Trump has sought to spin around concerns about his authoritarian instincts by accusing Biden of acting like a dictator or undermining democracy. He has repeatedly accused Biden of spearheading political prosecutions, though there is no evidence of White House involvement in the four criminal cases against Trump.
This has become a favorite locution since the 2020 election, about which we were endlessly told that there was "no evidence" of fraud or bad practices. In fact there is nearly endless evidence about it; what there wasn't was a formal inquiry that could turn evidence into proof. This is because courts resolved questions on issues like standing or timing, avoiding evidentiary hearings. But we never had proof that Saddam stole his 97% victories either; we just had evidence, evidence of exactly the same kind as we have about 2020.
As for these trials, there is also evidence that the Biden administration is involved.
The House Judiciary Committee is investigating a top prosecutor on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Trump for his past work as a senior Justice Department official during the Biden administration. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland turn over records related to the employment of Bragg prosecutor Matthew Colangelo amid a "perception" of coordination.
The Post knows about this, because they wrote a story claiming to debunk what they described as a "theory."
Among them: the idea that President Biden’s Justice Department was involved in the successful Manhattan criminal prosecution of Trump. (Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts last week.) Trump has long blamed Biden for this prosecution, without any evidence.
The evidence that Garland didn't dispatch him to assist is, by the way, that Garland denies it. Of course you should believe the word of a public servant like Garland, or any FBI or ATF agent for that matter. So there's no evidence for the 'theory,' but Garland's denial is firm evidence.
It's science, you know. Political science.
Salisbury to AshevilleTrain: 3 hours and 35 minutesCar: 2 hours and 10 minutesBus: 3 hours and 30 minutes
Raleigh to AshevilleTrain: 6 hours and 47 minutesCar: 3 hours and 50 minutesBus: 6 hours and 20 minutes
Charlotte to AshevilleTrain: 4 hours and 26 minutesCar: 2 hours and 10 minutesBus: 2 hours and 55 minutes
So it's objectively worse on every option, as well as extremely expensive. (They're not even offering a comparison to flight times: Charlotte to Asheville is a route I fly regularly, and it takes about 30 minutes although you have to factor in security and other things too.) But it's a train, and good people love trains.
Look, I like riding on trains too. It's peaceful and kind of a pleasant throwback to an earlier time. However, this isn't Europe, and trains just aren't practical in most of America.
OK, this is going to sound a little hypocritical, as I have hard-recommended every activity and pursuit, every wellness wheeze and rejuvenation exercise the modern world has dreamed up.... at some time or another, I have insisted to anyone who will listen that it’s only their failure to incorporate, say, a horse into their weekly schedule that is standing between them and their best self.
The mechanism is incredibly simple: you embark on this voyage of self-improvement, and more or less immediately see results. You feel stronger and more energetic, probably your mood lifts, and pretty soon you think you are master of your own destiny. You’re still not, by the way: destiny does not care about your step count. But until that fact catches up with you, which it may never, there you are, high on self-righteousness. You can tell this has happened to you when you start inhaling performatively, like the hero of an Ayn Rand novel.Inescapably, you start to situate other people’s problems within their failure to be as fit as you. This is particularly true if you don’t know them and they’re just a bunch of numbers. All those statistics – depressed people, obese people, people with IBS – imagine how much better they would be if only they took responsibility for their health, the way that you have.
I realise it’s not really a question of an unwitting slide into fascism, hastened by a treadmill. It’s more that there is a fixed amount of excellence in any self, and the more you spend on your biceps, the less you have for your personality.
Maxine Waters: “I am going to spend some time with the criminal justice system, with the justice system, asking them, ‘Tell us what’s going on with the domestic terrorists. Are they preparing a civil war against us? Should we be concerned about our safety? What is he doing with this divisive language? It is dangerous, and we’re going to have to make sure that we understand, uh, that we’re not at risk with this man talkin’ in the way that he’s doing.'”
Emphasis added.
INSURRECTION: Anti-Israel protesters burn UC Berkeley police vehicle with ‘incendiary device’ in ‘retaliation’ for arrests. Have you noticed that MAGA people don’t “retaliate” for arrests?
Berkeley and Yale students are aspirants to the ruling class, and usually also children of it; they're not a threat even if they actually firebomb police. The ones you've got to watch are the ones who aren't already powerful and privileged.
UPDATE: Ayaan Hirsi Ali argues that those students are part of active subversion on the Soviet model.
Living in the West in 1983, Bezmenov gave a lecture in which he explained “Psychological Warfare, Subversion, and the Control of Society.” It begins:
Subversion refers to a process by which the values and principles of an established system are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to sabotage the existing social order and its structures of power, authority, tradition, hierarchy, and social norms. It involves a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system, often carried out by persons working secretly from within. Subversion is used as a tool to achieve political goals because it generally carries less risk, cost, and difficulty as opposed to open belligerency. The act of subversion can lead to the destruction or damage of an established system or government. In the context of ideological subversion, subversion aims to gradually change the perception and values of a society, ultimately leading to the undermining of its existing systems and beliefs.
The accompanying chart would seem to locate us in the "destabilization" phase, which last 2-5 years; ours started in 2020 with the BLM protests/riots and the Covid lockdowns (which, one recalls, made exceptions for the BLM protests), and now continues with these pro-Hamas protests. Assuming the chart were accurate, the next phase is 'crisis' (2-6 months) followed by Big Brother cementing its gains into a new, normalized system.
"I am not saying that Bezmenov’s formulation explains all that we are seeing. It clearly does not address all the West’s problems," she writes. "But once I immersed myself in his formulation, many of the topsy-turvy developments in our institutions fell into place."
Well, or it could be paranoia, which is to be staunchly resisted. But the riots are real enough, and the government continues not to enforce the laws upon them -- though they maintain a weather eye for any counterrevolutionaries that might emerge on the other side. Perhaps that's just a coincidence, though, class privilege playing out as I was discussing in the original post.
Of the 17 percent who thought that was a fine idea, there was an overwhelming favorite for who gets tossed from the moving vehicle: California.Yes, the Golden State was the choice of a whopping 53 percent of respondents who thought yanking a star off the flag would make the world a better place.New York came in second with 25 percent of votes, and Texas was third at 20 percent.
I don't know why anybody would want rid of Texas. The Reason article also links a very helpful map ranking the states by freedom (New Hampshire is #1: Live Free or Die!).
The thing is, we don't actually have a mechanism for any of this. We have very clear standards for admitting new states. There's no apparent mechanism for releasing states that want to leave, or expelling states against their will.
A political project of mine is to restore the defunct state of Franklin, made up of parts of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Franklin would be pose a challenge to New Hampshire's #1 ranking as freest state, as the political culture of Appalachia has little enough use for governments. There is a constitutional mechanism for that, though it's a long shot: it needs approval by both houses of Congress as well as both the NC and TN legislatures.
So who are the martyrs of Uganda? Now, that's a story you won't hear in these times, at least not from Fr. James Martin, SJ.
When preparations were completed and the day had come for the execution on 3 June 1886, Lwanga was separated from the others by the Guardian of the Sacred Flame for private execution, in keeping with custom. As he was being burnt, Lwanga said to the Guardian, "It is as if you are pouring water on me. Please repent and become a Christian like me."Twelve Catholic boys and men and nine Anglicans were then burnt alive. Another Catholic, Mbaga Tuzinde, was clubbed to death for refusing to renounce Christianity, and his body was thrown into the furnace to be burned along with those of Lwanga and the others. The fury of the king was particularly inflamed against the Christians because they refused to participate in sexual acts with him.
I suppose it's a sort-of equality to recognize that homosexuals can be just as bad as anyone else. In any case, today is the feast day.
A statement from Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said that Chancellor Joe Gow was terminated on Dec. 27 following a unanimous vote from the UW Board of Regents.“In recent days, we learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the university to significant reputational harm,” Rothman said. “His actions were abhorrent.”UW System Regent President Karen Walsh echoed this sentiment in a statement, saying Gow showed “reckless disregard for the role he was entrusted with,” and that the board is “alarmed, and disgusted, by his actions, which were wholly and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor.”The firing comes after it was discovered that Gow had been producing and publishing pornographic content with his wife. The couple posts explicit content on X and porn websites, and hosts a YouTube channel called “Sexy Healthy Cooking,” which shows videos of them cooking alongside other porn actors and actresses.The couple have also published two books under the pseudonyms Geri and Jay Hart, which they note “are the pen names of a married woman and man who serve in executive positions at two well-known organizations in the U.S.” on their Amazon author biography.
Gow maintains that his actions are protected by the First Amendment, especially since he allegedly did not mention his position with the university during his pornographic work.
The Battle of Tegyra in 375 B.C. proved that the legendary Spartan army could be defeated.A thousand Spartan soldiers, trained for combat from the age of 7, were returning from an expedition when they stumbled on a much smaller force from the rival city of Thebes. Rather than retreat, the Theban infantry charged, pulling into a close formation and piercing the Spartan lines like a spear. The Spartans turned and, for the first time ever in pitched battle, fled.The most fearsome military force of its day had been defeated by the Sacred Band of Thebes, a shock troop of 150 gay couples.
This is almost true. The only thing that isn't quite is the description of the homosexual pairs as "gay," which is definitely a modern phenomenon that had nothing to do with their particular expressions. Plato described the ethic, though he was not speaking of the Sacred Banders but of an imaginary force.
Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live at principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love.
Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any one else. The beloved too, when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover. And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him. That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.
The concept here is not necessarily homosexual at all; the idea is that since your lover would be watching you, you would not do any base thing like flee or throw down your arms. You would strive for honor, because you would want to be seen at your best while your beloved was watching. The beloved could be heterosexual just as well, but in the world before firearms women generally were not going to be effective on the field of armed and armored combat. Yet the basic concern was one of pursuing the heights of honor and avoiding anything dishonorable, which pursuit we know from Aristotle's description of magnanimity to be the capstone of virtue.
Unconsidered by Plato is the danger posed to unit cohesion by pairs of lovers who are loyal to each other in a way they aren't loyal to the rest of the band. Likewise, of course, the disruptive effect of introducing sexuality into a close unit like an infantry squad, where competition to be the beloved of an especially desirable soldier could tear the unit apart. (This has been a much bigger problem with the heterosexual soldiers since the introduction of women as well as gays to the military, simply because a single woman attracts almost all the male soldiers, whereas a gay soldier is mostly unattractive to the other males).
The Sacred Band contested the latter problem by recruiting established couples rather than a free-for-all 'singles' environment. They had an impressive battlefield record, eventually being destroyed by Alexander the Great's forces.
