A wise man ought not to desire to inhabit that country where men have more authority than laws.
—Walter Rayleigh
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Category Archives: Government
Cui Bono?
Politico has finally got around to admitting that Hunter Biden’s laptop isn’t a fake. Why now, a year late?
I suspect it’s part of a exercise in battlefield preparation for the coming crisis over presidential disability. By whom? For what intended purpose?
Hmmmmm.
A Thought Experiment
Pretend you are member of the armed forces out on the pointy end of the spear—a pilot, paratrooper, submariner, etc.—and you found out that your senior commander had promised to give a potential enemy commander advanced warning that you were being sent on an operation against him. How might this affect you confidence in your chain of command?
Airtight Proof That Xiden’s Wuhan Virus Mandates Are Wrong
Paul Krugman thinks they’re a good idea.
I’m Not Making this Up, You Know
The National Archives has placed potentially harmful language warning on the Constitution of the United States.
About That Speech Yesterday
I wasn’t able to listen to Joe Xiden’s Wuhan Virus speech as he gave it, but I’ve reviewed it. It’s hard to follow what little logic is there, but the TL/DR seems to be—L’état, c’est moi.
But perhaps that would be better phrased 我是國家。
Pushback
The Xiden administration announced today that it will sue Texas over the SB8 abortion law, and His Fraudulency himself announce a package of patently illegal and unconstitutional Wuhan-Virus-related mandates and rules to promulgated.
This evening multiple state governors have announced their intentions to sue the federal government to protect their states’ citizens from Joe Xiden’s lawlessness.
UPDATE—The list as of 9 pm ET:
South Dakota
Texas
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Alabama
Wyoming
Tennessee
Nebraska
Idaho
Iowa
Georgia
Missouri
Arizona
Mississippi
Utah
Indiana
UPDATE 2—More States:
Florida
Montana
North Dakota
Arkansas
UPDATE 3—
West Virginia
Alaska
It Isn’t Exactly An Abuse of Authority
Most of the Wuhan Virus mandates announced today by Joe Xiden are being denounced as abuses of authority. However, one cannot abuse authority one does not have.
Usurping authority one does not have is arrogance.
Xiden has set himself—and the country—up for another failure.
Quote of the Day
Any system of economics is bankrupt if it sees either value or virtue in unemployment. We simply cannot check inflation by keeping people out of work.
—Jimmy Carter
Quote of the Day
We must understand something very thoroughly. If society — if the state gives the rights, it can take them away — they’re not inalienable. If the states give the rights, they can change them and manipulate them. But this was not the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights — this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have — even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.
—Francis Schaeffer
A Phone Call With A Foreign Leader
Reuters reports the transcript of Joe Xiden’s 23 July phone call with Afghan President Ghani contains the following—
Biden: Mr. President, Joe Biden.
Ghani: Of course, Mr. President, such a pleasure to hear your voice.
Biden: You know, I am a moment late. But I mean it sincerely. Hey look, I want to make it clear that I am not a military man any more than you are, but I have been meeting with our Pentagon folks, and our national security people, as you have with yours and ours, and as you know and I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there’s a need, whether it’s true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.
Wow! It’s a good thing he didn’t ask Ghani to do something such as conducting an investigation. That would have been an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor.
Joe Xiden Gave Another Speech Today
His lips were moving.
Everything Is Proceeding As I Have Foreseen
I wish I were wrong, but I’m not.
I understand the frustration of the actual warriors feel because of the incompetence of the the generals and admirals who are supposed to be leading them. I turned down a promotion to major and left the Army Reserve rather than continue to serve under Carter’s Pentagon crowd.
I foresee that Carter’s second term was much too optimistic an expectation for the Xiden Administration. Let’s pray that we can still avoid the likes of Buchanan’s second term.
The Next Few Years …
… will very likely be difficult. The catastrophes of the the Buchanan and Carter Administrations occurred during the final years of their terms. We have not been so fortunate this time.
Not Just Clueless But Lawless Too
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has granted the application to vacate the stay in enforcing the lower court’s order terminating the CDC’s eviction moratorium. (Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs.)
In a per curium order the Court states:
It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID–19 Delta variant. But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. Cf. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 582, 585–586 (1952) (concluding that even the Government’s belief that its action “was necessary to avert a national catastrophe” could not overcome a lack of congressional authorization). It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.
***
If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it. The application to vacate stay presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted.
So ordered.
The three dissenters were Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Government Censorship
Joe Xiden’s initial response to Peter Alexander’s question was to smirk. His Fraudulency’s microphone was then switched off so that his vocal response was not part of the event audio feed. Bravo to Mr. Alexander for reporting Xiden’s snide remark.
Not Just Clueless But Lawless Too
The Supreme Court has denied a request for a stay pending appeal of the injunction requiring the Xiden Administration to reimplement the remain-in-Mexico requirement for asylum seekers entering the country at the southern border. A U.S. District Court found that the Xiden Administration broke law in promulgating its preferred policy. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s finding.
Leaks in the Memory Hole
Too many of the wrong people have been caught up in the Afghanistan fiasco for The Media to quietly go along with the Xiden Administration’s attempts to edit the news. During the long war, reporters who spent time in Afghanistan made friends among the Afghan people. Other reporters have college friends or family members working with NGOs in the country. These personal connections to real people in real distress are The Media them to challenge Xiden’s spin.
Here are a couple of examples.
The Guardian has reported in a significant difference between the American and French governments’ version of the minutes of a phone call between Joe Xiden and French President Macron. A British newspaper is reporting on the French lecturing us on moral behavior.
The White House’s readout of a call between Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron on the crisis in Afghanistan leaves out an impassioned plea from the French president that the US and its allies have a “moral responsibility” to evacuate Afghan allies.
ABC has now published the entire transcript of the Xiden interview conducted by George Stephanopoulos, including about 1,000 words that were edited from the broadcast version. The full version simply makes Xiden look even less prepared to handle the crisis.
People who haven’t been to Room 101 yet tend to be supportive of friends and family, even over the demands of the Inner Party.
Another Tough Decision
Or maybe not.
On the Effectiveness of Masks
City Journal has a post by Jeffrey H. Anderson that examines the actual published medical literature on the effectiveness of face masks in preventing the spread of viral infections. Here’s the TL/DR—
In sum, of the 14 RCTs {randomized controlled trials] that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive.
That appears to be consistent with the basic physics of how filters work.
Above Average Performance
Here’s the latest chart on the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics—
Over the past 20 years, the CPI has increased at an annual rate slightly greater than 2.1 percent.
Did I mention that Carter’s second term is probably the best-case scenario?
Math is Hard—Logic is Harder—and Facts are Stubborn
Today, Joe Xiden said that 350,000,000 Americans have now been vaccinated against the Wuhan virus. Here’s a snapshot of the U.S. Census Bureau’s online population clock taken at 12:18:39 ET this afternoon—
His Fraudulency is also encouraging those Americans who haven’t yet been vaccinated to get their shots.
I was going to write a longer post about vaccination records possibly being processed by the people who counted votes last November, but I’ve got real work to do.
Is it 2025 yet?
Biden Channels Jackson
The Supreme Court has made its decision, now let them enforce it.
—Andrew Jackson
Should There Be a Nobel Prize for Hubris?
A good line from Kevin Williamson: “People who are high achievers in one field mistakenly believe that they possess a kind of generalized cleverness applicable to other areas of endeavor — call it Krugman’s Fallacy.” (H/T, Jim Geraghty)
A Supply Chain War Story
The Daily Signal has a post up about What the Pandemic Can Teach Us About Vulnerabilities in Our Defense Supply Chain. Everyone understands the need to get ammunition and food up to the front lines, but many people are surprised about how critical batteries are.
Numerous forms of military equipment are battery-powered, including night vision goggles, radios, and weapon optics. Complex platforms, from fifth-generation stealth fighters to submarines, all use batteries.
Batteries will play an even bigger role in the future of military technology. The Army is considering adding electric vehicles into its fleet in order to reduce its dependency on fuel. The Marine Corps is testing miniature drones that can be launched from the underbelly of a rifle. The Air Force is looking to field a body-armor cooling system in order to combat extreme heat.
Batteries have been a critical supply item for decades.
Here’s my war story. Well, it’s really a war game story.
Back in the ’70s, I participated in a war game exercise. The scenario was a Second Korean War, and I was tasked with keeping the internal communications systems operating for a deployed airborne division and between the division and its higher headquarters. Keeping the forward units supplied with batteries required the Air Force to provide airlift from the west coast equivalent to a C-130 flight every day. We were able to reduce that load on the Air Force by “buying” commercial batteries on the civilian market in Japan for use in equipment that used standard batteries.
That “worked” because we had an ally with major industrial capacity next to the combat zone. That may not always be the case. BTW, the major producer of batteries these days is … you guessed it … China.