Roundup
Every single one of these stories deserves a post of its own. That’s how much is going on, a great deal of it alarming.
(1) Trump was arraigned today, and pleaded not guilty to all charges. There will be no gag order.
What a travesty this is.
(2) The person from whom Biden and son allegedly accepted millions in bribes is said to have been a Russian asset:
Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who allegedly paid a total of $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in 2015 and 2016 in exchange for then-Vice President Joe Biden’s assistance in getting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired, is believed to be an asset of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) by the United States intelligence community, according to a national security source speaking to RedState on condition of anonymity.
(3) The Sunday Times of London makes a strong case that the COVID virus was being developed by the Chinese as a bioweapon when the leak occurred.
Will those people who accused, excoriated, and censored anyone who previously suggested such a possibility ever say their mea culpas? Highly unlikely.
(4) Illinois bill bans school library book bans. Does this mean that Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird can return?:
The law is the first of its kind in the nation, and would cut off funding to any libraries that remove books currently on the shelf.
The law was pushed by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state’s librarian, and is a response to the backlash in many local school districts against controversial books, particularly some championed by the LBGTQ community.
“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts. Regimes ban books, not democracies,” Pritzker said.
Actually, no books were banned – they simply aren’t in school libraries because of local decisions about what’s appropriate for kids. The use of the word “banned” in this context is another case of the leftist Humpty-Dumptyism about word meanings. More:
“They call us book banners, but we’re not banning books. We want to ban pornographic books. Heterosexual or homosexual it doesn’t belong in the school,” said Terry Newsome, one parents who helped lead the charge against “Gender Queer” in Downers Grove.
Apparently, that’s presently considered a regressive and extreme point of view in Illinois.
(5) Here’s an eye-opening and depressing analysis of what’s wrong with the Texas legislature.
It would appear (quelle surprise!) as though the utterly ghastly Cocaine Mitch has yet to comment on this travesty, while it may be that the courageous Chinese woman (Dr Yan Limeng), who appeared more than once on Tucker’s show, may well have been correct about the sinister origins of the virus in the Wuhan lab. As for the claims from our worthless “intelligence agencies” about Zlochevsky’s having been a “Russian asset”, much skepticism is warranted, while almost no-one wants to discuss the even more heinous Kolomoisky or the seemingly endless connections between corruption in Ukraine and corruption, amongst the Democrats, in DC’s mephitic swamp.
First it was racist to call it the Wuhan Flu. Then it was ok to say that maybe it started at a Wuhan open market. Then it was forbidden to say that it was a man-made disease. And so on. Now we’ve come full circle to the fact that it was a man-made disease funded by the US, created by the Chinese military and unintentionally leaked from the lab. When will they be forced to admit what I believe: that it was leaked but the Chinese government allowed it to spread rapidly around the world so they could see the results of what they created?
That article about Texas is depressing. Our Cornhead, Dave Begley, says in the comments that he’d like to see this author’s analysis of the impeachment case against the Texas AG. The Speaker of the House is, according to this, working with moderates and Democrats to get his speakership, and cannot be regarded as a genuine conservative.
Florida, with an effective legislature and an energetic conservative governor, has made tremendous progress. Even NC, still saddled with a Democrat for governor, has done a lot of good things.
I think that one day our lying government will admit that the Chinese government deliberately let Covid spread rapidly because they AND the US wanted to see the results of what they created.
Countdown clock started until the Uniparty is cited; the Texas branch of course. Uniparty is everywhere and all powerful
om, did you read the linked article?
Just like I’ve been saying about Congress, what’s happening in Texas makes sense if you focus on appropriations. Culture war issues are how we are fooled into supporting Republicans who stab us in the back in order to see to it that their cronies get paid, which is always more important to them than culture war issues:
…So apparently there was a deal in place, whereby state universities got $1 billion of the unprecedented state surplus, but only if LG Patrick’s anti-DEI and tenure reform bills passed. But then Phelan and company gutted SB17 and SB18 late in the session, and then essentially dared the Senate to reject their changes and thus kill not only SB17 but also the much-touted $1 billion in additional higher education funding. The Senators on the conference committee blinked. As a result, instead of being penalized for embracing DEI as official state policy, state universities wind up getting an additional $1 billion in state funding, and in return proponents of educational reform got versions of SB17 and SB18 that were completely emasculated. In short, SB17 supporters got chumped.
It will keep happening as long as we keep thinking that anyone with an R label is on “our side”.
Parties don’t accumulate wealth and influence, people who take on party labels do, and they can get that wealth and influence in the minority, no matter how they screw their constituents, provided their constituents keep falling for Team Red / Team Blue narratives. (Note that the Dems got what THEY wanted despite being in the minority.)
Kate:
The Texas article describes a situation in which a few powerful RINOs are able, because of peculiarities of the Texas constitution, to block the will of the more conservative GOP majority in Texas. I would not call that a uniparty.
The number of DEI positions at U Texas has destroyed the reputation of what may have been the best state school on the planet.
The Sunday Times of London makes a strong case that the COVID virus was being developed by the Chinese as a bioweapon when the leak occurred.
This was obvious from jump street. At least it was to me, and I said so. And I’m no genius.
How was it that I got it right when the experts and smart people didn’t?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course.
When I mentioned in passing, in an email, to one of my oldest and closest friends from high school that I had my suspicions about the origins of the “Kung-Flu,” he wrote back excoriating me, at some length, for using a racist term.
I did not reply. I still haven’t. He is no longer my friend.
We live in this kind of time. At least I do.
The Bolsheviks would be quite proud of what they have as American students
You mean kind of how they always seem to describe everyone coming in the country as a “refugee”? I get that a lot of people coming in apply but it’s not a synonym for a migrant. (You’re basically saying you can’t return to your country for a reason like you’d get murdered, raped, tortured, enslaved, etc. Not you don’t like being poor.)
@neo: I would not call that a uniparty.
Different people can use words in different ways, and it’s no Humpty-Dumptyism provided you are consistent and explain your usage….
As the person most often criticized for using the word, I mean it as “a coalition of politicians from both parties that works together to sabotage the public aims of each party whenever it benefits their cronies”. Using the word as I do, there is a Uniparty in Texas, but it doesn’t make up a numerical majority of the Texas legislature the way that it does in Congress, though the structure of the Texas legislature gives it outsized influence.
Occasionally votes happen that force the Congressional Uniparty to self-identify. The debt ceiling issue has provided two such occasions recently:
1. Last month, more Democrats supported the Republican Speaker’s “debt ceiling deal” than Republicans did, and more Republicans opposed it than Democrats did. The people voting “no” are mostly not in the Uniparty, but most of those voting “aye” are. For example, beside the Freedom Caucus Republicans who opposed it you had the Leftist extremists who opposed it like Pramila Jayapal and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Similarly in the Senate, 44 Dems voted for it and 17 Republicans. 4 Dems opposed it, including Warren and Fetterman, hardly moderates, and of course Bernie Sanders was against it.
2. A few years ago, Mitch McConnell torpedoed a Republican filibuster on the debt ceiling by working with Chuck Schumer to set aside the filibuster by simple majority vote, which the media mysteriously did not call “nuking the filibuster” and no one was concerned about our precious Senate norms. The Republicans and Democrats who formed that coalition are in the Uniparty.
Neo: I know, and I read the article carefully. I didn’t think om had. Sounds like Texas needs to make major improvements in its procedures, and it also sounds like it won’t easily be able to.
neo on June 13, 2023 at 6:23 pm said:
Kate:
The Texas article describes a situation in which a few powerful RINOs are able, because of peculiarities of the Texas constitution, to block the will of the more conservative GOP majority in Texas. I would not call that a uniparty.
The McCain machine in Arizona gave us a Democrat (Soros model) Governor rather than support a Trump supporter. This went so far as to enable an election fraud. That sounds like a Uniparty to me.
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1668754428520976384?cxt=HHwWgMDSlfbTzaguAAAA
Kate:
My point is that that the “Uniparty” would be invoked because it is a very flexible nebulous term;
as if powerful unscrupulous politicians need their own label and have not been recognized without the “Uniparty” moniker.
Powerful, principled politicians are rare indeed. IIRC that was recognized in this country a long time ago.
“So NARA didn’t assist Trump’s team in archiving documents during the transition — unlike it did for the five prior presidents — then made a criminal referral over the documents it didn’t assist in archiving?” [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]—
https://twitter.com/bhweingarten/status/1668677857936125953
H/T Lee Smith Twitter feed.
Heh! Just more Deep State/Democratic Party SABOTAGE of an American President.
(Following which sabotage they can accuse HIM of acting illegally! Pretty nifty trick, wouldn’t ye’ say!! But then this has been THE NAME OF THE GAME all along, hasn’t it! Cf. Michael Flynn, etc.)
+ Bonus:
“We now know that at the time Donald Trump was being impeached for asking for an investigation of Burisma, the FBI had information from a credible source claiming Burisma bribed the Bidens.”—
https://twitter.com/BlueBoxDave/status/1668617577872912384
H/T Lee Smith Twitter feed.
Jeff Carlson on a tear….
…with another “Biden” OSCAR-winning “inflation” two-step…and Carlson’s “HOLD ON THAR” WRT “Biden”‘s dishonest claims:
“Lol. That’s not what it shows….”—
https://twitter.com/themarketswork/status/1668687348710920192?cxt=HHwWgMDS0a6Tr6guAAAA
Mollie Hemingway on the DOJ:
“…After The Last Seven Years, No One Believes The DOJ Is Acting In Good Faith”—
https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1668706921258405888?cxt=HHwWgMC-vdGGuKguAAAA
+ The Wuhan Lab Leak Coverup(TM) gets blown to smithereens:
(Introducing Loveable Luigi…)
https://twitter.com/luigi_warren/status/1668719962243092480?cxt=HHwWgMDSsdz9vaguAAAA
Leaving one to wonder…is the strategic rationale of LYING 24/7 not so much that people won’t believe you but that they’ll totally STOP listening to you (from sheer fatigue and disgust)…and leave you alone…so that you can destroy/subvert/pervert/corrode whatever you want…?
Biden’s laughable claims about inflation, continued:
“This WH claim is misleading. Inflation is still increasing….”—
https://twitter.com/AndyPuzder/status/1668796530784862210?cxt=HHwWhICwvczm4KguAAAA
OTOH, with all the troubles Biden seems to be having at the moment, NOW might just be the time to crash the economy….
like thanos said of the collector ‘its pretty like breathing for them’
loki, said some people, wanted to be ruled, (they give the villains the best lines)
The RINO situation in Texas is not unique. For years, Tennessee had the same problem. RINOs would work with Democrats to elect a Democrat to speaker of the house and majority leader of the senate. This continued long after the state had become a red state in statewide elections. Drove conservatives crazy.
The solution is to take out the RINOs in primaries. The Tennessee Forum, a PAC run by my sister, took out most of the RINOs in East Tennessee over a few election cycles. Some important things to understand:
1. There is an inherent conflict between people with electoral ambitions and the feelings of most GOP voters toward the role of government. The ambitious embrace the power that comes from larger government. Power corrupts in all kinds of ways.
2. In GOP strongholds, the only path to political power is to be a Republican. A lot of politicians don’t really give a damn about policy. They’ll say and promise whatever will get them the power they want.
3. It’s shocking how cheap a legislative seat is. [George Soros discovered the low cost of less important races and exploited it recently with prosecutor races and Sec of State elections.] In rural areas, election spending could be as little as a few thousand dollars. Primaries even less.
4. Most every county has some kind of political machine. If a RINO or two get to the top of the machine, it can be really difficult to dislodge them. The machine operates on loyalty to the machine and people paying their dues. The worker bees get out the vote in low turnout primaries for races people pay little attention to. They are rewarded with jobs in the courthouse and lower-level political posts. Moving up is about waiting for one’s turn.
5. The local press leans left. Sometimes hard left. They will provide cover for a RINO in an overwhelmingly GOP stronghold who is cooperating with the Democrats at the state capitol. In an area with at least a bit of Democrat chance to win, the press will attack as “extreme” any Republican who stands firmly conservative. The press is flexible that way.
6. To dislodge a RINO in a primary, candidate recruitment is important. It’s usually someone with a strong presence in the community in business, charity or religious circles who can bypass the machine. And then, use the money to overwhelm the normal election spending of the machine candidate in a primary. You have to make the case that the RINO is betraying principles when he goes to the capitol.
Even today, with the GOP in clear control of both houses of the Tenn legislature it remains difficult to get conservative measures passed. School choice, as one example, fails because the left-wing teachers unions do a great job of rallying teachers against it. In a lot of small counties, the school system is the largest employer. In addition, newly elected school board members go to an orientation in Nashville where they are thoroughly brainwashed in lefty education tropes. They’re just caring people who want the best education for kids. They tend to listen to professionals.
It’s always the case that the GOP is a bunch of amateurs playing against professionals who play for keeps and play as dirty as it takes to win. Who wrote the book (maybe Bell?) which mentioned the Wisconsin political scene in Madison? The GOP types were there Tues-Thurs. The Democrats worked seven days a week and laughed at the GOP as “amateur hour”.
The amateurs are getting rolled over by Big Brother.
Will we see Abigail Shrier’s book in Illinois school libraries now?
A fringe benefit of the Trump indictment is it has stirred Middle America’s moral outrage, and I do not mean just Republicans.
When one has a population, however heterogeneous, rise up en masse, it is time to look out. Heads will roll.
Of course this was all apparent by the armed FBI assault on Mar-A-Lago at 5 AM in search of documents, months ago, but our droll MSM ignored it, so did the People also. But not this time; much too brazen.