Auto da fe today.

Auto da fe was the ritual act of abject admission of insolent and unforgiveable wrong required (on pain of yet "lingering sufferance"), of the already condemned by the Spanish Inquisition.  Today's auto da fe, required of those found guilty of  political incorrectness and "insensitivity", always summarily and by definition upon accusation, while not followed by strangulation or immolation anymore, is yet demanded  of the blatantly unelect and is backed by the "assurance" of social, political and professional death. Commentator Megan Kelly, in her regrettable act of contrition for posing a half serious  legitimate question on the limits of public humor (on "blackface", the mention of which by any other than the elect is "verboten" ), in this oh so peevish era, is the latest example.  She has worked very hard for her position in her craft and cannot be gainsaid in her wish not to see her efforts wasted. It is the latter day profoundly and  characteristically leftist Inquisition which is to blame for her apparent fears.

A long tenured and formidable Professor of Political Science at SUNY New Paltz, N.Y., a taxpayer supported "university" college which displays a nonetheless heartfelt contempt for that portion of the involuntarily taxpaying public which disagrees with its thoroughgoing far leftist biases, was  recently driven to an extensive  public statement of regret for having expressed the opinion that rap music had little influence on rural populations. The President of the college clucked that this "raised the spectre of 'racism' " ( whatever that term means after decades of misuse and misapplication). The Professor's  shame filled missive, from one, who from decades of lauded scholarly and popular accomplishment had gained a reputation for principled and well asserted intellectual exposition, bore the marks of auto da fe. "Oh I have been so very blind" was the possibly disingenuous sense of it. Someone who has been for decades a willing member of a professional and social community does not easily surrender his place on pure principle; that's only human. A pox on those who may well have coerced his "confession".

Many more recent examples are available; what put me in mind of this is the left's reaction to the transmission of apparently explosive devices to many prominent leftists.  The left is shocked! - so very shocked! - that it has come to this! It is of course, fully evident to and much to be wished for by them that it be attributed to one of the "hate filled" faction which supports the detested President Trump.  Conspicuously ignored by them are  their equivocal and disingenuous reactions to the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, the attempted bombing of the annual Cedar Creek, Va. Civil War reenactment last year, the violent opposition to conservative speakers on many  "university" campuses (the administrations of which are shamefully intimidated by far leftist  thugs) and the threats of "incivility" advanced by oh so proven Presidential Hillary. Remember the redoubtable Alec Baldwin urging the stoning of Ken Starr, the  prosecutor  of William Clinton for Clinton's having denied a U. S. citizen her day in court and redress for his obscene advances on her. Just imagine the actual sounds and sights of a stoning; there are people alive now  who have beheld such a horror.  What can be said of those who nominated, defended and excused the most debauched  and blatantly physically criminal person  ever to disgrace our White House?  They maintain that President Trump is crude, do they?  Why, they embrace an intense and reprehensible antipathy they think their due.

 Auto da fe was and is incredible because it is coerced. Its time for a credible admission by the left of its reckless indulgence in pure hate and vindictiveness for all who venture to question it and of the fell effect this injustice and outrage has had on our political life. But I'm not holding my breath.

And oh yes: Barack Obama is understandably upset at these acts of terrorism.He seemed not to be concerned though about his good buddy William Ayers having tried to bomb the U. S. Capitol, which does host human beings. Ehhh, well, maybe he was a little bit mistaken on that, yes? I'm sure he meant well.Jack   

RINOS and desperate leftists

I read American Thinker regularly. An article today in that site opined that RINO is a legitimate label but that DINO is unheard of.  The author offered  reasons for this but did not mention what I think to be a salient factor. That is, that the last fifty years have proven the Dem party to be the fount of the following convictions: the U.S., in its established economic, political, legal and  governmental institutions, is fundamentally unjust and deserving of comprehensive transformation and that any doubting this are reprehensible and should be  outlaw.  That this conviction is unjustified is at best timorously countenanced and at worst ignored by those in the GOP who still think accomodation of  a Dem party obviously united in its opposition to all the positive aspects of American life(public and private) can be lived with (or that their surrender is a redeeming  affirmation of a "tolerance" they yet cannot define).They should know better. Its been five decades! And for that reason they should continue to be resolutely countered by those in the GOP who know them to be wrongheaded and stand determined to  save our country from the existential threat of the Americanleft. We need not be "open minded" and spinelessly "tolerant" of  its clearly totalitarian intent. You can be "f-----n' A" sure that the radicals who own the Dems  "tolerate" no doubt or dissension within or without their fold and surely would, if allowed the comprehensive power they seek ,extend that dictatorship to us all.  Want proof?Watch the "People's  Correctional Facility of NY" under Warden Cuomo come January  for a preview.So lets suck it up and act like we stand for principles worth standing for!

Here we go again. Whenever the Dems lose they start pontificating about conciliation, cooperation and all that good garbage which in their times of triumph and haught they disdain.  Now they are all for  judicial restraint and nonpartisanship and they lament what they expect to be a brazen advancement of a conservative "agenda" on SCOTUS.  I think they are right on both counts.

Ever since the left preempted the Federal judiciary to force upon us laws which they know our elected representatives would never have approved (eg. the eligibility of unborn children  - God help them and us - for summary scalding ,dismemberment, expulsion from the very womb itself and the denial of blessed life , and a redefinition of the milleniums old institution of marriage stunning in its presumptuousness), the conservative "agenda" has been driven by a determination to restore democracy in America.  Our purpose on the right is to restore law origination to legislators, construction of those laws to judges and enforcement to the executive branch so that our laws faithfully reflect the will of the majority and not that of a frantic and dangerously willful elite.   We may have the means to do so now with a SCOTUS graced by a majority of law abiding justices and partnered with a truly American President and a to be hoped for continuation of a responsible Federal legislature .  Yes, the reaffirmation of judicial principle and rectitude may well advance the cause of the right and we can rejoice at that prospect and resolve to carry it forward, with the midterms being our next challenge. Jack

Hillary's threat

Sometime in the course of Richard Nixon's first attempt  to be elected President the then famous political cartoonist Herblock executed arguably the most hideous parody of a public figure seen until the vicious "journalistic" onslaught on President Trump. It portrayed Nixon rising from a street gutter, unshaven ( a sure sign of degradation in those button down days), dripping with no doubt redolent effluent and accosting Herblock's customary "John Q. Public" figure with the promise "but I'll be different if you elect me".  Throughout their disgraceful public lives the Clintons ( who bid fair to grace us with, one must earnestly hope for the gastric health of the nation, a valedictory progress through the provinces this election season - I had hoped to see them playing mildewed tents at sweltering county fairs by now to raise the funds necessary to support their "politically correct" lifestyle in far suburbia but. . . ) have always said , with crossed and hidden fingers in the style of the carnival huckster he is,  the same to the real America. How especially she loathes our country but they managed to avoid the common touch which so excited the disdain of the fashionable against Nixon and Pat's cloth coat. We need a latter day Herblock to portray Slick Willy and his consort.  Yesterday,  Hillary, in a disingenuous pronunciamento, allowed as how Dems owe  no civility to those  in the electoral majority who seek to destroy everything progressives believe in  (by definition, those who dare to disagree with them and who oppose their crusade to expunge all beliefs which seek to counter their "Democratic"  convictions). BUT, she added, in a hilariously transparent calm and reasonable manner , we will generously relent should the electorate return to its senses and restore us to the dominance which is our right, in November.  Believe us, believe us, we do  (reluctantly) implore you (as we chuckle).

A little background; I worked twenty years with intense inmate contact in a state prison system. So many times I beheld or experienced directly, veiled inmate threats worded so: "You should give me a break - Oh  no? Maybe  there should be a riot and some people in here should get their throats cut  (in response to my having held him responsible for a violation of prison regulations ).  In other words," if you give me what I want, you can count on me to be good". Necessary to the hoped for effectiveness of such ominous suggestion was the universally known reality of past lethal events of this nature and the obvious and immediate possibility of repeat.

Now all of us, including Hillary, are aware of what physical sanctions have already been visited upon those willing to stand up to the thoroughly bigoted American left since President Trump ascended. Rand Paul and his wife have expressed credible fears for their lives  and the lives of other prominent conservatives from unstable extremists blithely provoked by such as Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton and now, yes, Hillary.

Hillary, just as did the semi and some full sociopaths I dealt with in my career , knew just what she was doing in her remarks yesterday. It was a THREAT, cynically and  haughtily delivered with a measured demeanor thinly disguising a  withering sneer at the real America.   Jack

Thank you Mitch McConnell!

Senator McConnell is a droll person; I'd expect to see a man of his countenance in a picture of the Senate 70 years ago.  But luckily for us, we have him now, when he need him so much (thank you Kentucky) and do we ever owe him.

When Justice Scalia passed we were within the ninth part of a hair of facing the permanent marginalization on SCOTUS which could be the lot of the left in the near future.  But Mitch said " naw, it ain't happening on my watch" and he used his power to prevent Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland  from reaching the Senate floor. Well, it was only common sense to expect that any jurist advanced by Obama would enact Obama's leftist intentions. "Foul!" cried the hilariously and disingenuously miffed Dems although they would surely have done the same in the same situation.  "Oh well, Hillary will deliver us soon enough" was their consolation. Didn't happen.

How Mitch was able to contain his mirth when the Dems bade President Trump renominate Garland ("why that's only fair" bleated "realpolitikian" Charles Schumer) I don't know. He faithfully and skillfully guided Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh onto the court in a masterpiece of consummate skill and devotion, especially in defeating the vicious personal  assault on Judge Kavanaugh. He was aided greatly by Senator Grassley.

By this time, had Hillary and a Democrat Senate been elected, we would have faced this onerous prospect: two new radical leftist  "Justices" and a safe 6 rubber stamps on SCOTUS for Hillary's dissembling pronunciamentos.  Maybe Justice Kennedy wouldn't have left but she would still  have had five . Instead we have a resolute conservative President, a majority of law abiding SCOTUS Justices and a yet GOP Congress. We must DETERMINE to keep it that way in November . It is imperative that we keep the staggering Dems on the run, by electoral confirmation of the numerical dominance which is the only thing which can stop them. Appeals to their good will are sadly futile and pitiably wrong headed. Crush them, I say, as they would do us!

Mitch took  a gutsy chance on an adverse reaction by the electorate in 2016; a RINO in his place might have tried to appease the implacable Dems, whose lips curl in contemplation of such weakness, by enabling Garland.  But Mitch is no RINO and we must needs rejoice at that as a key part of our continuing good fortune.  Jack    

Lawless Dems

I would guess that Justice Kavanaugh will not seek revenge for the detestable ordeal visited upon him and his family by Dems perversely determined to have their way (in other words, blatant bigots).  He is a Christian and a jurist of demonstrated judicial rectitude, marked competence, intellectual integrity and philosophical and  thoroughly professional allegiance to our deathless Constitution.  But he cannot, I think, nor should he, ignore one of the salient lessons of the lamentable process this time; those who sought his rejection from a public trust for which he is very well qualified are a presumptuous and lawless lot and I hope that perception guides his future judgement of their appeals to the institution which they have regarded as rightfully theirs and which is slipping from their grasp. "Why, sexual misconduct by our boy?  Machts nichts! Their boy?  Intolerable! Why? Because we Dems say so". "Due process?  Its whatever we 'feel' is due".  You know who else thinks that way?  Criminals.

Charles Schumer is their spokesman and their leader; fair enough, let us assume that when he speaks it is with their leave and that he truly represents them.  He is surely the most enthusiastically scornful and contemptuous Senator of all; when he confronts  positions opposite to his, all of which he reflexively  regards as by definition discredited, he sees his duty fulfilled by the mere expression of his disapproval. After all, he holds his truths to be self evident and  he takes obvious pleasure in excoriation of those who dare to disagree.

Examples?: When he was in the House he bade critics of the futile and summarily abandoned "Assault Weapons Law" (which he disingenuously championed as "common sense gun control" rather than the incremental step toward unconstitutional bans and confiscation which was his wish) to "get over it!" Well!  When the trial of William Clinton, impeached for having denied an American a meaningful day in court to seek redress of him for sexual assault upon her person, lying about it under oath and supporting the focusing of the full weight of his office upon the savaging of others who had also probably suffered such outrage at his uncontrollable and debauched impulses, commenced, Charles remarked "let's get this ridiculous process over with".  That statement alone puts the lie to any criticism he has leveled at Judge Kavanaugh in this cynical outrage. Gads how I would love to see a refereed debate between Senator Schumer and Judge Kavanaugh on legal issues. After all, Charles is a lawyer, yes? Judge Kavanaugh would humiliate him.  Well, to build on an old shibboleth; them that can, do,  them that  can't, expectorate.  That one possessed of an inferior legal mind like that of Charles should sniff that Judge Kavanaugh is "woefully unqualified" is laughable.

Charles regularly shames our state beyond measure; believe me, so many of us New Yorkers of real American persuasion wish him turned out of office but we cannot prevail over the numbers of apparently indifferent downstate voters who empower him and his factotum, "Presidential contender" Kirsten Gillibrand.

Now the emphasis is on the midterms and we in Trump nation must rise to the challenge and turn out in order to take advantage of our victory in this confirmation fight. Its vital.  If we prevail we deal the Dems a devastating two punch combination to build on our 2016 haymaker. Much more of this and we will put them down for the count and deliver our real America from the curse of the America hating left. Our battle cry? - "Remember Judge Kavanaugh and  disempower those who wronged him." (Check out Dr. Nick Waddy's latest post at Waddyisright.com).  

You probably aren't reading my comments but I know there are some of you Dems who are patriotic and people of good will.Why do you support nascent  and reckless totalitarians like Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi? The rule of law is sine qua non to democracy and those two have affirmed beyond any reasonable doubt their contempt for the painfully evolved law of the land. Not for them its sanctions and remonstrances,oh no, because such inconveniences stand in the way of the willful exercise of FIAT - the unrestricted exercise of the incidental judgement of an unquestionable elite (why, "progressives" of course) as to right, wrong and justice. You have within your party one who has faithfully heeded the call of his state, West Virginia, a bulwark of the real America, to do right by Judge Kavanaugh.  That is  Senator Joe Manchin. You should follow his lead. Your present leader who, in a hilariously vintage Schumerism  denounced Judge Kavanaugh's understandably emotional defense of his good name as "partisan screed", is a capital disgrace.  Jack

The presumption of innocence until or unless guilt is proven . . .

Its a mainstay of our English/ American history founded legal system. I don't know where it started; I know some accused  Anglo-Saxons employed "oath helpers", individuals willing to swear  (in a time when an oath put one's soul at hazard),to the veracity of the accused's protestations of innocence. I do not know what other factors. subjective or objective, were considered.  I'm confident that by the late 18th century founding of America, knowledge among our founding fathers of the ability of monarchy, of nobility, of high clergy and of their dependents to summarily ruin or end lives prompted measures meant to protect the accused against such as torture and the presumption of guilt upon accusation.  Can it be that their concern is no longer timely?  All educated westerners must needs recoil from such a supposition but principled intellectuals must now be willing to defend it against a new and appalling attack from those who  believe that evil and fell intent assuredly accrues to an entire group,  (eg. today, all who have penises).

The view, expressed by some radical feminists, that all men are potential rapists, is fundamental to the conviction championed by Dems that Dr. Ford is unassailably believable. Enabled by this is the principle that any man, upon identification  by any woman as an attacker ( or for that matter, any manner of oppressor of women) is, by definition, guilty.  The central argument against this presented by our legal tradition is  that guilt must be proven, not innocence, upon principled and ordered examination of objective factors particular to the accused individual.    Is this a defendable position?  Has history brought us to a point where this heretofore fundamental assumption must be reexamined?

Are all men potential rapists?  No!  Because as any man knows the act of penetration  is short circuited by emotional upheaval in normal men.  Sociopaths are free of such psychological sanctions and can  function without the torment of conscience. Then, Susan Brownmiller; do you maintain that all men are sociopathic?  The assumption that all men are capable of such evil  is a tactical principle championed often  by women  bearing a myriad of animi, justified and unjustified, against some men and determined to exact revenge on all men.

What about the heartfelt assumption of some women, a reaction to true and widespread offense, that all physically defined members of a certain group, men, are by definition guilty and should, accordingly,  receive that which was visited upon the guilty heretofore by due process?  Is the assumption of innocence outmoded? Has it served them badly?

The consequences of such an assumption must be considered. For example,man hating white women, regardless of their freely chosen actions, might well be assumed by members of minorities to also be automatically responsible for racial injustice.

The initial presumption of innocence was a choice made by the civilizations born of English history. It was assumed that this would be  productive of justice more often than not and that that, in the absence of human omniscience, was the best we could do. Today, in much of the West we see ferocious, widespread rejection of that principle by groups seeking redress for substantial claims of widespread  injustice against many women. Why?

First, because it is convenient and if successful can yield a satisfying sense of retribution well done. Second, the continuing widespread commission of abuse of women persuades some women that they have no choice. Third, Marxism, which is the fount of radical feminism, fully endorses the proscription and condemnation of entire groups  for which it assumes that all members either participate in or willingly benefit from the wrongs ascribed to them by those who perceive they are oppressed. Fourth, the American legal system has been seriously compromised by a doctrine grounded in the last fifty years, again with Marxist inspiration and instruction, that our legality is simply a sordid history of dominant groups perpetuating their sway and that that justifies rejecting legal, philosophical and political verities painfully evolved over centuries, usually in often courageous opposition to injustice.

A salient characteristic of our progress in rendering justice has been the European Enlightenment guided  replacement of subjective procedures(emotion based or irrational standards such as belief in witchcraft or ambiguous signs and omens) with objective requirements (eg. evidence, due process based on the rule of law, which in principle eschew emotion, unverifiable perceptions and prejudgement). Could this have evolved and can it continue to be refined without the primary presumption of innocence, fealty to which demands strict and exhaustive investigation and cross examination, even more so in an information rich world?  I think not. 

Some historians believe history is cyclical; are we returning to days when oath helpers, trial by ordeal or combat and other mostly subjective methods of determination of culpability ruled? The process which has "tried" Judge Kavanugh's fitness for office by emphasizing emotion, precondemnation of half of the human race, and reckless reliance on juvenile hearsay, suggests a highly disturbing trend in that direction by a sizeable and much misled faction of our polity.  Jack