Trump for President 2024

When Donald Trump began his run for president back in 2015, I was a Trump skeptic. I did not think Trump was a serious candidate. I did not believe he had any chance of winning the Republican nomination, much less the general election. If Trump were nominated, I thought he would be a sure loser against Hilary Clinton. If by some miracle, Trump won, I was sure he would govern as a mushy moderate centrist. Trump’s political stands in the past gave me no confidence that he would turn out to be a conservative president.

Indiana doesn’t hold its primaries until May, and by that time. the once enormous Republican field had dwindled to just two candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. I voted for Ted Cruz. By that time, however, it was obvious that Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee for president, running against Hilary Clinton. Since I knew that Mrs. Clinton was as corrupt as her husband and a leftist ideologue, I resigned myself to voting for Trump as the lesser evil.

A strange thing happened in the campaign, however. The people who supported Donald Trump were really enthusiastic about their candidate. Trump generated more enthusiasm than any Republican candidate in recent memory, he was no Mitt Romney or Bob Dole. The people loved him. More importantly, the people who opposed Donald Trump seemed to really, really hate him. The Democrats have always announced the current Republican presidential candidate as the latest incarnation of Adolf Hitler, but this time they seemed to mean it. Even more interesting, many Republicans and conservative pundits expressed the opinion that Trump was unacceptable as a political candidate and would support Clinton as the lesser evil. It seemed to me that all the people I really hate really hated Donald Trump. That led me to believe that he must be doing something right. I began to paraphrase Matt Stone’s comment about liberals and conservatives saying that I hated Donald Trump, but I really fucking hated the people who hated Donald Trump.

Trump won the election, of course, and he exceeded my expectations. Trump turned out to be, in many ways, the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan himself. Trump appointed conservative justices who respected the constitution to the Supreme Court and made the entire judicial system more conservative. He encouraged manufacturers to return to the US, and the economy was booming, with record lows in unemployment for Blacks and Hispanics. Trump didn’t manage to build the wall on the southern border, but illegal immigration slowed to a trickle. Trump was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to initiate any new military actions, but he managed to promote peace in the Middle East and elsewhere. He was a successful president despite having both political parties and virtually the entire media against him. So, while I was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016, by 2020, I was an enthusiastic Trump supporter.

Naturally, our elites couldn’t have an outsider have a successful presidency, especially when the President’s Make America Great Again agenda proved so beneficial to the American people and so inimical to their own interests. They certainly couldn’t have him reelected for another four years. As the 202o election approached, they made every effort to ‘fortify’ the election to ensure Trump’s loss. The COVID pandemic provided a perfect pretext to destroy the economy with lockdowns and illegally change the electoral laws in key states, making fraud by mail-in votes much easier. Social media companies suppressed information about the criminal acts of the Biden family while spreading misinformation about Trump. Finally, on election night, they resorted to blatant cheating then Trump ‘lost’ the election.

By all indications, Donald Trump is planning to run again in 2024. I have had somewhat ambiguous feelings about this. Right now, Donald Trump is seventy-six years old. In 2024, he will be seventy-eight, the same age Joe Biden was when he entered the White House. While Trump does not show the obvious signs of dementia Biden has shown, I wonder if Trump will be too old for the j0b. In addition, there is no denying that Trump has been a polarizing figure. If half the country loves him, the other half certainly hates him with a passion. Maybe the Republicans should go with a younger, less obnoxious candidate. Maybe, they should nominate a candidate who supports Trump’s policies, but that lacks Trump’s offputting persona, someone like Ron DeSantis, perhaps.

I was leaning towards that position, but recent events have caused me to change my mind and support Donald Trump for 2024. First, there was the unprecedented raid on Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. Then the alleged President denounced the half of the country that supports Trump as ‘semi-Fascists’ and a threat to ‘our democracy. The elites who have spent the four years of Trump’s presidency hating him and everything he stands for still hate him and anyone who supports him. As Trump has said, “They don’t hate me. They hate you. I’m just in the way.”

In his first term, Trump had managed to expose the corruption and rottenness of many of our institutions. In his second term, he might be able to purge the putrefaction in the system. That is why they hate and fear him. That is why they hate and fear we the people. That is why Trump must be elected to a second term in 2024. That is why I have put aside all of my reservations and enthusiastically support Trump for president in 2024.

Mar-a-Lago

I think I can safely say that with the FBI’s raid of President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar A Lago on August 8, 2022, America is no longer the constitutional republic we have grown up in. We are now well on the way to a complete transition to an authoritarian banana republic complete with an arbitrary, politicized justice system, rigged elections, a state controlled new media, and a tyrannical disregard for the fundamental civil rights of the citizenry.

Here is Mr. Trump’s statement on this disgraceful affair.

These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections. Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.

The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years, with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!

Hillary Clinton was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House.

I stood up to America’s bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.

I will continue to fight for the Great American People!

Robert Spencer says it best:

When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home on Monday, a key aspect of what made the United States of America great and free has been lost, and likely cannot be recovered. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson detested one another for years before their eventual reconciliation, but neither one used the agencies of the U.S. government to hound, persecute or discredit the other. Other bitter political opponents throughout the history of the republic have never before used the government’s own mechanisms of justice to do injustice to their foes. Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and their henchmen have brought America to a new phase of its history, and it is not likely to be one that is marked by respect for the rule of law or defense of the rights of individual citizens. Instead, we are entering an ugly age of authoritarianism, in which the brute force of the state is used to bend the people to the will of the tyrant.

This is banana republic stuff. This is the kind of thing that moved Woodrow Wilson to intervene militarily in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua, explaining: “We are friends of constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its champions. I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” Wilson was an authoritarian scoundrel and one of the worst presidents we have ever endured, but much as he hated Theodore Roosevelt and feared that he would be reelected to the presidency in 1920 (instead, Roosevelt died in 1919), Wilson never had rogue government agents raid Roosevelt’s home looking for something they could use to pin some crime on him.

 

The lesson is clear: in America today, in the corrupt kleptocracy of Joe Biden, you have to have the right opinions. Then all doors will open for you and you can even break laws with impunity, and have no fear of prosecution. But if you dare to dissent from the opinions of the elites, prepare to be hounded by the new super-IRS and the weaponized FBI, and you’ll face raids, and prison, and who knows what else is coming.

Precisely. The sole purpose of this raid is to find something, anything they can use against Donald Trump to prevent him from running again. What’s next? Will they arrest Trump on trumped-up charges and then announce he committed suicide? Or perhaps he will have a “heart attack” while in federal custody. I feel like a crazy conspiracy theorist just writing this, but apparently, they are done even pretending the rule of law is operative in today’s new America. 

Meanwhile, the Republicans are having fits. It remains to be seen whether they are all talk or will actually do something to stop this lawless regime. Honestly, I am not confident that they will finally grow a spine.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is promising an investigation if the Republicans win control of the House of Representatives. 

Yes, that will work. 

What is Mr. McCarthy planning to do when Attorney General Merrick Garland simply refuses to cooperate with any investigation just as Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder did? Is he going to call on the Justice Department to prosecute Garland? Is he going to call on the FBI to arrest him? Does Mr. McCarthy honestly expect the the politicized Justice Department that authorized this unprecedented and illegal action against Donald Trump to suddenly start following the law? Who does he think he’s kidding? What’s to stop the FBI from declaring that McCarthy was involved in the January 6th “insurrection” and harassing him?

If by some chance the Republicans do manage to gain a large majority in Congress and Congress is still an actual independent branch of government after this year, the second thing they ought to do is defund and ultimately abolish the FBI. (The first thing would be to impeach Joe Biden on charges of treason and abuse of power.) Abolishing the FBI might seem a radical step, but I would argue that the mere existence of such a powerful agency is a radical departure from the founding fathers’ conception of how the federal government should operate. They would be appalled at the scope and power of the federal government today and would rightly be concerned that an unaccountable federal law enforcement agency would be more likely to be used to oppress the citizenry than to catch lawbreakers. This is precisely the sort of thing that caused them to rebel against King George III.

The existence of a centralized federal law enforcement agency like the Federal Bureau of Investigation has always been problematic in a free, constitutional republic such as ours, given the enormous temptation for such an agency to become an American KGB or Gestapo, as President Harry Truman had warned in 1948

We want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him

Mr. Truman would be alarmed, though hardly unsurprised at the extent to which the FBI has become nothing more than the Praetorian Guard for the nation’s ruling elite. The legacy of the FBI in recent decades has been one of an increasingly politicized and incompetent rogue agency. I doubt this is actually a recent development. Even in Truman’s time, Hoover seemed more concerned with harassing dissidents than fighting crime.  He was more interested in surveilling the minuscule Communist Party than confronting the Mafia, which he denied even existed. I suspect the FBI’s reputation for crime fighting rests more on Mr. Hoover’s ability at spin than on any real prowess in catching the bad guys. Even if Hoover’s reputation was entirely deserved, the extent to which he violated the civil rights of so many Americans more than outweighs the good he did. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has become a threat to our liberties. It is today an even greater threat than it was in Hoover’s days. It should be abolished. If there is a need for a federal law enforcement agency, it should be one kept on a very short leash with limited jurisdiction and under the supervision of our elected representatives. 

In the meantime, we should remember the lesson from the Mar-a-Lago raid. We no longer live in a country with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people but one that is of the elite, by the elite, and solely for the elite. 

Ditch Mitch

By all accounts, the Republican Party should have a great showing in the midterm elections this November. Most pundits believe that the Republicans will almost certainly win control of the House of Representatives and they have a more than fair chance of gaining control in the Senate. The Republicans, being the Stupid Party, however, will probably manage to screw up what should be the biggest red wave in decades. Mitch McConnell, in particular, seems to be trying his best to make sure he remains the Minority Leader in the Senate.

Jeffrey Carter explains why the Republicans need new leadership

The Republicans looked like they would win the Senate and the House this fall. The Red Wave was real. It still might be but Mitch McConnell is doing all he can to screw it up.

The Republicans are known as “the stupid party” for a good reason. As a former resident of Illinois, I have experienced the stupidity of the Republican Party firsthand. Democrats run Illinois and have for a half-century. Republicans scream like two-year-olds and when they are handed their goldfish crackers they keep quiet and roll over while the adults eat steak.

There is no crime in changing out of poor leadership. Lincoln ran through a lot of generals until he landed on US Grant. General George C. Marshall got rid of all the top generals ahead of WW2 and restaffed the entire general cadre with younger generals that could fight the next war. Companies get rid of poor-performing executives all the time. McConnell is a poor leader because he enables the worst in elected officials.

Top movers and shakers in the party will tell you that Mitch is a “knife fighter” and he did do that with the SCOTUS. It took balls of steel to derail Merrick Garland’s nomination and it looks genius now given that Garland has proven to be nothing more than a third-rate apparatchik at the Department of Justice. He thinks nothing of using the government power of his office to attack political rivals. But, one victory doesn’t make a season. Do you want to be the NY Yankees or the Cleveland Indians?

At his core Mitch is GOPe and GOPe is not good for the United States. Instead of a fast double timed march to socialism or corporatism, it’s slower. GOPe doesn’t ruffle feathers and won’t actually change anything.

He goes on to give some good reasons why Mitch McConnell should go, but I have an even more fundamental reason why we need to ditch Mitch. The man is simply too old. Right now, Mitch is eighty years old. He has been in the Senate since 1985. Now, I realize that advances in science and medicine have made it possible for people to remain relatively vigorous even into old age, and maybe eighty is the new sixty; but the fact remains that the human body, no matter how healthy, begins to shut down in the seventh and eighth decades. I cannot believe Senator McConnell could be as effective a legislator as he was in his prime.

Moreover, the fact that McConnell has been in the Senate since 1985 marks him a relic of a different era. When Mitch McConnell began his career, Republicans and Democrats may have differed on the policies they advocated, but politicians in both parties still wanted what was best for America. That was the time when Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill could put aside their differences and have dinner with one another. Those days are over. The Democratic Party is no longer the party of FDR, JFK, and LBJ. It is not even the party of Bill Clinton. The far-left, America-hating extremists who are only interested in seizing power and fundamentally transforming the United States into a socialist totalitarian despotism have taken over the Democratic Party. The debate between the parties is no longer what would benefit the country but whether the country deserves to be benefited at all. Mitch McConnell and all too many older Republicans do not seem to understand that times have changed. Bipartisanship and compromise are no longer desirable ways to produce needed legislation but steps toward the dissolution of our country. If Mitch McConnell can not be made to understand the old ways no longer work, he needs to be replaced by someone who does.

Some more here.

A November Surprise?

I read an interesting article about Joe Biden and the upcoming midterm elections at Yahoo News the other day.

Little is going President Joe Biden’s way as the summer lull sets in before the crush of midterm elections.

Gas prices are up; his approval rating is down. A conservative Supreme Court majority is hacking away at his agenda by abolishing federal abortion rights and undermining environmental protections meant to curb climate change. His own party is losing patience, fearing that any chance of consequential change while Democrats control Congress is vanishing.

“There needs to be urgency and action,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, who was an aide to the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “Folks have been saying since the day Joe Biden was elected that we need to move fast. There are a lot of things we need to get done for the American people.”

I think that Mr. Biden has done quite enough to the American people. Note the bias though; “abolishing abortion rights”, “undermining environmental protections”.  I would say that the recent  Supreme Court decisions have gone a long way toward restoring constitutional government.

Biden has been rolling out plans to cope with the mounting crises. He has a three-part plan to reduce inflation. Another plan to suspend the gas tax in hopes of bringing prices down. Then there’s his long-shot plan to enshrine abortion rights into law by suspending the Senate filibuster rule requiring 60-vote supermajorities.

Is Biden planning to reverse his cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline? Will he allow more leases on federal lands to develop our energy resources? Will Biden cut the red tape to allow more refineries to be built? Probably not. Biden is not going to do anything to reverse the bad decisions that caused the inflation and high gas prices. Instead, the man “elected” to restore the democratic norms destroyed by Trump is going to weaken our democratic norms to appease the most extreme Democratic constituencies.

“He has to change course,” said a Democratic congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the White House. “His numbers are in the toilet. Whatever he’s doing is not working.”

“There needs to be urgency and action,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, who was an aide to the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “Folks have been saying since the day Joe Biden was elected that we need to move fast. There are a lot of things we need to get done for the American people.”

Biden has been rolling out plans to cope with the mounting crises. He has a three-part plan to reduce inflation. Another plan to suspend the gas tax in hopes of bringing prices down. Then there’s his long-shot plan to enshrine abortion rights into law by suspending the Senate filibuster rule requiring 60-vote supermajorities.

Inside the White House, though, advisers grasp that what’s required aren’t just plans, but votes. The 50-50 split in the Senate between the parties has proved an insurmountable obstacle for Biden’s grandest ambitions — to expand the social safety net in ways that insulate the most vulnerable Americans from economic shocks.

“He has to change course,” said a Democratic congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the White House. “His numbers are in the toilet. Whatever he’s doing is not working.”

“There’s a benefit to having the president out there every day using his executive power to show the country you’re fighting for them,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “And it’s almost like he’s hiding. He has the bully pulpit, and he’s either hiding behind it or under it. I don’t know where he is.”

The problem is that every time Biden makes a public appearance, his poll ratings drop, for good reason. People can see just how incompetent and senile the man is. The best strategy for the Democrats might be to hide Biden in the basement of the White House and hope people forget he’s the alleged president.

Allies say that Biden, along with others in the administration, will take better advantage of their megaphone in the run-up to the midterms, portraying Republicans as out of touch. Biden, they said, is energized by the Roe v. Wade decision, which may be a prelude to future Supreme Court rulings rolling back rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.

Unpopular presidents tend to fare poorly in midterm elections. But Biden-world sees an opening to defy the historical trends, springing from some of the same setbacks that have so angered the Democratic base.

“I can tell you that on the street, what you hear is a bubbling, seething cauldron of anger at the Republican Party for putting in these antediluvian judges who think they can take us back to the 18th century,” said Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state. “My spidey sense and the polling indicate it’s going to help people decide not to vote for the red team.

That bubbling, seething cauldron of anger that Mr. Inslee is sensing is from people finding themselves unable to afford to buy groceries, fill their car’s tanks or walk the streets in safety thanks to policies promoted by the Democrats. I have a feeling that trying to distract voters from their misery with shiny objects isn’t going to help the blue team this time.

Most Democrats fret about a midterm wipeout, but recent polling shows grounds for optimism. Bryan Bennett, a pollster for Navigator Research, a coalition of progressive pollsters, noted that something “weird” is happening in this political moment. Biden’s approval rating is hovering around 40%, which suggests that Republican victories in the November midterms will be not so much a wave as a “tsunami,” he said. And yet in polls pitting generic Democrats against Republicans in congressional races, Democrats perform better than expected given the president’s low standing. Indeed, since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, three polls came out showing Democrats leading Republicans by anywhere from 3 to 7 percentage points.

“It’s a new election,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg wrote in a blog. “The chances of the anti-MAGA majority showing up again — as it did in 2018 and 2020 — have increased dramatically.”

I take it that the Democrats are going to repeat their strategy of 2020 and cheat whenever and wherever possible. It may be harder to cheat in 435 Congressional and 35 Senatorial elections than it was for the presidential election, but they may manage to fortify the results of some close elections. I hope the Republicans are watching out for a November Surprise this election cycle, but they are the stupid party so I’m not terribly optimistic.

The Evil Party and the Stupid Party

It is often said that the Democrats are the evil party and the Republicans are the stupid party. If there is any doubt that the Democrats are indeed the evil party, consider the complete meltdown they are having over the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe versus Wade. Keep in mind that the Court’s decision on Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health Organization does not actually outlaw abortion anywhere. It simply refers the matter back to the states, where state legislatures can settle the question democratically. The idea that the people of each state can decide for themselves what to do about abortion ought not to be controversial yet the Democrats are furious over the possibility that fewer infants will be murdered in the womb. That is evil.

Let’s be clear about what the debate on abortion is really over. It is not about women’s bodies or reproductive health. It is about murdering human beings before they are even born. Killing an innocent person is always an intrinsically evil act, whatever the justification. Deliberately killing an innocent human being can only be justified if it is necessary to save the life of another human being, and even then, it is a lesser evil rather than a positive good. A mother who kills her child is performing an abominable act, one that is contrary to nature. Abortion is always an evil act unless it is done to preserve the life or health of the mother. A political party that supports abortion right up to the moment of birth can only be called the Evil Party.

If the Democrats are evil, the Republicans are stupid. I do not believe that any other political party in the history of politics has demonstrated quite the knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as the Republican has consistently shown. As it stands, due to the catastrophic record of the alleged president Biden and the Democrats in Congress, the Republicans are poised to win huge victories in the November election. All Republicans have to do to ensure a red tsunami this fall is to avoid alienating their base into staying home instead of voting. What are the Republicans, at least the GOP leaders in the Senate doing? Working to alienate potential voters so that they will decide to stay home by supporting a highly problematic Democrat “gun safety” bill. Fourteen Republican Senators, who ought to have known better, including Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Indiana’s own Todd Young, along with the usual traitors like Mitt Romney voted to support a bill that will do nothing to make our streets safer but will help to abridge our constitutional rights.

Alienating your supporters to appease people who will never support you is stupid. Making compromises with people who believe that compromise means you give up something you want while they give up nothing at all is stupid. Making compromises with people who view each compromise as just another step towards their long-term goals is stupid. Breaking promises to your voters and refusing to fight for your principles in the face of opposition is both cowardly and stupid.

The leaders of the Republican Party are, for the most part, either stupid or cowards. Why should we continue to vote for people who will not deliver? Maybe we need a new party in America. Instead of the Evil Party and the Stupid Party, maybe we need a Smart, Good Party.

Roe Hysteria

If the leaked draft of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion is any indication, the Supreme Court may soon be overturning Roe v. Wade. Naturally, the Democrats are throwing a fit. They are getting out their Handmaid’s Tale costumes

 

Women’s fashion after Roe is overturned

and predicting that overturning Roe v. Wade will result in back-alley abortions all over the country, a ban on contraceptives and interracial marriages, the segregation of LGBTYQEIEIO children in classrooms, dogs, and cats living together, and other signs of mass hysteria.’

 

They should calm down. The only thing that overturning Roe v. Wade will do is return the issue of abortion to the state legislatures, where it rightfully belongs. It is likely that the more conservative states, like Utah or Alabama, will either ban or place severe constraints on abortion, but more liberal states, like California or Massachusetts, will continue to permit abortion right up to the moment of birth. Those states in the middle will place varying restrictions on what point in pregnancy abortions are allowed, as the people of each state see fit. 

It is usually best to resolve contentious social issues like abortion through the democratic process of compromise, give and take, and consensus-building rather than have solutions imposed by judicial fiat. Solutions that develop that way may not be to everyone’s satisfaction; the best compromises leave everyone equally unhappy, but everyone feels as if they have had some input into policymaking rather than having policies imposed upon them. Given that a consensus on any controversial issue is impossible in a continent-spanning nation of more than three hundred million people, controversial issues like abortion ought to be resolved at the state level rather than trying to impose a one-size-fits-all solution for the entire United States. Diverse nations need diverse policies. I thought that the progressives support diversity, but perhaps that is the wrong kind of diversity.

If the Supreme Court had not legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade, some general consensus would have evolved over time. The consensus would have changed as public opinions about abortion changed. It is most likely that abortion would have been legalized in most states during the 1970s. Then, in the more conservative 1980s, many states might have imposed more restrictions on abortion, perhaps limiting abortion to the first trimester. If public opinion on abortion changed, the laws concerning abortion would change. That would be the democratic and diverse way to address contentious social issues. I thought the left was in favor of democracy and diversity. Perhaps that is the wrong kind of diversity, while they are only really in favor of ‘our democracy’ as opposed to real democracy in which people govern themselves.

The Democrats are fond of calling pro-life positions extreme. If this is the case, they have nothing to worry about. If the Republicans adopt extreme positions on abortion or any other social issue, they will be punished at the ballot box. Perhaps the Democrats realize that it is their own position, permitting abortion right up to the moment of birth for any conceivable reason, is, in fact, the extreme position.

Americans are deeply ambivalent about abortion. Few Americans want to see abortion banned altogether, yet more and more Americans are coming around to the idea that abortion is morally wrong. A majority of Americans may believe that women have a right to choose whether to get an abortion, yet many feel that this is a choice women ought not to make. Even most pro-choice Americans do not believe that late-term abortion should be permitted. If there is any consensus at all on this most contentious issue, it is that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, not that women should shout their abortions.

By imposing a solution by fiat and cutting short the necessary debate necessary in a democracy, Roe v. Wade played a not inconsiderable role in making American politics more divisive and polarized. In the end, overturning Roe v. Wade might be one of the best ways to purge some of the poison from American politics and restore some degree of civility. Unless the Democrats decide the resolve the issue the way they tried to resolve the last major issue they were on the wrong side of.

Elon Musk Buys Twitter

So, Elon Musk has bought Twitter for $44 billion. Musk’s decision to acquire Twitter seems to be due to his concerns about Twitter’s policy of censoring political opinions in particular  Twitter’s suspension of the Babylon Bee for the hateful conduct of identifying Dr. Rachel Levine as a man, even though he is, in fact, a man.

                                                   The New Boss

Mr. Musk promises to make Twitter a free speech platform once again in his words:

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated

and

I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.

Frankly, I wish he had spent that $44 billion on his spaceship to Mars or improving the Tesla. I am sure Mr. Musk means well, but I don’t think there is any way to save Twitter. The problem with Twitter isn’t just the arbitrary and one-sided censorship that the current management of Twitter is employing. The problem runs deeper than any particular policy that Elon Musk or anyone else could change. The problem with Twitter lies in the nature of the platform.

I have said in the past that if the Devil wanted to devise a social media platform to turn people against one another and make the earth more like Hell, he would design something very much like Twitter. The 280-character limit does nothing to encourage careful, nuanced discussion or even discretion. Instead, Twitter rewards the quick zing, the snarky comeback with the rush and excitement of seeing your tweets retweeted and commented upon. If Elon Musk really wants to help everyone, the best thing he could do would be to shut down Twitter altogether.

Still, it has been both fun and instructive to observe how leftists have come out against freedom of expression. They were never really in favor of the concept of free speech, or really, of freedom in general, but after the events of the last few years, they have taken the masks off, figuratively speaking, that is. They still insist on masking up against COVID. Ever since the announcement that Elon Musk was buying Twitter and intended to make it a free speech platform, we have been warned repeatedly of the dangers that free speech poses to “our democracy.” Robert Reich warns us that:

Musk says he wants to “free” the internet. But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now, when it’s often impossible to discover who is making the decisions about how algorithms are designed, who is filling social media with lies, who’s poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda, and who’s deciding which versions of events go viral and which stay under wraps.

Make no mistake: this is not about freedom. It’s about power.

In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’d be the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone.

In reality, that world would be dominated by the richest and most powerful people in the world, who wouldn’t be accountable to anyone for facts, truth, science or the common good.

That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.

You may have noticed how dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and all the rest have all been staunch defenders of the freedom of the people they have ruled to say whatever they wanted. Reich, and many other leftists, are saying that someone rich and powerful like Musk or Trump may use Twitter or any other social media platform to spread lies and misinformation, therefore social media companies and perhaps the government should be able to control what is said. In other words, to protect “our democracy” from would-be dictators, it is necessary to act like a dictator and control what can be said, shutting down purveyors of misinformation. This doesn’t make much sense, but little of what the left believes these days makes much sense.

I wish Mr. Musk well in his efforts, but I don’t think I will be reopening that Twitter account that I never even used. I think that we would be better off if we all started to talk to each other instead of tweeting at each other

What Would JFK Do?

Brent Budowsky has some advice for the Democrats in his column at the Hill.

While Democrats face uphill challenges in the midterm elections, and Republicans face risks greater than discussed by mainstream media, here is a strategy for Democrats to win the midterms that might well be suggested by President Kennedy if he were with us today.

Liberal and moderate Democrats, who are 98 percent to 99 percent united on the issues addressed here, might consider that JFK’s political greatness was that he was both a starry-eyed idealist and a cold-blooded realist.

With Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) the obstacle to these noble purposes, a temptation for many Democrats might be to suggest Academy Award slapper Will Smith meet with Manchin and work his charms. JFK would tell us there is a better way.

Here it is.

The 98 percent to 99 percent of Democrats in Congress who back critical provisions originally proposed in the pending and delayed reconciliation bill should launch a powerful and aggressive JFK-style public campaign to voters across West Virginia in support of the major ideas waiting to be passed.

The most important goal for Democrats today is to enact proposals that help voters in real ways, which every voter clearly understands, and which inspire approval and support from those voters — who would appreciate and support the Democratic president and Congress who fought for them.

As of today, Democrats will enact a bill to dramatically lower the price of prescription drugs, which will be widely popular with large numbers of voters. They will enact a significant increase in support for alternative energy that protects the earth and makes the world less dependent on Russia. They will enact a significant tax increase for those who can well afford it, some of which will reduce the deficit, which all 50 Senate Democrats support, leaving money to finance efforts to directly help middle-income and poor Americans who are hard-hit by inflation.

Through the JFK-like public campaign beginning with West Virginia voters, Democrats can advance proposals to lower the cost of child care, improve education, improve life for women and workers, help rural America or other goals. JFK, the realist, would warn us: We cannot achieve everything now. We must choose which plans to champion today, and get the rest tomorrow. JFK, the idealist, would inspire us: We can achieve significant new, widely understood and highly popular plans in the coming ten weeks.

This JFK-like plan would involve massive and saturation ads on West Virginia television, radio, newspapers and social media. These ads would clearly describe how the selected plans would make life better for West Virginia voters, and would only mention Manchin at the end, suggesting voters urge both West Virginia senators to back them.

This would help Manchin fulfill his commitment to help West Virginians whose lives are lifted by these plans. It would send a powerful message throughout America that it is Democrats who battle for a land of realized hopes, better lives, and shared dreams for all Americans.

If I were in a position to advise the Democrats, I would tell them not to waste their money. Mr. Budowsky seems to be under the impression that the problem the Democrats are having with the voters is that those stupid rubes in flyover country don’t see how wonderful the Democrats are and how their policies are going to help everyone. The rubes don’t know what the Democrats really stand for. The real problem is that the rubes know all too well what the Democrats stand for, and they don’t like what they see.

For millions of Americans, the Democrats stand for defunding the police and letting criminals go free. The Democrats stand for “mostly peaceful protests” that turn our cities into warzones. The Democrats stand for lockdowns and restrictive COVID mandates. The Democrats stand for teachers who teach their students racist, anti-American ideology when they are not grooming them into aberrant sexuality. The Democrats stand for limiting our domestic energy, making America dependent on terrorist-supporting autocrats. The Democrats stand for open borders, cancel culture, high prices, and humiliation abroad. Worst of all the Democrats stand for an arrogant, out-of-touch elite that regards the ordinary Americans that made their country great as Deplorables and Bitter Clingers.

The problem with Mr. Budowsky’s nostrum is that today’s Democratic Party is not the Democratic Party of Kennedy’s day. John F. Kennedy, for all his personal flaws, was a patriotic American. Kennedy’s colleagues in the Democratic Party were patriotic Americans. Kennedy believed in and upheld American values and institutions. Kennedy challenged his fellow Americans to live up to American ideals, the noblest in the world. JFK would have no place in today’s Democratic Party. Neither would FDR or JBJ for that matter.

The Democratic Party is no longer the party of Jefferson and Jackson. The extremists have taken over and the Democratic Party is now the party of Marx and Lenin when it isn’t the party of perverts and groomers. If Brent Budowsky wants to save his party from the looming catastrophe this November, he would be advised to organize the sane and moderate Democrats, if any still exist, to take back control of the party and propose policies that Americans really want.

Theodore G Bilbo

Theodore G. Bilbo. It sounds like the name of a character in a fantasy story, doesn’t it? Perhaps the name of an amiable, good-natured, little fellow who goes on exciting adventures with elves, dwarves, and wizards. Well, Theodore G. Bilbo was an actual person, and although at five feet two inches was small enough to be a hobbit, he did not go on any adventures, as far as I know, and he was far from being good-natured and amiable. Theodore G. Bilbo was, in fact, one of the most racist people ever to serve in the United States Senate.

Not a Hobbit

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo was born in Juniper Grove, Mississippi, on October 13, 1877. Bilbo obtained a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University Law School, but he failed to graduate perhaps from financial difficulties, although there were accusations of academic misconduct. Nevertheless, Bilbo was admitted to the bar in 1906 and began practicing law in Mississippi.

Bilbo was ambitious, however, and soon entered politics, serving in the Mississippi State Senate from 1908 to 1912. In 1910, Bilbo was accused of accepting a bribe to back a candidate for the United States Senate. Bilbo admitted to accepting the bribe but asserted that he was investigating political corruption. His fellow state senators did not buy the story, and he escaped being expelled from the Senate by one vote short of the three-fourths majority required for expulsion. This scandal did not seem to harm Bilbo’s political career. He was elected Lieutenant Governor, serving from 1912 to 1916. He then served two nonconsecutive terms as Governor of Mississippi, from 1916 to 1920 and again from 1928 to 1932, as Mississippi’s constitution did not permit governors to secede themselves.

Theodore G. Bilbo was a good governor. He became well known as a progressive populist who enacted policies to help the poorest residents of Mississippi, as long as they were White. He improved the state finances of Mississippi, implemented a state highway system, introduced compulsory school attendance, built charity hospitals for the poor, and ended public hanging. In his second term, Bilbo introduced the first state sales tax in the United States. Governor Bilbo had less sympathy for the Black residents of Mississippi, however. Among other things, he refused to prevent the lynching of Black Mississippians. Bilbo’s terms as governor were not without controversy, however, and a feud between the governor and the state legislature prevented the passage of a budget in the final year of his second term.

After his second term as Governor ended, Theodore G. Bilbo moved on to the Senate, serving from 1935 until the end of his life in 1947. In the Senate, Bilbo once again established a reputation as a progressive, fervently supporting Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Bilbo feuded with his fellow Mississippi Senator, Pat Harrison, who was seen as representing the wealthier classes of Mississippi. Bilbo made use of the Senate floor to promote his populist opinions, haranguing against:

 “farmer murderers,” “poor-folks haters,” “shooters of widows and orphans,” “international well-poisoners,” “charity hospital destroyers,” “spitters on our heroic veterans,” “rich enemies of our public schools,” “private bankers ‘who ought to come out in the open and let folks see what they’re doing’,” “European debt-cancelers,” “unemployment makers,” pacifists, Communists, munitions manufacturers, and “skunks who steal Gideon Bibles from hotel rooms.”

Many of Senator Bilbo’s speeches were extremely racist, even by the standards of his time. As a result, the Democrat-controlled Senate would only assign him to relatively unimportant committees. When the Republicans gained control of the Senate after the 1946 elections, they along with the Northern Democrats, refused to permit Bilbo to take his seat because they believed his racist speeches had incited violence against Blacks in the South. Bilbo’s supporters among the Southern Democrats threatened a filibuster unless he was seated. The matter was resolved when Bilbo proved unable to serve his last term because he had developed oral cancer. Bilbo returned to Mississippi for treatment, and he died in New Orleans on August 21, 1947.

By describing Bilbo as racist, I do not mean that he only shared in the prejudices of his time and place. If that were the case, his racist views would be hardly worth writing about. He lived, after all, in the heyday of progressive, scientific racism in which all of the smart people believed that human beings could be graded like eggs from superior to inferior. No, Theodore G. Bilbo’s racism went further than the usual bigotry.
At some point, Bilbo joined the Ku Klux Klan, and he remained a proud member of the Klan his entire life, even after the Klan had dissolved as a formal organization. As a governor and senator, Bilbo upheld and advanced the Klan’s cause of White supremacy.

At the end of his life, Bilbo wrote a book titled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, which served as a summation of his views on race. Although in the prologue he professed to have no feelings of hostility against persons of any race but only opposed the mixing of races, a cause he believed the Black man should support as much as the White man, the book’s contents tell a different story. Throughout his book, Bilbo made it clear that he believed that Blacks were intellectually and morally inferior to Whites, describing Blacks in the most uncomplimentary terms possible.

In his view, Whites founded every great civilization; Rome, Greece, Egypt, or Babylon. When the Whites began to mix with other races, these civilizations declined and vanished. Whites founded our American civilization, and only the heroic efforts of Southern Whites have prevented the race mixing that destroyed so many past empires. Unfortunately, the efforts of Northern Liberals to achieve political and social equality for the Blacks threatened to undo everything. Bilbo’s solution was to encourage the voluntary emigration of American Blacks back to Africa, the ultimate separate but equal endeavor.

I am writing about Theodore G. Bilbo partly because I enjoy writing about historical trivia, but mostly because I want to make an important point. It has become conventional wisdom in this country that America is a country based on white supremacy, shot through with systemic racism. As is often the case, conventional wisdom is wrong. America has been racist in the past; there is no denying that fact. Given that White people founded the United States of America, it is inevitable that our society would be based on White supremacy. just as a country founded by Blacks would be based on Black supremacy or a country founded by Asians would be based on Asian Supremacy. Every society in the world has been founded on the idea that its people are superior to the people living in other societies. It is only very recently, that in a few places, like the United States, the idea has taken hold that everyone should be treated equally.

I have said that Theodore G. Bilbo’s racist ideas were extreme even for his times, but his views were not too extreme for the people of Mississippi to elect him as governor and then senator. A large number of people throughout the South shared his racist ideas. That is not the case today. A candidate who expressed the sort of racist ideas that Theodore G. Bilbo expressed would be lucky to get just two percent of the vote. We are no longer the country that would elect a Theodore G. Bilbo to high office.
America has changed, vastly for the better, by embracing its founding ideals. Anyone who asserts that America is a systemically racist country in the twenty-first century is either a fool, ignorant of our history or a malicious liar.

Say Gay

In case you thought I was being unfair when I compared the opponents of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education act to pedophiles. I don’t think I was. This legislation which only prohibits discussion about sexual matters before the third grade and limits discussion above the third grade to age-appropriate language while keeping parents informed, ought to be completely non-controversial. Yet, somehow it is controversial. Consider the reactions of some of the people who believe themselves impacted by the new law.

Here is one example, courtesy of Legal Insurrection:

These people have not read the Parental Rights in Education bill. It says you cannot teach kids about sexual identity or gender whatever. It certainly doesn’t ban teachers from talking about what they did on the weekend whether they’re straight or gay.

The bill also doesn’t have the word gay in it. I’m so sick of these people.

Florida kindergarten teacher Cory Bernaert whined because he is worried the bill will prevent him from discussing his weekend plans with his partner with his students:

“Absolutely. You are 100 percent correct. That’s what we do as educators, we build relationships with our kids. And in order to build relationships you talk about your home life, you talk about what you do on the weekends, that’s building community. It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children because they’re going to ask me what I did on the weekend. I don’t have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend. Because then they ask, what does partner mean, Mr. Bernaert? And I am worried can I tell them what it means. I’m also worried for my kids. I have a little girl from this year who has two moms and the kids are curious about her two moms. They want to know about her two moms. If they go to her and ask her about her two moms and she doesn’t know what to say, they’re going to come to me and ask me. And then, you know, so what do I do? It just — it opens up for patients to really take some legal action against the school and teachers.”

This new law does not prevent  Mr. Bernaert from discussing his weekend with his students (not his kids, did you catch that?) although one might think his time might be better spent actually teaching. He doesn’t have to give any details about the precise nature of his relationship with his partner to kindergarteners. As for the girl with two “moms”, it is really up to the parents to talk about why their classmate has a different sort of family. Mr. Bernaert needs to stick to the subjects he is paid to teach and not usurp the role of the parent. 

Here is another one from Megan Fox at PJMedia:

Libs of Tik Tok on Twitter is at the forefront of exposing all the teachers who are carrying on like stuck pigs because they can’t indoctrinate children anymore (at least in Florida). Not only did the bill outlaw discussions of sex and gender with students from kindergarten to third grade, but it also outlawed hiding information from K-12 parents about their children’s gender identity or any other information that would be important for them to know. There is a disturbing trend of public schools actively keeping secrets from parents, which has led to suicide attempts and harm to children. In Florida, that’s no longer allowed.

But at least one teacher, Amber Mercier who works at The Academy, says she’ll keep lying to parents about their kids, and she’s willing to lose her job over it.

Mercier is gay, and she believes keeping secrets about sexuality from her students’ families — if the student wants her to — is worth losing her job over. “I just want to go ahead and state that I would rather lose my job than out one of my students to their families. Being a safe person and a safe place for kids who don’t have that at home is one of the best parts of being a teacher, so, yeah, I’m not doing it. Fire me, sue me, take me to jail — I’m not doing it.”

Mercier’s statement that she will break the law of Florida to keep secrets from Florida parents is a problem. The law states that it is illegal to “[prohibit] a parent from accessing certain records” and also sets statute “prohibiting a school district from adopting procedures or student support forms that require school district personnel to withhold from a parent specified information or that encourage or have the effect of encouraging a student to withhold from a parent such information” and “prohibiting school district personnel from discouraging or prohibiting parental notification and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being.”

PJ Media reached out to Governor DeSantis’s office to verify that the new law applies to Mercier and was told by Press Secretary Christina Pushaw that the law applies to K-12 when it comes to secret-keeping.

“That provision of the law applies to all students in grades K-12 in Florida public schools,” she said. “The new law, effective July 1, requires school districts to adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in services from the school regarding a child’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being.”

Again, a teacher is usurping the role that properly belongs to the parents. I could understand if an older teenager who might be homosexual might be reluctant to come out to his or her parents, but I have to wonder to what extent Ms. Mercier is encouraging her students to identify as LGBTQWERTY. Is she encouraging her students to discuss their sexual feelings with her? Does she consider it appropriate to discuss her sex life with minors, and to tell her students to keep such discussions from their parents, who have every right to know anything which might affect the health and well-being of their children?

What is wrong with these people? Why are they so eager to talk about their sex lives with children who do not have the least conception of sex and romance. This isn’t a gay issue. This is an issue of common decency. Adults do not talk about their private lives with children who are still young enough to believe the opposite sex has cooties, particularly not when they are in a position of authority over the children. I do not believe that either of the teachers I have cited is a pedophile or has had any inappropriate contact with their students, but I do wonder how they do not understand that bringing up controversial sexual matters in the classroom might be seen by parents as being weird and creepy. Surely they must understand that parents do not want their children subjected to indoctrination in political and social values contrary to the value the parents are seeking in instill in their children. 

This is the real problem here. The objections to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill are not about saying gay in the classroom or about perverted teachers who enjoy talking about sex to their seven-year-old students. This controversy is ultimately about who has control over what children are taught in the public schools, the parents, or the state. The goal of the activists who are shouting “gay, gay” isn’t about turning kids gay or trans, however much it may appear to be, but to turn every child into a ward of the state and relegating parents into mere observers in the upbringing and education of their children. This is the goal of tyrants to destroy family bonds and turn children against their parents. We ought not to let that happen here in the formerly free United States of America.