FBI-sur-Mer

 

Friends, my latest appearance on the Newsmaker Show allowed me and Brian O'Neil to tackle some truly momentous issues, including the FBI raid on Donald Trump's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, and it's implications for the American politics and American justice.  Basically, the Left is trumpeting a new form of "justice" in which everyone, and every group, it favors is above the law or automatically innocent, whereas the guilt of Trump and prominent Trumpers is a given and it becomes the duty of law enforcement and prosecutors to "get" the right before the voters have a chance to weigh its merits.  Bottom line: DJT is very unlikely to receive "equal justice" from the FBI, DOJ, or even the federal courts, and so he is indeed in legal jeopardy.  It would not be shocking to see him frog-marched off to federal prison.  (Good news for Team DeSantis?)

 

Brian and I also talk about the perils of NATO expansion, the "long game" for Liz Cheney, the futility of stirring the Taiwanese pot and incurring China's wrath, and the high stakes of the 2022 election, given that the Dems are very close (numerically) to bending the House and the Senate to their will -- and their will includes measures that would effectively end our multiparty democracy.  In a word, therefore, get out and VOTE! 

https://wlea.net/newsmaker-august-10-2022-dr-nick-waddy/

 

***

 

In other news, just in case you thought the DOJ's dragnet is only ensnaring Donald J. Trump, guess again.  FBI agents also seized the cell phone of a Trump ally in Congress.  What were they looking for?  Evidence of another "insurrection" (any day now), I would guess...  It sure looks like the Washington establishment has decided that their standard playbook of incessant calumny isn't working against Trump and Trumpism, so the time has come to "shake the tree" and experiment with the tools of law enforcement/malicious prosecution.  How far are they prepared to go?  We'll soon find out.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-ally-rep-scott-perry-says-fbi-seized-cell-phone-one-day-after-mar-a-lago-raid 

Electoral Eschatology

 

Friends, it's your lucky day!  The world may be ending soon, and you get a sneak peek...  No need to thank me.

My latest article is about how, should Republicans lose in 2022, there's at least a chance that all subsequent elections in the U.S. of A will be moot.  See if you don't agree...

Is the End Nigh for Republicans?

Nikki Haley recently made an offhand comment that "If we don't win in 2022, there won't be a 2024". It's unclear what she meant by that admonition, but it's one that we on the right should take seriously.

Clearly, the “we” in Haley's statement means Republicans and conservatives. Haley is implying that the election of 2022 represents an existential threat to the Republican Party, to the conservative movement, or perhaps to our constitutional order, our democracy, and our cherished freedoms. As it turns out, she's right on all counts.

Consider this: the absolute worst case scenario for the GOP in 2022 is that it will narrowly fail to capture the House and it will lose ground in the Senate. If that happens -- and it's about a 20% likelihood at this stage, according to most prognosticators -- then the Dems will be freed from the numerical and procedural shackles that have bound them since January 2021. They will be in a position to abolish the filibuster in the Senate, which in turn means that they could push through even the most ambitious items on their agenda: trillions in new spending, major steps towards socialized medicine, the evisceration of Americans' gun rights, the addition of several (blue) states to the Union, the federalization of our elections (rendering them much more susceptible to fraud), and, most importantly, they could pack the Supreme Court with pliant leftists, meaning they could implement even more radical changes without bothering to hold any votes in Congress at all. Neo-Marxism could be – would be – imposed on Americans by judicial fiat. And that, in case anyone is in doubt, means that it would be GAME OVER for Republicans and indeed for anyone who dissents from the Dem/progressive agenda. In all likelihood, dissent itself would become “hate speech”, the Republican Party would be proscribed, and all its “insurrectionist” leaders would end up breaking rocks in the Alaskan wilderness.

A tad hyperbolic, you say? The Dems would never push things so far? Maybe. Maybe not.

Consider that the vast majority of the Democratic caucus in the Senate already favors weakening or eliminating the filibuster so that “transformative” legislation can be passed. Opposition to the filibuster has grown on the Left (unsurprisingly) since the Dems took control of Congress. Electing a few more Democratic Senators would make this momentous step feasible.

And what about court packing? Surely the Dems would not be so audacious as to monkey with the high court? Think again: a steady drumbeat of anti-SCOTUS rhetoric now fills leftist airwaves, while a shocking 62% of Democrats already support kneecapping the judiciary through court packing.

But would the Dems actually persecute Republicans and conservatives, once they take full control of our political institutions? I mean, that sounds kinda mean! Here again, the evidence is clear: frightfully high numbers of Democrats expressed past support for detaining, censoring, fining, digitally tracking, or denying child custody to people who refused to get COVID vaccines, or who questioned the efficacy of those vaccines (and Democrats naturally correlate those behaviors to Trumpism). Polls also show that there has a been a massive rise in the number of Americans who believe that political violence can be justifiable, and by no means is this trend confined, as the media would have us believe, to Republicans and Trump supporters. Tens of millions of Democrats and leftists are primed to support violence against the right, and to assume that “fascists” deserve what they get. The Beltway elite, moreover, moves in “progressive” social circles where such views are routinely expressed and rarely questioned. Republicans and conservatives, beware!

I remain optimistic about 2020, but the truth is nevertheless that our country is poised on the edge of an abyss. We are literally just one inclement election cycle away from, as the Dems would have it, "abolishing democracy" and losing all or most of our constitutional rights. We would do well to remember that, and thus to exert ourselves mightily to win, win, win in 2022, as though our lives and our liberties depended on it.

Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.

 

And here it is at World Net Daily:

 

https://www.wnd.com/2022/08/end-nigh-republicans/ 

 

***

 

In other news, another pro-impeachment "Republican" bites the dust.  Good riddance.

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/08/trump-backed-joe-kent-projected-defeat-impeachment-backer-jaime-herrera-beutler-washington-state/ 

And, just in case you were unaware, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida today.  The pretext appears to be the potential mishandling of presidential records.  Can you say "prosecutorial discretion/misconduct"?  It will be fascinating to see how this will play out politically.  If the goal was to intimidate Trump himself, the raid appears to have been a monumental failure.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/donald-trump-fbi/2022/08/08/id/1082256/

The Unbearable Trumpness of Being

 

Friends, another day, another big win for Trump -- in a poll of conservatives' preferred choice for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.  Big yawn, you say?  Fair enough, but the remarkable durability of Trump's appeal, flying in the face of ceaseless, practically manic efforts by the establishment to blacken his name, is remarkable, to say the least.  What's more, an election loss is usually more than enough to cause disenchantment to take hold among a former president's supporters.  Not for Trump.  His likeability and favorability, as far as Republicans and Americans in general is concerned, is more or less unchanged from 2020.  In fact, it's slightly higher -- the January 6th committee be damned!  Trump has been defying gravity since 2015.  Can he do so once more in 2024?  Don't count him out.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3591195-trump-wins-cpac-straw-poll-with-more-than-two-thirds-of-the-vote/

 

Nikki Haley recently made an offhand comment that "If we don't win in 2022, there won't be a 2024".  She doesn't seem to have explained what she meant, but it's a concept that we on the right should take seriously.  The absolute worst case scenario for the GOP in 2022 is that they will narrowly fail to capture the House and they will lose ground in the Senate.  If that happens -- and it's about a 20% likelihood at this stage -- then the Dems will be in a position to abolish the filibuster, add (blue) states to the Union, federalize our elections, and most importantly pack the Supreme Court with pliant leftists.  I remain optimistic about 2020, but the truth is nevertheless that our country is poised on the edge of an abyss.  We are just one election cycle away from, as the Dems would have it, "abolishing democracy" for all intents and purposes.  We would do well to remember that and thus to exert ourselves mightily to win, win, win in 2022.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/nikki-haley-midterms/2022/08/07/id/1082081/

 

Finally, Stacey Abrams, Georgia's pseudo-Governor and honorary President of Earth, talks nonsense all the time, but recently she made the extraodinary claim that abortion should not be restricted based on "arbitrary gestational limits".  Now, a trimester-based calendar of abortion rights is precisely what Roe v. Wade was based on.  What Abrams is saying, although she would never admit it, is that she and the progressive movement have moved way beyond Roe and the Supreme Court of 1973 in their advocacy of abortion rights.  They want late-term abortions, in short, and lots of them.  They also want to be free to trumpet Roe as a pillar of American liberty while at the same time rejecting its fundamental logic in favor of more radical forms of social engineering.  In other words, they want to make contradictory claims simultaneously and they feel entitled never to be called on their non sequiturs.  As long as Abrams keeps appearing on NBC, her wish will probably be granted.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2022/08/07/stacey-abrams-abortion-laws-can-not-set-arbitrary-gestational-limits/

Can the Rule of Law Be Overruled?

 

Friends, if there's one thing that the modern Left believes, it's that people it doesn't like are automatically guilty of...everything, while people it does like, usually for reasons of partisan affiliation or identity politics, are automatically innocent.  Evidence, per se, is beside the point.  That's why it's so scary when leftists become judges, or prosecutors, because the Constitution and the law, as they are written, quickly become mere loose guidelines in the hands of these creative thinkers.  Their subtle minds can explain to you all day long why Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection and fraud merely for questioning an election, while Stacey Abrams isn't.  They can also explain why the Constitution, which never mentions abortion, contains a right to an abortion, but which does mention a right to keep and bear arms actually doesn't protect gun rights in the least.  But I digress: the point is that, when people whose comprehension of "truth" and "law" is so slippery get control of, say, the FBI, or the Department of Justice, or a federal judgeship, or a state Attorney General's office, or become a city District Attorney, they quickly find that great swaths of constitutional interpretation and of federal, state, and local law are odious to them...and so they set about trying to abolish them, either by commission or omission.  It's the latter that I would draw to your attention today.  "Justice Democrats" across this country are advocating the non-enforcement of laws that they find racist, sexist, homophobic, or merely inconvenient.  The Biden administration is embodying this approach in its refusal to implement our nation's laws against illegal immigration.  Worse, many local prosecutors are, as a matter of policy and on principle, refusing to prosecute people charged with the commission of a long list of serious crimes, many of them violent crimes.  As a result, crime is surging, especially in urban areas, but the prosecutors elected by the deep blue constituencies in these areas actually congratulate themselves for rolling back the hyper-racist police state that supposedly oppressed minorities until the progressives came along to liberate us from law and order.  This article, though, is about a specific case in which a specific conservative Republican, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, took a stand against this trend of deliberate and shameless non-enforcement of the law.  He suspended an elected prosecutor in the Tampa area, and a firestorm of controversy has predictably ensued.  Was DeSantis in the right, legally and constitutionally speaking?  I have no idea.  That's ultimately up to Florida judges and Florida legislators to decide -- and, even more fundamentally, up to the people of Florida.  Personally, I'd say they'll all have their hands full, because the simple truth is that vast numbers of highly placed officials in our criminal justice system now believe that it is their duty not to uphold the law, but to undermine it in the interests of "social justice"...or, to be frank, they believe simply that "the law" is and ought to be whatever they say it is in the moment.  This is a very serious problem, and gubernatorial oversight and intervention isn't a perfect solution by any means, partly because Governors are just as likely to be part of the problem as they are part of the solution.  What do you think of Governor DeSantis's actions?  Is there a way we might bring these rogue prosecutors who refuse to prosecute, and judges who refuse to judge, and policemen who refuse to police, to heel?  I'm curious if you see any reason for optimism, because I'm struggling to find a silver lining myself.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ron-desantis-was-right-to-suspend-tampas-woke-prosecutor/

Reflections on the Frozen North

 

Friends, now that I've returned from my visit to Montreal, I figured I would give you my two cents (that's two Canadian cents) on Canada.  

 

Basically, as a conservative, I have to contend with my fellow right-wingers' ingrained assumptions about the Land of Maple Syrup and Socialized Medicine -- namely, that it is a place where government runs riot, where basic constitutional rights are not respected, and where taxes, mandates, and wokeness dominate daily life.  

 

Now, all this is true, to a point.  Canada really does have socialized medicine -- to a degree that few other countries, even in Europe, can match.  It has higher taxes than the U.S.  It persecutes those who engage in "hate speech" (and dissent?) more vigorously than we do.  It wears its identity politics on its sleeve.  It instituted one of the strictest, most draconian COVID regimes in the Western world.  It prides itself on its openness to immigration, although, thanks to its geographical isolation, the overwhelming majority of that migration occurs through legal channels.  As many of you will know, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to make it virtually impossible for Canadians to own many classes of firearms.  And so, from a conservative perspective, all this looks mighty bleak!

On the other hand, Canada, to the casual observer and to the ordinary tourist, presents itself in a generally favorable light.  The country appears prosperous, the people are happy, healthy, and welcoming, and the land is extremely beautiful and blessed with almost limitless resources.  Much as American conservatives might like to portray Canada as a land of fascistic tyranny, there seems to be little evidence that Canadians themselves feel particularly oppressed, or that they wish to escape their plight in favor of exile in the States.  Canada is a place where most of the items on American progressives' extensive wish list have already been implemented as law and policy...and yet life goes on, and seemingly without any great gnashing of teeth.  The same might be said, arguably, for life in California, or New York, or Hawaii, or the District of Columbia, or any number of other progressive bastions.  This is not to suggest that these areas do not suffer from significant dysfunctions, because they do, but proving, objectively and definitively, that life is worse in leftist regions, or that people are less content, is far from easy.  That's my impression, at least -- if I'm wrong, and any of this blog's faithful followers can prove me so, I'll be happy to admit my error.

In sum, therefore, I conclude based on my brief sojourn in Canada, that life in the frozen north is less tortuous and baleful than we American right-wingers have been led to believe.  Some of this may simply be down to the extraordinary material prosperity of all modern Western societies, in which almost all political and social setbacks can be borne, because, at the end of the day, no one's survival is greatly imperiled -- or at least most people's well-being is more or less secure.  Some of this may also be a factor of the extraordinary stability of Western political institutions and (classically) liberal norms, both of which may be wavering at present, casting into doubt whether U.S., Canadian, and European contentment will last much longer.  But that is speculation about the future.  For the present, life in Canada, and the U.S., ain't so bad.

So, in a word, my message to the people of Canada is a very simple one: Sorry!  That is, I'm sorry to have exaggerated your mania for Marxism ever so slightly, and I am genuinely impressed by the pleasing political, social, and economic order you've built.  Keep up the good work, Canucks!

EXTRA! EXTRA! No One Reads Newspapers Anymore!

 

Friends, the golden age of print journalism is behind us now -- way, way behind us.  One of my conservative amigos has written a great piece on the evolving (devolving?) mass media, and I recommend it to you highly:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/08/04/the_decline_and_fall_of_newspapers_147991.html

 

I applaud Josh Hawley for being the only U.S. Senator to vote against NATO expansion.  Too many other Senators -- including Republicans, it seems -- are caught up in jingoistic Russophobia right now, and can't see the inherent risks in doubling down on an alliance that has never amounted to anything but a blank check U.S. security guarantee to most of Europe.  How dumb can we be???  Pretty dumb, apparently!

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-votes-support-finland-sweden-joining-nato/story?id=87900093 

Finally, the establishment is circling the wagons, trying to shield Liz Cheney from Republicans' wrath, so as to make it a little less likely that the mega-ogre DJT will be the GOP nominee in 2024.  I say: good luck to them!  No one cares what Dick Cheney thinks anymore, and it's just plain sad how much the party's old guard is openly in revolt against the populism and nationalism that now -- rightly! -- define conservatism.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/election-2022-wyoming-dick-cheney/2022/08/04/id/1081829/

Put Up Your Dukes, Red China!

 

Friends, Crazy Nancy is spoiling for a fight, and so she's decided to swing by Taiwan during her tour of East Asia...or did she just take a wrong turn on the way to the liquor store?  You be the judge.  Personally, I'm inclined to agree with President Trump, who asserts that Pelosi's visit is ill-advised and poorly-timed.  I mean, here we are hip-deep in Russophobia, and Crazy Nancy decides to pay a courtesy call to Taiwan???  Why stick a finger in Xi's eye now, of all times?  I don't get it.  Personally, while I also have grave doubts and fears re China's rise and its future relations with the West, I don't see why we would pick Taiwan as a potential casus belli.  We recognize Taiwan as a part of China, which makes going to war, or taking a stand, to defend Taiwan from China more than a little uncomfortable, and irrational to boot.  I would let China have its way with Taiwan, in the final analysis, and I would dig in my heels and do everything in my power to STOP Red China from continuing to have its way with us.  Call me nuts, but that's how I see it.

https://apnews.com/article/china-asia-beijing-malaysia-a5a6acc391511c99b1b4c2d69e67b133

 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/08/02/pelosis_asia_trip_exposes_divides_in_both_parties_over_taiwan_147985.html 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/taiwan-house-speaker-nancy-pelosi/2022/08/02/id/1081443/

 

In other news, Biden's DOJ is suing Idaho to prevent the implementation of its sweeping anti-abortion law.  The pretext is interesting.  Take note, because, if you thought the fate of abortion in America had been decided by the recent Dobbs decision, guess again!  The Dems can find new legal chimeras from here to judgement day.  They'll fight this battle literally until they run out of trial lawyers, and that ain't happenin' anytime soon.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/02/politics/justice-department-abortion-idaho/index.html 

NATO Nightmare?

 

Friends, I bring you greetings from the great city of Montreal, Quebec!  I'll share more of my reflections on the wonders of Canada in the days ahead.

Before I do, consider this article by Senator Josh Hawley, who is daring to go against the conventional wisdom and oppose the addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO.  He makes some excellent points: we may well be overextended in Europe, and, as I've said on many occasions, we prioritize Russia over China at our peril.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-i-won%E2%80%99t-vote-add-sweden-and-finland-nato-203925

 

Trump is making some very interesting and critical comments about Ukraine's position vis-a-vis Russia.  Basically, he's saying that Ukraine helped to bring its present plight on itself, and so did we.  I agree wholeheartedly, and I also think Trump has a point that, if he'd been reelected, Russia might never have had the impetus, or the gumption, to attack Ukraine.

 

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-ukraine-russia/2022/08/01/id/1081272/ 

Finally, I know many of you enjoy the programming offered by Fox News, but make no mistake: Fox is engaged in a conscious, concerted effort to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee in 2024.  In that sense, Fox is now allied with the mainstream media, and it is hellbent on manipulating its own (credulous?) customers.  Are you one of them?  Well, then you should at least be aware of the agenda that is governing the "news" you're given.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jul/29/once-home-to-trump-fox-news-now-often-ignores-him/?amp-content=amp

Latvians: Now Less Gassy

 

Friends, if there's one thing that has characterized the Russia-Ukraine war so far, it's escalation.  That's true of the fighting on the ground, and of the rhetoric and sanctions flying between east and west.  Now, Russia is cutting off Latvia from all gas supplies, and it's throttling gas deliveries to all of Europe to boot.  When will someone see sense and step back from the brink?

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/07/30/sanctions-war-russia-cuts-off-gas-supply-to-latvia/

 

In other news, the experts are trying hard to find good news for Democrats in recent polling -- much of it manipulated to produce only good news to begin with -- but objective factors make it highly unlikely that we'll see even a "small blue wave" in November.  The best the Dems can hope for, in my humble opinion, is a minimal thrashing and to hold on to the Senate.

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/midterm-misery-biden-key-economy-111529922.html 

Back to the Future?

 

Friends, the biggest news today by far, although as usual most of the MSM won't mention it, is that a new political party is forming, "the Forward Party", partly the brainchild of iconoclast Andrew Yang.  The party is supposed to be practical and centrist and is meant to challenge the dominance of the ossified Democratic and Republican parties.  True, many Americans are looking for political alternatives and there's probably never been a time when confidence in existing institutions was lower.  On the other hand, third parties have an almost-perfect track record in this country of failing to enjoy genuine electoral success, although they do sometimes play the role of spoilers.  Ross Perot comes to mind, and Ralph Nader in 2000, who as the Green Party candidate probably sunk Al Gore.  Democrats are especially nervous about the Forward Party, and they should be, because Democratic voters tend to be less disciplined and less motivated.  Can Trump win a head-to-head matchup with Joe Biden, or Gavin Newsom, or Pete Buttigieg, or Hillary Clinton?  You betcha, but it's far from a sure thing, given Trump's high negatives.  Can Trump win a three-way race, on the other hand?  Without a doubt.  He can get to 45, 46, or 47% all day long.  He could therefore "pull a Boris" in 2024 and win handily, despite earning less than 50% of the popular vote.  So, in a nutshell, the Forward Party has my full and unqualified support!  I hope the Greens make a comeback too.  The more, the merrier!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-republican-democratic-officials-launch-new-political-party-rcna40378

 

If you haven't heard yet, we've now had two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.  Normally, that's called a "recession", but, since a Democrat is in office, we're going to use less offensive terminology, naturally.  It's a "slowdown" perhaps -- maybe even a "bump in the road" -- but not a recession.  Heaven forbid!  The funny thing is that the Dems think they can escape the political consequences of a slumping economy with their self-serving word games.  They're adorable, aren't they???

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/28/gdp-q2-.html

 

Higher mortgage rates are proving problematic for the housing market, unsurprisingly.  It will be fascinating to see how low housing prices go.  I've long believed they've been defying gravity.  In a sense, a correction was inevitable.

 

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/28/housing-slowdown-mortgage-rates-jump 

Finally, what is "heroism" these days?  Why, it's doing whatever the Western elite tells you to, while flexing your biceps for Vogue!  I hope Zelensky enjoys the plaudits, because he and his countrymen may have very little else to celebrate by year's end, if Russia gets its act together, which Russia has a nasty habit of doing.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/07/28/social-media-mocks-ukraines-zelensky-over-vogue-cover-shoot/