Kamala and the Constitution

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Democrats and never-Trump Republicans assert that Trump must not be reelected because he threatens the Constitution.  Peggy Noonan goes so far as to say, in her most recent WSJ column, that Kamala Harris should move to a more centrist position on a range of issues in order to improve her chances of winning and thereby negating Trump’s perceived threat to Constitutional government.

The problem with this formulation is that the Democrats don’t much like Constitutional government, and indeed don’t much like the Constitution itself.  (And by ‘Democrats’, I mean not only the Democrat officeholders and politicians, but also the larger Party, including the academics, bureaucrats, and media people who are the party’s ideologues and the beneficiaries of its polices and who think themselves entitled to be the kingmakers or prince-electors of America.)

For example, here is Hillary Clinton, calling for Americans to be civilly or even criminally charged for ‘misinformation.’  Here is Kamala herself, asserting that Trump has lost his free speech privileges and that his Twitter account (this is from 2019) should be taken down…and expressing dismay that social media sites can speak directly to millions of people without any level of oversight.  Tim Walz says ““There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech”…the definitions of which, of course, he surely expects to be edicted by people ideologically aligned with himself.  Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin has been a leading figure in Congress opposing efforts to investigated and curtail massive censorship programs coordinated by the Biden administration.

Many academics and journalists–representing professions that are highly Democrat-aligned–have attacked the very foundations of free speech and constitutional government.  For example:  New York Times book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.”  In another New York Times piece, titled “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” two law professors (one from Harvard and one from Yale) called for America to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”  Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. There are more examples at the link.

Democrats have also called for expanding the membership of the Supreme Court, for purposes of what used to be called court-packing, and been extremely tolerant of the ‘heckler’s veto’…indeed, often now the ‘thug’s veto’…to shut down speech which is considered Badthink.

This is not a matter of a few rhetorical excesses; there is clearly a very broad-based and muli-layered movement against free speech–and toward further centralization of power–among prominent and influential Democrats.

When Democrats cast themselves as defenders of Democracy, I am reminded of the phrase ‘guided democracy’ as employed by the Indonesian ruler Sukarno to describe his system.

Leaked Documents and Games Within Games

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The news last week that there was a leak of highly classified US intelligence documents
concerning Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran is the stuff for spy thrillers, but a perusal of the various media accounts leaves several questions unanswered.

1) The documents were posted on Telegram by an account of the pro-Iranian “Middle East Spectator.” What exactly is the relationship between the Spectator and the Iranian regime?

2) How did the Spectator receive the documents? Was it a leak from a US intelligence source as claimed or via hack?

3) The Spectator reported two documents that were leaked. Were there more?

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Dedicated Followers of Fashion

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It’s kind of depressing, reading the various stories linked here and there by various blogs and social media about pro-Palestinian/pro-terrorist orgies of protest on the grounds of various colleges and universities, and in the streets of certain big cities. This reminds me of the anti-war demos of the Vietnam War era. Massive turnout, lots of signs, lots of free-floating rhetoric … which turned out to mean absolutely nothing at all, in the long run. Much of the ruckus wasn’t motivated by sincere conviction about the welfare of the South Vietnamese, or the lives of our military troops. It was all just the followers of fashion, making a show of their fashionable conviction.

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Random Thoughts (3)

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1) As I was watched the Fox News interview of Kamala, the thought that kept running through my head was, “Why did she agree to do this, especially on Fox?”

From such questions, investigations are born.

She had already done a run of media exposures (I don’t call her time on the “The View” and “Call Her Daddy,” interviews) the previous week and they went as well as expected; CBS had to basically take a chainsaw to the video in order to make her “60 Minutes” interview even remotely palatable. For all of the criticism of her for running from the media, she knows the strength of her game and it’s not hanging around people who want serious answers from serious questions.

So, given her run-and-hide strategy, why do an interview with a hostile network like Fox?

Because her time at Fox was not meant to be “another” interview, but rather it was to provide the hostile environment, the platform, for her to display some spunky behavior and one-liners for campaign ads and the rest of the media to fawn over. She was going to use Brett Baier and Fox as a campaign prop, go into the proverbial lion’s den, hijack and divert the questioning so she could get in some choice quotes for tape, and then get out.

The fact that the interview was going to take place less than an hour before airing, leaving little time to edit, and was only supposed to last 20 to 25 minutes (and she was late even for that), lends credence to the strategy that she was going to do a drive-by. A confirmation of that came the next morning when the legacy media decided to use a style guide of calling her performance “feisty.” You go, girl.

It was a risky strategy at best because it depended on the interviewer deciding to yield the tempo and initiative to the interviewee in fear of being called a bully. But Baier didn’t fall into that trap and instead kept pushing her to answer his questions.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis, as Viewed From a Soviet Launch Facility (rerun)

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This month marks the 62nd anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world dangerously close to thermonuclear war. Reflecting on this crisis seems particularly appropriate in our current era, when the threat of nuclear war has again come forward from the background to which it had been hopefully consigned. More countries now possess or are on track to possess nuclear weapons, and some of them are ruled by very malevolent people and true fanatics.

Several years ago,  I read  Rockets and People, the totally fascinating memoir of Soviet rocket developer Boris Chertok, which I reviewed  here.  Chertok’s career encompassed both military and space-exploration projects, and in late October 1962 he was focused on preparations for launching a Mars probe.

On the morning of Oct 27, he was awakened by “a strange uneasiness.” After a quick breakfast, he headed for the missile assembly building, known as the MIK.

At the gatehouse, there was usually a lone soldier on duty who would give my pass a cursory glance. Now suddenly I saw a group of soldiers wielding sub-machine guns, and they thoroughly scrutinized my pass. Finally they admitted me to the facility grounds and there, to my surprise, I again saw sub-machine-gun-wielding soldiers who had climbed up the fire escape to the roof of the MIK. Other groups of soldiers in full combat gear, even wearing gas masks, were running about the periphery of the secure area. When I stopped in at the MIK, I immediately saw that the “duty” R-7A combat missile, which had always been covered and standing up against the wall, which we had always ignored, was uncovered.

Chertok was greeted by his friend Colonel Kirillov, who was in charge of this launch facility. Kirollov did not greet Chertok with his usual genial smile, but with a “somber, melancholy expression.”

Without releasing my hand that I’d extended for our handshake, he quietly said: “Boris Yevseyevich, I have something of urgent importance I must tell you”…We went into his office on the second floor. Here, visibly upset, Kirillov told me: “Last night I was summoned to headquarters to see the chief of the [Tyura-Tam] firing range. The chiefs of the directorates and commanders of the troop units were gathered there. We were told that the firing range must be brought into a state of battle readiness immediately. Due to the events in Cuba, air attacks, bombardment, and even U.S. airborne assaults are possible. All Air Defense Troops assets have already been put into combat readiness. Flights of our transport airplanes are forbidden. All facilities and launch sites have been put under heightened security. Highway transport is drastically restricted. But most important—I received the order to open an envelope that has been stored in a special safe and to act in accordance with its contents. According to the order, I must immediately prepare the duty combat missile at the engineering facility and mate the warhead located in a special depot, roll the missile out to the launch site, position it, test it, fuel it, aim it, and wait for a special launch command. All of this has already been executed at Site No. 31. I have also given all the necessary commands here at Site No. 2. Therefore, the crews have been removed from the Mars shot and shifted over to preparation of the combat missile. The nosecone and warhead will be delivered here in 2 hours

Chertok, who at this point was apparently viewing the Cuban affair as a flash in the pan that would be resolved short of war, was concerned that moving the Mars rocket would cause them to miss their October 29 launch date, and suggested that the swap of the rockets be delayed for a few hours. Kirillov told him that this was impossible, and that he should go to the “Marshal’s cottage,” where some of his associates wanted to see him. Chertok’s response:

Yes, sir! You’re in charge! But, Anatoliy Semyonovich! Just between you and me do you have the courage to give the ‘Launch!’ command, knowing full well that this means not just the death of hundreds of thousands from that specific thermonuclear warhead, but perhaps the beginning of the end for everyone? You commanded a battery at the front, and when you shouted  ‘Fire!’  that was quite another matter.

Kirillov:

There’s no need to torment me. I am a soldier now; I carry out an order just as I did at the front. A missile officer just like me, not a Kirillov, but some Jones or other, is standing at a periscope and waiting for the order to give the ‘Launch’ command against Moscow or our firing range. Therefore, I advise you to hurry over to the cottage.

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