It’s Wednesday, February 26th, 2020…but before we begin, G. Trevor recently related how his wife and he had recently enjoyed the five-part HBO docudrama Chernobyl, and we were struck by the shocking comparison just waiting to be drawn between the deadliest nuclear power disaster in history and the latest outbreak of the coronavirus.

Think about it: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China…Chernobyl and the coronavirus…two totalitarian states more than willing to sacrifice an unknowable number of innocent lives to preserve a fabricated image of social superiority and scientific advancement.

And now, one of two major political parties in the greatest country God ever shed His grace upon is about to nominate a fellow traveler as its candidate for President of the United States.

P.S. Though we’re not technically watching the “debate”, Bill Meisen has kept us updated on the unfolding clusterf*ck.  So, immediately upon the shouting match reaching matters Military, Bill noted Lieawatha was refusing to reveal on which side of the Little Bighorn her Great Great Grandpappy with the high cheekbones fought.

In any event, here’s the juice, also courtesy of Mr. Meisen:

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of again of G. Trevor and BizPacReview, what can only be classified as yet another case of Arkancide, as an…

Obama administration whistleblower found dead of reported gunshot wound

 

Haney’s untimely demise, particularly when viewed in context with the innumerable other acquaintances of the Clintons and Obamas who’ve come a cropper, brings to mind one of our favorite lines from Diamonds Are Forever:

For more on the subject of Phil Haney’s curiously-coincidental departure, consider the following submitted by our Uncle Cliffy.

Next, in a follow-up to our earlier observation Conservatives should welcome a Sanders-inspired take-over of the Dimocratic Party, writing at Townhall.com, Kevin McCullough suggests…

Stop It People! Democrats Deserve Bernie Sanders!

 

“…Face it, barring some radical recalibration, John F. Kennedy was the last moderate Democrat our society will likely see. From economic policy—be it taxes, government control and regulation—every Democratic administration since Kennedy got oppressively worse.

…But why is anyone surprised? (And why are Conservatives bemoaning the fact?!?)

…The increasingly noxious worldview that says “take more from people who earned it” and forcibly redistribute it to “those who haven’t” had to eventually lead somewhere. Apply that same idea to policies on the judiciary, immigration, national security, and social framework values and the fault lines pretty much reveal themselves.

Democrats have for decades (since JFK) admired godless socialism. They gift wrap it up in supposed compassionate humanism. But they are literally embracing authoritarian philosophies that have extinguished millions of lives. They’ve also lied about what it all means—especially during election cycles—knowing that middle of the road Americans wouldn’t quite be able to stomach it.

…In 2020 Democrats can no longer lie to voters. The base has moved their party, Bernie Sanders speaks openly—even cavalierly—to what they’ve come to expect, and he is now undefeated through the first three contests. He has actually—to date—won two more states than he had by this point in the 2016 cycle. And he is poised for blowout after blowout on Super Tuesday (California and Texas among them.)

But listen carefully, Americans, conservatives, independents and Republicans should welcome his ascendency, because at the very least, it’s honest. Elections by nature should serve as referendums on ideas.

Carter and Clinton pretended to be middle of the road but stacked our judiciary with radicals. Obama pretended to be the president of the “purple states of America,” but he himself was a radical, surrounded by a cabinet of radicals. These administrations despised the will of the American people while claiming to advance it.

In 2020, a Trump/Sanders contest will make the most honest, direct, and open debate our political body has observed in many decades of what ideas actually mean.

Should people get to keep what they earn? Or should they be forced to give $7 out of every $10 they earn to a centralized “Kremlin” that will then dole out “free benefits” to the people (usually on the basis and preference of the whim of those in power)?

Does the United States Constitution protect the right of free speech, particularly religious speech?

Do the people of the United States truly have the protected right to defend themselves by keeping and bearing firearms?

Should we empower the government to overtake the people’s decisions and lives?

Or should we empower the person to become the best that they can fully be?

These are just a handful of the contrasts that a Trump/Sanders head-to-head will give us.

It will force the American attention span to a place we only rediscovered in 2016. It will be a thorough debate between a man who’s never held a private-sector job, and a man who’s kept 104 campaign promises in his first job in politics.

America should welcome it. A fistfight of ideas, slugging it out as though everything in the future depended on it.

Because it does!“

It’s been 31 years since Reagan won the Cold War, so most people 50-and-under haven’t a clue as to what the Soviet Union and Communism is all about.  This ties in so well with China and the coronavirus: Millennials don’t understand a lot of bad sh*t (SARS, MERS, coronavirus) comes out of Communist China, whose inhabitants eat what are to us incredibly distasteful dishes…

…and whose densely-populated 1.4 billion urban inhabitants…

…present a perfect breeding ground for plague and pestilence.

You tell us: why the heck should we care if the Dimocratic Party goes the way of the Whigs, the Federalists and the Know-Nothings?!?  It will be replaced by a plethora of splinter, special-interest parties, putting responsible Republicans in a position to preserve the Constitution and the Founders’ Republic.  This is somehow bad for America?!?

Moving on, Jim Geraghty’s recent edition of the Morning Jolt deserves to be presented in its entirety, painting as it does…

Bernie Sanders’s Long Career

People Will Discuss ‘Ancient History’ When the Nominee Is an Ancient Candidate

 

“As winter turns to spring, and as spring turns to summer, prominent Democrats and left-leaning public voices will try to gaslight you. Some of the Democrats who are most worried about nominating Bernie Sanders right now will bury their doubts and objections down deep and insist that anyone who isn’t on board is some sort of unthinking lunatic, or that not being a Sanders supporter must reflect a complete endorsement of everything Donald Trump has done as president.

One of the arguments you are certain to hear in defense of Sanders, when others criticize his past stances and statements, is a variation of: “Why are you bringing up all this ancient history?”

The correct answer is: “Because you guys nominated an ancient candidate. You notice nobody’s talking about what Pete Buttigieg did in the 1980s.”

Bernie Sanders was born three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This means Sanders was 28 years old when he wrote: “The manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develop breast cancer.”

Sanders was 30 years old when he wrote his infamous op-ed about women’s rape fantasies.

He was 31 years old when he decided that George McGovern was too centrist for him.

He was 32 years old when he discussed eating placentas with a new mother on a Vermont commune. “How long after the birth were you eating the afterbirth? Don’t all mammals eat the afterbirth?”

He was 33 years old when he ran for a U.S. Senate seat while collecting unemployment benefits.

Sanders was 38 when he joined the Socialist Workers Party and became its presidential elector in Vermont for the 1980 election. The Socialist Workers Party’s candidate declared of the American hostages in Iran, “we can be sure that many of them are simply spies…or people assigned to protect the spies.”

He was 39 years old when he was elected mayor and received “his first steady paycheck.” (Think about how many steady paychecks you had collected by age 39, or how many you will collect if you’re younger than 39.)

He was a 40-year-old mayor when he declared at a United Way fundraiser, “I don’t believe in charities.”

He was a 44-year-old mayor when he told the Los Angeles Times that he espouses “traditional socialist goals — public ownership of oil companies, factories, utilities, banks, etc.” He was the same age when he asked, “We’re spending billions on military. Why can’t we take some of that money to pay for thousands of U.S. children to go to the Soviet Union?”

That was the same year Sanders traveled to Nicaragua and attended the rally led by Daniel Ortega. For what it’s worth, Kurt Eichenwald reported:

The Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,” while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

Sanders was a 46-year-old mayor when he decided that the University of Vermont Medical Center was no longer a tax-exempt institution in the eyes of the city and sent the hospital a tax bill for $2.9 million. Sanders declared, “There are a heck of a lot of people up there making a heck of a lot of money,” when a Superior Court judge ruled against the city on all counts, and the state supreme court ruled against the city as well.

He was at least 47 years old when he declared: “I have my own feelings about what causes cancer and the psychosomatic aspects of cancer.”

In 1994, then-53-year-old congressman Bernie Sanders voted for the crime bill — you know, the one everyone keeps giving Joe Biden grief about. The crime bill that created 60 new death penalty offenses under 41 federal capital statutes, the one that eliminated higher education for inmates, authorized boot camps for delinquent minors, and created fifty new federal offenses, including membership in a gang, and three-strikes provisions.

Bernie Sanders was 57 years old when, as a congressman, he tried to get nuclear waste from Vermont dumped in Sierra Blanca, Texas, a small, extremely poor, and mostly Latino town, which brought charges of “environmental racism”:

On May 11th, about a dozen activists met with Sanders at his office. The delegation included two University of Vermont students who had just completed a thorough analysis of the scientific arguments in support of the Texas dump; they found numerous unanswered questions and more than a few outright falsehoods in the proponents’ arguments. Several participants in the meeting were astonished by the “independent” congressman’s vehement and unrelenting support for shipping nuclear waste 2400 miles to West Texas. It was the best site geologically, he claimed, much better than having nuclear waste scattered across the country, and besides, how dare we accuse Bernie Sanders of environmental racism? The August meeting with the Texas delegation featured Sanders at his most obstinate, insisting that he’d done the right thing and that he was no longer interested in the issue now that the compact bill had passed the House.

Bernie Sanders was 62 years old when he voted against creating the Amber Alert system, contending “its sentencing provisions were an unconstitutional intrusion by Congress, taking power that should rest with the judiciary.” The bill passed the House 390 to 24 and the Senate 98–0.

None of these are the actions or statements of a confused, rebellious teenager. Yes, they date back to five decades ago, but the candidate has been around for almost eight decades. He was a grown man when he said and did these things, and they aren’t so easily dismissed as youthful naivete and indiscretions.

Let’s remember…lest anyone forget…Bernie and his bride spent their 1988 honeymoon in the USSR; after all, wasn’t every newlywed couple back then just dying to get into Yaroslavl?!?  Dying to get out, yes…sometimes literally; dying to get in…not so much.

Since we’re on the subject of matchless material for Trump campaign commercials, also courtesy of his Morning Jolt, Jim notes recent Sanders statements indicate electoral math may not be Bernie’s strong suit, as he provides The Donald Exhibit “A”… 

Hey, Who Needs to Win Pennsylvania, Anyway?

 

“The Democrats appear to be on the verge of unofficially conceding the state of Pennsylvania in 2020, nominating a man who pledges to ban fracking. Don’t take it from me, take it from Democrats in the Keystone State…”

…and Exhibit “B”:

Hey, Who Needs to Win Florida, Anyway?

 

“The Democrats appear to be on the verge of unofficially conceding the state of Florida in 2020, nominating a man who believes that Fidel Castro doesn’t get enough credit for all the good things he did…”

A huge tip of the hat to the incomparable Stilton Jarlsberg for the Treasure of the Sierra Sanders rip-off.

Speaking of the repercussions of Socialism ascendant, in today’s installment of the EnvironMental Moment, FOX News informs us…

‘Berkeley of the East’ seeks to ban fossil fuels as part of sweeping climate plan

 

“A small Maryland enclave known as the “Berkeley of the East” has devised a bold climate plan that would ban gas stoves, leaf blowers and water heaters, according to a report.

Liberal Takoma Park’s action plan, which would also close gas pipelines (none of which actually pass through this bastion of EnviroFascism!) and force gas stations to relocate, is designed to eliminate fossil fuels to help save the planet, The Washington Post reports. The town of 17,000 just outside Washington, D.C., first burnished its liberal credentials nearly four decades ago by declaring itself a “nuclear-free zone.”

The non-binding plan is expected to be adopted by Takoma Park’s City Council on March 4. But the Post reports that even in a city where, as one resident put it, “the political spectrum spans Bernie to Warren,” there are detractors. “The number of times the word ‘require’ is used in this is stunning,” said resident Maxine Hillary at a public hearing last week, according to the paper. During her remarks, she criticized the fossil fuel ban as “insensitive and draconian.”

Hillary also took aim at the resolution’s call to make composting mandatory. “Don’t tell me what to do with my table scraps,” she told lawmakers, according to the paper.

…Takoma Park officials said the cost to the average homeowner could reach $25,000, the Post reported.

Supporters include the Committee on the Environment, an advocacy group made up of Takoma Park residents. John Ackerly, who is a co-chair, was quoted by the Post as saying that he has been “shocked” by some friends and neighbors skeptical of the plan, with some expressing fears of an impending ‘LED police‘.“

Imagine that!  To mangle a phrase from James L. Petigru, Takoma Park’s too small for a country, but perfectly-sized for an insane asylum!

Meanwhile, despite this 17,000-person sanitarium seeking to save the planet by banning pipelines which don’t exist, our next item from Jeff Foutch informs us the world’s two largest carbon-spewers don’t seem to share their concerns, as…

China and India Are Rejecting Renewables for Coal-Fired Futures

 

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Then there’s this series of memes from Mark Foster…

…along with this one from Balls Cotton:

Finally, we’ll call it a day with yet another titillating tale torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter, courtesy today of an Absolut ass:

United Passenger Assaults Air Marshal, Says She Wants to ‘Stab Everyone‘

 

“An apparently intoxicated woman faces charges – including assault of a federal air marshal – after causing a major disturbance Saturday aboard a United Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Washington-Dulles International Airport. The woman, identified as Dana Ghazi Mustafa of North Carolina, faces a maximum penalty of eight years in prison if convicted.

…She first was found in the lavatory attempting to smoke after crew members were alerted that a smoke detector in the bathroom had been activated. She was escorted back to her seat without incident, according to Fox News.

After flight attendants saw her crying, Mustafa said she was flying home to see family following the death of a loved one in a drunk driving incident – which she later admitted was a lie. So the crew moved her to a more comfortable seat, which apparently was a problem as she allegedly punched the seatback television and threw a coin at the bulkhead.

Finally, she again tried to enter the restroom and was seen with a lighter in her hand. Flight attendants tried to stop her but she managed to get into the lavatory but could not close the door. Two federal air marshals then jumped into action; the woman repeatedly kicked the air marshals until she was subdued and handcuffed, seated next to the marshals for the remainder of the flight.

The marshals found a half-empty liter of Absolut vodka in her bag. Mustafa said she was allowed to drink her duty-free bottle of vodka on a previous flight.

Mustafa also threatened to stab the air marshal and said: “I’m going to stab everyone on the plane then kill myself. I’m Palestinian! That’s how we get down,” according to court documents.“

At least she got that last part right!.

Magoo