On Hamas

If Arab nationalists had a reasonable argument against the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, which they did not, any such argument has since been invalidated by the subsequently self proclaimed Palestinians crimes and terrorism. They are like the Noldor in Tolkein's Silmarillion who have fallen under the Prophecy of The North and the Doom of Mandos.

𝑇𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑦𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑜𝑢𝑡, 𝑠𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑜 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠. 𝑂𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐹𝑒̈𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝐸𝑎𝑠𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑖𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑂𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑒𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑢𝑒. 𝑇𝑜 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑘𝑖𝑛 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑖𝑛, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑏𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟.

𝑌𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑛. 𝐹𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑦𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑑𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ'𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑤.

The crimes of Hamas and its supporters exceed those of the Nazis in their depravity. It proved hard but possible after the Holocaust for the German people to rejoin the community of nations. While the poisons of Totalitarianism and Racism that National Socialism fostered can never be completely eradicated, and indeed preceded that movement, sincere efforts to repudiate them merit acknowledgement. Also in its 12 year rule the NSDAP did not sink roots deep enough to eliminate opposition and the legacy of an alternative culture that could be restored and built upon.

Among the Arabs who identify as Palestinian the situation is far worse, and indeed it is worse than it was some 55 years ago when the KGB sponsored the creation of a Palestinian identity, separate from Jordanian Egyptian Syrian or Lebanese, as a permanant source of conflict. Not just Israel but no nation, Jewish Christian Secular or indeed even Muslim, can exist at peace with a nation that rejects every concept of tolerance restraint law decency or humanity. If the seeds of an alternative set of values still exist among the Palestinians of Gaza, and in the West Bank where polls indicate that if the Authority under Abbas were to allow an election then Hamas would win, and in the camps controlled by Hezbollah in Lebanon, then only through the comprehensive defeat of Hamas could a path open for the repudiation of the culture of death. Only then could a possible future for the descendants of the Arabs who migrated to lands between the river and the sea in the 19th and 20th centuries based on peace decency and respect be found for them as citizens of whatever country they may come to.

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Wretchard T. Cat:
"Most people have been brought up to be civil to a fault, to avoid making a public spectacle at all costs and in extremis to walk away rather than be openly disagreeable. This is a civic virtue in a high trust society.
But in a tribal society the rules are different."

Reading about the NYPD "Sheltering" in Grand Central Station with the pro-Hamas mob baying outside and the French government caving to the Islamists and demanding that Israel stop hunting the monsters who hide behind women and children and under a hospital after they murdered babies in the most depraved ways imaginable I wondered what would happen if people did resort to vigilantism and if the Israelis did use their own clandestine forces to destroy the sanctuaries their enemies have formed in societies no longer able to defend themselves?

Hamas, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), is engaged in Insurrection and Invasion. It is not a Law Enforcement problem but a military threat that uses women and children as strategic and tactical assets.

Radical mob insurrections in the Arab world have been marked by savagery and butchery. In 1958 KIng Faisal II of Iraq, the cousin of King Hussein of Jordan the father of the current king of Jordan, was deposed by a secular coup. The king and his family and his Prime Minister were killed, their bodies were mutilated and desecrated and dragged through the streets. In 2011 Islamists chanting "God is Great" sodomized Muammar Gadaffi with a bayonet before shooting him.

The MB is banned in Egypt and Jordan and in many other countries. The population of Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas. While it was flawed the election of 2006 did result in a win for Hamas. In 2007 the coalition with the PA broke down and in a civil war Hamas seized control of Gaza. Since then they have ruled through terror and used Gaza as a platform for attacking Israel, and threatening the government of Egypt and the PA on the West Bank. The have refined using the plight of the population that they have caused to extort aide from the Israelis that they attacking. Aide which is then diverted to enable a greater military threat. All opposition has beenkilled or expelled and the population by all reports is both dependant on and supportive of Hamas.

The governments of Egypt and Jordan are determined to keep the population of Gaza in place and out of their countries. This is not due to an attachment to the Geneva Conventions prohibiting displacing civilians that have been routinely ignored in other cases. The insistance that they remain in Gaza, where they have and will launched not just military attacks but terrorism of unspeakable sadistic horror, is due to their determination not to expose their nations to the same horror. They believe with good reason that if they admit the population of Hamas and its supporters then they, the leaders of Egypt and Jordan and their supporters, will die and that their people will be subject to a bloody tyranny.

What will happen if the Hamas terror is met by terror and identified perpetrators and supporters of violence against Jews are killed? Would the NYPD vigorously pursue the cases? Would the federal government flood the city to protect the Muslim community, and impose restrictions on Jews? What if the violence escalated and 200,000 Muslims, open Hamas supporters and women and children, declare that NYC is not safe for them and they begin marching en masse across the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey? If those people were to be permitted to enter NJ then all of the cultural social and legal protections would be swept away and a sharia compliant system would replace it.

Who would stop them and How?

On Racial Identities

I owe decency to individuals. As members of a hostile community I don't owe Blacks a damn thing. As a group they have been badly served by "Leaders" who have been corrupt tools of the racists who exploit them. Given that they are a shrinking and not very influential part of the larger society, with above average expressions of social pathologies, I see no reason to invest in promoting the affiliation of people with that identity group. If individuals in response to normal decent treatment affiliate with and identify with productive communities then that would merit support and encouragement.

The question then is what is meant by "Black" as a social group. If it means identifying with Racism Misogyny Antisemitism and violent and criminal behavior then that does not merit support encouragement or tolerance. If it means a group recently arrived in the United States from some backwards and repressive place, which can be applied I think to those grandchildren of slaves who left the former plantations and moved to America in the 20th century, then they deserve neither more nor less support than anyone else. The vast majority of Americans, Jews Germans Italians Greeks Slavs Asians etc are the children of people who migrated to the US from nasty places after the Civil War but before the children and grandchildren of the former slaves left the plantations. Subsequent arrivals by Hispanics, East Asians, East Europeans, South Asians and others add to the overwhelming majority who have their own legacies of oppression that they came to America to escape and who have no connection to any injustice that the ancestors of Blacks faced.

The only people that the Blacks may have had claim against were the minority of Whites in the Slavocracy of the South who used slaves to compete with free white labor. The great great great grandchildren of that group are often found among the Democratic Party elite that still exploits Blacks as an identity group. Indeed some of them are themselves Black, notably Barack Obama. Even the Wasps of the North should not be any logical target for claims advanced by advocates of collective guilt.

What the Left uses the nurtured sense of grievance and entitlement and alienation in the Black community to advance is a general criticism of Capitalism. The thoroughly irrational argument is that since the Jews Italians Russians Wasps etc all benefited from Capitalism in America and the slaves suffered then everyone owes the descendants of the slaves. That is ridiculous on many levels but first because the above mentioned Slavocracy was not a Capitalist society. Indeed that is why a Civil War at the cost of 600,000 dead, proportionately over 6 Million if fought in today's America, had to be fought and to free the slaves.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/antisemitism-worst-among-black-americans-democrats-despite-mlks-defense

Who Is Working for Whom?

кто кого?

- VI Lenin (Who, Whom?)

It is more likely that the Obama/Biden regime is Putin's puppet than Trump was.

Biden made noise about condemning Putin and backing Zalenskyy but that is Theater. Biden and Putin and almost everyone else expected Putin's army to roll into Kyiv in less than a week. They expected Zalenskyy to accept a payoff and get on the plane ready to take him into exile. The support promised for Ukraine and set in motion, stripping Nato stocks and increasing the ability of China Iran (except for unexpected domestic trouble) and other anti-Western forces to act with impunity, was arranged before the Russians got bogged down.

Putin's propagandists push the story that Ukraine is the hopelessly corrupt tool of Putin and that they recklessly started a war against ethnic Russians. Stalin had moved ethnic groups around to create conflict and increase dependence on Russia in peripheral districts like Crimea and the Donbas. Zalenskyy campaigned on reducing conflict with ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His doing so undermined Putin's plan to exploit ethnic grievances, as he had done in Georgia.

The former Ukraine regime, the one that Putinbots scream was elected fairly and then overthrown and which was the one that rented Hunter Biden, and Joe, and which Biden blackmailed to fire an honest prosecutor, was Putin's tool. Putin invaded because Zalenskyy was deconstructing the web of corruption and exposing the links to Putin and to Biden. That was what was revealed in the phone call that the Democrats had the nerve to impeach President Trump over. The links between the Democrats and KGB/SVR/CCP Intelligence run deep and go back decades.

Who destroyed the Nordstream pipelines? Was it the US or the Russians or some other actor? If the US did it was it to harm Putin or serve as part of a plan on his behalf? We do not know but we have zero reason to accept any claims made by Biden. Will Putin attempt to fully mobilize and crush Ukraine and the Baltics too? Could Putin even pull it off now that Ukraine has against all odds chewed through the trained Russian forces?

On Alec Baldwin and "Rust"

Alec Baldwin the Actor was not responsible for the gun having live ammunition. The actions he was supposed to do that day, drawing a weapon and pointing it at the camera and pulling the trigger, are in fact a traditional part of film lore. In fact that is the closing image in "The Great Train Robbery" of 1903. It is an actor's responsibility to hold production to the contract and the contract does state that a certified Armorer will distribute and collect all firearms used on set and will demonstrate to the crew and actors that the weapon is not loaded with live ammunition and may be handled safely as instructed. Any potentially dangerous condition on a set, such as the use of firearms or a live flame, is reason for a Safety Briefing by the Director and the Assistant Director with all cast and crew present.

As I said it was Baldwin's responsibility as an Actor to ask that the Armorer be present and do their job but frankly I doubt that their not doing so and instead the Assistant Director handing him the weapon would be considered a criminal act on Baldwin's part. After all the Actor is there as an employee and as such is taking orders. Unfortunately for Baldwin though he was not simply there as an Actor. He was also the film's Producer. It was his job as the Producer to hire the Armorer and the Assistant Director, and for that matter the Actor who should have had the briefing that would have revealed if the weapon was safe to use on set, and see to it that they provided a safe work place. For his failure as the Producer, who was the Employer and the Manager present, Baldwin should in my opinion be held responsible. 

An actor is not working as a soldier or law enforcement officer whose job it is to safely handle firearms. It is not the actor's job to handle live ammunition. It is the actor's job to handle a prop and make it appear to be real. You may see an actor appear to do dangerous or even impossible things but it is not real. You may believe that you saw the actor jump out a window and land on a roof 30' away or fall 4 stories into a dumpster and then run away. They didn't. The actor jumped just far enough to be out of the frame of the camera and then you saw a Stunt Double who is trained and qualified to do so fall 20' or 30' and you do not see the double land on a cushion. In fact you know that happened because it is hard to enjoy the illusion if you are really afraid that it is real, unless you are one of the few who seeks seeing people hurt.

Nevertheless a film set is a dangerous industrial workplace. People do get injured or killed on set. Tragedies have happened including on the "Rust" set and the deaths of Vic Morrow and two children on "The Twilight Zone" set, and too many others. Safety rules and procedures have been developed over decades and hundreds of skilled professionals work to create the illusions. For his failure to follow those rules and properly employ and manage those professionals I would hold Alec Baldwin responsible. It was his job.

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Instapundit: THE ESTABLISHMENT STILL SUPPORTS HIM, THOUGH: Alec Baldin May Be Criminally Charged.
https://www.emilypostnews.com/p/alec-baldwin-may-be-criminally-charged

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:51 pm
https://instapundit.com/544699/#respond

Decline and Fall

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/department-race-diaspora-and-indigeneity-established-university-chicago

The Barbarians are in the gates. When they brought in the Marxist cypher Yee as Provost and then the Berkley apparatchik Alivisatos to kill the effort to retain the University as a redoubt against the Orwellian tide sweeping through the academies the game was up. Arguably it has been a losing fight since John Boyer first worked to cut back the Core and expand the College. There were brave rear guard actions in defense of The Life of The Mind and Intellectual Freedom with high standards, this is the university that closed its school of Education when they saw that it could not maintain the expected level of scholarly standards, but all of that will now crumble before indoctrination and censorship by mobs of entrenched bigots. It is a sad thing when a great university declines. The fall of Alma Mater is like the senescence of any parent, a time of grief and reflection. While I am no religious fundamentalist I think that such a loss can be described by analogy to scripture.

"𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒚 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒅𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆! 𝑶 𝑱𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏, 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒔."

"𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏, 𝑶 𝑳𝒖𝒄𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒓, 𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈! 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒓𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒖𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔!"

For those who prefer a more literary depiction of a decline with the hoped for but not expected chance of recovery, with the assurance that I wish the University no ill, may I suggest Frodo's words of judgment and pity for Saruman, "𝑯𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒏𝒐𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕. 𝑯𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒖𝒔; 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒎, 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕."

Dad and Dole

Bob Dole took a bullet for Dad.

God Bless and Rest in Peace.

He saved my father's life.

Thank you Sir.

WW-II was an interesting war. Everyone showed up. One day Dad, who was a Squad Leader, was in a foxhole next to a road in Italy when a German fighter plane straffed the road. A jeep stopped and a man clutching a violin case jumped out and jumped into my father's foxhole. It was Jascha Heifitz, the greatest violinist in the world. As I said, everyone got into the act.

By April 1945 my father was, in a foxhole, in the Appenines near Bagni di Lucca. The snow was deep. It was bitter cold. Every third day he had to turn his underwear inside out to keep the lice busy. Dad was sick with frostbite feet and maybe typhus. Odds were that he was going to die.

Dad had already used up more favors than God usually hands out. He was originally supposed to be in the first group of recruits sent to reinforce the Philippines. Dad caught a cold in boot camp and was reassigned, so he missed the Bataan Death March. Instead the Army sent him to spend a couple of weeks in Florida at Fighter Recognition School, where he was the only student not a field grade officer, and then sent him to England. There he had a date with some Countessa or Baroness whose family had a castle and only learned along with his colonel that they were heading for Mers el Kebir for the invasion of North Africa when the English village girls who typed the orders yelled it to them as Dad and the colonel marched to the troop ship. Dad survived that.

In North Africa Dad was sent up to observe so he was not caught in the disaster of Kasserine Pass. He took shelter in the graves the ever methodical Germans had Russian prisoners dig in advance. The Germans did not come back after the battle on the other side of the hill. No one ever discovered what happened to the Russians. Dad survived that.

In Italy Dad landed at Salerno. He asked the locals "Dove tedeschi?" and they replied "Lasciato tre giorni." Then the Americans waited for the Hermann Goering Division to show up. Dad survived that.

The Army, which is run by geniuses, was concerned that someone might steal Mt Vesuvius, so they had my father set up a machine gun nest on top of the volcano. It erupted. They did credit Dad with shooting down a Messerschmitt but Dad said that the pilot was probably already dead before he fired a shot. Dad survived that.

Dad's CO was a Colonel who had been a Midwest bank VP. I think he was like Mr Milton in "Best Years of Our Lives." A fearless character normally found someplace warm and dry two miles behind the lines he would volunteer his men for anything and threatened to put my father on report for dragging a mattress found in an abandoned farmhouse into his foxhole (naturally) before Monte Cassino. General Alexander stopped that. He shook his swagger stick and said, "That's the spirit man. Forage man, forage." Dad survived that.

Dad's own troops proved more dangerous. When he learned that they were stealing supplies and running them across the boot to sell to the black market on the Adriatic coast Dad put a stop to it. Someone tried to kill him, taking a shot that parted his hair. Dad survived that.

So when Dad was filthy hungry sick and freezing in the mountains near Bologna it was reasonable for him to think that his luck had run out. Then a strapping young Lieutenant from the 10th Mountain Division, looking like a recruiting poster, jumped into Dad's foxhole and said, "I got it. Get out of here." That was Bob Dole and three days later he took the bullet that was meant for my father and strong as he was, it would have killed my father who was a strong man but was weakened by 30 months of almost constant combat, it crippled Dole for life after putting him in the hospital for over a year and a half. Thank you Bob.

Dad went to the Aid Station where the Army doctor said he had used up his quota and was supposed to send Dad back to the line, where he would have surely died. Then the Doc said, "Hell, what can they do to me?" and sent Dad to the hospital and saved his life. Then the Army told Dad that he was going to be shipped to the Pacific to join the invasion of Japan. They said, "Make out your will. Consider yourself as already dead." Then Harry Truman dropped the bomb. Thanks Harry. Dad survived that.

BTW, Dad did not vote for Bob Dole.

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Instapundit: R.I.P. Bob Dole Dies at 98.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 12:37 pm

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/489436/#respond

A Reply to Professor Lipson on Facebook

Professor Lipson posted the, linking to a Spectator article, 

"Trump's never-ending 'stolen election' story damages America."

Yes, there were problems with last November’s election, but they have been litigated and audited for months. To continue questioning those reviews and challenging the outcome does lasting damage to our country. It’s long past time to stop.

Trump’s attack on our constitutional procedures does not stand alone. The Democrats have waged their own damaging assault on several fronts. They floated the idea of adding two new states to the Union and more Justices to the Supreme Court. Both are efforts to fundamentally change the legislative and judicial branches by packing them with supporters. 

Politicians wage attacks like these for tactical advantage. Alas, what is tactical advantage for them inflicts real structure damage on our democracy.

My reply follows.

On this one you are simply wrong. The reality may be simply too terrible to accept. The often paranoid theories of the worst and least credible people have finally proven true. Yes they may have cried wolf a thousand times but that makes it possible that the genuine criminals took advantage of that as a cover, recognizing that many had been conditioned not to react to the real theft. The very magnitude of the crime drives those complicit to go to extraordinary lengths to defend it. As Hillary said, "If we don't win we all hang." That then leads the innocent such as yourself, who are invested in maintaining the forms of civil society and constitutional government even as the substance has been eaten out, to bandwagon and give them cover.

The crucial moment may have been when the Democrats endorsed Occupy Wall Street and the Republicans did not challenge that. Occupy was not Free Speech but a dry run for ANTIFA. The point of no return was the refusal of Stacey Abrams to concede in Georgia. The Democrats were allowed to create a shadow government and then under the cover of COVID allowed Abrams to sponsor the mechanism for the theft of the 2020 election. The GOP should have used every tool available to force the Democrats to break with Seditionists and repudiate what was clearly a coup in progress months before the election. Unfortunately the antipathy to Trump among establishment leaders of the GOP enabled the Democrats to maneuver them into passivity.

The maintenance of the forms of institution and ritual are not meaningless. There is reason to cling to them even when barbarians occupy the seats of power. It is through the institutions and the rituals, through the Constitution and Congress and the Presidency and the courts, and schools and religions, that values are transmitted and justice is delivered. That leads to a free and prosperous society. The institutions and rituals are tools, not the goals in themselves, but they are valuable tools and to abandon them is the path of despair and defeat. However as they are but a means and not the end they must be supported by vigorous enforcement. The fact is that the institutions did not, were not permitted to, operate. The supporters of President Trump did not have their day in court. Millions believe as I do that the election was stolen and that becomes more certain over time, not less.

Between the election of the Constituent Assembly of 1918, that met for only 13 hours before the Bolsheviks dismissed, it and 1990 Russia was governed by a dictatorship cloaked in the forms of law. After all the Soviet Constitution of 1936 promulgated by Stalin was "the most democratic on earth." Did that make protests illegitimate? There is no need to go full Godwin and dwell on the forms cultivated by the constitutionally legal and elected, with the possibly unneeded use of fraud and thuggery, government of nazi Germany.

Is it possible to satisfy the concerns of most of the sane, as I hope that I am, people who dispute the legitimacy of the current regime in DC? Yes but it becomes increasingly difficult to do so and the response from those invested in preventing an accounting has already crossed over into violence. The Democrats have proclaimed that any disputing of their claims to power, including peaceful protest and lawful assembly or communications, is Sedition and may be suppressed with force. Demonstrators who entered the Capitol on January 6th, which was probably unwise, but who did so after the police opened the doors and entered peacefully staying between velvet ropes have been treated brutally in a manner that only we thought had existed in the past in dark backwoods corners of America.

What can be done? At a minimum the fact that there is a legitimate concern must be acknowledged. A full formal audit and public accounting of the election must be held. Invalid votes must be exposed and rejected. Where a state's Electors were improperly assigned their votes in the Electoral College must be invalidated. Reassignment of those votes to a competing slate is a separate issue. It may or may not be justified depending on the facts. If either canceling some EC votes or replacing them were to overturn the outcome of the election then the offices of President and Vice President would have to be declared vacant. At that point the XXth Amendment would take effect. My expectation is that would make the Speaker the Acting President until a new election could be held. Here is section 3 of the XXth Amendment:

𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 3. 𝐼𝑓, 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡. 𝐼𝑓 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚, 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑; 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑏𝑦 𝑙𝑎𝑤 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑛 𝑛𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑎 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑, 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑙 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑑.

There are real issues arising from the 2020 election regarding Voter ID and Early or Mail in voting, as well as Harvesting, that Congress should address.

Looking back, and at the risk of flogging a horse, I want to add something.
Professor Lipson was my teacher, my mentor, is my I dare say friend, and over 40 years ago I was a spectacular disappointment when he I think took a turn as my advisor in the hope of getting some useful work out of me. His opinions matter. A belief in the benefits and even the necessity of building institutions, political, legal, and academic, and accepting the legitimacy of their procedures, including accepting an undesired result, is a rational and moral position. Good scholarship in the Social Sciences makes one aware of the grim consequences that follow when those institutions collapse and with startling speed societies revert to the Hobbesian war of all against all. 

As the Declaration says "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer" because the alternatives are both unknown and as the evidence of history and theory shows are usually worse. If the consequences of the election a year ago were, unpleasant as it may seem, simply the consequence of Donald Trump's abrasive personality alienating key groups of people combined with some clever or even unethical but still legal maneuvering by his opponents then the answer to his supporters may be, as the Lincoln Project Bush/McCain loyalists seem to say, "Suck it up. There was a lot at stake and you blew it. Now we have to try to put the pieces back together and it is going to be harder than it would have been if Trump had never existed." 

Is that true? The evidence is obscured but that is because there has been a sustained campaign to suppress the evidence. That in itself makes it harder to accept the prematurely proclaimed results. Certainly it is reasonable to believe that the reason that Trump gained the support of the Republican base and probably the majority of the citizenry was that the Establishment in the GOP had become corrupted and demonstrably failed to defend the institutions and see that they functioned as tools to deliver the benefits of law liberty and prosperity I described above. Was there a spontaneous move reacting to traditional political operations or rather a sophisticated conspiracy that resorted to Sedition and even foreign support along with organized criminal activity, from mob violence to illegal election law changes, to coerce an illegitimate result?

To simply propose the second half of the above choice would seem bizarre or even paranoid but the first alternative, given what we all saw, is also incredible. We cannot simply dismiss one and declare that the other must be true. We need a proper accounting, no matter how inconvenient that may be. Efforts to suppress challenges are themselves evidence that the results should be challenged. Every effort to deny that accounting moves the weight of evidence to the side of declaring that that Mr Trump is correct.

Rot in The Groves of Academe

Actions must have Consequences, in Physics Politics or Law.

The Statute of Limitations, which guards against persecution and the introduction of unverifiable or tainted evidence as well as some forms of corruption, is not the same as granting wrongful conduct a veil of oblivion if it is not punished within two news cycles. We need a prominent regularly updated running tally of outrages and most importantly their consequences if any. In the below case from three years ago do we know what happened? Is Thomas still employed at U Miss or at any college or by any government?

Part of the problem may be the relentless pressure on faculty to fill more than one role. Faculty at major universities are expected not only to perform research and mentor graduate students but also to engage with undergraduates and to act as public intellectuals, as personalities and advocates. That may have begun as a patriotic contribution to the government when it needed Experts to assist in crisis such as the Great Depression and then WW-II and The Cold War but it also was recognized as a gold mine in bringing to the schools not only direct federal money but also publicity that payed off when raising funds for the endowment. Famous faculty proved almost as valuable as a good football coach.

The other side of that is the pressure on faculty at small and state colleges to also produce and publish original research. Continued publication by senior faculty, Full or Associate Professor, at state colleges should not be a requirement for job retention, even if tenure rules change as they well may. Publication by junior faculty seeking tenure should be subject to much more critical review, separate from that of the journals they publish in. The current system has become a self licking ice cream cone with a frequently inedible product. Real scholarship may be drowned out by the white noise of those who have nothing to say and who say it aggressively. This has been exposed by the placement of hoax articles.

Teaching faculty at state colleges who wish to participate in the life of scholarship beyond their classroom duties should be afforded opportunities to do so as Affiliates at regional Research Universities. While publishing as an Affiliate might generate some prestige and a small possibility of advancement to a research position at a university the expectation of a financial benefit proportional to the labor involved should be limited. The job of the college teacher should be to teach. This is a step back possibly to the concept of separate college and graduate faculties, although with the colleges largely on separate state school campuses, similar to that of the Hutchins era at the University of Chicago.

Teaching in a non-vocational program at a Community College is probably worse than teaching in a decent high school, and there is no reason to support dubious publishing opportunities in questionable journals and an inflated graduate system to manufacture the doctorates that are not needed for the small number of genuine scholarly positions available. Without a doubt there are good people who can't get into a position at a top tier university. This is a tragedy and sometimes even an injustice. But the cost to society, especially in the opportunity cost of wasted resources, of pretending that those in the non-scholarly positions are producing work that is as valuable as scholarship should stop. Einstein may have done his best work while he was a patent clerk but we don't expect every patent clerk to publish and we don't create redundant journals to handle the produce of tenure hungry patent clerks. We would be better off if those who are not going to prosper as scholars, which in most fields like Anthropology means all but a handful a year, are told to focus on teaching and to drop the SJW theatrics. An Affiliation program would allow the leading faculties of the Research Universities to work with and find those who do belong in a top tier scholarly setting, without duplicating the graduate program at every state college. Of course I am generalizing. That is needed to generate testing.

The problem is that after WW-II with the GI Bill the number of college students expanded dramatically, that created the demand to increase the number of graduate students, which created the demand to increase the number of graduate programs, all with federal funny money, and then the baby boom followed, increasing the demand ad infinitum or at until the students decided that hetero-sex was a bad thing. 60 years ago a small liberal arts school or a state college could boast of one or two serious scholars, often Jewish refugees, who were relieved of the burden their colleagues had at the research universities because at the small schools they did not have to teach graduate students. That reduced some of the perks of Academia but it worked. Now the vast overgrown network of 2nd and 3rd tier schools is flooded with faculty like the character at the original link for this thread and the students, many of whom do not belong in a liberal arts school, are ill served. For those faculty who aspire to something better it must be depressing. How can we get back to what worked?

The state colleges were established under the Land Grant system as Normal Schools (Teacher's colleges) and Veterinary schools. Those are important functions. A few other similar professional programs, such as Accounting and Engineering, may be considered of direct benefit to the states, as determined by th state legislatures.

BTW an Uncle of mine was a great scholar of French literature and became Dean of graduate studies at UMass, Amherst. Under his guidance that school became a great Research University. He was proudly Liberal and hated Eisenhower. When he was a graduate student at Columbia he was on a committee of graduate students, all but my uncle were I think veterans, who went to see Eisenhower, then the President of the university, to ask for a $25 raise. Eisenhower threw them out of his office.

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Privus Sapo

October 17, 2018  · 

Shared with Public

The University of Mississippi has this to deal with:

“Don’t just interrupt a Senator’s meal, y’all,” James Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology, tweeted from his @Insurgent_Prof account on Oct. 6, the day Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn into the Supreme Court.

“Put your whole damn fingers in their salads,” he wrote. “Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners. Bring boxes and take their food home with you on the way out. They don’t deserve your civility.”

This untenured Assistant Prof is probably around 38 years old and spent the half of his life since high school working into his current position. If he gets fired, as I hope, his record should be amended to ensure that he does not find employment at a secondary school. He is quite literally unemployable. What can he do? Write Stand Up LGBT comedy reviews? The Village Voice has folded.

The larger issue is the bloat in America's education system. There are tens of thousands of people with graduate degrees that there is no market for except for taxpayer created jobs where they manufacture more students, who spend 4 to 15 years in the same fields and then expect employment. How many graduate programs in Sociology and Anthropology producing how many PhDs does America need? Probably fewer than a dozen, with all but the top 3 producing 1 to 3 new PhDs a year. The best may generate up to 5. How many undergraduate programs in those fields are justifiable? More than the graduate programs but still fewer than now exist. Almost all state university graduate programs in the Social Sciences and Humanities, which grew as an unintended consequence of the post WW-II GI Bill, should be shut down.

All government scholarships should be tied to some period of prior active or concurrent reserve military service.

Fbook Is Down

Fbook is down. Is it a $2 part or bad software inn the spaghetti code or is it deliberate? To be clear I have absolutely zero evidence of this, it is pure speculation for heuristic purposes.

When someone falls into the trap of doing business with a mobster they always start by thinking that they are a free agent still. Then comes the moment when the rug gets pulled out from under them. The CCP is a Mafia. Did they, either directly or through a US government cut-out, make a demand that Zuckerberg finally said "No" to? It would comport with the model for them to pull the plug to ensure future compliance. If that happened then it indicates that we are all already in the box and that Xi and his gang believe that we cannot escape. What powers to stop them remain? The infinitesimally small possibility that the CO and XO on an SSBN would launch against orders? I do not believe that will happen. The only consolation that I can offer is that the totalitarian project, and the parasitic gangster model it is wedded to, are doomed to failure. Eventually but long after we are all gone and civilization has collapsed human communities will revive like green shoots riding from the devastation after a forest fire. Hopefully there will be isolated pockets like monasteries where some memories and learning may be preserved.

Risen From History's Crypt

Islam was moribund and in retreat at the end of the 19th century. Then came two things that, I hesitate to call it Divine Intervention but perhaps some other agent was at work, rescued it. 

The first was the shift to oil powered naval vessels. The change from sail to coal fired steam had already occurred but the Royal Navy's shift from coal to oil made control of the Middle-East oil fields critical to the British. The Arabs and Iranians shifted from despised or picturesque natives of interest only to Missionaries, Romanticists, Archeologists, and various cranks to potential partners and valued assets to be cultivated. 

Next came the rise of Marxism as a challenge to the core ideologies of the West. Those being Judeo-Christianity, Aristotelian rationalism and inquiry, Empiricism and the Scientific Method in a tradition championed by Francis Bacon, limited government and individual liberty under the rule of law, and Capitalism. The West was weakened internally as both large swaths of the masses and of the elites fell away from support for culture and the institutions, which themselves became corrupted, that were always more important in expanding the sphere of Western dominance than the military power which was among their end products. Islam was itself energized as it adopted the rhetorical and organizational tools that Marxism provided for its revival.

Love In the Jet Age.

There is a story in the family that one day we went to Idlewild to see a relative off, air travel still being a glamorous big deal then. That much I do remember. Apparently we all had lunch in the terminal restaurant. During which my brother and I were busy doing what came naturally, which was being horrible. At the table behind us a soon to be famous fashion designer was sitting with an extraordinarily beautiful girl. He was proposing marriage to her, asking her to stay and telling her about how excellent his prospects were. While he was doing that she was staring at my brother and I, being horrible. The safe bet is that she got on a plane.
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There is no truth to the rumor that the Catholics tried to borrow my brother and myself so as to increase the number of young women finding vocations as nuns.

China's "Civilization Killers"

Epoch Times

This is my fear. 44 years ago a friend who had won a Rhodes Scholarship got a little drunk at his celebration party and joked about inventing something like this.
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Note that I am using racial terms and categories here that the wiki in their page "Race" spends hundreds of words repetitevly denying as having any scientific meaning or biological value. Why do I do this? Because the Chinese, like most people, believe that the terms mean something and that there are biological differences that can be exploited. 
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The Chinese Communist Party is (im)morally and likely technically capable of attempting this. Before they unleash a bioweapon that targets Caucasians but spares Mongoloids (East Asians), which may be feasible but also may be difficult given the history of migrations and genetic mixing over the last 10,000 years, they would I think first test the technology on a more distinct target population, Negroids. Surprise.
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The CCP are I think emotionally capable of genocidally exterminationg much of the population in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America and then using survivors as labor for extracting the resources the CCP covets.

On Misandry

The Feminists are correct that there is a lot of Misogyny out there and many women are at risk of physical harm. They are also completely clueless about where the threat comes from and who is and is not likely to harm them. They have consistently fallen for gaslighting that has lead to them Judas like inducing those they claim to care for away from those who do not want to harm them and into where they can be harmed by real predators. On college campuses much agitation is I think used to isolate and stigmatize heterosexual men in order to drive a wedge between them and heterosexual women, so that the latter can be isolated and exploited by aggressive dishonest and manipulative persons, including transgenders and lesbians. Some beta heterosexual males participate in this hoping to benefit from the exclusion of other males. The Patriarchy consists of Bill Clinton and his supporting cast of sexual obsessive "Friends of and like Hillary" as well as assorted Race Hustlers, ConMen, and Grifters who view young women as chattel.

Denaturalization

On my list of amendments that would improve the Constitution of the United States is one that would enable Congress by a three fourths vote of each chamber to revoke the citizenship of any person born a United States citizen, with a two thirds vote in each chamber sufficing to revoke the naturalization of a person not born a citizen. Also upon a petition submitted by the legislatures of two thirds of the states Congress may act to denaturalize any citizen by a means of majority vote with a bill subject to Presidential approval or by a two thirds majority in each chamber should the President not assent, provided that no state legislature may authorize such a petition nor may Congress pass an Act naming more than one person for this purpose on any day that they are in session.

Instapundit: AND THE COMPETITION WAS FIERCE THIS YEAR: Teen Vogue Columnist Takes the Prize for Dumbest 9/11 Take of the Year.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/473294/#respond

The COVID K.I.S.S.

There is no zero zilch nada zip justification for Biden claiming Emergency Powers in response to a Crisis. There was some justification for the government acting with dispatch in response to an unknown threat with an unknown level of lethality and unknown means of preventing mitigating or treating its impact. That was true, 18 to 20 months ago. That is why the initial response was labeled, "Two weeks to bend the curve." None of the excuses for Emergency actions that violated civil rights, including judicial due process, respect for state sovereignty, legislative oversight and authority, and individual freedoms including both of Speech and Privacy to include medical information, are true now. 
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The government asked for two weeks so that they could find out what the disease was and where it came from and what measures might prove beneficial in response. Now we know that Fauci lied to Trump and the American people. He knew what the disease was and where it came from and he participated in a grandstanding power grab that distracted and delayed more effective measures while millions suffered. Billion were lost in financial collapse and misdirected efforts. The emotional damage was also a real cost. China in a series of hostile acts not only produced the disease and entered into corrupt relations with American officials that weakened our response but also they have withheld information that could have sped our response.
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At this point what do we know? There is a disease. It is or will be endemic, like other corona viruses. Absent further genetic manipulation to make it more lethal to targeted populations, which may happen as that may be a focus of CCP sponsored bioweapons research, many or most may catch it at some time and most will survive. Vaccines and mRNA treatments will be refined and will be appropriate for some but not all. Other treatments, using either new medicines or as is common repurposed medicines, will be tested and some will prove more effective than others. As with other diseases for almost everyone and certainly for civilians vaccination and treatment should be a matter of personal choice determined between patients and their physicians operating under rules of Confidentiality and Informed Consent.
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Consider an analogy. When a house is on fire the firefighters may knock the door down and tear the walls open, smashing dishes and furniture as they chase the fire. Their right to do so lasts only as long as the initial fire is burning and the cause and path of it are unknown. After a few hours at most the firefighters withdraw. If there is a concern that someone may be storing paint, alcohol, or old rags improperly then the fire department is not allowed to kick in doors to find and neutralize the threat. The police will have to go to a judge and show cause and hope for a warrant that they then must present. If they do not conduct themselves professionally then they may be liable.
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Freedom is maintained at a cost, and that may include some inefficiency. If someone fails to exercise due care in storing flammables or by not reporting or by spreading a disease then they may face civil or criminal liabilities. Note that for some diseases such as AIDS the Democrats have reduced or eliminated the liability of those who knowingly expose others to infection. However nothing may be done without due process. Even in the case of Typhoid Mary the Health Department had to go through the courts before confining her and they did not respond to the disease by locking up every Irish servant.