AKA The Left

The “wokesters” have been celebrated, coddled, pampered, enabled, “welfared”, otherwise financed, institutionally affirmed,  “privileged” for decades all on the backs of taxpayers in a country that has produced more wealth and freedom for the greatest number the planet has ever seen.  This country’s poorest 10% has more per capita wealth and “privilege” in the form of  freedom and economic security than most of the rest of the planet. One of their biggest lies, they learned somewhere that you have to tell a big one,  is that this wealth was the result of a slave system and racism. The wokesters understanding of economic systems, and for that matter human nature, is appallingly ignorant for those that insist they have the insight to run the country for the benefit of all.  (more commentary below video)

The video above was linked to during a discussion on a community board normally dedicated to neighbor helping neighbor rather than politics. It got off on a tangent when the CEO *of the “board” felt it necessary to preen herself before us and lecture the “hood’ subsequent to the “Floyd” occasioned rioting in this and other communities.

The discussion should be self explanatory from here.  Names have been redacted/replaced (editorialized) with the exception of our contribution. Certainly the discussion could be continued and  we would prefer doing it here as the particular topics change rapidly on such usually (to our understanding) non-political “neighborhood” boards.

Person (male, probably white — we recognize that the term person is a sexist moniker)

Open Letter Replying To Sarah Friar, Nextdoor CEO

Dear Nextdoor App Neighbors,

June 14, 2020

Dear Nextdoor Neighbors,

You recently received a letter from Sarah Friar, the CEO of Nextdoor. Two key parts of what she wrote are:

“Systemic racism in our nation will not be solved overnight.”

“Let me say unequivocally: Racism has no place on Next-door.”

I would like to make some comments about Sarah’s two points above.

First, I was raised in a Christian home with two God-loving parents. We attended church most Sundays. I attended confirmation to learn the basic tenets of my Christian faith. From that I learned many things, but the key things were:

1. To love God above all things. To love God with all my heart and with all my soul.
2. To love others as God loves me, and as a corollary to treat others as I would want to be treated.
3. All people are made in the image of God. Therefore, all people have strengths that they need to find and bring to the community in which they live to help other people.
4. They can tell we are Christians by our love and how we treat other people. This means that we need to put what we learned into action to help others.

Second, as a child I grew up in a neighborhood where I was surrounded by a diversity of people. To me diversity was just a part of the people with whom I went to school, went to church, participated in sports, attended school and played in my neighborhood. We were all people that belonged to a particular city in a particular state in the United States of America. That was the only division that I knew about growing up.

I was very lucky to be a person growing up with two parents that loved me and cared for me without question and a church that cared for me as well. Both taught me about the love of God, about how we are all made in the image of God, about how to treat our neighbor, and that we all have talents to share with others in our lives.

I know that not all children are as fortunate as I was going up. If I have “privilege” it is because my parents and my church taught me to make the most of the talents I have. I am saddened to see children growing up without two loving and caring parents. I am saddened to see children growing up without a church to teach them the things I learned, of which only the key items are listed above.

As you can guess, I feel these two things, loving and caring parents and a loving and caring church are two of the most important things we can share with our youth today.

As to there being “systemic (at the root or through the root of society) racism” I disagree. As I said above I believe all people are children of God and in our Declaration of Independence it says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

We need to stop putting people in categories. We are all people living in one city in one state in one country—the United States of America. We are not black, yellow, red, brown, etc. We are one people in the United States of America. We are not men or women. We are one people in the United States of America. We are not straight, gay, transgender or any other gender identity—we are one people in the United States of America.

As for racism I hear that term so much every day that I think everyone has forgotten what it means—“prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.” Now that you have heard my views on the United States of America, I can truly say that I do not harbor these feelings against other people in their city in their state in the United States of America or around the world. People are not inherently (systemically) racist. They are taught racism.

I will stand with my brothers and sisters in Bettendorf and the surrounding communities to get back to civility, sharing the skills and resources we have with others, being truthful, doing to others what we would want them to do to us and just plain treating others as equals. We will put away all the hatred, violence, political posturing, cheating and malevolence. That is the best gift that anyone could give to a brother or sister in our city in our state in the United States of America.

Respectfully submitted,

Wokester 1 (male, privileged in more ways than he will admit) responds to Person

Just because you don’t experience systemic racism in your own privileged life doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. You are not an expert on the experiences of other people. I would… See more

Wokester 2 (female, privileged in more ways than she will admit) responds to Person

What in the white privilege did I just read? 🙄

(V’PAC note: the eye roll emoji is probably also tattooed on her forehead to symbolize her wokeness)

Wokester 1  responds again to Person

And maybe you shouldn’t quote a document written primarily by slave owners in a manifesto arguing that systemic racism is imaginary.

Person responds to Wokester 1 calling him by his first name

xxxx Perhaps you need to recognize that we have all sinned, including our founders, and fallen short of the glory of God. However, we have been saved by God’s grace whether you want that grace or not. It is your choice. I am not responsible for what has happened in the past. I was not even on this earth to make a difference. Last year I had the opportunity to walk through the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany. It was a very humbling experience. The committee that preserves the concentration camps in Germany are very specific in their instructions to future generations–“do not forget what happened here.” If people are busy defacing and destroying our national symbols in the United States of America that show the good and the bad, we then forget what that history has to teach us. And by forgetting that history we are doomed to repeat it. Where in the Declaration of Independence is the reference to systemic racism? I think I missed that lesson in history.

Wokester 1  responds again to Person

I’m not sure why you presume that I need to hear you quote scripture at me, but since you brought it up, white supremacy and the failure to prevent it are both sins. You are not responsible for the sins of your ancestors, but an unwillingness to acknowledge that their sins have led to systemic racism makes you complicit in that system. It sounds like you are also upset over monuments to racist confederate leaders being taken down, too, so I’ll address it. I, too, have spent considerable time in Germany; while it is true that concentration camps remain today to remind us about the atrocities committed there, I did notice a fairly obvious lack of monuments to dead Nazi officials. By that same token, Civil War battlegrounds and former plantations are protected sites in the US and are valuable educational resources. We don’t need statues glorifying confederate generals to learn from their hatred. And finally, I didn’t say the Declaration of Independence contained references to systemic racism (you could look to the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution for that); I was pointing out that as noble as the words of its authors appear to be, there is hypricosy even there. They spoke about liberty for all, but failed to apply those bold ideas to everyone. Systemic racism exists, regardless of what you want to believe. I am merely suggesting that you practice a bit of empathy and listen to those affected by it instead of those who never will be.

Wokester 3 (male, probably white responds

The “system” enables, it doesn’t suppress.

Wokester 4 (female) responds to Person

where in the Constitution is the reference to systemic racism? Try starting with the 3/5 of a person part. Start there.

Wokester 3  responds to Person

Wow. Was a poll tax on voting enabling? Was owning another person enabling to the “property”. Was / is segregation enabling? C’mon man. That’s intentional ignorance.
2 days ago

Another Privileged Person (APP) responds

We are talking about the present. The past happened, good or bad, and there have been changes to rectify those issues. The fact that you live like those problems remain today, prevents us from moving forward.

Wokester 3 responds (probably intended for APP)

The fact that you believe that in the present none of the officially sanctioned systemic racism of the past continues in new form today is disturbing. It is the same biases,racism and flaunting of privilege, just in 21st century form.

I live very much in the present but the legal abolishment of slavery, for example, has not solved the underlying issues you seem to blithely choose to ignore.

APP responds with link to video embedded above

Yours Truly weighs in

Here I was looking for some tradesman recommendations and I see that the CEO of this community board claims some special standing to lecture the good citizens of this community. Who or what does she think we are? Another member responds defending against the broad strokes the illustrious CEO implied and her his remarks are castigated by what I interpret as a couple of oh so pure “wokesters”.

I do not know where to start with the eye roll response and the “woke” follow-on comment. A couple paragraphs will not be adequate to unpack and challenge the impugning of the community/country.

Slavery is an evil concept that is color blind. This country had slavery before white Europeans landed, indeed I am not sure of any populated continental exception –not Asia, not Africa, not North or South America. The indigenous practiced it and sold their own into it or captured others for it. The evil was everywhere, singling out America is one of the ignorant aspects of the wokesters.

That the Declaration Independence, the “manifesto” referred to was written by imperfect people, sinners, is not a revelation to any Christian but what ought to be appreciated and heralded is that “manifesto”spoke to all people and the operating document of the nation which the “manifesto'” founded, the US Constitution, provided for the abolition of the slave trade at its inception and that was before England. The US was early on in setting the wheels in motion to end slavery.

Whites in this country largely fought a war to end its practice. Regrettably a political party – the Democrat Party – fought to maintain its vestiges long after they lost the war – and the association of so many of the race wokesters with that party is stunning. The other part of the woke movement — the admitted socialists — are so anti-slavery they would make Americans, all races, slaves to the state, while hoping they will be in charge of course.

This white guy and my friends of color over the years doubtfully need lectures from a CEO of a digitized cork-board about how to get along and be fair to one another. Like (initial respondent) , that was instilled in us as part of our Western culture, Judeo-Christian derived upbringing. But I am an aged white guy so I can only be made to conform and any comment disparaged or ignored by the woke crowd extolling the riots and reparations. But let this be notice that you wokesters are welcome to expiate all you want for your sins but don’t bring the rest of us into your self-flagellation.

And then there is the irrationality of using Mr. Floyd’s death as a cause celeb for injustice when the wheels of justice, bringing any criminal wrongdoing by the police toward him, are in motion and by any standard aggressive. (We will see if it is to the detriment of justice). To use his death where justice is being served to perpetrate so many injustices and wrongful deaths on the communities experiencing the riots and destruction is evil. Support for it, or excuse making for it , kowtowing to it exposes the dullness of character of the woke.

Assuming that the woke crowd believes they already know all they need to know I will leave the folks wandering onto this board for a household tip, those not subject to or impressed by the preening by the wokesters, with this reference to an instructive article about the ridiculousness of the fury of the woke. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/anonymous-berkeley-professor-shreds-blm-injustice-narrative-damning-stats-and-logic

Wokestere 1 responds to Yours Truly

I was referring to Mr. Reagan’s original post as a “manifesto,” not the Declaration of Independence.

Wokester 4 probably responds to Yours Truly

Why are you so troubled with residents of the USA finally awakening to the idea that we do not have to perpetuate such abhorrent treatment of fellow humans?

Just because the U.S. may not be alone in enslaving others, racism and keeping a knee on the neck of “the other”, why do you take issue with being “woke” enough to end it on our soil? Why not start here?

You make it sound as if we should throw up our hands because “everybody” has done it and it’s a near impossible abhorrence to end so don’t even think about trying. This slavery, racism, bigotry are baked in, so just leave it alone?

That’s thinking small and reeks of someone enjoying their privilege and desperately clinging to it.

Wokester 5 (female, responds to Person and or  Yours Truly

I think you are expressing an idealism that we wish existed for all. In reality, unfortunately it does not

Wokester 4 responds to Yours truly

Let me suggest that you over simplify the meaning of “privilege” being discussed today. You seem to end it at economics. Dig deeper.

Going back to things the way they were even three weeks ago means that “privilege” is never shared equally and the true issue merely gets conveniently buried again. The way “privilege” always allows over those without said privilege.
2 days ago

And so the thread ended.  Readers of V’PAC will see that the wokestrs engage to a greater extent but it should be noted that as for  approval ratings indicated by “up-marks” the conservative views carried at least twice as many. There is a message there just not sure what.

*She is a CEO in that I presume the board is monetized through advertising revenue associated with the reach of the site. Personally we are not inclined to link via the site.

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These are all excellent but not without a few demurrals, or adds we would impart here and there:  From The Federalist and Townhall

Research Finds Lockdowns Are Far Worse For Health And Lives Than Coronavirus 

Why aren’t the epidemiological models used to justify the lockdowns also accounting for the grave public health risks of prolonged closures?

How Our Anti-American Education System Made Riots Inevitable

Rioting social justice warriors are remaking the world as they see fit, consistent with what they’ve been taught from K-12 to the highest echelons of learning.  . . .

Left brain-left brain, left brain behind reasoning

SCOTUS’s Transgender Ruling Firebombs The Constitution

The ruling will lead to a tsunami of polarizing court cases and further degradation of Americans’ natural rights to free speech, to free association, and to worshipping God as their consciences require.   . . .

Supreme Court Validates LGBT Protections On Grounds LGBT Activists Reject

The recent SCOTUS decision seems like an LGBT victory, but not so fast. By linking the rights of gay and transgender people to sex, the left has bound itself to whatever definition ‘sex’ takes on.

The Deadly Art of Lying by Omission 

You can tell a lie by saying something patently false.  Or you can lie by omission, which can be just as dishonest.

“Fatal police shootings impervious to protests,” said the Washington Post front page headline last Tuesday. “Nearly 1,000 killed every year despite nationwide push for justice reform.”

The article feeds the narrative of excessive, racially motivated police violence by omitting a crucial factor:  the incidence of crime. It leaves the impression that police routinely shoot people, especially blacks, for no apparent reason.

There is one outburst of candor, buried inside: “The overwhelming majority of people killed are armed. Nearly half of all people fatally shot by police are white. Most of these shootings draw little or no attention beyond a news story.”  No kidding.    . . . .

Two Supreme Court Justices Shred Their Counterparts for Failing to Protect the Second Amendment 

“The text of the Second Amendment protects ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.’ We have stated that this ‘fundamental righ[t]’ is ‘necessary to our system of ordered liberty.’ Yet, in several jurisdictions throughout the country, law-abiding citizens have been barred from exercising the fundamental right to bear arms because they cannot show that they have a ‘justifiable need’ or ‘good reason’ for doing so,” Thomas wrote.

“One would think that such an onerous burden on a fundamental right would warrant this Court’s review. This Court would almost certainly review the constitutionality of a law requiring citizens to establish a justifiable need before exercising their free speech rights,” he wrote. “And it seems highly unlikely that the Court would allow a State to enforce a law requiring a woman to provide a justifiable need before seeking an abortion. But today, faced with a petition challenging just such a restriction on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, the Court simply looks the other way.”

How To Get Your High Schooler A College Degree At No Or Low Cost

With dual enrollment, high schoolers can be introduced to college-level material to fulfill course expectations while living at home and with a class load paced to that student’s ability.

V’PAC —

Most liberal arts curricula could be “delivered” and at much cost savings via the Internet. College costs could be much reduced if only essential ‘in person and lab related , practicums, etc were the focus. Community colleges are underfunded, the university concept should be much altered.

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“Mad Dog’s” leash held by big-government deep-state

One sort of exception, Mad Dog James Mattis, essentially fired by both Obama and Trump, picks the deep state as his focus of allegiance.  Media will bankroll his appearances as long as he is critical of Trump.

This collection of insightful articles about Trump’s military critics are from The Federalist and American Thinker. The first two authored by Andrea Widburg, an informative and  prolific writer at AT.   Bold our emphasis.

There’s a cancer amongst the pensioners of the Pentagon

Colin Powell, who hasn’t voted for a Republican in the last 16 years, excited the mainstream media when he announced that he was again going to vote for a Democrat.  Powell is a joke, and probably a high-level leaker, so he deserves to be ignored.  However, he represents something more serious, which is retired admirals and generals using the goodwill they earned serving in the military in service to the Deep State.

Whatever respect I had for Powell died when I learned that he was one of the loudest voices telling Bush Sr. to pull out of the First Gulf War, allowing Saddam Hussein to stay in power and therefore contributing indirectly to the Iraq War.  I’ve also long suspected that he was the main source for Bob Woodward’s nasty Plan of Attack, which painted Bush as a dummy and Powell as a prescient saint.

The problem, though, isn’t Powell, who’s yesterday’s news.  It’s the long list of retired military officers attacking Trump, most of whom escaped Obama’s firing of almost 200 military officers. 

Those firings had the smell of a purge about them, especially considering Obama’s vision for the U.S. military.  His practical, strategic, and tactical demands on the military (e.g., draw-downs, aiding America’s enemies, unduly restrictive rules of engagement) and his extensive efforts to turn our military into a social justice experiment (e.g., women in combat, so-called transgenders in the military, etc.), hinted that his decisions about officers were not primarily aimed at ensuring that our military was the best, most honorable fighting machine in the world.  Obama had other goals in mind.

The most touted anti-Trump statement came from William H. McRaven, the admiral (now retired), who oversaw the Osama bin Laden mission.  It was under McRaven that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11, got a private, respectful burial at sea, one that ensured “that bin Laden’s body was be handled in accordance with Muslim traditions[.]”  How nice.

McRaven took to the pages of the New York Times last October to launch a fiery attack against Trump for announcing that he was going to pull U.S. troops out of Syria.  To McRaven, that made Trump such a disastrous president that he should be removed — “the sooner, the better.”  Language like that has the smell of a military coup about it.  Oh, and Trump did pull out those U.S. troops, saving lives.  He also ordered a hit on Qassem Soleimani, saving more lives. 

General Barry McCaffrey (ret.), a Clinton White House holdover, is also an anti-Trump hysteric.  When Trump announced that he didn’t want to have the federal government (and American taxpayers) pay for the New York Times and Washington Post, McCaffrey called it a “watershed moment in national history,” and said Trump was Mussolini:

The White House Trump statement telling the entire Federal Government to terminate subscriptions to the NYT and Wash Post is a watershed moment in national history. No room for HUMOROUS media coverage. This is deadly serious. This is Mussolini.
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) October 25, 2019

Can you imagine being led into battle by a man so easily given to hysterical exaggeration?

To understand the nonsense from the next Deep State military official, a little context is necessary.  Last year, Trump ordered special forces to kill Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whom Obama had released from Camp Bucca in 2009.  Baghdadi, an ISIS leader, was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and was a sexual sadist, among other things.  Trump, understanding that Arabs are a shame-based culture, made sure the world knew that Baghdadi was not a hero or a martyr at the end, but was a miserable coward, whining and crying, frightened of a dog, and hiding behind a child.

Obama’s Joint Chiefs vice chair, Admiral James Winnefeld (ret.), was appalled that Trump treated a sadistic mass murderer with so little respect.  According to Winnefeld, Trump should have shown that human piece of trash the “respect that is due under Islam.”  (Now do you know why Winnefeld and Obama got along?)

And of course, there’s James Mattis, who got the treatment he deserved from Marine captain John M. Dowd (ret.).

Democrats are undoubtedly planning on using all these NeverTrump Democrats to support Biden.  The media will troop these retired officers out in their snazzy uniforms and make much of their service.  When they do so, it’s up to you to remember who these men are and what they value.

We can honor them for their service, but we need to recognize that this does not make them intelligent or even decent men.  Just think of John McCain, an arrogant military officer; an incredibly brave POW; and a vicious, petty, disloyal RINO politician.

One retired Marine isn’t putting up with Mattis’s nonsense 

• Ret. Marine general James Mattis, who served as Trump’s defense secretary, resigned over a year ago but has apparently been nursing a grudge since then.  Last week, he took to the pages of the left-wing Atlantic magazine to air that grievance.
• Mattis revealed a small mind.  His facts were wrong and his arguments foolish and simplistic.  The Democrat media, of course, celebrated the article despite its fundamental flaws.  Retired Marine captain John M. Dowd, however, decided that he wasn’t going to sit there and take that nonsense, so he struck back.  What he wrote is red meat for conservatives and Trump-supporters.
• To understand what Mattis wrote for the Atlantic, you have to know that while he does love the Marines, he’s a leftist at heart.  He supports the global warming agenda, is hostile to Israel, shied away from fights with the mullahs, wanted so-called transgenders in the military, wouldn’t leave Afghanistan, and ultimately quit because he wanted to keep U.S. troops in Syria (reminder: the disaster leftists predicted for Trump’s pullout never materialized).

• If you need more evidence that Mattis is a leftist politician, he hung out with limousine leftists:
• Jeff Bezos threw a party at his newly renovated Washington DC home last night.

Yes, Lauren Sanchez was there.

Also in attendance:

Ivanka Trump

Jared Kushner

Kellyanne Conway

Bill Gates

Mitt Romney

Jim Mattis https://t.co/2MrqWiiKi4
• — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 26, 2020

• It came as no surprise to those who understand the real Mattis, rather than the propaganda version, that he was smarting at his inability to drive Trump into the arms of the Deep State and is worried that Trump will be re-elected.  That’s why he decided to use the Atlantic to denounce Trump as a threat to the Constitution.  So he authored an insanely stupid manifesto.
• The manifesto opens with Mattis calling looted stores, burning cities, and dead police officers “a small number of lawbreakers.”  He ignores the fact that Trump has done nothing to stop the protesters from having their say and has, in fact, completely respected federalism by leaving the states to handle matters, warning only that if chaos threatens, he has the legal authority to step in and will do so.
• Mattis’s little lecture about using the military carefully is redundant.  Trump knows and has already acted consistently with this knowledge.
• Mattis blathers on about Trump fostering disunity, ignoring that leftists have played “resistance” theater since Trump’s election.  Mattis seemingly missed the inauguration day marches, the spying, the Russia hoax, the Kavanaugh slander, the Ukraine hoax, Pelosi ripping up Trump’s State of the Union speech, etc.  The attacks have never stopped, but Trump has still managed to focus on the American people’s welfare.
• As if to prove that he now hangs out only with leftists, Mattis concludes with Trump’s walk across the park to a historic church that “peaceful protesters” had tried to burn to the ground.  To Mattis, this was an abuse of presidential power.  Sigh.  If the lunkheaded former general expanded his friendship circle, he’d know that the park service had no contact with Trump and was fighting back against protesters pelting officers with dangerous projectiles.
• Mattis may also be part of yet another, broader resistance attempt.  There’s a rumor afoot that Anderson Cooper is planning to attack Trump through a town hall with leftist military men who hate him:

CNN person w/ direct knowledge: @andersoncooper has been planning a town hall for months w/ Gary Cohn, Jim Mattis, John Kelly & McMaster to air in September. They will make stuff up & say that Trump is unfit for office. Mattis & Kelly signed on. Cohn & HR on the fence.
• — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) June 5, 2020

• Cooper doesn’t understand that conservatives will not be impressed.  They really hate leftist officers, for they understand that these men are political panderers, the lowest of the low.
• Still, military men have each other’s backs, so until a couple of days ago, there was no pushback from people who ought to recognize Mattis for the Benedict Arnold he is.  Finally, though, retired Marine captain John M. Dowd, a former Marine Corps judge advocate and a Trump attorney, had enough.  He wrote a letter aimed directly at Mattis’s honor.
• Dowd’s letter is savage.  You can tell that it was written in a white-hot passion.  He talks about Obama’s forcing divisions on the country, about the revolting attacks Democrats have launched at Trump every day, and about Trump’s prison reform being better for the black community than anything Obama did.  Then he goes in for the kill, directly castigating Mattis for being too much of a political coward to take out Qassem Soleimani, even as the Iranian general was killing American troops all over the Middle East.  It’s a mean letter, and Mattis deserves every word of it.
• I thought this letter from respected retired Marine and Super Star lawyer, John Dowd, would be of interest to the American People. Read it! pic.twitter.com/I5tjysckZh
• — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020

• Jim:
• I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset. You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation – earned with the blood and guts of young Marines.
• You did what you said you would – engage in this discourse. Marines keep their word.
• The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate-filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the 1900 curfew. Jim, this is the new nihilism. See Dan Henninger in WSJ today.
• Marines support the police in harm’s way.
• Did you forget that President Bush used active duty Marines to quell the riots in LA? President Trump has countless cities and some snowflake governors and mayors wetting themselves in the use of force to protect innocent lives and property. The AG of Massachusetts thinks burning property is good protest. Three more policemen were stabbed and shot in NYC last night.
• Think about it. Should he be upset about the obvious failure of leadership? Where are you Jim?
• Marines go to the fight.
• No one divided this country more than Obama. He abandoned our black brothers and sisters. He gave guns to the cartels. He  apologized for our precious sacrifice and generosity overseas. You remember, he fired you.
• President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last fifty. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. He got them funded. Ask them about the prison reform which ended the draconian sentences imposed on young black men by the laws enacted by Biden and his hacks. You need to bone up on your homework and stop listening to Uncle Leon.
• I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy the President, his office, and his lawful free election. Nancy has no tolerance for dissent in the ranks – including those with stars.
• You said nothing of the ugly, hate filled, disgraceful comments of Pelosi, Schumer, Perez and other Democrat hacks defaming the President and his office. You said nothing of the unlawful sanctuary cities and the unlawful release of hoodlums. You said nothing of the resistance movement to paralyze our courts and our government operations. You said nothing of the obstruction and subversion of our immigration laws. You said nothing of MS-13 killers and the drug cartels who own huge sections of our major cities. Jim, do you thin that hateful rhetoric and those corrupt actions were inspiring and unifying? Do you think the DI’s at Parris Island would find such behavior as unifying?
• Maybe, your problem, is a lot deeper. Perhaps you ought to explain how and why you (and John Allen), as CG Central Command, did not engage and take out Iranian Major General Soleimani who roamed the Middle East and wreaked havoc and death of our American boys with his infamous IEDs?
• Why did it take President Trump to have the instincts and balls to take him out (of course over the objection of the geniuses in the Pentagon)?
• Looks like the Persian mullahs were a one horse sleigh and Trump nailed the horse . . . forever. It has been quiet ever since. Perhaps, your anger is borne of embarrassment for your own failure as the leader of Central Command. Did you applaud when the President recognized the central problem in the middle east? Did you applaud the President when he wanted to save American lives by bringing them home in one piece?
John M Dowd

No, West Point Grads Don’t Need To Learn Anything From The Resistance

The contradiction between their virtue-signaling platitudes and what they say reveals the hypocrisy of these ‘concerned’ graduates of West Point.

By John Lucas and James R. McDonough at The Federalist

Last Thursday, a group of West Point graduates calling themselves “Concerned Members of the Long Gray Line” published an open letter attacking, without directly naming, President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (West Point class of 1986), and several other members of the class of ’86 who have served in the current presidential administration. The letter was coyly framed as advice to this year’s class of West Point graduates, but it’s clear the intent is to generate negative news coverage of their political opponents. It worked.

CNN and other media outlets gleefully republished excerpts of the letter, happy to portray Pompeo and the other West Pointers in the administration as deceitful, oath-breaking toadies who have made a “Faustian bargain and endeavor to please their commanders and advance their careers” at the expense of troops in combat.

The letter’s clear message is that Pompeo and the other West Pointers in the Trump administration are dishonorable deplorables who have failed to uphold West Point’s motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” not to mention their oath of office and the Constitution. The “Concerned Members” would have us know that by making their “Faustian bargain,” these failed fellow graduates “prize loyalty to individuals over the ideals expressed in the Constitution.”

The American people should not be duped. This is utter nonsense. It is both false and not representative of West Point graduates. Make no mistake about it: although ostensibly addressed to the graduating class of 2020, the ultimate target of this political screed is not them, or even Pompeo or his West Point classmates. It is the current commander in chief.

Although the signers attempt to portray themselves as pure and motivated by only altruistic motives of “Duty, Honor, Country,” their letter is part of a dishonest and hypocritical effort most likely intended to promote the “Resistance.”

These People Don’t Represent West Point

Who are these “Concerned Members”? With approximately 500 supposed signatories as of the time the letter was published (less than 1 percent of living West Point graduates, according to data from a source at West Point’s Association of Graduates), this article will not try to characterize each person. But we know something about many of them. Some are Democrat politicians. Some are self-styled members of “the Resistance.” At least one was booted out of the Army early.

Some are blatant hypocrites. We know that because while proclaiming their courage and what they say is their “lifetime commitment is to the enduring responsibility expressed in the Cadet Prayer: ‘to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong,’” they were too cowardly to sign the letter. Fifty-nine identified themselves only as “Anonymous.”

Similarly, although their letter clearly is an attack on the president and Pompeo and other accomplished West Point graduates, the authors engage a ruse of their own by not naming their targets, thus attempting to retain a patina of deniability. They are not exactly Horatius at the Bridge.

The Military Is Legitimately Used to Stop Riots
We also know they are not the least bit concerned with the next phrase of the Cadet Prayer that they quote: “never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won.” That is because they dishonestly accuse the president of threatening “to use the Army in which you serve as a weapon against fellow Americans engaging in these legitimate protests.” No honest person could join in that calumny.

First, federal troops have been routinely deployed to quell domestic civil unrest and riots, beginning with Shay’s Rebellion in 1786. The reader may well wonder if the “Concerned Members” are equally incensed by President Eisenhower (West Point class of 1915) having deployed the 101st Airborne when the governor of Arkansas and white supremist mobs sought to block black children from attending Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957.

Second, and fundamentally, the inflammatory assertion that threatening to use federal troops against innocent and “legitimate protests” is a falsehood. As we know, the administration considered deploying troops to protect American citizens and their property, not from “peaceful protestors,” but from mobs that were killing, beating, burning, and looting. This mayhem and insurrection occurred while numerous elected “leaders” stood idly by or actively excused and encouraged their orgy of destruction.
The inclusion of this falsehood in the letter also casts a dark shadow over the authors’ proclamation, “We will not tolerate those who ‘lie, cheat or steal.’” Indeed, the contradiction between their virtue-signaling platitudes and what they say reveals the “Concerned Members’” hypocrisy.

This Isn’t Advice, It’s Propaganda
The “Concerned Members’” presumptiveness in thinking that it is necessary for them to supplant the four years’ of ethical and leadership training at West Point is sorely misplaced. Could the signatories really believe that in the past four years, West Point, this hallowed institution—with all its historical traditions, strong leadership, and ethical underpinnings—failed to get that essential point across to the newly minted lieutenants in the class of 2020? Do these young officers really require a reminder from the Resistance that they have taken an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and that they must not betray that oath by selling their souls to the devil?

The answer to that is apparent. The letter reveals itself as propaganda. It is not a necessary letter to newly minted lieutenants about to take up the burden of faithfully performing their duty of accomplishing the assigned missions and of defending honorable subordinates.

Instead, it is a political statement, another in a string of engineered statements presuming all is wrong with America save for the dedicated few who view themselves as keepers of the flame and resisters of the unworthy deplorables now serving in positions of great responsibility in government.

Such a letter does not serve well those to whom it is ostensibly addressed. The new officers from the West Point Class of 2020 can be trusted to do their duty well, to face the daily challenges they are bound to meet in war and peace, and to know the difference between right and wrong. They will serve our country well, as West Point graduates have done for more than 200 years, despite this self-serving and unnecessary letter.

John Lucas is a practicing attorney in Tennessee who has successfully argued before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted man and then graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger and fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. Col. (Ret.) James R. McDonough is a West Point graduate, class of 1969. He is the author of the book “Platoon Leader,” a memoir of small unit leadership in combat in Vietnam that is studied at West Point and in ROTC today and since its publication in 1985.

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Posted at the recommendation of HP, this excellent  Zerohedge promulgated item speaks truth to the cancel culture/politically correct/moral preening/ fascistic — dominant leftist academia and media establishment about their actual illiberal grossly political bias and  intellectual vacuity.

By the way in an update at zerohedge a response by the Berkley History Histrionics Department confirms the validity of the understandably anonymous Berkeley professors criticisms. Note our annotations in parenthesis to their response

An anonymous letter has been circulating, purportedly written by a @UCBHistory professor. We have no evidence that this letter was written by a History faculty member.

(that would follow from the “anonymous” concept

We condemn this letter: it goes against our values as a department and our commitment to equity and inclusion.

— UC Berkeley History (@UCBHistory) June 13, 2020

(they condemn it without any rebuttal and end the discussion wrapping themselves in a claim of equity and inclusion (just not for Ms/Mr Anonymous)

Excellent letter to be long referred to as an indictment of so much of current academia and political correctness. Bold emphasis in the original. Images not.

UC Berkeley History Professor’s Open Letter Against BLM, Police Brutality and Cultural Orthodoxy

Dear profs X, Y, Z

I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely, and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job, and likely all future jobs in my field.

In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.

In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.

Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or ‘Uncle Toms’. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.

The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians. Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse.

A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email. Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black.

Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict. This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries.

And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation that appeals to the department’s apparent desire to shoulder the ‘white man’s burden’ and to promote a narrative of white guilt.

If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it’s fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. “Those are racist dogwhistles”. “The model minority myth is white supremacist”. “Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime”, ad nauseam.

These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to silence and oppress discourse. Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are, common to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.

Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM’s problematic view of history, and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position, which is no small number.

I personally don’t dare speak out against the BLM narrative, and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type.

The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people. There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.

No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence. This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders. Home invaders like George Floyd. For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald’s and Wal-Mart. For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.

The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn’t led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices – as do Nigerian Americans, who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department. The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession.

Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention, and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter, an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately redirected to ActBlue Charities, an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates. Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades; the ‘systemic racism’ there was built by successive Democrat administrations.

The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence. This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent in academic circles. I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you.

The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes, carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed.

There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called ‘race hustlers’: hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal political entrepreneurship.

Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth, we can regard ourselves as a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically segregationist.

MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today. We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?

As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children, playing no part in their support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer, a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors.

And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his name to virtual sainthood. A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department, corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA, he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise. Americans are being socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist. A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species.

I’m ashamed of my department. I would say that I’m ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid, as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It’s hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.

It shouldn’t affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color. My family have been personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM, that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life, is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.

The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating. No other group in America is systematically demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.

No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites. If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.

I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda and the Party’s uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd’s death and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end.

I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she is free.

/end

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• Pushes voting before debate concludes
• Builds in opportunities for fraud, intimidation and vote harvesting
• Too bad Paul Pate was not primaried

This captioned image, adapting a quote attributed to V.I. Lenin regarding capitalists, is further adapted from ThePeoplesCube.com graphic. It pretty much sums up the stupefying actions of Iowa Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate and to a considerable extent the Iowa House of Representatives and our Republican Governor  in promoting absentee voting and vote by mail.

The use of state funds to promote primary voting, which is and ought to be primarily  a function of  the political parties, is in our judgement an improper use of taxpayer dollars and, on at least superficial initial analysis, may be constitutionally suspect, more likely in particular if it evolves into what was proposed in Democrat controlled California, actually sending vote by mail ballots to every “registered” voter.

The thing is that while only request forms were sent by Pate TO EVERY REGISTERED VOTER WITH POSTAGE PAID RETURN ENVELOPES, for a PRIMARY, the justification for doing so is easily extended to universal vote by mail in the general, pandemic or not.   The Republican Senate to a limited extent voted to stop the practice for good reasons, but the Republican House has “compromised” to make the rope softer. It was a pathetic display in the House.

We will have more to say about this, and lost opportunities at the Republican State Virtual Convention today, in a coming post.

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Where are the objective historians, the church defenders the culture champions in residence?

We bet they would take a walk if ANTIFA/BLM decided to TEAR DOWN THAT SYMBOL OF REPRESSION

They have already sold ANTIFA the rope* to pull down the statue of St Ambrose

The one and only good thing about COVID  19 is that it has presented  an opportunity to defund the education establishment, particular a large part of the liberal arts delivery system – lecture halls

With the recent, even more intense anarchist (ANTIFA/BLM) rioting – more so than the spate a few years ago ,”back in ’17” we are “surprised” (not) that the rioters have neglected the St Ambrose statue prominent on the Locust Street main campus  in Davenport.

We are not all that surprised because 1) the killing, shootings and damage done here was the result of thugs taking the opportunity of political hyperventilating as cover for an unfocused wilding, and perhaps some good old looting, not legitimate racism angst  2) even the legitimate marchers were intellectually vacuous and inconsistent *** 3) what fun is defacing or tearing down a statue not known to be seriously honored by the owners

Our sentiment in that later regard might be understood from a few commentaries we posted in the past, including this one from ‘back in ’17”:

Bishop Zinkula, President Lescinski — Tear Down that Statue!!*

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• In for a dime in for a dollar

Los Angeles Reparations Mint announced

Recently Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti gave a figure that maybe ’bout $250 mil will do it to buy “an end to racism” in his town. And, as he notes, $150 million would be easy to get by just drastically cutting the police department budget for L.A.

However, Bob Johnson* , the founder of BET, the Black Entertainment Television network, has a bigger idea… as he outlined it to Bret Baier recently on Fox.

Bob’s idea, apparently to buy ‘peace’, if not to ‘end racism’ in America, is quite a bit bolder than the ‘well intentioned’ mayor of Los Angeles.

The self-made billionaire, Johnson, thinks, instead of Garcetti’s ‘miserly’ $250 million for America’s second largest city, pocket change per black Angelino, a figure more like $350,000, as an outright cash grant for every African-American in America would do the trick.

As he told Bret Baier, while the cost of that might run around $14 trillion for the whole country, it would sure pay for a lot of “reparations” that white folks owe to their black fellow countrypersons!

Presumably that $14 trillion would also buy that desperately sought after ‘peace’ we all want.
…………………
*Miller, Matthew (May 6, 2009). “The Wealthiest Black Americans”. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved September 21, 2013. “… Robert Johnson became the first African American billionaire in 2000 after he sold the network to Viacom for $3 billion in stock and assumed swag. Since then, sagging Viacom and CBS stock, plus investments in real estate, hotels and banks … have dragged Johnson’s net worth to $550 million, we estimate.”
………………..

“What you are talking about here, this proposal that you have put forward today, is reparations for (40 million) African-Americans, at the sum of about $14 trillion, with a T., dollars.”

Full transcript, via FOX News:

Figure that’s about $70 G’s per African -American  Angelino. That’s a tidy sum to give each black citizen, if that’s the mayor’s intent.

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• Smack-down comes to the DC Archbishop
• Archbishop Viganò response to counter Archbishop Gregory

Here at Veritaspac.com we have been very critical of the current Pope in particular for his pronouncements that condemn market freedoms (instead of encouraging them for the reduction in real poverty they produce), his extolling of features of one-world government, his hostility toward borders, his palpable disdain for our elected President Trump, his anti-science hysterical views about climate change, and more.

But we do not believe the Pope is the church.  If that is heretical so be it, but we do not claim infallibility on anything.  Lest we be misunderstood there are prelates within the Church and many priests we have known over the years, that we much admire for their pastoral effectiveness and their, in our opinion, more authentic Catholic Christian witness.

The link below explains the reaction from the usual suspects regarding President Trump’s and the First Lady’s visit to two churches near the White House that were damaged by ANTIFA rioting. The uncharitable, unpastoral, ignorant ingrate comments of Archbishop Wilton Gregory needed responding to by one of the cloth. Archbishop Viganò did the Church proud.

Statement by CV President on Trump Visit to JPII Shrine

Trinity Sunday letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America to President Trump

June 7, 2020     Holy Trinity Sunday

Mr. President,

In recent months we have been witnessing the formation of two opposing sides that I would call Biblical: the children of light and the children of darkness. The children of light constitute the most conspicuous part of humanity, while the children of darkness represent an absolute minority. And yet the former are the object of a sort of discrimination which places them in a situation of moral inferiority with respect to their adversaries, who often hold strategic positions in government, in politics, in the economy and in the media. In an apparently inexplicable way, the good are held hostage by the wicked and by those who help them either out of self-interest or fearfulness.

These two sides, which have a Biblical nature, follow the clear separation between the offspring of the Woman and the offspring of the Serpent. On the one hand there are those who, although they have a thousand defects and weaknesses, are motivated by the desire to do good, to be honest, to raise a family, to engage in work, to give prosperity to their homeland, to help the needy, and, in obedience to the Law of God, to merit the Kingdom of Heaven. On the other hand, there are those who serve themselves, who do not hold any moral principles, who want to demolish the family and the nation, exploit workers to make themselves unduly wealthy, foment internal divisions and wars, and accumulate power and money: for them the fallacious illusion of temporal well-being will one day – if they do not repent – yield to the terrible fate that awaits them, far from God, in eternal damnation.

In society, Mr. President, these two opposing realities co-exist as eternal enemies, just as God and Satan are eternal enemies. And it appears that the children of darkness – whom we may easily identify with the deep state which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days – have decided to show their cards, so to speak, by now revealing their plans. They seem to be so certain of already having everything under control that they have laid aside that circumspection that until now had at least partially concealed their true intentions. The investigations already under way will reveal the true responsibility of those who managed the Covid emergency not only in the area of health care but also in politics, the economy, and the media. We will probably find that in this colossal operation of social engineering there are people who have decided the fate of humanity, arrogating to themselves the right to act against the will of citizens and their representatives in the governments of nations.

We will also discover that the riots in these days were provoked by those who, seeing that the virus is inevitably fading and that the social alarm of the pandemic is waning, necessarily have had to provoke civil disturbances, because they would be followed by repression which, although legitimate, could be condemned as an unjustified aggression against the population. The same thing is also happening in Europe, in perfect synchrony. It is quite clear that the use of street protests is instrumental to the purposes of those who would like to see someone elected in the upcoming presidential elections who embodies the goals of the deep state and who expresses those goals faithfully and with conviction. It will not be surprising if, in a few months, we learn once again that hidden behind these acts of vandalism and violence there are those who hope to profit from the dissolution of the social order so as to build a world without freedom: Solve et Coagula, as the Masonic adage teaches.

Although it may seem disconcerting, the opposing alignments I have described are also found in religious circles. There are faithful Shepherds who care for the flock of Christ, but there are also mercenary infidels who seek to scatter the flock and hand the sheep over to be devoured by ravenous wolves. It is not surprising that these mercenaries are allies of the children of darkness and hate the children of light: just as there is a deep state, there is also a deep churchthat betrays its duties and forswears its proper commitments before God. Thus the Invisible Enemy, whom good rulers fight against in public affairs, is also fought against by good shepherds in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is a spiritual battle, which I spoke about in my recent Appeal which was published on May 8.

For the first time, the United States has in you a President who courageously defends the right to life, who is not ashamed to denounce the persecution of Christians throughout the world, who speaks of Jesus Christ and the right of citizens to freedom of worship. Your participation in the March for Life, and more recently your proclamation of the month of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, are actions that confirm which side you wish to fight on. And I dare to believe that both of us are on the same side in this battle, albeit with different weapons.

For this reason, I believe that the attack to which you were subjected after your visit to the National Shrine of Saint John Paul II is part of the orchestrated media narrative which seeks not to fight racism and bring social order, but to aggravate dispositions; not to bring justice, but to legitimize violence and crime; not to serve the truth, but to favor one political faction. And it is disconcerting that there are Bishops – such as those whom I recently denounced – who, by their words, prove that they are aligned on the opposing side. They are subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches.

The American people are mature and have now understood how much the mainstream media does not want to spread the truth but seeks to silence and distort it, spreading the lie that is useful for the purposes of their masters. However, it is important that the good – who are the majority – wake up from their sluggishness and do not accept being deceived by a minority of dishonest people with unavowable purposes. It is necessary that the good, the children of light, come together and make their voices heard. What more effective way is there to do this, Mr. President, than by prayer, asking the Lord to protect you, the United States, and all of humanity from this enormous attack of the Enemy? Before the power of prayer, the deceptions of the children of darkness will collapse, their plots will be revealed, their betrayal will be shown, their frightening power will end in nothing, brought to light and exposed for what it is: an infernal deception.

Mr. President, my prayer is constantly turned to the beloved American nation, where I had the privilege and honor of being sent by Pope Benedict XVI as Apostolic Nuncio. In this dramatic and decisive hour for all of humanity, I am praying for you and also for all those who are at your side in the government of the United States. I trust that the American people are united with me and you in prayer to Almighty God.

United against the Invisible Enemy of all humanity, I bless you and the First Lady, the beloved American nation, and all men and women of good will.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana

Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

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Obianuju Ekeocha @obianuju:
There is more Kente fabric in this picture than at a Ghanaian traditional wedding.

In a video of this ‘photo op’ (wasn’t Trump recently criticized for a “photo op”?), poor Nancy needed a lot of help to get up from this exhibition. Dumpy Jerry Nadler didn’t even kneel…surprise! And old Chuckie did his best three point stance, waiting for Nancy to snap her bra strap.

We note that Pudge Nadler seems to have put the weight back on having done so well to prep himself for the cameras during the impeachment circus.

And the poor lady behind Nancy , try as she might, as shown in various video clips, was unsuccessful in hiding her black underpants.

The delicious quotes we led with are from Obianuju Ekeocha, hers and commenters to her Twitter site.

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For those who might be critical of my distaste for “Mad Mutt” Mattis, I ‘ll take Sebastian Gorka’s views any time. D.    (pic and meme not in original)

Great America
General Mattis Has Betrayed the Marines and America  

Marine legend Maj. Gen. “Chesty” Puller

Yes, Mattis is wrong. But more than that, he is a moral coward.

I’m not a Marine, but I know the Marines. With 12-and-a-half years teaching the U.S. military under my belt, I can sincerely say, hand on heart, that the two-and-a-half years I spent at the “Crossroads of the Corps,” teaching at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, were the most meaningful and fulfilling of all. What I learned there leads me to the ineluctable conclusion: Jim Mattis is no Marine.

“Mad Dog” may have worn the uniform of a leatherneck for more years than most, but he has betrayed the values of the Corps by his recent statements about the sitting commander-in-chief. He is no longer one of “the Few, the Proud,” having accused President Trump of somehow violating “the Constitutional rights of . . . fellow citizens” by walking to St. John’s Episcopal Church the day after “peaceful” protestors tried to burn the church to the ground. It’s the same church that every incoming president of the United States has stopped to pray in and show his respects on the morning of his inauguration.

Do I have a right to criticize a man like Mattis? A man allegedly called “Mad Dog” and “Chaos” by his peers? No, I never served in the U.S. military. My only military experience is a few years in the British Army reserves. Once I came to America, however, I twice took the oath of service to my new nation. Once when I joined the Defense Department as a civilian, and then again in 2017 when I joined the White House as a strategist to President Trump.

And even if none of that were true, I would still feel a duty publicly to censure Mattis for a personal reason: because of what I learned from the Marines I have worked for and with over the years. Their love of America and their respect for the truth demand that we react to such reprehensible behavior from a retired general officer who knows better.

Mattis gave his holier-than-thou “statement” to the rabidly anti-Trump platform The Atlantic, which in and of itself is more than strange given that he was a sworn officer of the Trump Administration—a member of his cabinet—as President Trump’s secretary of defense. Did he not know who he was going to work for when he agreed to be his secretary of defense? And why did the condemnation of his former superior, the commander-in-chief appear now, exactly at a time which is so advantageous for the political forces that wish to see the president weakened just months before the election?

Here I could devote paragraphs to my experience of the general and flag officer corps during my time in the Department of Defense and White House. I might tell you how the Clinton, Obama, and even Bush Jr. years fostered an environment of political generals and admirals driven more by groupthink and Beltway conformity than a duty to professional standards of conduct and the truth. But Mattis’s sin is far more egregious than just being a politically motivated “yes man.” He has betrayed the ethos of the Corps.

“We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate,’” Mattis said. Why? Is it because he doesn’t like the president? It is because Mattis is on the side of the rioters?

Shouldn’t a general, retired or otherwise, know that a president’s primary responsibility is the security of the citizens of our nation? It is possible that Mattis is unaware of the dozens of times U.S. presidents—Democrat and Republican—have used the military domestically to keep us all safe, from quelling rioters to responding to disasters?

From Woodrow Wilson, who sent units to 20 cities to end anarchist violence, to Herbert Hoover, who used the military to disperse protestors on the Washington Mall? If he does know of this history, then why is this emergency with violence spreading across the country any different? Is it because of who the president happens to be? Have the streets not become a “battlespace” when at least 13 innocent Americans have been slaughtered in less than 13 days—five of them black, by the way—including a 77-year-old retired police captain?

Yes, Mattis is wrong. But more than that, he is a coward. No, not in any sense related to his military service. I have no evidence to the effect that in a firefight with real bullets he wouldn’t acquit himself like a man. No, I am not referring to physical courage, but moral courage.

Instead of staying in his professional lane, and for example, extolling the men and women of the National Guard who have been deployed across Democrat-run cities to protect Americans of all hues, or decrying rioters who taunt them and call them “fascist pigs,” Mattis chooses to attack the president, calling his actions an “abuse of executive authority,” and calling for Americans to “reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” How interesting.

Mattis is not young. He has been a public figure for several years. In all those years, he chooses only now to be concerned with “abuses of executive authority” and officials who make a “mockery of our Constitution.” Well, sir, America would like to know where your “public statements” of concern for both were when the last occupant of the White House used his executive powers to have the IRS target Conservative organizations associated with the Tea Party? Where was your outrage, General, with those who mocked the Constitution by reneging on the president’s duty to protect Americans at home and abroad as Ambassador Chris Stevens was tortured and killed in Benghazi with three other Americans and then afterward would blame that Jihadist attack on “spontaneous rioters” reacting to a YouTube video?

Where were you, Mad Dog, when your previous employer, Barack Obama, used the full might of his “executive authority” to “make a mockery of our Constitution” by targeting a retired three-star general with all the tools available to the FBI and Department of Justice, an innocent man who had served his nation in uniform for almost as many decades as you? Why no lengthy diatribes to The Atlantic then? Did you only find your conscience after President Trump fired you?

How convenient. How unlike a Marine. How distinctly a rejection of Semper Fidelis.

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