Thursday, September 28, 2023

The Inquiry/Circle Wagons. Chapters 7 & 8.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Joe Biden’s so-called “Successful and Effective Presidency”
By Victor Davis Hanson
Posted by Ruth King

So, we are assured by David Ignatius that Biden has had such “a successful and effective” presidency that he must now step down, deprive us of his genius, and rest upon his laurels?

All of Biden’s initiatives now poll below 50 percent. Biden himself struggles to poll above 40 percent. That is no surprise given his record of governance.

Candidate Biden by design had told illegal aliens to come into the U.S. during the 2020 campaign. And they immediately took him up on it. Nearly eight million have now swarmed in, without background checks, medical exams, COVID vaccinations and testing, or any examination at all. We will deal with that disaster for decades to come.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was appointed to lie that the border was secure, on the expectation that his erasure of it altogether would not be impeachable, given political realities. So egregious were the arriving numbers and annihilation of U.S. immigration law, that even Democrats and leftists in Chicago and New York now want illegal aliens to go back to Texas (but not to Mexico), as they de facto redraw the U.S. border on Texas’s northern state boundaries.

We don’t dare call the Biden invitation to eight million, “The Great Replacement Theory” of altering the demography to ensure future leftwing voters. “They,” however, boast of just that agenda with slogans and book titles like “The New Democratic Majority” and “Demography is Destiny.”

Look at the interest rate, the inflation rate, and the price of gas and diesel since Biden took office and the squeeze explains why he does not poll 40 percent confidence on the economy. Ditto crime. The administration smiles as Soros-elected prosecutors downgrade felonies to misdemeanors, and misdemeanors to nothingness. The embarrassing lunacy of defunding the police is now rarely mentioned because police forces nationwide have been virtually defunded and even the Biden people are not happy with the scary results.

Gas has nearly doubled since Biden took office. We are to hate gasoline, diesel, and natural gas, except before midterm and general elections. Then we are to drain our strategic reserves, beg the Saudis, the Venezuelans, the Iranians, and the Russians to pump what we despise to help the Biden team’s reelection efforts—a fact known to our enemies.

Net Zero green madness is destroying the U.S. automobile industry, at just the time when new technologies are creating eternal combustion engines that are never more efficient and never more clean burning.

Race relations are at a historic low. Proportional representation has devolved into reparatory admissions and hiring. African American elites demand “reparations” from a state that outlawed slavery, in which currently 27 percent of the residents were not born in the U.S. Oddly, the demands come at a time when leadership seems to ignore the unfortunate reality that black teens are committing violent crimes at five and six times their demographics. Smash-and-grab and carjacking are nearly exempt from arrest, apparently to be passed off as cry-of-the-heart political protests.

Joe Biden’s dismal record is only one-third of the Democrats’ problems.

Another third is the Biden consortium’s family corruption. The more the laptop reveals its secrets, the more Bobulinksi and Archer are joined by a chorus of accusing voices, the more defiant the IRS whistleblowers become, the more Ukrainian prosecutors and oligarchs wish to be heard, the more the Biden narratives collapse faster than their replacement untruths, the more subpoenas blanket the executive branch requesting bank records, the more the trove of pseudonymous incriminating emails are to be subpoenaed, the more the noose tightens around Hunter, and the more Democratic purple-state representatives and senators “defer comment,” the more leftwing columnists call for Joe to “retire,” all the more the idea of a “successful and effective president” seems a poor joke.

The final third of the Biden assessment centers on his frailty. He is no more hale than was FDR in late spring 1945, a scenario foreseen and feared by Democratic polls at the 1944 Democratic convention who wisely dropped Henry Wallace, his Vice President. His workdays are starting to resemble those of Woodrow Wilson’s circa 1919.

Joe must be led by the hand up to the stage and led down as carefully. Foreign leaders now assume it is their discreet responsibility that he does not stumble, fall, or get lost on their watch at summits.

What Joe says now is so beyond the pale that he has developed his own immunity against gaffes, given they are protected by the general agreement of cognitive failure. What he says is often taken no more seriously than what is heard at rest homes, given the similar deference and empathy given those who have lost their cognition.

All that is now the Biden record. Ignatius knows it as well as any. But out of deference, he focuses only on Biden’s physical and mental frailty. And why not? Was he supposed to write “For the good of the country—given your corruption and disastrous record—let us be done with you?”

So, Democrats cannot concede the reason that Biden and Harris both must not run, is not just because Biden’s compromised health will mean a Harris presidency, but more importantly because, first, his record is an utter disaster, a fact known through the polls, and second, he is one new incriminating email, one new Hunter indiscretion, one suddenly appearing bank deposit slip from leaving office involuntarily and in disgrace.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
THE BIDEN INQUIRY HAS BEGUN AND VARIOUS DEMOCRAT DENIERS CIRCLED THE WAGONS BUT NEVER ADRESSED THE UNCOVERED FACTS. THEY DID, HOWEVER, ATTACK EVERYTHING ELSE PRAISING THE LOVE OF HIS SON MORE THAN THE NATION HE SWORE TO DEFEND.

THIS WAS THE BEGINNING SHOT ACROSS THE BOW AND MORE FACTS WILL COME. THE PROBLEM IS TWO FOLD, AS I SEE IT:

1) BIDEN COULD RELEASE INFORMATION (ROPE) VOLUNTARILY THAT WOULD PROBABLY HANG HIM BUT YOU CAN BET THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN.

IN FACT, BIDEN MIGHT DO WHATEVER HE CAN TO MAKE SURE THE FBI, THE AG AND EVERY GOVERNMENT ENTITY HE CONTROLS DOES NOT RELEASE ANYTHING THE COMMITTEE SEEKS.. THUS, THE HOUSE COMMITTEE MUST WADE THROUGH THE RIVER OF SILT DEMOCRATS WILL SEED SO THE DELAY PROCESS WILL SLOW DOWN, IF NOT TOTALLY IMPEDE, THE INVESTIGATION. 

2)  THE HOUSE COMMITTEE MADE MORE PROGRESS IN A FEW MONTHS THAN THE APPOINTED SPECIAL COUNSEL DID IN SEVERAL YEARS.  THIS IS THE SAME ATTORNEY WHO  PROPOSED THE "SWEETHEART DEAL" THE JUDGE REJECTED.

THE ONLY WAY BIDEN WILL BE DRIVEN OUT OF OFFICE, AS HE SHOULD BE, IS THROUGH THE 2024 ELECTION.  THE PROBLEM WITH RELYING UPON A LEGITIMATE ELECTION IS FRAUGHT WITH RISKS BECAUSE THE MARXIST DEMOCRATS WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO PREVENT A FAIR AND HONEST ELECTION TAKING PLACE AND TOTALLY COVERED UP BY THE MASS MEDIA WHICH IS AN EXTENSION OF THE CORRUPT DEMOCRAT PARTY.
+++
2 WSJ Op Ed's Are attached which buttress what Levin has written:
+++
America Is Desperate for a New Beginning
Nearly two-thirds of voters believe the system is ‘broken’ if it’s Trump vs. Biden.
By William A. Galston

We don’t need polls to tell us that confidence in our political institutions is at a low ebb, but they do help clarify what Americans are feeling.

In a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, 10% of Americans reported that thinking about U.S. politics made them feel hopeful, and 4% were excited. By contrast, 55% said they were angry, and 65% were exhausted.

This isn’t the first poll to note a pervasive sense of exhaustion, and I suspect it won’t be the last. Americans are tired of partisan quarrels that rarely reach a resolution. Issues like immigration reform linger for decades, and the Supreme Court has brought new ones such as abortion back into the arena.

Joe Biden was elected, in part, to calm this turbulence. Historians will debate whether he could have done so had he pursued a different agenda, but clearly his administration hasn’t reduced division, whether over economics, culture or foreign policy.

Americans blame both parties about equally for this situation. According to Pew, 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, and 61% have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party.

A recent CBS poll found that 54% of respondents regard the Republican Party as “extreme,” one of the favorite epithets of Democrats describing the GOP. But the same percentage also regards the Democrats as extreme, and only minorities think that either political party is “reasonable.”

It isn’t surprising that the share of Americans with unfavorable views of both parties has reached a record high (28%), up from only 6% three decades ago, or that 37% wish there were more parties from which to choose. Nor is it surprising that challenges to the major-party duopoly are proliferating—from Cornel West’s Green Party and a likely No Labels bipartisan centrist ticket to the insurgent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose grievances against Democratic Party officials seem to multiply by the day.

Voters might be in a better mood if they believed that these third-party campaigns were likely to improve the political system. But two-thirds of the public think it’s unlikely that an independent candidate will win in the next 25 years, and only 26% say that having more political parties would make it easier to solve the nation’s problems. (About the same proportion believe that additional parties would make problem-solving harder.)

Until an insurgency even stronger than Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign challenges these beliefs, Americans seem resigned to the choices the major parties offer, even if they don’t like them. The prospect of a rematch between Mr. Biden and Donald Trump leaves large majorities deeply dissatisfied: According to CBS, 64% of registered voters regard this outcome of the primary process as evidence that the political system is “broken.”

The reservations about Mr. Biden are well-known. He is seen as lacking the mental sharpness and physical stamina to carry out the duties of the presidency for a second term. Only 34% of Americans believe that he would be able to complete a second term. Expect Republicans to begin arguing that a vote for Mr. Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris.

The reservations about Mr. Trump’s return to the Oval Office are very different. More than half of all Americans believe that if he gets another term, he will try to gain more presidential power than he had during his first, and 75% think that is a bad thing. Expect Democrats to argue that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for autocracy.

Public discontent with our national institutions goes well beyond the conduct of the political parties and their candidates. Only 27% of Americans think that our political system is working “very” or “somewhat” well, only 37% express confidence in its future, and trust in the federal government has declined to 16%, near the record low. Disapproval of Congress is nothing new, but disapproval of the Supreme Court is, with 54% of Americans now expressing an unfavorable view of the court. Whatever its jurisprudential merits, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has accelerated the decline in the court’s public standing.

The country needs a new beginning, a reordering of policy and rhetoric in both political parties. Instead, we have a frozen politics. Donald Trump seems likely to win his party’s nomination for the third consecutive time. Joe Biden first ran for national office more than half a century ago, and he first ran for president in 1988.

This is truly the winter of our discontent, with no sun of York to unfreeze our politics. Both parties need a generational turnover in 2028, but we will probably have to wait five years for it. I hope we make it.

And:

The Retail Theft Rampage Gets Worse

Target closes nine stores in four states because of crime, as looters run riot in Philadelphia.

Big box retailer Target closes nine stores in response to theft, a $112 billion problem.

You may have heard that a mob of teenagers looted stores in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday night, and Target said the same day it is closing nine stores in four states because of rampant crime. Rack up more victories for progressive prosecutors.

The mobs in Philly hit  AppleLululemon and Foot Locker stores in Center City, which ought to be a safe space for civilized commerce. The Foot Locker store was “ransacked in a coordinated attack,” said police. Police have made more than 50 arrests and are investigating property damage and theft elsewhere in the city. Some 76 incidents have been reported.

Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford said police are looking into whether “there was possibly a caravan of a number of different vehicles that were going from location to location.” He added, “Everyone in the city should be angry.”

Anger is justified in particular toward District Attorney Larry Krasner, who waves away property crime. His office reports 424 retail theft charges so far in 2023—compared to more than 1,500 by the same date in 2017, the year before he took office. Reports of retail theft in Philly have increased by more than 30%—to 13,330—compared to a year ago, according to the city’s latest weekly crime report.

Retail theft is a nationwide epidemic, according to a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey released Tuesday. For the 2022 fiscal year, retailers reported a “shrink” rate of 1.6%, mostly from theft, which as a percentage of all retail sales would be a $112.1 billion loss for the industry, says NRF.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” Target said in explaining its decision to close two stores in Seattle, three in Portland, Ore., three in San Francisco and Oakland, and one in New York. Target said the closures are despite efforts to prevent theft by “adding more security team members, using third-party guard services, and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business.” CEO Brian Cornell said in May that Target could lose $500 million from shrink.

More than a quarter of retailers in the NRF survey reported closing stores because of violence and crime, and 45% reduced operating hours. Of the cities in Target’s closure list, all but Portland make the NRF survey’s top-10 cities for organized retail crime in 2022.

George Soros and the progressive DAs he finances claim to be helping the poor and minorities, but those communities are the main victim of rampaging theft. The Target store shutting down in New York is in Harlem, which staged a renaissance during the Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg mayoralties. It is now sliding back into crime and disorder.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

Review of Chapter 7: "War On The Constitution."

Levin begins by calling the constitution a most remarkable governing document. It creates a functioning federal government yet, protects both state and individual liberties concurrently. It also divides the federal government into 3 co-equal branches having their own responsibilities and, in doing so, protects citizens from dictatorship.

That said, ,if you wish to transform America as did Obama and now Biden then your purpose must be to destroy the constitution. Obama was relentless in looking for ways to bypass the Constitution as is Biden and their propaganda has become increasingly unhinged and shrill.  They have weaponized politics.

Levin cites leftist Ruth Colker, a professor at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. who link the Constitution to slavery. She avers, America is an illegitimate government and the "founding father's" spawned a corrupt society.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party has morphed into a political home for various Marxist movements and it's link to the Klan, and support of lynching's cannot be denied. Even Frederick Douglas defended the Constitution and those who drafted it.  On the other hand, RBG, one of the most left wing Justices, said were she drafting a constitution in 2012 she would use South Africa's as her model not ours.

America is being subtly attacked from outside and within. Soros seeks to rule from the grave using his money and his son's control of his well financed "Open Society Initiative" to manipulate our nation's future to his liking. As noted previously, Soros is desirous of bringing America to it's knees by eliminating our domestic tranquility.

Radical members of the Marxist Democrat Party have other goals. They want to pack The SCOTUS, as did FDR, so as to diminish the influence of conservative Justices. Obama went so far as to track and  jail a newspaper reporter and manipulated the IRS to withhold tax exempt status from legitimate conservative organizations.

However, they are unwilling to stop there.  They also seek the elimination of The Electoral College thereby, disenfranchising millions of American who live in smaller populated rural states. Hillary called them deplorables.

The Federal Debt is both a threat to our children and, if it continues along its current pace it is projected it will reach 106 % of GDP in 10 years.  This could possibly bankrupt our nation. The current rise in interest rates is beginning to consume more of GDP as our deficits soar.

Our nation has never been so weakened fiscally as well as spiritedly since the Great Depression.

+++

Chapter Eight is entitled: "Stalin Would Be Proud."

Levin begins by attacking the Democrat Party for its scorched earth, unscrupulous, unconscionable political and criminal persecution of President Trump and more recently his entire family.

The goal is to disrupt Trump's ability to campaign and eventually send him to jail. Trump's popularity remains in question but the tide of unfavorable events are rising against Biden. 

The conspiracy to set up Trump occurred long before he was sworn into office. His campaign was being spied on by members of the FBI and other intelligent agencies. These agencies were engaged in harmful leaks and now we know 51 former spies wrote and signed a disinformation letter which probably had the effect of electing Biden because, had it been known to have been solicited by the current Sec. of State, the vote tally might well have swung in Trump's favor. 

Levin ends by stating the Democrat Party does not care about what it is doing to our country, system of justice or the electoral process. It has abandoned comity and civility for character assassination and joined with totalitarian organizations around the world in order to assure continuance of it authority and power.

+++

The Ukrainian Gordian Knot

by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness
Risk of being cut by a Russian nuclear sword
++++
CIVILITY AND NEUTRALITY MUST PREVAIL OVER SHOUT-DOWNS AND THE “HECKLER’S VETO.”
CAMPUSES STRUGGLE WITH FREE SPEECH
BY RICHARD A. EPSTEIN 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


 



No comments: