The Morning Report — 3/20/23

Good morning kids. Were it not so utterly tragic, I'd be laughing my ass off instead of retching my guts up. For just over two years, we've endured the abject disaster of an economy induced into near total free-fall, the nightmare of rushing headlong to touch of World War 3, the confirmation that the origins of and response to General Tso's Sicken (Chinese COVID) were a total disaster, a national crime wave made worse by a non-existent border, rank incompetence in every department and that the titanic big lie that J-6 was a Trump-led violent insurrection that attempted to overthrow the government and seize power has been exploded with the release of 44,000 hours of video that seem to indicate DOJ agents provocateur were the source of all the violence that day.

So, the cherry on the parfait, the "waffer-theeen" mint that an engorged Mr. Creosote is about to swallow is that House investigations are confirming the un-spinnable fact that Joe "Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants" Biden (with help from his family) is quite probably the most corrupt politician to ever hold office in American history, having obtained the bulk of his lucre by selling his office and selling out America to the world's worst actors, including our worst enemies.

That last item, washed down with two jeroboams of transexualism, woke-ism, DEI-ism and another "ism" beginning with a "j" – journalism – surely is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Then, seemingly out of nowhere comes subpar-thinking affirmative action hire and Soros stooge Alvin Bragg to snatch the mint and switch it with a Tums. Or in this case, to my non-legal eagle eyes is for all intents and purposes, the close moral equivalent to a bill of attainder against the junta's greatest nemesis.

This is banana republic shit that even Haitians are raising an eyebrow at.

If Democrats really wanted Donald Trump to fade away, as they claim, then they would stop persecuting him. 

Maybe they are so blinded by hatred that they can’t see that every time they use the heavy hand of the law against the former president, they just cement his status as MAGA martyr. 

Or maybe they are so terrified of running against Ron DeSantis in 2024, that they actually want to martyr Trump to ensure he wins the Republican presidential primary ready for a repeat contest with Joe Biden. 

In that scenario, Democratic prosecutors in New York and Georgia, and a partisan DOJ, play the role of picadors in a bullfight who soften up the bull with a thousand cuts before the decrepit old matador staggers out to finish him off. . .

. . . But, more significantly, the story took the spotlight off the bombshell bank records released the previous day by the House oversight committee, showing $1,065,000 had been funneled from a Chinese energy company, through Biden intimate Rob Walker, to four immediate family members of Joe Biden: his son Hunter, brother James, and Hallie Biden, the widow of his late son Beau, who also is Hunter’s former lover. . .

. . . So for the Democrats’ spin machine, it was time for a Trump scandal, always their tactic in a “break glass in case of emergency” moment like this, guaranteed to distract media attention, and keep voters in the dark about the real scandal swirling around Biden. 

Enter Bragg, the Soros-funded, soft-on-crime DA who has been talking about Trump being indicted on something or other since at least 2019, and who made “Get Trump” a part of his election campaign. 

His case is a joke. The allegation is that Trump falsified business records by concealing a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels which was made by his estranged former lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016. 

Everything rests on the word of Cohen, a convicted perjurer, who testified before Bragg’s grand jury for three hours last Monday, and then again on Wednesday. Before that he had been in for interviews with the DA’s office at least 19 times. 

But on Monday the grand jury will hear testimony from Bob Costello, a former legal adviser to Cohen before they fell out, who has acted for Trump’s some time lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and is a former supervisor with the Southern District of New York. 

Costello will cite evidence contained in the 2020 book “The Fixers: The Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Lawyers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President” that Cohen keeps changing his story about the Stormy Daniels payments and can’t be trusted. 

Costello knows because he was an on-record source for the book and Cohen granted him a waiver of their attorney-client privilege to reveal what he had told him about his troubles when the feds first came knocking — and it’s nothing like what he’s saying now. 

When prosecutors were told about the book Friday, they knew nothing about it, says a source, which doesn’t say much for their due diligence. 

Oops. Building off of Miranda Devine above, Robert Spencer notes:

But now it turns out that the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has Trump in its sights, just may be stepping back from the brink: Business Insider reported Saturday night that Trump’s indictment is “on hold” until one more witness testifies Monday afternoon.

That’s about all that has come to light, as the relevant authorities are being quite closemouthed about this whole thing. Insider says that “a source with knowledge of the investigation” told them on Saturday night “there is one more witness.” The indictment is apparently not a certainty until this witness testifies.

But who is this witness? The Insider’s source wouldn’t say, and so all that we’re told is that “a separate source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Insider that the witness is not Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former CFO, who is serving a five-month sentence for admittedly masterminding a payroll tax-dodge scheme at the Trump Organization.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, whose betrayal of his former client started this whole business about Trump having paid hush money to a porn star (which is what he might be arrested for, not any of the literally dozens of other crimes that Democrats have claimed he has committed over the last few years, up to and including trying to overthrow the government of the United States), “has told reporters he expected to be the grand jury’s final witness when he testified last Monday and Wednesday.” So whoever is slated to appear on Monday is a surprise witness. . .

. . . The principal charge is expected to be a felony, “falsifying business records in the first degree,” which would be based on the claim that Trump was involved in falsifying records to conceal the payment to the porn “actress.” Meanwhile, Trump continues to deny that he had any liaison with the porn star at all, and certainly there are precedents for wealthy individuals and groups paying out sums to claimants even though they know the claims are false, just to get them to go away. . .

. . . In the U.S., the Democrats enjoyed tremendous gains in both houses of Congress and won the presidency on the strength of Watergate, and they’ve never forgotten that lesson; in fact, tarring their opponents as criminals on bogus charges has become a cornerstone of their political strategy. And that is a prelude to treating them like actual criminals, complete with arrests, handcuffs, and perp walks. Whether or not it comes Tuesday, it’s coming.

While Spencer's observation is certainly true, the state of the nation today is markedly different from the Watergate era. Divided as we were even back then, there was still a level of trust in the institutions and traditions of the American governmental and legal system, as well as in the media, and even with diametrically opposed views on the issues of the day, still at least a modicum of respect for those with whom you disagree and the commonality of nation and heritage. Today, that has all but vanished on every front. In fact, an overwhelming percentage of the American people believe that we have a two-tiered justice system that favors those in power and the Left in general.

Whatever the calculus of the junta in going after Trump, they will only succeed in making him into a martyr. I have not been sanguine about a Trump candidacy in 2024. My biggest negatives are his age, his puerile name-calling against DeSantis, and most distressing, his making the theft of the 2020 election the central pillar of his campaign. He's had some flashes of brilliance with his trade package and his intent to go to war against woke-ism in all its forms. But so far, his negatives outweigh the positives. YMMV, but I think a lot of people are feeling this way about him.

But that said, I have always thought of him as the leader of a movement that goes way beyond mere electoral politics. In fact, it's kind of strange to read Miranda Devine's analysis insofar as the Democrat calculus of preferring to face Trump rather than DeSantis for fear of him wiping the floor with Biden or whoever, since they regard Trump to be a pushover. Considering they have all but institutionalized election fraud in the key swing districts and states they stole in 2020, what does it matter who is running?

For me, this has less if anything to do with who the candidate is in 2024 than mere distraction and above all else, retribution against Donald Trump. That's what all this is about.

Love him, hate him or whatever, Donald Trump intentionally or not started a movement that exposed the hypocrisy and corruption that has now completely subsumed our government and much of our society. Whatever they do to him or try to do to him, what he started will not be stopped. There is no going back now to the way things were. A lot of it was a lie, and there are powerful forces and more alarmingly a great deal of the citizenry duped into or otherwise consciously supporting the transformation of America into a socialist disaster to be served up to the Davos-Brussels-Beijing Axis, or perhaps a resurgent Islamic global caliphate.

So, go ahead and slap the cuffs on Trump. It worked so well for the British when they did it to Gandhi, didn't it?

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• "The ideology of global free trade is not American—nor is it the free market system. America had the highest tariff rates in history at the same time we saw the greatest economic expansion in history."
  An American System for America Prosperity
  
• Margot Cleveland: "Our tax dollars are funding the development of media-monitoring products that can be deployed to censor ordinary Americans via Big Tech."
  DOD Pays Media-Rating Scammers To Create Propaganda And Censorship Tech For U.S. Government
  
• "In California, public officials now favor the lawless and deviant over the law-abiding and hardworking."
  The Great Abdication
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: "The list of serial embarrassments at Stanford reads like the suicides of Greek tragedy, where divine nemesis follows hubris."
  What Happened to Stanford?

SHAMPEACHMENT 1.0, 2016 CLINTON/OBAMA COUP, CONGRESSIONAL PERSECUTION, SPYGATE, DEEP STATE, MUELLER DECEPTION
• Robert Spencer: "The Left’s reaction to Donald Trump’s political career has from the beginning been a classic case of a conviction in search of a crime. Charging their foes with bogus crimes is a venerable and tested Leftist tactic, going back to Stalin’s trials of his former Bolshevik comrades, whom he forced to confess to various fabricated charges of subversion in order to justify his executing them and consolidating his power as an unquestioned autocrat. . . . tarring their opponents as criminals on bogus charges has become a cornerstone of [Democrat] political strategy. And that is a prelude to treating them like actual criminals, complete with arrests, handcuffs, and perp walks. Whether or not it comes Tuesday, it’s coming."
  Hold Everything: Now Trump Will Likely NOT Be Arrested, at Least on Tuesday
  
• Miranda Devine: "If a legal witch hunt is the Democrats’ plan to win in 2024, it just shows how desperate they are. Why don’t they try winning elections the old-fashioned way, by presenting candidates and policies worthy of voters’ approval instead of perverting the justice system in the pursuit of power?" (. . . and stealing elections - jjs)
  A Potential Trump Indictment is a Sideshow Gift to the Biden Crime Family
  
• "You cannot expect your base to show up for you on Election Day if they believe you are willing to acquiesce to a rigged system."
  Donald Trump, American Dissident
  
• "Bragg just wants to see Trump in hand cuffs . . . They hate that he was president. They hate that he's running again. They hate that his supporters still back him. But most of all, they hate that he makes them and their anger look foolish, they hate that he has bested them time and time again."
  The Vindictive Prosecution of Donald Trump is Based in Democrats' Hatred of His Supporters
  
• "If Trump is really arrested on Tuesday, it will say something deeply disturbing about the state of our country."
  Government Tyrants Play with Fire
  
• “We’re all reading tea leaves because they refuse to communicate.”
  Trump Lawyer: About That Tuesday “Arrest” Date, Never Mind
  * * * * *

• The Associated Press reported that Costello claims to have information that contradicts some of Cohen’s current statements and that “could be exculpatory for Trump.”
  Manhattan Grand Jury Investigation Into Trump Not Over As Another Witness Invited To Testify: Report
  
• "Tolman asserted Saturday that Bragg’s legal theory that Trump tried to hide a campaign expenditure by using his then-lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential elections would have applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the phony Russian pee dossier against Trump as 'legal fees.'”
  Former U.S. Attorney Argues Trump Could Be Indicted for Same Thing Clinton Was Fined For
  
• Jonathan Turley: "While many celebrate Bragg restoring life to the statutorily deceased, they should consider what he has created. . . A fifth of Americans now view the government as the greatest threat facing the nation.  What is truly shocking is that 53% in one poll agreed with the statement that the FBI acts like 'Biden’s Gestapo.'”
  Bragg Brings a Criminal Case Back From Dead, But May Have Reanimated Trump's Chances
  
• “The idea of indicting a former president of the United States at a time where there’s a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority I think just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country." (two-faced Judas is salivating - jjs)
  ‘Politically Charged’: Mike Pence Says He Is ‘Taken Aback’ By Potential Indictment Of Trump
  
• Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined Hillary Clinton for misreporting payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to hide spending. The law firm in question was Perkins Coie, which hired Fusion GPS to conduct research that resulted in the Steele Dossier, which was later used by Congress to impeach Trump. Clinton classified these expenses as “legal services” and was fined $113,000 for the misrepresentation.
  Trump and Hillary Have Been Accused of the Same Crime, but Hillary Never Faced Potential Arrest
  
• "Stop going after people because you have political differences."
  Fury at Manhattan’s Bragg over Looming Trump Charges Dominates House GOP Retreat
  
• "He continues to be an interesting candidate because he bypasses platitudes and focuses on issues that are core to American survival." (pushing for the veep slot on a Trump ticket? - jjs)
  Vivek Ramaswamy’s Viral Take on the Threat to Arrest Trump

  THE ECONOMY, STUPID

• "The Swiss government brokered the deal. According to people familiar with the matter, the Swiss government was preparing to nationalize the bank if a deal could not be worked out. The purchase price will be paid in shares of UBS."
  Crisis Averted? UBS Agrees To Buy Credit Suisse for $3.25 Billion
  
• Clarice Feldman: "...and the man behind the curtain in the SVB saga is none other than... Joe Biden."
  You Can Bank on It: A Cheat Sheet on the SVB Collapse
  
• "Banks bet big that Powell meant what he said about not raising interest rates. Now they're paying for it."
  Fed Chief Powell’s Banking Blowup
  
• "The next logical step is for the government to insure all bank deposits, which is tantamount to nationalizing the entire banking system. But to what end?"
  Connecting Dots: Chinese COVID to SVB and Beyond
  
• "A hint: It is not more regulation from an already regulation-obsessed federal government."
  How to Prevent More Meltdowns like Silicon Valley Bank
  
• "A bank’s mantra should be safety and resilience, rather than maximum efficiency and profits."
  Bad Banks Should Fail Faster
  
• "What’s more, bonuses were reportedly doled out to US staff just hours before the Santa Clara, California-based bank collapsed. The bank was taken into FDIC ownership, while SVB Financial Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it looks to find buyers for their remaining assets."
  SVB’s London Bankers Received Up To $36 Million In Bonuses Days After BoE-Orchestrated Bailout
  
• "As colleges go woke, dumb down curricula, and raise tuition fees, Pickpocket-in-Chief Joe Biden wants you to foot the bill."
  The College Debt Relief Swindle

  CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION

• The picture this paints is of a national security state that answers not to any single president but to a higher authority. That “higher authority” is not “God,” as is usually the referent object in such a case, but to a shadowy cabal that, although comprised of mortals, is nonetheless beyond the control of the democratic levers ostensibly available to the electorate in a representative form of government, such as the United States purportedly is.
  FBI Whistleblower Claims FBI Is Now a 'Weaponized Apparatchik' of the Biden Junta
  
• Deroy Murdock: "The United States is crumbling, in large part, because radical Leftists from coast-to-coast refuse to do their jobs so they can battle the racist ghosts of yesterday. Americans suffer badly while political and business leaders take their eyes off the prize and pretend that Martin Luther King never lived and George Wallace never died."
  While Leftists Fight the Racist Ghosts of Yesterday, America Falls To Pieces
  
• "Winning the cultural civil war means separating the pro-freedom majority side of the political spectrum from the anti-liberty minority."
  Stop Conflating Leftists with Liberals

  FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH

• “Got robbed. Again. @jasonkCNN & I were at city hall in San Francisco to do an interview for @CNN.”
  CNN Reporter Robbed Multiple Times in SF Shines Unflattering Spotlight on California’s Crime Crisis
  
• “What I’m trying to do is get information into the hands of the citizens so that they make the best decisions to elect the right representatives,” O’Keefe said. “I actually believe that if people had any idea what was actually going on — in the three letter agencies and the schools — then they would be rightfully outraged.”
  James O’Keefe Says New Media Group Will ‘Decentralize Journalism’ After Project Veritas Split
  
• Frankly, it’s amazing that, at this late date, given the endless parade of brazen lies on Russia’s non-existent meddling in the 2016 and 2020 elections, the debunked “safe and effective” mantra vis-à-vis [Chinese] COVID-19 shots, and a thousand other examples of duplicity — that apparently 50% of the country still puts any stock into the corporate media. (Unfortunately, this study did not delineate between corporate media and independent media, which is a shame. I suspect the trust differential would be enormous.)
  Poll: Half of U.S. Population Believes National Media 'Intend to Mislead, Misinform'
  
• "If you’ve ever watched a press briefing and felt like everyone was asking the same questions, it’s because the corporate media drones are usually the only ones getting any."
  How Corporate Media’s Top Dogs Box Out Real Reporters From Asking The White House Tough Questions
  
• "Corporate media dishonestly touts ‘sharp drop’ in border crossings in February to save Biden from border crisis criticism."
  Corporate Media Disguise Spike in Border Arrests as "Drop" to Prevent Accountability for Biden
  
• "The editorial board’s pro-CCP bias has many causes, but most revolve around profit."
  Why is the New York Times Urging America To Buddy Up With Communist China?

  RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS, JUNK SCIENCE, LYSENKOISM

• "Pleasantly surprising news out of Holland – the BoerBurgerBeweging, or the Farmer–Citizen Movement, a political party founded in 2019 to protest the Dutch governments'mistreatment of the country's farmers, won big in this past week's elections."
  Dutch Farmers Strike Back
  
• "When Haaland was pressured to approve the ConocoPhillips Willow Project, a modest oil field in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, she did so against her will. . . Haaland’s actions show she prefers Alaska oil remains locked down. With her hand forced on Willow, Haaland announced her agency would not only reduce the scope of the project by 40%, it would take another 16 million acres of Alaska off the table for any future development. Haaland is taking the equivalent of West Virginia."
  Biden’s Interior Secretary Dishes Out Icy Revenge On Alaskans
  
• Deroy Murdock: "The senators will need to go much further to knock down the Biden administration’s immediate new moves to put gas out of business."
  Two Cheers for the Cruz-Manchin Plan to Save Gas Stoves

  AMNESTY, IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY

• The rise in terror watch-list arrests at the border pairs with surge of as many as 4.9 million migrants who have crossed into the United States under the [junta] of [so-called quote-unquote "president"] Joe Biden, according to data from the Federation for American Immigration Reform."
  16 People On FBI’s Terror Watch-List Arrested At U.S. Border, Authorities Say
  
• Terry Jeffrey: "How many on the terrorist watchlist have actually succeeded in illegally crossing our southern border into the United States? There is no way to know. What we do know is that it only took 19 foreign terrorists who had made their way into the United States to hijack four domestic flights on Sept. 11, 2001."
  More Caught Illegally Crossing Southern Border in Fiscal 2022 Than During Entire Trump Presidency

  CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY

• "Voters are starting to care more about crime reduction than BLM bonafides."
  Want Safer Cities? Introduce Street Thugs to the ‘Fear Factor’

  AMERICA AND THE WORLD IMPRISONED: CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS

• Lloyd Billingsley: "Long before [Chinese] COVID, the seeds of the pandemic were already in the ground."
  Fauci B.C.
  
• Ann Marie Pincivero (Ukraine flag in bio) offers a string of masking hashtags to eulogize the kitten slain at the hands of anti-Science™ MAGA terrorists: “�� Poor kitty! Pets can’t mask but people can! They need to protect their pets! But when they won’t even protect their children I guess there’s little hope of that?! #BringBackMasks #WearAMask #N95 #SARS2 #LongCovid #MassDisabling #ProtectKids #ProtectPets #PetsGetCovidToo”
  "Zero- [Chinese] COVID" Cultists Accuse "Anti-Maskers" of Kitten Murder
  
• ". . . Lauterbach and all of his colleagues who lied to the public, whether out of malice or lack of due diligence, should be similarly targeted in legal proceedings. Imprisonment should not be off the table."
  German Health Minister: Chinese COVID-19 Vaccines Can Cause ‘Permanent Disabilities'

  SECOND AMENDMENT

• "Just how low can a government agency go?"
  ATF Keeping Track of Guns Purchased By Law-Abiding Americans

  EDUCATION, AND WHAT PASSES FOR IT

• "The controversy over the explicit survey comes as schools across the country have faced scrutiny from parents over inappropriate content in the classroom. In 2021, thousands of parents in the Worcester, Mass., public school district pulled their children out of the district's sex education classes over content they called 'dangerous.'"
  Boston School Distributes Explicit Survey on Oral Sex, Transgenderism to Middle-Schoolers
  
• "The law school’s website features a timeline detailing the work it has done to bolster DEI on campus, including increased attention to embedded DEI in its hiring, promotions and curriculum."
  ‘Free Speech Crisis’: Stanford Law School Spent Years Building Out Its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bureaucracy
  
• “California is a two-party consent state, and you have no right to publish this student’s identity/likeness/face without consent.” (they should be found and "given a good talking too," nudge-nudge wink-wink" - jjs)
  Stanford Students Who Shouted Down Judge Demand Their Names and Photos be Removed From News Reports
  
• “Before this happened to my daughter and our family, I wouldn’t have believed that this would happen, especially at the elementary school level. So I think it’s very important to figure out ways to let parents know what’s going on. That’s where I stand.”
  ‘It’s Happening Everywhere’: Lawmakers Push To Ban Secret Student Pronoun Changes, Keep Parents Involved
  
• “When it comes to our liberties, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Bedrick said. “So we always have to be vigilant. But I think we also have to recognize that the government doesn’t need to be funding private education for the government to try regulating it.”
  Republicans in Red States Including Tennessee Join Dems to Resist School Choice Policies
  
• "Instead of teaching their students how to think, educators want to indoctrinate their students and tell them what to think."
  In Bemoaning What They ‘Won’t Teach Anymore,’ Educators Reveal 6 Ways They Indoctrinate Students
  
• "Serving a largely low-income student body, a New York City charter school has flourished by emphasizing proven pedagogical approaches."
  The Joys and Rigors of a Classical Education

  ABORTION

•  “We will continue to pursue legislation that offers even greater protection to the pre-born children of our state — particularly in the area of medically-induced abortions that are so dangerous,” Merilee Boyack, chairwoman of Abortion-Free Utah, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  Utah Pro-Life Orgs Take Victory Lap Over Abortion Clinic Ban, Eye More Legislation

  THE 2020 AND 2022ELECTION HEISTS & AFTERMATH

• "Trump's nemesis in the secretary of state's office in Georgia is about to have a very rude awakening when it comes to voter fraud."
  A Gigantic Egg All Over Brad Raffensperger's Face
  
• "While five cities in the Gopher state already use RCV for municipal elections — Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Bloomington, Saint Louis Park, and Minnetonka — Minnesota Senator Kelly Morrison has introduced a bill that would require RCV for all state and federal elections. While the bill is currently in committee, it has a companion in the Minnesota House that’s waiting for a hearing."
  Minnesota Could be Third State to Adopt Ranked-Choice Voting, Following Alaska and Maine

  OFFICIAL DEMOCRAT PARTY/LEFTIST-ENDORSED ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-CHRISTIANITY

• "Students from Washington, D.C. to Arizona are participating in their school’s week-long events that many have criticized as being antisemitic and anti-Jewish, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)." (fuck the ADL; it's now a Marxist front group that supports the Jew-hating leftists - jjs)
  ‘Targeted And Unsafe’: Universities Across The Country Are Holding ‘Israel Apartheid Week’

  BIDEN CRIME FAMILY REVELATIONS

• David Horowitz: ". . . Of foul deeds."
  Guilty

  OHIO DERAILMENT, TOXIC CHEMICAL DISASTER

• Though the tragedy in East Palestine has been overshadowed in the news by banks crashing and the Biden family getting caught with millions of Chinese communist dollars Trump’s impending arrest, the small town in eastern Ohio is still reeling from the derailment or — more accurately — the spilling of toxic waste, much of which is still sitting in the town’s backyard, and the burning of toxic chemicals, which, as one local put it, “was burnt because they didn’t want to clean their own damn mess.”
  Here's What We Saw in East Palestine

  DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY

• Lee's spending could tarnish her progressive image as she vies for retiring Democrat Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat. A former left-wing activist known for her communist sympathies and ties to Soviet front groups, Lee has pitched herself as "a voice for the people." Lee is leaning on her progressive bona fides as she battles for Feinstein's seat against her well-funded California colleagues, fellow Democrat representatives Katie Porter and Adam Schiff.
  From 'Comrade Barbara' to Limousine Liberal: Barbara Lee Dropped $20,000 On Luxury Cars, Filings Show

  POLITICS

• "Every time the Democrats do something to transform the country, a slew of 'Man Bites Dog' distraction stories pop up in the media."
  Democrat Plans Looking Bad, So Biden Pivots Again
  
• “I don’t know. I don’t know what the future look like, Jen. When I left the legislature, I thought I was never going to run for office again, and here I am in my fifth year as governor of this state. I know enough about myself that if I see a problem that’s not getting fixed and I think I can do something about it, I’m going to roll my sleeves and try. All that being said, I am 51 years old. I’ve signed up for —”
  Wretched Whitmer Leaves Door Open for Future Presidential Run
  
• “What she has said is, she doesn’t want to be focused on politics right now. I have worked with her very closely over the last two years, I mean, really in a very positive way. She’s very effective in the United States Senate. We have got a lot done. And I look forward to doing that over the next months and the rest of this year.”
  Mark Kelly Does Not Get Behind Kyrsten Sinema When Asked About Re-Election

  THE UKRAINIAN "FRONT"

• "As always, the devil is in the details. But NATO — aside from some frontline nations like Poland and the Baltic States — is not likely to get serious about defense against Russia until Russian tanks are rolling into NATO territory."
  NATO Looking to Send 300,000 Troops to the Russian Border
  
• "Russian state news service TASS said it was Putin’s first-ever visit to Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine, and while there, he received a report from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin about efforts to rebuild the port city within the eastern region."
  Putin Visits Russian-Occupied Mariupol
  
• "Ron DeSantis’ remarks on Ukraine were textbook realism and a throwback to an old Republican Party."
  Your Great-Grandfather’s Republicanism
  
• Hope . . . and change!!!
  Pentagon Spokesman: 'We Would Hope That China Would Not' Send Lethal Assistance to Russia

  FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL

• "So, of course, the war proved to be a fiasco. As one history-minded observer wrote last week: 'This month marks the 20th anniversary of the greatest western foreign policy disaster since the Fourth Crusade. It was the pre-eminent modern-day example of folly, driven by wishful thinking, utopianism and a lack of interest in history and how human societies differ.'”
  Reflections on the 20th Anniversary of the Iraq War Folly — Lives Lost, Lessons Learned, and Why America Comes First
  
• Russia has further said the two leaders will discuss “strategic cooperation” – following early last year’s declaration of Beijing and Moscow’s “no-limits partnership”.
  Xi To Arrive In Moscow Monday, Ukraine War ‘Core Part’ Of Talks With Putin
  
• "The winners and the losers." (all bets are off once/if Iran actually explodes an A bomb - jjs)
  The Iranian-Saudi Rapprochement
  
• "In only two years, Joe Biden’s [spurious] presidency has produced multiple catastrophes from which recovery will be difficult, if it is even possible."
  Calamity Joe: Geopolitical Catastrophes Multiply as American Power and Influence Crash to New Postwar Lows
  
• Daniel Greenfield: "The sight of South Africa’s military and a Chinese warship conducting exercises ought to make it clear that the ANC is our enemy. And that any further foreign aid just funds our enemies."
  After Billions in US Aid, South Africa Sides With China
  
• Thad McCotter: "Only the 'blame America first, last, and only' Left can think that rogue nations will behave better in a multipolar world."
  Pax Americana or Pox Multipolar?
  
• "Why the Biden junta must support the Americas and Protect U.S. Investment Acts."
  Honduras is Proving Ground for Stabilizing Western Hemisphere
  
• "Who are the mysterious American benefactors funding leftism in Israel’s school systems?"
  The Long March Through the Israeli Institutions
  
• “The two tourists managed to escape the crowd and were eventually escorted back to Israel by security forces, where they will be given medical treatment for their injuries. . . What happened on Saturday is being faced by Israeli motorists and passersby on a daily basis. In late February, two Israeli brothers were murdered by a Palestinian gunman as they were driving on the highway near Nablus.”
  German Mainstream Media Silent as Palestinian Mob Attacks Country’s Tourists Visiting Israel 

  DEFENSE, MILITARY, SECURITY AFFAIRS

• Daniel Greenfield: "And gets the 'resistance' thrown in with the deal."
  China Hires the Biden Junta

  WE-ALL-SLAM-FOR-I-SLAM

• Robert Spencer: "The feds can now turn all their attention back to finding angry Trump supporters they can claim are “domestic terrorists” if they dare to protest on Tuesday against the Left’s destruction of our free republic and replacement of it with a comic-opera banana republic in which the foes of the Dear Leader end up arrested for daring to oppose him. The authorities can hope no more actual terrorists like Kola get in the way of their scenario as it plays out this week."
  By the Way, a Real Terrorist Just Threatened to ‘Crucify’ New York Cops

  DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE COURTS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE

• "An independent Judiciary is crucial to a functioning USA. Committing legislatively to nine SCOTUS justices helps ensure both." (overturn Marbury v. Madison and make SCOTUS benign again - jjs)
  Keep Nine and Ban Court-Packing

  HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE

• Deane Waldman, M.D.: "Americans cannot make their own medical decisions or decide how to spend their health-care dollars — bureaucrats do that."
  In Health Care, Freedom is the Biggest Shortage
  
• Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.: "It makes sense that Colorado would be leading the charge on expanding mental healthcare."
  Psychologists Prescribing Psych Meds in Colorado -- Crazy or Crafty?

  ACTUAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY

• "Why it is taking months for the FAA to issue this license is disturbing." (because they can't get their affirmative action candidate confirmed? - jjs)
  Starship launch still stalled by FAA
  
• "According to separate announcements just released, both India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander/rover and Intuitive Machine’s private Nova-C lunar lander have passed their last ground tests and are now ready for launch to the Moon later this year."
  Both India’s Chandrayaan-3 and Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C lunar landers pass vibration tests

  FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY

• “While kids who were already receiving gender-affirming treatment prior to Thursday can continue to do so, they aren’t able to undergo sex reassignment surgeries under the new rule.”
  Florida Bans Gender Transitioning for Minors
  
• "Trust the science: Bad mothers are behind the explosion of militant LGBT identification."
  The War by Women
  
• ". . . Yet none of them seemed aware either of the irony that they were literally appropriating womanhood, or that if museums got rid of those artifacts, only their Euro-centric, or non-diverse collections would be on display, which would also be perceived as problematic."
  IRONY ALERT: 5 Black Men Dressed as Women Complain About Cultural Appropriation
  
• "The ACLU pushes the potent but misleading 'affirm or suicide' narrative."
  Reckless and Irresponsible
  
• "What ethical consent can be given for lifelong harm?"
  Ban Transgender Operations on Children

  CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE

• "Woke-ism is intentionally ambiguous. So when you describe it, that offends those who wish for its intentions to remain murky."
  ‘Woke’ Effectively Describes The Left’s Insanity, And That’s Why They Hate When You Say It
  
• Dennis Prager: "Woke activism gone horribly wrong."
  When Banks — And Other Institutions — Try to Change the World
  
• "Progressives are at war with the youth of western society."
  The Left’s Criminal Abuse of the Young
  
• Christian Toto: "Far-left site ignores reasons why conservatives suddenly slam drag art form."
  Hollywood Reporter (Purposely) Misses Point on Drag Queen Outrage
  
• "Rubio lamented the misfortune of a U.S. taxpayer-funded stadium allegedly censoring messages to appease communists. 'So just imagine that. A U.S. citizen taxpayer-funded stadium operated by the Miami Marlins in Miami, Florida, in the United States and Americans are not allowed to take in T-shirts or flags or signs … that have messages that the Cuban regime finds offensive.'”
  Report: Miami Marlins Blocking Anti-Communist Slogans at Cuba v. United States Baseball Game, Marco Rubio Says
  
• "As with our lawsuit against the National Archives, we will enter a period of mediation with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum to see if we can get to the bottom of why our clients were targeted. This is just one of many coordinated efforts to harass and abuse pro-lifers in federally funded institutions. That directive came from someone, and whoever it was must be held accountable, and we’re going to do the work necessary to hold them accountable."
  Pushback: Smithsonian Ordered to No Longer Violate the First Amendment
  
• “Our hope is not in ballot boxes, lobbying, marches, or media campaigns, important as they are.”
  Jesus Revolution Presents a Relevant Revival
  
• "Fanatic leftist academics, who can only view the world through a racial prism, can’t read Shakespeare or anything else with real understanding."
  William Wokespeare and the Dogs of Virtue
  
• "Parental income is our best predictor of children’s outcomes.
  Pay Attention, Class
  
• "The first enemy against the birth rate is the government itself."
  Left-Wing Policies are a Threat to the Survival of Human Life
  
• As Christians, it’s important for us to discern the truth of our faith and stand against the liberal theologians, pastors, and churches who would try to undermine it for a left-wing agenda. Start with your Bible, of course, but books like Christianity and Liberalism go a long way toward helping believers understand Christianity. It’s a quick read and worth your time.
  Sunday Thoughts: Christianity and Liberalism at 100

  HITHER & YON

• "And his most beloved song condemns mankind to an unrelentingly cruel, moronic fate."
  John Lennon — No Model to Emulate
  
• "O.J. Simpson continues to reinvent himself, and now he appears to be coming full circle."
  O.J. Simpson Is Back
  
• "Writer John O’Hara chronicled life in an industrial city—the kind that has almost vanished from the American landscape."
  Balzac of the Fishbowl

NOTE: The opinions expressed in the links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.

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posted by J.J. Sefton at 07:47 AM

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