One of the arguments made against term limits is that by thrusting inexperienced people into legislatures every few years, we’d really be turning over power to the un-elected legislative staffers. These staffers, with their years of legislative experience, would simply buffalo the legislator’s into voting for whatever the staff wanted. Ok, fair enough.
How is this different from what we have now?
Do you think any of the career politicians in Congress actually read and understand the bills they vote on?
What this thought has led me to is a wonder as to whether or not institutions actually work? Outside of dogmatic governed religious bodies (most notably, of course, the Catholic Church – though you’ll note various problems there), I don’t think they really do. The only one I can think of which had at least some long-term track record of success was the German General Staff. And it cost Germany two World Wars. But you do have to hand it to them – over those two World Wars they squeezed out the maximum amount of military power Germany could provide and applied it to Germany’s enemies in the most effective way possible – thus accounting for the rather lopsided Kraut to Non-Kraut casualty ratio (not counting Holocaust, it is like 5 non-Krauts killed for every Kraut they killed). But if that is our standard of “working”, I’d rather have more failures.
I’m not quite sure what we do here – but there has to be turnover, of that I am sure. As we can’t apply dogma to non-religious bodies (we have no one who would be universally respected to define dogma and thus heresy), the only defense mechanism I can think of is term limits. And to answer the charge that this would leave the permanent officials in charge – they have to have term limits, too.
It is one thing when a corporate bureaucracy becomes ossified, quite another when a government bureaucracy does. Because the government bureaucracy can jail and kill us; so, lots more serious. Just as we must find a means of ejecting politicians from office, so we’ll have to find a way to eject bureaucrats from office. Maybe we’ll eventually have to enact an amendment which says that you can’t serve, elected or appointed, in the federal government for more than 20 years?
Here’s a story saying that NYC cops may be opting for retirement at the first opportunity. I’ve seen other stories like this. Bottom line, if I was a cop in a blue jurisdiction, I’d be out, pension or no pension. You know for certain that the police and government officials will not back you up and if something you do winds up in a viral video then regardless of the facts of the case, you will be fired and very likely prosecuted. Just not worth it. And even if you think you’ll just turn a blind eye in certain areas of town (as is happening – in “George Floyd Square” in Minneapolis, it is getting very wild west), you still run the risk of having to make an arrest of someone non-white and each time you do that, you are at risk of being the next viral video. I can’t see any pension being worth that risk. And I don’t see a real way out of this – the blue city officials have staked out the position that BLM/Antifa are right and the cops are wrong. I don’t think you can re-cork that bottle and now say that the cops are right.
Joe’s first speech to Congress will be to empty seats. GOPers should place cardboard cutouts of themselves in the seats just to highlight the absurdity of this corrupt, senile, old fool being installed in the White House.
The children of Chernobyl aren’t showing any significant damage. Not really surprised – the radiation levels are probably set much higher than public safety really requires.
The Washington Post would like you to know that Senator Scott (R-SC) isn’t black enough.
Blogs For Victory 
From the YCMTSU file:
Mayor Ted Wheeler called on the pubic to help him identify the people responsible for the rioting and destruction Portland so he could ‘unmask them, arrest them and prosecute them.’ In a news conference on Friday addressing continuing violence in the city, Wheeler praised BLM leaders for showing ‘the courage to stand up to this mob’ and said that all Portland residents should do the same. The city has announced that it will extend its state of emergency through Monday amid fears of continuing violence over the weekend. The mayor said that the community needs to resume their lives but ‘self-described anarchists who engage in regular criminal destruction don’t want things to open up, to recover.’
There’s rioting in Portland? Why? Portland is a deep blue city, very diverse and inclusive with strict gun laws and a soy boy mayor who promotes BLM, climate change, and public drug use, so why are the residents unhappy? Portland should be the poster child for all things WOKE and Progressive but alas, the dysfunctional, poorly educated children can’t control their emotions and are still lashing out in rage at some unknown phantom. Maybe some Valium would help.
Why is it that deep blue cities and states suffer the most from “systemic racism” and violence? Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, LA, NY, Chicago, and Baltimore are all irreparably racist and violent according to those local officials.That’s weird. You would think conservative areas like Salt Lake, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix would be rife with racial violence and oppression but no. Conservatively governed areas are doing quite well on the violence/racist scale as compared to their WOKE counterparts. Maybe someone in the media should do an “investigation” into this interesting dynamic …. hahahahaha oh who am I kidding. That would require actual journalism.
Excellent and timely essay.
For quite some time now, particularly during the Trump Presidency when he was setting things right and putting right leaning judges into federal positions, I was hoping for a return to “normalcy and rational direction”. Hoping for a return to a time similar to when I was growing up and things were much simpler. Hoping for healing of relations with family, friends, races, countries, religions. Hoping for a time of prosperity, knowing the joys of earning a living or owning a business. Hoping for a return to family time and recreation. Hoping for a return to God and peace within our hearts.
I didn’t lose trust in God, rather a realization that the current of evil is strong to the point where a great many people are selling their souls for a lie, a lie that permeates most everything around us. When societies largely turn away from God, consequences will follow. It is inevitable. A society can only grow when their foundation is strong and their moral compass points true. We have drifted very far.
I read an article the day “Human-monkey Embryo Created. That anyone would even attempt/condone such a thing shows just how far from an ethical moral society we’ve traveled. The moral decay is overflowing to the point where my thoughts have shifted from one of hope to one of preparation. A preparation for the battle that is on our door steps. Some will be taken by surprise like the US navy was at Peril Harbor. But only those who hide their heads and/or deny reality will be surprised.
The battle we all face is about saving souls. We will all be challenged to attest the truth or fool ourselves into believing we can avoid the wrath by living a lie. The heads of many nations loudly advocate for destructive activities – abortions, gender disfunction, depopulation, elimination of freedoms, rules and governmental action without ethics, division, theft of individual earnings, etc. Even the head of the Catholic church is lock-in-step with many of these decrees.
Have I lost hope? My previous hopes have given way, but my faith remains in Our Lord. Sadly, I see many souls who believe living in a jail with the door open means freedom. The day is near when that door will close. Pray that you are on the right side when it does.
I think some of the problems you discuss regarding Congress could be solved, or at least mitigated. Though I think Eric Erickson is often a blithering idiot, today he makes some sense—-naturally, as he agrees with me. That is, that it is time to expand the House of Representatives. He talks about 1000 seats. That sounds like a lot, but we do need to get more actual representation.
An idea I have also had is to pass legislation that (1) limits the size of any bill to a certain, small, number of pages (2) eliminates omnibus bills so a bill addresses one single thing and can’t have other items tucked into it, and (3) any bill presented has to be written by its sponsor. Add to this that no one can vote for a bill her or she hasn’t read—–which would be reasonable if bills were limited to, say, two pages or a few hundred words—–and I think we would be forcing our legislators to do their jobs.
Then get corporations and unions out of campaign financing and don’t allow out of state money in state and local elections and we might be able to whittle down some of the bloat and corruption.
#MeToo
Footage of an Afghan woman being lashed 40 times by the Taliban has emerged in a stark reminder of the state of the country as the US withdraws its troops. The Islamists, emboldened by Joe Biden’s decision to pull troops out of the country, have warned the US and its Nato allies there will be ‘problems’ should they fail to beat a swift retreat in September. Video of the woman being whipped for reportedly having a phone call with a man, serves to underline the power which the Taliban still holds over the country despite Washington’s two decades of military intervention and trillions of dollars poured into improving life. Dozens of local men watched the punishment being meted out as villagers turn to the Taliban to enforce justice, having no faith in the toothless government in Kabul.
“Brown” people run such beautiful countries. No racism anywhere.
So the Left is panicked over the election audit in AZ … as they should be. Rachel Madcow on PMSNBC claims that this could be the “end of our democracy”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/rachel-maddow-maricopa-county-auditor-end-of-democracy
Which is interesting considering that she and her media network breathlessly promoted a fake “Russia collusion” story for 4 years and in an attempt to discredit and unseat a duly elected POTUS. But in Madcow’s estimation, recounting and confirming an election is the “end of our democracy”. It’s almost as if she is not convinced her side won … and why would a “journalist” have an allegiance to any political party?
How long will the audit take, and do you have a feel for how it will turn out?
I am not sure. I am not following it too closely but I do have a friend who is watching it closely and he told me that they have already found a lot more than 10,000 irregularites which was the margin of victory so it will be interesting. I suspect it will take another month or two but who knows.
As I have been saying, when you look at the definition of “certification”, which is basically to state that something has been examined and determined to be accurate, any state in which there was proven fraud could not legitimately certify its votes.
The mantra, echoed even by formerly respected Bill Barr, was that “there isn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” so just let it go. But that’s not the point. We didn’t have to have the ability to say who did get or should have gotten the votes that were cast by dead people, or non-residents, or people who voted more than once. It’s the fact that it is impossible to know who should have gotten which votes which makes it impossible to legitimately certify the vote count.
When a legislature certifies a vote count it is basically saying “We have every confidence, after examining the process and the vote totals, that we know how many votes each candidate received”. That is the meaning of “certification”.
When the legislature can’t say that, it can’t certify the vote count. Period.
And BTW, false certification is a felony.
Even if the state legislatures are made up of people who don’t know the law or can’t read a dictionary, the governors and attorneys general of those states should be able to, and it was their responsibility to make sure the legislature understood what it was being asked to do.
To a great extent, votes are fungible—once a ballot is approved and considered to be a valid vote it goes into the stream and can no longer be tracked, any more than the water from a stream can be isolated once it merges with that from other streams in a river. All we can tell is that X number of ballots were sent in envelopes without postmarks, or with the wrong postmark, or without signatures, or X number of dead people voted, or X number of non-residents voted, or X number of people voted more than once—and that means that X number of votes were not valid. If we don’t know which candidate got the tainted votes, that means that—wait for it—WE DON’T KNOW HOW MANY LEGITMATE VOTES EITHER CANDIDATE GOT. They are now in the main body of votes and can’t be subtracted. Ergo, the vote count can’t be certified.
The only votes that could be plucked out of the main body of votes, changing the total, would be the kind of votes where witnesses said that “mail-in ballots” were obviously not mailed in, as they were not folded, and that they appeared to be photocopied ballots filled in by a machine. These fake ballots could be identified by examination and removed. Evidently they would contain metadata that could be decoded, identifying the printer(s) involved.
Unintended consequences …. look what Democrats have done to their constituents. These poor folks who buy into Democrats empty promises live in poverty stricken neighborhoods, grow up in broken families, live around crime and drugs, forced to attend failing schools with teachers who don’t give a damn, and now thanks to the recent efforts by the media and racists in the Democrat Party, their ignorant emotions are fueled by raw hatred and as a result this poor lady will spend much of her life in prison. Thanks Democrats
Jessica Beauvais posted a 1 hour 51 minute livestream on her Facebook page Monday evening as part of her Face the Reality radio show. She spoke about the trial of ex-cop Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd and slammed the police. Throughout the footage, Beauvais is seen vaping and drinking an unknown dark liquid – believed to be vodka – and, at one point, washes down the contents of a red shot glass with a bottle of Snapple. She says cops are ‘signing up for potential death’ before signing off the footage with: ‘F**k the police’. Hours later, she allegedly got behind the wheel of her Volkswagen intoxicated and with a suspended license, before striking and killing NYPD Highway Officer Anastasios Tsakos, 43, around 2am Tuesday. Tsakos was redirecting traffic on the Long Island Expressway following a separate fatal car accident. Beauvais allegedly sped away from the scene before being apprehended by police. She offered a tearful apology for Tsakos’ death as she was led out of the NYPD’s 107th Precinct in handcuffs Tuesday as she faces13 charges including manslaughter in the second degree and vehicular manslaughter
Democrats will continue to destroy this country unless we stop them. And remember, the Declaration of Independence IS an insurrectionist document.
Oh this makes me so happy this morning … trouble in poor ole Bobby DeNiro’s life:
A few days ago, Robert De Niro, 77, and 66-year-old Grace Hightower – now engaged in a torturous divorce battle – clashed in a New York court during a virtual hearing over Ms Hightower’s spending habits. De Niro has previously gone to extraordinary lengths to keep such discussions private and it’s not hard to see why. The jaw-dropping sums involved and the lavish lifestyles exposed don’t sit well with his image as a serious thespian and staunch, Trump-loathing Democrat. The latest hearing answered many questions, not least why an actor widely regarded as one of the finest of his generation keeps making such utterly dreadful films. According to his lawyer, Caroline Krauss, the actor makes howlers such as Dirty Grandpa and Little Fockers, not to mention commercials for baker Warburtons and car-maker Kia, because he has to pay for 66-year-old Ms Hightower’s extravagant spending habits.
Karma is a bitch Bobby.
Anyone want to volunteer to live blog Biden’s speech? Yeah, me neither.