Big Government

Pugilists and Statesmen

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Ads are being run against de Santis; he voted, they claim,  to increase the retirement age amidst other possible solutions.  He, like Ryan, are youngsters pushing their elders off cliffs; of course, some  might see politicians manfully taking on a long term problem.

These ads may be effective but with them mere discussions become toxic – the opposite of a statesman’s approach   Bush began with a high-powered, sensible committee; 9/11 intervened. Maybe they would have come up with nothing but it remains the problem it was well over twenty years ago.  How many policy debates follow the same pattern?

The problem is the context as well. Trump is pursued by truly demonic (and unconstitutional) opponents.  Ones who have sold us out for a few gold pieces to the environmentalists, the communists, the totalitarians, the. .  .   While they  take pleasure in making our futures carless, gasless, air conditionless, they embrace nihilism.  Indeed,  half the country seems in an intense sado/masochistic relation with their overlords.

In a petty way,  this ad poses a dilemma.  Our positions imply to the simple minded that either

a) we buy into the least statesman-like and most perilous of positions about our future in that policy area,
or
b) we buy into the most aggressive, constitution-be-damned, politically motivated of our opponents clown shows.
Neither has our long-run interests in mind; both personalize and trivialize policy in an increasingly serious world.

I had hoped de Santis would run and Trump wouldn’t:   I’d assumed Trump wouldn’t naturally take a statesman’s approach, more likely a pugilist’s, during the fallow period.  There was hope:  once elected he sometimes made good choices not traditionally considered winners.  But this toxic perspective that will affect him as well as de Santis, making a good solution less likely.  Surely no solution leaves the system untouched.   Well, probably the Democrats have one – print more money.

Drowning in a Sea

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Just about every day now that I wake up, fire up the computer and begin reading, I am left in a state of mild depression after wading through the litany of bad news, disaster, corporate and political malfeasance which features on blogs, aggregator blogs and the established news sites. Public schools appear to be open hunting grounds for pervs and freaks, places where the intellectual development of children, tweens and teens must be cut down to the lowest common denominator, so that the lazy and disinterested must not be made to feel discomforted over being lazy and disinterested. The volunteer military demoralized and all but non-functional, our major and Democrat party ruled cities all but drowning in crime while the homeless routinely crap in the streets and stagger around while high on substances which our government has allowed to pour through an unsecured border. A former president has apparently been railroaded on ginned-up charges by a nakedly partisan effort. Our shining republic on a hill, the two hundred-year-plus long grand experiment of engaged citizens actually ruling themselves looks to have degenerated into the worst of a banana republic, where the inner coterie reserves privilege and riches unto themselves and brings criminal charges against any who dare protest … oh, and all the while a tame and sycophant national media licks the boots of the ruling class, and slavishly obeys every command issued by that ruling class, orders to play up some stories, play down and/or denigrate others. Mostly because a lot of the media class are married to or are the spawn of the ruling class … funny how that all works out.

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Trump is indicted.

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In an obvious political move, Manhattan NY District Attorney, Alvin Bragg has succeeded in getting a grand jury to indict former president Trump on what are supposedly 34 counts of something. The indictment seems related to the Stormy Daniels case where a porn actress, represented by felon lawyer Avenatti, succeeded in extorting $130,000 from Trump during the election season. Her only evidence was a photo taken at a public golf tournament. Trump, of course, denied the accusation. He is a well known germaphobe who does not even shake hands with people. That he would have sex with such a likely STD source is ridiculous but in the midst of a campaign he paid her off with a Non-disclosure agreement which, she of course violated.

Great hilarity is, of course, widely seen in the leftist media, like the LA Times. At least they do admit the concerns of many.

The larger share — the “maybe Trumpers,” as Ayres calls them, make up 55%-60% of the party. “They’re exactly the kind of people who will want to know if this is a credible case or a trumped up vendetta by a liberal New York, Democratic prosecutor who is out to get Trump,” Ayres said.

No kidding. Nancy Pelosi has weighed in with what she thinks the law is. She thinks he has to “prove his innocence.”

Alan Dershowitz disagrees.

Dershowitz said on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is playing with fire.

[W]hen you’re a democratic elected prosecutor who ran on the campaign pledge of getting Trump and you’re going to indict, forget about the former president, the man who may become the future president if he beats the incumbent who is the head of your political party. Prosecutor, you’d better have the strongest case imaginable, not a case that depends on stitching together two inapplicable statutes and using Michael Cohen.

Powerline blog also has a different opinion.

While politics has always been a scrappy arena, former President Donald Trump has radicalized Democrats and brought them to a level of derangement that few could have imagined. The full-court press to ruin Trump began the moment he descended the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in June 2015 and continues to this day.

It started with the Russiagate hoax, which was manufactured by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and carried out by the top ranks of the FBI and DOJ. The FBI falsified information on a FISA court warrant application in order to spy on Trump’s campaign, pushed the debunked Steele dossier as fact knowing full well that its sourcing was bogus, and openly boasted about trying to stop Trump from becoming president.

Now what ?

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Running Slap Up Against Reality

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This week, I noted several different blogs and bloggers commenting on Jazz Jennings, the reality TV star and poster-child for juvenile transition to the sex they (or their parents) think they want to be, rather than what their genitalia dictates. That the kid doesn’t appear to be the least bit happy in female skin is something that was predicted by anyone paying the slightest bit of attention. It doesn’t need Ray Charles to have seen that coming. A number of other, less-well-known transitioners have come out into the open, publicly regretting how they were hustled into making decisions as teens wrestling with various issues which have permanently damaged their bodies, their reproductive functions and their general mental well-being. Well, the young, unwary and easily duped (or their parents) falling for a fad does have that result, although usually fads aren’t quite so permanently damaging as the trans mania has proved to be. I would cautiously hope that this one is on the deflationary spiral, although I am afraid that whatever appears to replace it in shallow public awareness might prove to be even worse.

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The Calculated Infliction of Misery

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The sudden recent fatwa declared by the great and good in the Biden Administration against the less-expensive gas ranges was … really rather curious – and for what purpose? Cooking (and heating) with gas is (or was) relatively cheap, energy-efficient, beloved of cooks for generations. It has the advantage that if you have an older stove, you can still cook with gas in a power outage. I lived for six years in Spain, where both the stove and the flash hot water heater were powered by propane bottles, and a power outage (which occurred regularly) was only a relatively mild inconvenience. I could cook a hot meal, and we could take hot showers. An all-electric home, such as the one I live in now is miserable, to the point of being unlivable, without consistent electric power, as my neighbors and I were swiftly reminded during the Great Texas Snowmagedden, two years ago. And from this story, linked on Instapundit, one can’t help wondering if the geniuses in Biden’s government are demonstrating trying again, with the so-called safety benefits of locking hot-water heater thermostats at 110-120. The ostensible reason given for these two quasi-campaigns is a tender concern for the ‘health and safety’ of the general public and the best of intentions, but the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

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