While on the international front, the fecklessness and incompetent blundering displayed by this empty suit Commander in Chief does not escape the notice of the leaders of China, Russia, Iran and other belligerent and openly hostile foreign powers.  

So while the whole border reparations story itself may be old news for many of you, still, it is illustrative of the state of mind (or lack thereof) of the President.

In an administration known for it's divisive leftist political vision combined with a string of disastrously implemented policies - for instance the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco, spiking crime rates, supply chain breakdowns, and spiraling inflation - perhaps none has been quite as flagrantly dangerous and destructive as the administration's blatant open border policies with Mexico.  And nothing about this man-made fiasco is quite so ludicrous as the proposal outlined in the Wall Street Journal late in October (10/30).  According to the article, three of the most corrupt and partisan agencies in the Federal government - the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services - were in talks to essentially pay human traffickers from south of the border nearly half a million dollars each for the "lasting psychological trauma" they endured attempting to illegally smuggle children into the United States. (2)

It was an idea so absurd that, even in what many think is the dementia-addled mind of President Biden, it was initially dismissed as ridiculous. When first confronted with the proposal, his response was that the report was to say"That's garbage," while emphatically adding when questioned by Fox News' Peter Doocy, “That’s not going to happen.” (3)

At least that's what Biden said before he was informed by his puppet-masters that it actually was going to happen, despite what he may have thought or wanted.  Lesson learned:  Don't put the parrot in the spotlight until you are sure he can repeat his lines.

By the next day, however, one of his spokeswomen, deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, assured the press that the President was - or had become - “perfectly comfortable" with the concept of paying off foreign criminals for the troubles they may have endured in the process smuggling children into this country.  And by Saturday, November 6, Biden was emphatically denying that he had even called the outrageous proposal, "garbage". (4)  Of course, that is likely just another example of his short-term memory loss.

Lest you think this is being over-hyped, Fox News' Bill Hemmer reported that within hours of Biden's original denial, the ACLU suggested that President Biden may not have been 'fully briefed' about the actions of the Justice Department he is supposed to be in charge of.  (Or perhaps he wasn't awake during any such briefing.)  Anyway, a few days later, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas would confirm at a speech before the Aspen Security Forum (11/04) that they were not merely negotiating for cash payouts, but - in lieu of serious jail time for felony child endangerment - also discussing a 'path to citizenship' for these reckless lawbreakers and potential Democrat voters who were caught sneaking into our country using innocent children as a shield. (5)

Perhaps some historical review is in order.  During the previous administration, As part of the attempt to quell the lawlessness and chaos at the border, someone had the profound idea to simply enforce existing law as written.  The Trump administration's answer was the 2018  'zero tolerance' policy:  Arrest, prosecute, and deport all those caught sneaking into the country between our ports of entry.

At the same, decades of selective non-enforcement, meant that potential illegal aliens were becoming increasingly aware of the fact that special treatment was being granted to those who crossed the border accompanying a child.  The law of unintended consequences meant this policy encouraged drug runners, child traffickers, and others with evil intentions to beg, borrow, and sometimes literally steal a child to gain preferential treatment in their attempt to illegally enter our country.  Perhaps many - or even most - of the groups illegally sneaking into the country may well have been actual biological families.  However, the shear numbers of illegals overwhelming the system made it very difficult to determine if groups claiming to be family were actually blood relatives or merely criminal drug runners using innocent children as Saddam Hussein-type human shields - and in some cases, human traffickers smuggling kidnapped children across the border for even more evil purposes.

In arresting, prosecuting, and holding these criminal aliens for trial, innocent children were indeed separated from their criminal parents - instead of being held with them in jail.  (The same parents, incidentally, who had risked their children's lives sneaking through the drug-cartel controlled Mexican desert.)  On the other hand, children were also separated from child traffickers, drug runners, and their captors.  This, in much the same way as the children left behind in a bankrobber's getaway car, are not imprisoned awaiting his formal charges, bail hearing, and trial.  So despite the faux outrage from the left - the practice of imprisoning an entire family for the crimes of the family patriarch mostly ended (at least in the west) sometime during the age of enlightenment. (6)

But back to original point, when one contrasts the President's initial response with the actual policy, it leads one to wonder if Mr. Biden is even a full participant in the role of the Presidency.  Was this simply just a case of him not being fully briefed, as his defenders stated?  Could he really forget something this potentially explosive, or was he never in the loop to begin within?

He was caught completely unaware, and certainly not in control of, a highly controversial policy being pursued by his appointees and/or handlers.  Without the aid of a prepared script projected on his large print, Jumbotron-sized teleprompter, he was caught unaware of what his people were doing, presumably on his behalf.  Time and time again, left to his own devices, he quickly meanders into unintelligible gibberish and demonstrably false anecdotes.  However the internal machinations of the Biden White House are contrived, it's clear his handlers need to better brief and instruct the President concerning his core principles.

But perhaps even more important than individual policies, the question to be pondered here is who it is actually hiding behind the curtain in the White House, who is to be held responsible for making all these destructive decisions?  Decisions to try to spend our way out of an inflationary spiral, decisions to leave hundreds of U.S. citizens and tens of billions of dollars of military equipment for the Taliban, and in this case, decisions to financially incentivize and reward those criminals who unapologetically risk children's lives by dragging them through the drug cartel-controlled Mexican desert and illegally smuggle them into this country.

Who is in charge here, anyhow?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/opinion/biden-age-election-2024.html

2.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-in-talks-to-pay-hundreds-of-millions-to-immigrant-families-separated-at-border-11635447591

3.  https://news.yahoo.com/peter-doocy-presses-biden-admin-212503925.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-calls-report-to-pay-separated-immigrants-450k-garbage

4,  https://news.yahoo.com/biden-gets-heated-over-proposed-152115632.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall 

5. https://news.yahoo.com/border-sheriff-apos-perplexed-apos-134533586.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

6. https://www.npr.org/2018/05/10/610113364/transcript-homeland-security-secretary-kirstjen-nielsens-full-interview-with-npr  "First of all, the law says if you cross between the ports of entry, you are entering without inspection and that is a crime. First time is a misdemeanor. After that it's a felony. And then it goes on from there. So that hasn't changed, that's the underlying law. Our policy has not changed in that if you break the law, we will refer you for prosecution. What that means, however, is if you are single adult, if you are part of a family, if you are pregnant, if you have any other condition, you're an adult and you break the law, we will refer you. Operationally what that means is we will have to separate your family.

That's no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an adult of a family commits a crime. If you as a parent break into a house, you will be incarcerated by police and thereby separated from your family. We're doing the same thing at the border." - Kirstjen Nielsen 

 

 

E10 - Error on the Commissioner

There is a huge propaganda campaign being waged by the Democrat party and their mainstream media minions to steamroll their H.R. 1 election-rigging bill through Congress.  Yet despite all that effort, a recent Rasmussen poll confirmed that a large majority of Americans still favor voter ID laws.  You would never know this if you relied on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or Lester Holt's 'media fairness is overrated' network - otherwise known as NBC.

It shows a whopping 75 percent of the American people favor Voter ID requirements. What's even more surprising is despite the current political climate, a huge majority - 69% - of black voters also support it. (1)  As much as anyone with a modicum of fairness and common sense, they realize that insuring the integrity of elections is the best way to protect our republic.  People need to have faith in our elections.  Perhaps too, they tire of the insulting condescension of the Democratic leadership constantly telling them they are simply too incompetent to present a driver's license or state ID card at the polling place, just like they do when they withdraw money or cash a check from their bank, board an airplane, or pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.

Nonetheless, Major League Baseball - apparently not to be outdone by all the self-important preening and gutless pandering of the NFL and NBA last year - has decided to wage a full on, left-wing, crazy, race-baiting, politically woke war against most of their fan base.

One could argue they were duped by the lies of the President or Stacy Abrams or the Democratic media chorus, but truth be told, they wanted to be lied to.  Believing the lie was a convenient way to extract themselves from a difficult public relations squeeze.  A squeeze, on the one hand, between negative publicity in left-leaning major market press and electronic media - and - an entire season of dealing with nasty player's union antics like they saw in the NBA and NFL, such as disrespecting veterans, the flag, & the anthem combined with game boycotts that directly affect revenues.  Of all their constituencies, they gutlessly chose to offend the loyal fan base, likely counting on us momentarily accepting the woke narrative at face value and our short, post-pandemic memory.

While I feared this was coming all week, I still had some glimmer of hope that the Great American Pastime would somehow find a way to rise above the partisan political thuggery of other professional sports and do what it does best, provide entertainment that bridges boundaries across generational, racial, and language barriers.  Disappointed does not come close to how this gut-punch made me feel.

Yes I am only one voice, but even if no one else may join me, I wasted no time letting Commissioner Robert Manfred, Jr. know that his decision comes with a cost, however insignificant the loss of one fan may be:

 

Dear Commissioner Manfred,

I have been a fan of Major League Baseball as long as I can remember... and wish you weren't working so hard to change that.

I remember listening to the Minnesota Twins on the radio in the summers on the farm while still in elementary school.  I remember my first in-person  game - a "knothole game" where Kenny Landrieux's hitting streak was ended.  As a young man, calling in for hours on a Saturday morning in 1987, attempting to get a chance to buy World Series tickets at the Metrodome.  My first time attending a World Series in 1991.

Sadly you have made the American past-time a political exercise.  You are making the MLB just another tool in the Democrat Party's propaganda machine, by officially signalling to baseball fans that professional baseball is now aligned fully with the political left.  You can count me out.

I'm done.  I will not watch you play your figurative or literal games.

Interestingly, in the scanty defense of your ill-thought out political position, your primary citation is Joe Biden, a politically divisive figure and a man known both to be easily and often confused and one who frequently supplants truth with his own politically advantageous fabrications (on request, I will be happy to provide you a list of examples).  What you clearly and conveniently do not cite are any specifics from the Georgia election law SB202 that bolster your assertion that it is a threat to "Fair access to voting."  And of course you didn't - because there are none.

In fact, SB202, attempts to ensure fair voting by curtailing election fraud and illegal voting.  So in a perverse sense that seems to be beyond your comprehension, it will indeed, as you say in your press release, "restrict voting access" by ensuring that only lawful citizens of this country, residents of Georgia, and of legal voting age, cast a single election ballot.  Those are restrictions that the political left opposes, since it stymies its favorite attempts at voter fraud.

I also note that you claim to have "engaged in thoughtful conversations" with your teams and players over the past week.  Yet the reasoning given and the decision you made, and which you claim best demonstrates our "values as a sport" defies reason and denies the facts.

By aligning the MLB with the far extremes of the left, you are unnecessarily politicizing a sport which could unify us as a country, pandering instead to the vocal, extreme minority, and alienating many of your fans.

I am sorry to say goodbye to the professional sport I enjoy the most.  Please let me know when you are ready to denounce the woke and politically divisive tactics of the Democrat party and get back to enjoying sport for the sake of sport again.

Sincerely,

John Scott Niessen
Andover, MN

 

That was my actual letter to the commissioner.  If you feel as betrayed as I do when told your favorite professional sport has gone all woke on you and people like you are no longer welcome, I'd encourage you to let him know your thoughts as well.  If nothing else, I find that putting pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard - can not only be cathartic, but help one to clarify his thinking.

Let's just hope that professional baseball will regain it's sanity and one day soon return to being America's favorite pastime, while there is still an America that is recognizable to us.

 

Postscript:  In the interests of fairness (and very much unlike self-proclaimed journalist, Lester Holt), I am including the entire pathetic original statement from the Baseball Commissioner (April 2, 2021):

 

'21 All-Star Game, Draft moved from Atlanta

2:35 PM CDT


Major League Baseball announced on Friday that it will relocate the 2021 All-Star Game and Draft, originally scheduled to take place in Atlanta, to a to-be-determined location.

The decision comes a little more than a week after the passage of SB 202, a Georgia law that President Biden criticized earlier this week, saying that it will restrict voting access for residents of the state.

Commissioner of Baseball Robert D. Manfred, Jr. issued the following statement in making the announcement:

“Over the last week, we have engaged in thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others, to listen to their views. I have decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star Game and MLB Draft.

“Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box. In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country to perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our game’s unwavering support.

“We will continue with our plans to celebrate the memory of Hank Aaron during this season’s All-Star festivities. In addition, MLB’s planned investments to support local communities in Atlanta as part of our All-Star Legacy Projects will move forward.  We are finalizing a new host city and details about these events will be announced shortly.”

This is a developing story, and it will be updated throughout the day.

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(1)  -   https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/poll-75-percent-americans-support-voter-ID

 

 

 

Impeachment Redux

In her continuing efforts to unify a country emerging from a divisive election season, primarily by shaming, silencing, or straight-up eliminating the political opposition, Nancy Pelosi has ushered her troops through a successful second impeachment vote. She will now work in tandem with Chuck Schumer – with the tacit approval of President Biden – in trying to manipulate the Senate into a kangaroo court trial and removal from office of a popular president - one who happens to no longer be in office.

Notwithstanding that this act is most likely Unconstitutional, it also seems a rather unlikely way to bridge the gap between the two sharply divided political parties or kick off an effort encouraging meaningful bipartisan cooperation in tackling the urgent issues facing our county – unlikely?  well, yes - at least, to those of us living outside the D.C. beltway.

Nonetheless, in her infinite wisdom and with many decades (if not a century) of experience in this sort of thing, the Speaker charged ahead. She forced a change of House rules and rushed through a lone article of impeachment in a single day – without provision for legal representation for the defendant or so much as an attempt to present evidence to prove her claims.

That said, it's not to imply there wasn't an abundance of examples of threatening and dangerous-sounding speech, which might suggest the incitement of violence, to be employed in an impeachment proceeding.  But rather, in her zeal to begin healing the country's divisions, the good Speaker simply couldn't take the time away from her other unification efforts to share it all with the country. So in the interest of fairness, and as a public service to you, my fellow citizen, I present for your consideration some of the most damning evidence of hateful, riot-inciting speech I could find so you can decide for yourself about guilt or innocence in the whole matter.

For some background, even prior to the storming of capitol Hill on January 6, President Trump was heavily criticized for his history of pugilistic language aimed at political adversaries:

Exhibit 1a:

If I were in high school I'd take him behind the gym and beat the he** out of him.¹

Exhibit 1b:

...my testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is, if I did that, (laughing)...²

One of the many claims advanced by the Democrats was that the President's continuing careless words whipped up the crowds at his rallies to extreme acts:

Exhibit 2a:

You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.³

Exhibit 2b:

I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be...⁴

They further claimed that President Trump's repeated use of incendiary language provoked his followers to threaten political opponents and elected officials: (Even directing followers to storm the Capitol...)

Exhibit 3a:

You get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere⁵

Exhibit 3b:

Please don’t just come here today and then go home. Go to the Hill today. Get up and please get up in the face of some congresspeople.⁶

Because he insisted that election fraud cost him the 2020 election, they claim that he impugned and threatened the elected officials and courts that rejected his claims - although often merely on technicalities:

Exhibit 4:

You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions⁷

The most serious allegation is that he summoned his most ardent followers to storm the capitol and foment an insurrection:

Exhibit 5:

So, this is just a warning to you... We ain't playing with you. Enough of the shenanigans. Enough is enough. And for those of you who are soldiers, you know how to do it. Do it right. Be in order. Make them pay.⁸

One of the most devastating charges was that during the siege on the Capitol - that they blame him for starting - he wasn't quick enough to denounce the mob and talk down the rioters:

Exhibit 6:

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 let up and they should not and we should not⁹

Of course, others deny that the President did any such thing:

Exhibit 7:

We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. ...I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.¹⁰

So that's the evidence I found, so you can decide for yourself based on the direct quotes. But before you render your final judgment, there's just one more thing your should know.

Actually, all of those quotes – except the last one – were from elected Democrats and not the President.

You can look at the endnotes for yourself and confirm that. All were elected Democrats encouraging riots, Democrats threatening violence and insurrection, and Democrats cheerleading violence directed against their political opponents. This whole narrative they have invented about Trump is known as psychological projection - accusing Republicans of doing what they themselves are doing.

It's what leftists do.

--- Footnotes ------------------------------------------

1 - Exhibit 1a: Joe Biden - “...they asked me would I like to debate the gentleman. 'I said no! If I were in high school I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” – 03/20/2018 –

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump/index.html

2 - Exhibit 1b: Cory Booker - "Donald Trump is a guy who you understand- he hurts you and my testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching him, which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that," (laugh) "Physically weak specimen, but do you see what I'm talking about here?” Cory Booker – 07/22/19 - https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cory-booker-knocks-trump-refers-to-him-as-an-elderly-out-of-shape-man

3 - Exhibit 2a: Ayanna Pressley - "Make the phone calls, send the emails, show up," she continued. "You know, there needs to be unrest in the streets for as long as there’s unrest in our lives.” – 08/15/20 – https://www.foxnews.com/media/ayanna-pressley-calls-for-unrest-in-the-streets-over-trump-allied-politicians-ignoring-americans-concerns

4 - Exhibit 2b: Nancy Pelosi - “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be when people realize that this is a policy that they defend,” she said. “It’s a horrible thing, and I don’t see any prospect for legislation here.” – 06/14/18 – https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/14/nancy-pelosi-wonders-why-there-arent-uprisings-acr/

5 - Exhibit 3a: Maxine Waters - “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere,” – June 2018 – https://www.foxnews.com/politics/watchdog-says-maxine-waters-inciting-mob-violence-presses-ethics-complaint https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-officials/index.html

6 - Exhibit 3b: Corey Booker - "Before I end, that’s my call to action here. Please don’t just come here today and then go home," Booker said. "Go to the Hill today. Get up and please get up in the face of some congresspeople." – July 25, 2018 – https://freebeacon.com/politics/booker-tells-activists-get-face-congresspeople/

7 - Exhibit 4: Chuck Schumer - “I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” – 03/04/2020 – https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/04/schumer-kavanaugh-gorsuch-abortion/

8 - Exhibit 5: Cynthia A. Johnson, D-MI House of Reps. - “So this is just a warning to you Trumpers: Be careful. Walk lightly. We ain’t playing with you. Enough of the shenanigans. Enough is enough. And for those of you who are soldiers, you know how to do it. Do it right. Be in order. Make them pay." – 12/08/20 – https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michigan-lawmaker-disciplined-over-facebook-warning-to-trumpers-after-she-says-she-was-threatened/ar-BB1bN6Qy

9 - Exhibit 6: Kamala Harris - “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. Everyone should take note of that on both levels. They’re not going to let up and they should not and we should not.” 06/17/20 – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flashback-kamala-harris-nationwide-protests-not-going-to-stop https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1299013980711784448

Harris also raised funds to bail out rioters, so they could continue rioting:

If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota. https://t.co/t8LXowKIbw

– Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 1, 2020

10 - Exhibit 7:  President Donald Trump -

Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.

Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.

I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections.

 01/06/2021 - https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/transcript-of-trumps-speech-at-rally-before-us-capitol-riot

 

Post Inaugural Musings

Just this past week, the DC establishment deployed literally tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of miles of concertina wire to defend their presidential inauguration against a reportedly grave security threat. This impressive mobilization of more than 25,000 National Guardsmen and women, plus an untold number of active duty service members, were all there to defend Washingtonian elites from a motley band of smelly buffalo-horned and coonskin cap-wearing malcontents, mixed in with a handful of mask-less confederate flag-waving buffoons and Antifa agitators. Before you chastise me for downplaying the threat, consider this. For comparison purposes, that's 3 or 4 thousand more troops than President Lincoln required to defend the city against the very real threat of a military siege at it's peak in 1863 by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. (1)

Homeland Security's Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli even revealed that Speaker Pelosi wanted to further play up the police state imagery by requesting the deployment of machine guns in the Capitol. Apparently in this bold new age of one-party rule, Democrats are of the opinion that nothing says national unity quite like belt-fed M2 .50 caliber machine gun nests on every street corner.

Does it really take more than two divisions of armed National Guard-members, being transported at great expense to Washington to sufficiently enforce Biden's inaugural themes of and 'healing' and 'unity'?  Or did they leave jobs, communities, and families behind, only to serve as expensive pawns in a dystopian photo op designed to stigmatize the previous administration?

It has been widely reported that a military presence was needed for security... perhaps so.  Please don't misunderstand me.  The events of January 6 were abhorrent.  I'm all for maintaining law and order.  It is a sad reality that given the current state of cultural decline, there was and will be an ever-increasing need for enhanced security - and in the current political divisiveness, that need shows no signs of lessening.  So in a practical sense, some measure of military presence certainly served a deterrence purpose. (2)

This sudden and newfound repudiation of political violence by elected Democrats is refreshing - albeit 8 or 9 months too late. (As was their confession that fences and walls really do work.) But for whatever was accomplished to deter a real or potential security threat, I humbly suggest that deploying the equivalent of more than two military divisions of armed troops may have been a bit of overkill to subdue a rather pitiful mob of unruly thugs.

And yet, evoking images of Cold War-era Leningrad or current-day Pyongyang during our national day of ceremony did serve other purposes, albeit ones that are at odds with the stated goal of American Unity. Far more insidious ones, I fear.

For one, the dark militaristic theme served very nicely to advance their disingenuous narrative that the 75,000,000 Trump voters are to be feared. Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, advocates of free markets, and the Midwestern working class people are “dangerous”, “enemies of the state”, “fascists”, and “insurrectionists”. Every sort of ad-hominem label has already been applied to Trump, his appointees, and his devotees going on four years now, so the obvious next step is guilt by association: Trump is evil, those several hundred insurrectionists are evil, therefore you people who supported Trump are evil, capable of anything, and can't be trusted. So we had to call in the troops.

Mark my words, those images of Capitol Hill ringed by armed troops and surrounded with razor-wire topped fences will be used by Democrats to smear their opponents in election ads for years to come.

Of course, it also sets the stage for their bogus impeachment and subsequent Senate trial proceedings. Look there, Trump and his devotees are so dangerous to the Republic that we now have more troops defending Washington D.C. than we did during the Civil War.  Of course, this sort of political theater on the Democrats part also reinforces the view of National Guardsmen serving as mere political props in their perverse melodrama.

Perhaps worse, the over-the-top reaction is just another intimidation tactic clearly intended to send a signal to their political opponents. It can't be properly viewed without considering the history of FISA abuse by the Obama administration against their political enemies, the self-censoring of news damaging to Democrats by the institutional news media, and the current talk by the political left of unleashing the mechanisms of the state against its own citizens with amped up domestic spying operations.  And it all combines to create a rather chilling effect against political speech.

All the more so, given the present context of the throttling and deplatforming of conservative voices and media-sponsored news censoring during and after the 2020 campaign, along with all the post-election talk of a need for the 'deprogramming' of Trump supporters, this extraordinary show of force was a subtle warning to any who don't want to unify under the boot of Biden's “very dark winter” agenda:   that of oppressive regulation, job-killing environmental extremism, and unchecked hordes of illegal aliens streaming into our country.

It was an in-your-face proclamation, saying, "We are in charge now!"

If you don't join them and forsake your support for the policies of the past four years, you will be shamed, demonized, doxxed, silenced, deplatformed, unfunded, and perhaps even fired. You better watch yourself. It's Unify... or else.

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1. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/washingtons-civil-war-defenses-and-battle-fort-stevens

2. Tangentially, it also significantly boosted attendance far above the usual dozen or so attendees we had become accustomed to see at Biden's campaign events.

3. Katie Couric on Real Time with Bill Maher, January 15, 2021. Steve Hassan on CNN January 19, 2021. Eugene Robinson and Nikole Hannah-Jones on Morning Joe - on MSNBC January 12, 2021.  https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/12/washington-post-columnist-donald-eugene-robinson-trump-supporters-cult-deprogrammed/

Walzing Around the Truth

On Wednesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued an official statement concerning events unfolding in D.C.. If truth be told, had he only penned the final two paragraphs, he would have earned a modicum of respect from me, and perhaps, even displayed a bit of real statesmanship by calling on us all to be bigger and better persons.  But unfortunately, that was not to be.  Much like his Washington D.C. mentor, Speaker Pelosi, when given the chance, he just couldn't resist playing the role of the shamelessly opportunistic political propagandist and hypocritical pontificator.

The missed opportunity is truly a shame.

His statement, in its entirety, is reposted here:

Statement from Governor Walz:

“I see the events unfolding in our nation’s capital today not just as a Governor, but as a former high school history teacher. The last time our nation’s capital was under siege was more than 200 years ago when our country was at war with the British.”

“Today, it wasn’t a foreign nation that seized the capitol building and attempted an insurrection. It was citizens of our own country, incited by our president and enabled by many political leaders, who made a direct assault on our democracy.”

“In my classroom, I taught my students to see moments like this in a greater historical context. We must do that reflection today. President Trump has fanned the flames of hatred and undermined the sacred American institutions he swore an oath of office to protect. And whether it was through the support or silence of other politicians, he didn’t do it alone.”

“We must recognize that democracy cannot be taken for granted. We ask our soldiers to endanger their lives to defend our democracy abroad—we all have a duty to protect it here at home. That means toning down our rhetoric, bridging divides, and upholding our Democratic ideals.”

“History is being written today. What will our future students read about this moment in their textbooks? It’s on us to ensure today is the end of a chapter. And marks the beginning of when America stood up and stood together.”(1)

For a supposed teacher of history, he seems to have a very short memory of recent events - or at least a highly selective, politically self-serving one.

We all saw our nation's capitol (and many other Democrat controlled cities) come under full scale siege last summer by mindless, rioting BLM Marxists and Antifa's fascist bully-boy insurrectionists.  They vandalized national monuments and federal buildings, destroyed public property, and even torched the historic St. John's church located next to the White House, forcing the Secret Service to move the president to safety.   But apparently in the governor's closed mind, none of that really counts - at least as long as it advances the left's political agenda, its all good.

Closer to home, just this past summer, we saw Governor Walz, rendered helpless and dithering for days on end, weighing the political pros and cons of large scale mob violence against his personal political fortunes, while not just watching - but by his inaction, likely even fanning - the flames of destruction and mob violence.  Meanwhile, Minneapolis burned, police officers were injured, lives and livelihoods were destroyed, and whole neighborhoods were torn apart, until he finally allowed law enforcement and the National Guard to act in some measure of response.  Then, to add insult to injury, he had the audacity to ask the taxpayer to foot the bill for his feckless incompetence, while the perpetrators of it all, for the most part, got by scott free.

And yet now, this same governor lays blame at the feet of our President, the Republican party, and by implication even the GOP voter concerned about the real likelihood of voter fraud, for the mostly non-violent, short, but inexcusable actions of a few miscreant thugs.

By his own measure, Walz is far more culpable in his own actions and inactions than those whom he accuses - but then again, why have standards when you can have double standards?

We must be clear on this point:  Walz's indecision directly contributed to the normalizing of political violence and his inaction, by literally watching a city burn, was far more dangerous than the mere hyperbolic fanning of flames that he accuses his political adversaries of.
 
So we must respectfully ask the governor to what dubious intellectual or moral authority it is that he lays claim to?  What is this duplicitous moral foundation, that justifies him to so brazenly smear with broad brush his political opposition with the actions of a few, while refusing to acknowledge his own complicity in egregious events occurring under his own watch that went on far longer and were far more serious, deadly, and costly? 

Spelling check:  How many "Y"s are there in the word "hypocrisy"?

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1 - https://mn.gov/governor/news/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR2PX31mMSyfw8HQrvWjm2tlNPL0ql45NhV3OOQ9e6WEjtt7VsCUTR8oMec&utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=#/detail/appId/1/id/462163