We are the drain the swamp people

• The Canadian Trucker anti-tyranny strike is truly inspirational ( video and related articles below)

The Boston Tea party of 1773 had a limited goal (focused on certain impositions by parliamentary decree) but it soon came to supporters of the demonstration that the essence of the problem was bigger than an unfair tax on tea.  Tea created a thirst for independence and personal freedoms.  We hope the Truckers in Canada inspire a 1776 political revolution (there and here) where people reject distant big government.

Related reading:

The Trucker Revolt.  (Trudeau has threatened to take the children of the striking truckers)

Trudeau Demands End to ‘Freedom Convoy’ — ‘Trying to Blockade Democracy’

Ottawa Police Brutalize 78-Year-Old Man for Honking

Saskatchewan Province to End Vaccine Passports, Mask Mandate

It’s Spreading! New Zealand Protest Convoy Blocks Capital

Freedom Truckers v. GoFundMe Leftists.

East Bound and Down: US Truck Convoy IS Being Planned, Could Be Headed to DC.

WATCH: A Canadian Reporter Gets More Than He Bargained for After Trying to Bait a Trucker in Ottawa

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This billboard on a major thoroughfare (53rd just south of Brady in Davenport) is to be commended.  The specific placement is not entirely up to the project leaders at certain budget levels but the visibility is OK and will be “imprinted ” to motorists more over time.   It is the sort of thing that ought to have helped attract more to the caucuses –comments on that in a subsequent post. We applaud the outreach effort at any rate.

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JUST A GOOD OL’ CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY (with very expensive tuition and gracious alumna…recall Sandra Fluke, rhymes with…):

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/you-can-call-white-people-evil-dont-criticize-daniel-greenfield/

Georgetown University professor C. Christine Fair tweeted that “white men” who defend Justice Kavanaugh, “deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps” and then “we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine.”

In response, Georgetown helpfully clarified that Fair’s belief that white men who support due process should be killed and castrated were “not the views of the University”, but pointed out that, “our policy does not prohibit speech based on the person presenting ideas or the content of those ideas, even when those ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.”

Aren’t we pleased that G’town U. doesn’t seem to endorse the killing and castration of Justice Kavanaugh supporters?     dlh

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Here’s the thing, in my fantasy world of being somewhat consistent, I believe “party” officials ought to exercise more assertiveness toward elected officials enjoying Republican support (with the platform as the guide), rather than being the lickspittles for the incumbents once they get elected.

Regrettably the prevailing mindset down to much of the rank and file in Iowa (if not Wyoming) seems to be heavily skewed away from the elected official being the votarist  of the party instead of the other way around.  Now Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger might contend they have the purity of spirit of the party, but the party has spoken, and they do not. The shield of saying something is a “matter of conscience” is fine, but it does not trump the party from exercising its conscience on a matter that rises to a high level  of concern and telling such people of conscience where to get off.

1) That said, with the substitution of terms like “hazarding the republic” something like the  RNC resolution censuring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger could (arguably) ought apply to those Republicans who refused even a 10 day delay to the perfunctory electoral count held and protested on January 6, 2021. The purpose of the delay advocated by the Senate’s best Constitutional lights, was to allow an audit and hearing of the serious evidence-fueled challenges to the results of the November 2020 presidential election.

A censure could properly apply to the dereliction of duty to be the appropriate bulwark against the possibility of electoral fraud ignored by the judiciary in washing their hands of the matter and refusing to hear evidence due to a claimed lack of jurisdiction in spite of  serious constitutional arguments and historic precedent made whole by sworn testimony, obvious official illegalities, and incredible anomalies.

Given what Democrats had telegraphed as to what they would do with the trifecta of power (ill-gotten as it was) Republicans in Congress should have supported such an effort by Congress because there was ample reason and authority to do so, whether or not a push for a thorough audit and hearing would pass, in order to send a message about the integrity of the vote.

Should a forensic audit validate  an electoral college victory for Biden it is important to be part of confirming the legitimacy of the election, rather than a rubber stamp.  A system of forensic auditing ought to automatically be part of every election process, not mere “canvasses” which might only recount garbage.

2) Distinctions as to intent and culpability of elected Republicans can be entirely appropriate, but strain validity when 19 Republicans knowingly vote in a manner  to facilitate huge debt supporting a bill larded with progenitor “studies’ buttressing bureaucracies and benefitting big government intrusions. The Biden Administration is in many ways, resident evil.  Facilitating their designs ought to be censurable.

3) Censure could apply to those Republicans who engaged in Democrat talking points and calumny about the events of January 6, who extended blame to President Trump and grotesquely implied that the whole of the throng gathered that day who protested in support of election integrity, were responsible for lives lost coincidently that day, as if it were a murderous rampage.

Essential truths about Jan. 6 were known long before the speechifying by the censurable ended — including that the only one who died that day as a result of participation in the demonstrations was a diminutive unarmed woman who was unjustifiably shot by a policeman, a woman ignored by all other policemen as not being a threat who were in as close or closer proximity to her than her assailant.

When such censurable matters (3 listed) apply to a group of the same Republicans, including Senator Charles Grassley, the cause for their censure of some sort is enhanced not ameliorated. Liz Cheney (and Kinzinger to a lesser extent) had some solid Republican votes in her time but  those are eclipsed by serious faithlessness and disloyalty to the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators inside and outside the Capitol that day and the party as a whole. They deserved to be censured for the reasons set forth in the RNC  resolution.

Cooperating with the Democrat propaganda machine to paint any  overwrought incursion into the Capitol building that day as an insurrection encouraged by President Trump is hateful bunk.  No congressional hearings are necessary as regards demonstrations on Jan. 6th  other than to investigate overzealous prosecution and inhumane treatments of those arrested.

Below is a rendering of the resolution passed by the RNC on Friday.  Note that the usual suspects are purposefully headlining  the statement WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, as suggesting that the RNC is saying ALL the activity even the vandalism we have noted as wrongful was “legitimate political discourse”.  It is not and the RNC has not said so because they did not use the word ALL.  It is correct to say that legitimate political discourse has been caught up in the Democrat led, Cheney and Kinzinger supported witch hunt  — especially Trump’s remarks — and individuals who never set foot inside the Capitol, (or were ushered in according to some) for the minorest of infractions that are usually not prosecuted in DC.

RESOLUTION TO FORMALLY CENSURE LIZ CHENEY AND ADAM
KINZINGER AND TO NO LONGER SUPPORT THEM AS MEMBERS OF
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

WHEREAS, The primary mission of the Republican Party is to elect Republicans who support the United States Constitution and share our values:

WHEREAS, The Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress have embarked on a
systematic effort to replace liberty with socialism; eliminate border security in favor of lawless, open borders; create record inflation designed to steal the American dream from our children and grandchildren; neuter our national defense and a peace through strength foreign policy; replace President Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed with incompetence and illegal mandates; and destroy America’s economy with the Green New Deal;

WHEREAS, Winning back the majority in Congress, including the United States House of
Representatives, in 2022 must be the primary goal of the House Republican Conference
(“Conference”) and requires all Republicans working together to accomplish the same;

WHEREAS, The Conference must design the strategy to stop the radical Biden agenda and retire Nancy Pelosi, tasks which require that all Republicans pull in the same direction;

WHEREAS, The Conference must not be sabotaged by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam
Kinzinger who have demonstrated, with actions and words, that they support Democrat efforts to destroy President Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022;

WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger have engaged in actions in their positions as members of the January 6th Select Committee not befitting Republican members of Congress, which include the Committee’s disregard for minority rights, traditional checks and balances, due process, and adherence to other precedent and rules of the U.S. House and which seem intent on advancing a political agenda to buoy the Democrat Party’s bleak prospects in the upcoming midterm elections;

WHEREAS, Congressional Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own success or failure and the NC supports their efforts by denouncing those who deliberately jeopardize victory in November on which the future of our constitutional republic depends at this critical moment in history;

WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party; and

WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee hereby formally censures Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and shall immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behavior which has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic, and is inconsistent with the position of the Conference.

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• To the extent Dem resources could be expended elsewhere, like paid ballot harvesting or support for ballot drops — why not?
• Were species of paid ballot harvesting and ballot drops incorporated into their grants under guise, prewired so to speak, with the right hiring for funded electoral activities? 
• Acts outside of established voting statutes (or unconstitutional acts by legislatures) are a fraud on the integrity of the electoral process 

While we wish our betters at The Federalist had said more about outright election illegality being sufficient to deny Trump a second term, we appreciate the limited focus as the article appropriately gives substance to the idea Zuckerberg money through Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) was a vehicle for Democrat partisan purposes.  The article does so by way of castigating a Wall Street Journal article and the deeply flawed study it relies on to further the whistling in the dark of never-Trumpers view that election illegalities were minor, inadvertent, insufficient, well-meaning, bipartisan in effect to have provided Biden his alleged margin in key electoral-college states.

Remember, Iowa was considered a bellwether if not battle ground state well into the election year.

We believe that CTCL grants made available to county auditors here in Iowa, whether they were personally oblivious or not, was an effort to foster Democrat designs in key counties  toward their congressional district hopes and perhaps even an ill-informed 2020 fantasy of returning Iowa to the Democrat presidential fold.

The failure of Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate to use his platform in 2020 not only to oppose the use of private funds of obvious partisan pedigree to run focused GOTV efforts of partisan design and influence under color of official jurisdiction but to actually encourage it — ought to engender repudiation and a primary challenge. While we welcome and encourage such a development that is not the particular focus of this post.

Here are links to The Federalist article and the article that provoked it at the WSJ along with the libertarian linked Wisconsin think tank study Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, (WILL) which the WSJ pretends is somehow definitive.  The Federalist article challenges the methodology of the WILL study (the Federalist also links to other studies that have different conclusions) and the WSJ reliance on it. To better understand our additional comments they should be reviewed.

The Federalist:

The Wall Street Journal Is Wrong About The 2020 Election. (the article contains many relevant links that support the articles criticisms of the WSJ and the WILL paper the WSJ relies on.

Wall Street Journal:

The Best Summary of the 2020 Election
Rules were bent, GOP voters defected, and real fraud hasn’t turned up.

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty:

A REVIEW OF THE 2020 ELECTION.

Something that the WILL authors were not aware of but the WSJ Editorial Board ought to have been because it occurred a week or so before it published its characterization of the Wisconsin vote (we think intending to justify their generalized conclusions as regards all states with voting illegalities) is this Wisconsin judicial ruling:

Wisconsin Judge Rules Ballot Drop Boxes, Ballot Harvesting Violate State Law

A distinction between illegal activities (placing of ballot boxes and ballot harvesting in particular) and other official acts contrary to state law — and what others might differentiate as fraud — we feel is largely a distinction without a difference as to perpetrators’ culpability (good intentions is not an excuse) and the effect on the integrity of elections.  The idea that some violations supposedly effect or benefit on a presumed bipartisan basis and can be ignored is ignorant, worse than naive,  oblivious to intent of tool users and partisan willingness to exploit them, and violates the proper admonition that all election activity must be by the book as the franchise is too important to local and national unity.

We believe outright illegality was sufficient in key states to deny Trump the election victory under our electoral system, that includes illegal changes to election law. As regard the matter of fraud, we think most people interpret fraud to be synonymous with illegal activity but even if a finer legal definition is appropriate as to prosecution any official enabler of illegal activity, malfeasance, dereliction, what have you, — ought to be punishable and not characterized as something other than a violation of election integrity and not something to challenge the results.

Fraud when narrowed to ineligible voters or nonexistent voters, ignoring official acts, is a distinction we would not make because the integrity of the election is defrauded to give such developments a pass. Further, the officials implementing such illegalities may be using or exploiting circumstances for conscious partisan gain/one-upmanship.

A vote that was illegally cast out of ignorance of voting law by an ineligible voter is not properly counted (if it can be caught)  — that is the minimal remedy with prosecution of the voter perhaps properly depending on culpability. Species of illegal voting that cannot be caught before being counted are what organized efforts depend on.  They know it is unlikely an election will be pulled back.  It is what they depend on — they win. It should not be that way.  Any conspiracy to attempt such should be treated as a serious felony.

Wrongful official acts (or lack of action) such as identified by the judge in Wisconsin are of a different category as to culpability (the obligation to have known definitely pertains) and ought not to be ignored as to election correctives. At the very least significant voting using illegal mechanisms because they can be exploited on a partisan basis ought to be cause for holding a new election. It is still a real fraud on the integrity of the election as an even playing field was not available (at least to those believing in law and order and the integrity of the vote) and creates the impression that laws don’t matter and the cynicism that who is in charge determines which votes are counted.

The Wisconsin think tank study was not based on a thorough forensic audit but largely relied on interpreting and interpolating data. Further we believe that supposed trends or claimed insufficient divergence from trends do not prove that there was insufficient fraud unless one assumes that “trends” or previous election dynamics were inevitable, had not changed, or that data points chosen were relevant or not skewed. The election dynamics could well have been  outside previous trends even if the previous trends are accurately portrayed.

So called anomalies can be the real result of exploitation by purposeful and opportunistic people to newly discovered or created vulnerabilities including officially but illegally implemented ones and those using technology or boots on the ground activity.  The end justifies the means mentality has long predominated the Democrat electioneering apparat and the dominant media is happy to gloss over it.

In closing, here is the mind-boggling stated bottom line in the WILL study as regards its focus on one of the key battleground states Wisconsin —  which the Never-Trumpers at the WSJ didn’t mention.  (we grant it is rather confusing for reasons we dealt with above) . Bold our emphasis.

Our bottom line is that, while we found little evidence of “fraud,” we did find that a substantial number of votes were not cast in accordance with legal requirements. While we could not find evidence that these votes were “fraudulent” in the sense of being cast by ineligible voters or nonexistent voters—particularly in numbers large enough to change the winner—the total number of votes cast unlawfully could have affected the outcome.

R Mall

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Great group of memes forwarded by TN

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• Still waiting for a correction and balance from Sen. Grassley (and others)

Video evidence has surfaced apparently indicating that Ashli Babbitt tried to stop (including punching one out)  the few protestors (or possibly provocateurs) that were engaged in vandalism inside the Capitol on January 6th. It should be noted that perhaps hundreds of others entered the building facing little resistance from police, if not escorted in by police, and who like Babbitt did not engage in vandalism.  Another video with clear enough audio indicates Ashli tried to get the police to do their jobs admonishing them to to cordon off the demonstration.  While you may have read that Ashli Babbitt had a history of impulsive behavior but from what we have seen her impulses in those final moments of her life were honorable.

Babbitt Tried to Stop Attack on Capitol Speaker’s Lobby, Video Shows

NEW FOOTAGE Shows Ashli Babbitt Punched Violent Rioter Who Was Breaking Windows In The Face Just Seconds Before She Was Shot Dead (VIDEO)

So based on the demeanor established in the aforementioned videos available at The Gateway Pundit and elsewhere, Ashli Babbitt’s appearance in the interior window of the Capitol, a window she tried to prevent from being broken, and where she was shot by a police officer, the one and only bullet fired that day, — shot by an officer who hazarded his fellow officers standing near her who had no compulsion to fire their weapons at demonstrators because they were in a better position to see what was going on — it can be reasonably inferred Ashli’s actions were an attempt to put herself between the vandals and any entry by others. It can be inferred that her appearance in the window was to further admonish the vandals as she was a 9-year veteran of Air Force security forces. The homicidal action of the officer who shot diminutive unarmed Ashli Babbett was totally irresponsible if not criminal.

About Senate Grassley and other elected Republicans in Iowa

We still are not aware of any corrections to the record issued by Senator Grassley and other Republicans from this state for their pearl-clutching statements issued days and weeks after their inflammatory descriptions of events that day were exposed and could no longer be passed off as merely overwrought knee jerk statements or repetitions of WaPo bunk. Where are the apologies for the outright calumny directed at President Trump (and by implication his supporters as mindless zombies doing his biddin) suggesting he incited riot when in fact he called for peaceful demonstrations?

The handful of jerks who played into the hands of the left that day, likely egged on by agents provocateur, at worst comprised a pathetic dime-store fit one might see from toddlers, not rising to the level of looting and destruction exhibited by the left against government buildings continuously including actual insurrection (Portland).

It is still impossible to forget that Senator Grassley did not have the courage to join his constitutional betters asking for a mere ten day delay in certification of the electoral college in order for an emergency audit of the elections in disputed states, an effort with sound historic and constitutional underpinnings further justified by evidence and testimony of extensive fraud and official disregard for the law. Those senators included   graduates of  prestigious law schools — Yale, Harvard, U. of Virginia, Vanderbilt included a former SCOTUS clerk and State AG.

By Senator Grassley’s and others lights, by their theory even in the face of clear (all we were advocating was clarification) egregious fraud — if a corrupted system produces, and a judiciary with circular reasoning fails even to consider corruption, congress is obligated to rubber stamp the “results’. The last bulwark is reduced to oblivious ministerial pretense.  How pathetic our Iowa delegation was that day in not insisting on an audit.

GOP senators, led by Cruz, to object to Electoral College certification, demand emergency audit

Related reading:

Trump should have let Grassley stew in his juices awhile

Will Senators Grassley and Ernst apologize for parroting lies and spin about Jan 6th

We wonder if Grassley, Ernst, Feenstra, Miller-Meeks and Hinson agree

Air Force vet Ashli Babbitt tried stopping Jan. 6 Capitol vandalism before fatally shot: Report

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Fox White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked Biden, “Would you take a question on inflation … ? Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?”

“It’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden deadpanned. “What a stupid son of a bitch.”

(Unfortunately, not captured on a ‘hot mic’, but expressed daily by ‘CornPop’s Conqueror’:

“Doocy’s not the only “stupid Son of a Bitch”…so are the American people; how about another ‘helping’ of illegal immigration!?”).      dlh

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