It’s Monday, June 15th, 2020…but before we begin, this headline from FOX News offers further evidence choices and actions have consequences, at least for Republicans, as a…

Virginia GOP congressman who officiated same-sex wedding loses primary battle

“A first-term Republican congressman in Virginia who drew the ire of social conservatives in his district for officiating a same-sex wedding lost his party’s primary on Saturday. Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., lost a GOP convention Saturday that was done via drive-thru because of the coronavirus pandemic. He lost to Bob Good, a former official in the athletics department at Liberty University and a strong social conservative.

…Riggleman, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, upset many Republicans in his district last summer when he officiated the wedding of two male campaign aides. President Trump endorsed Riggleman, as did Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr…”

Assuming Riggleman’s officiation wasn’t mere politically-correct pandering, here’s to him acting on his principles.  But the fact remains, unlike those of his district, they certainly aren’t Conservative principles; so here’s to Democracy in action!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, since we’re on the subject of politically-correct pandering, WBAL TV ‘s Kata Amara is reporting Maryland Dimocratic congressman Dutch (pronounced “doosh”)…

Ruppersberger calls to remove names of Confederates at Naval Academy

USNA is home to two buildings named after Naval officers who fought for Confederacy

“…Ruppersberger [newly-elected chair of the USNA Board of Visitors] said the Pentagon should consider removing Confederate names from all military bases as Americans across the country rise up against decades of racial inequality and police brutality. “This isn’t about erasing history,” Ruppersberger said in a statement. “We simply shouldn’t lift up traitors who fought against American values like equality and tolerance.”

The academy superintendent’s residence, which hosts thousands of visitors from around the world each year, is named after Franklin Buchanan, who left to join the Confederate Navy at the start of the war. The academy’s Weapons and Systems Engineering division is housed in Maury Hall, named after Confederate fighter Matthew Fontaine Maury.

“There has been discussion of renaming these buildings since at least 2017,” Ruppersberger said. “As the new chairman, the time for discussion is over. It’s time for action. Midshipmen who have earned the privilege to study in one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions should not have to walk around campus and see buildings named for men who fought to uphold slavery and promote white supremacy…”

We don’t know who is the more ignorant: Ruppersberger or the reporter.  After all, Ruppersberger has been on the Academy’s Board of Visitors since 2009, which provided him plenty of time to familiarize himself in general with the annals of the institution he purports to protect, and more particularly those whose character he so disingenuously recounts.  Then again, would it be asking too much for a “journalist” to delve into the background of the subjects of her story?

At the risk of being labeled a racist, we offer a few brief facts in defense of Franklin Buchanan and Matthew Maury.

Buchanan was one of the guiding forces behind the creation of the United States Naval Academy, his efforts being initially recognized when he was appointed its first Superintendent.  And while Maury, too, was a proponent of a Navy equivalent of West Point, his fame came in the area of science, being considered today the Father of Oceanography.

Here’s the juice: ALL of their contributions to the Academy were made prior to the first shots being fired in The War Between the States.

Though Buchanan was a native Marylander, and Maury born and raised in Virginia, we could find no record of either man owning slaves.  Both were career officers in the Naval service, yet both left to join the Confederacy.  What’s most important is an understanding of what led both to do so.  And the answer lies in the very history Dutch (rhymes with “douche”) Ruppersberger may not wish to erase, but which he willfully ignores or has no interest in learning.

Though Ruppersberger and the curiously uninquisitive Ms. Amara may not know it, prior to and during the Civil War, the average American male was fiercely loyal to his native state. Thus did Robert E. Lee write after being offered command of all Union forces in the field:

“I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword.”

Buchanan resigned his commission in anticipation of Maryland’s imminent secession, while Maury, like Lee, followed Old Virginny.  Once he realized Maryland would not secede, Buchanan in fact sought reinstatement, but was rebuffed by the rather vengeful Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who observed stated he didn’t want “traitors or half-hearted patriots” in the service.

Slavery was certainly at the heart of the issue of States Rights, and together they created the fuel without which the Civil War would not have been ignited.

But to dismiss the contributions of Buchanan and Maury to the Naval Academy while ignoring the circumstances and history surrounding their decisions to fight on the side of the Confederacy is sheer ignorance.  To suggest they fought to “promote white supremacy” is character assassination.

In a closely related item courtesy of James Nichols, writing at The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh offers a troubling forecast suggesting there be storm clouds on the national horizon:

It Is Time To Face The Facts. We Cannot Be United.

“One of the first articles I wrote for The Daily Wire was a typically optimistic and cheerful piece titled “The United States Of America No Longer Exists.” It was not met with a warm reception by many readers, who understandably found it to be a tad bleak. Three years later, it brings me no pleasure to say, “I told you so.”

My basic thesis in that piece was that our country, though existing still as a legal and geographic entity, cannot be meaningfully described as “united.” We have nothing but the law and the land holding us together anymore. That is not enough to make a nation or a people. There needs to be something else. Some uniting principle. Some defining commonality that binds us. If we are going to be united, we must be united around something or by something.

Today, all of this holds true, only more so. The key difference between now and three years ago is that we no longer have the law. Between the unconstitutional lockdowns and the sudden abandonment of those policies in order to allow rampaging leftist mobs to wreak havoc in the streets for weeks on end, the rule of law has broken down. (Or been deliberately dismantled!)

…If we cannot be united around tradition, language, or heritage, and we also cannot be united around a shared belief in freedom and human rights, then what is left? We would appear to be, already, two different countries. Or perhaps several different countries. Even that may be an overly generous way of describing our current state. Really, when a man tells me that he believes babies aren’t people, biological sex doesn’t exist, men can get pregnant, police departments should be abolished, America is racist to its core, and I am a white supremacist because I disagree with him on these points, I find myself questioning whether we are from the same planet, or the same universe, let alone the same country. That is how absolutely opposed we are, on all levels, with almost no common ground, or shared frame of reference.

It is not hard to see why our debates are fruitless and our conversations go nowhere. We are speaking different languages, both literally and metaphorically. We are a people divided by gaps that cannot be closed. There is no bridge that can connect the Left to the Right. (Save God Himself through his ONLY Son Jesus Christ!) The differences are too deep, too wide. (Primarily because Socialists know so much that just isn’t so!) For unity to occur, one side or the other must simply abandon almost everything they believe and profess, and join the ranks of the other. That is not likely to happen any time soon. So the divisions will remain, and grow deeper, and we will be less united over time.

I don’t know where to go from here, or how to fix it, or if it can be fixed at all, but I know that any path forward must begin with an honest assessment of the situation. This is my honest assessment, for what it’s worth.“

To borrow a phrase from The Bard, “Aye, there’s the rub”!  For the odds of finding an honest Socialist are about the same as discovering chastity in a cathouse.

Since we’re on the subject of dissimulating Socialists, courtesy of Tom Bakke, ZeroHedge‘s Tyler Durden relates how a letter, purportedly written by an…

Anonymous Berkeley Professor Shreds BLM Injustice Narrative; Berkeley Responds

“U.C. Berkeley’s history department has issued a statement regarding the anonymous letter, and instead of addressing – or inviting a vigorous debate over its content, Berkeley’s response validates one of the letter’s core claims that dissent outside “a tightly policed, narrow discourse” is not welcome…”

And while we question the accuracy of one sentence contained in the letter, specifically the writer’s assertion, “Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently” (Objection, your Honor, the statement assumes facts not in evidence!), the rest is dead on, balls-accurate.

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

Then there’s these from Balls Cotton…

…four more from Ed Hickey…

…a couple from Shannon…

…and one each from Jeff Foutch…

…Fielding Cocke…

…Peter Jameson…

…Speed Mach…

…and last, but certainly not least, Bad Bill:

Finally, we’ll call it a day with the Real Estate Section, and this just in from merry old England, where a…

Woman claims her home won’t sell because of interior design

“…In 2014, Young listed the house, hoping to use the money to open a bed and breakfast nearby. Unfortunately, only one person has viewed the house, and did not end up buying the property. Young thinks that the unique way she decorated the house might have something to do with the apparent lack of interest.

She told The Sun, “I love my house and the house really works for me. I’m a colorful person and I even have pink hair. I like it more and more as I get older. I made this house around my own life and I wasn’t thinking about it being sellable. We’re living like two children in a doll’s house and in retrospect why would anybody else want to buy it?”

The interior of the house features bright colors and unique furniture, light fixtures and floor designs.

Young, who makes pottery and lives with her musician husband, says she has no plans to change the house’s design, however. “I just thought it might go to a mad collector of my work who might want to buy it, but no one was interested,” she explained…”

Okay, so we’ve rarely seen more…exotically…decorated domicile; but it’s not like the Young’s have a master bath with rose-tiled walls and zebra-skin toilet seat and lid!

Oh,…

Magoo

P.S. We’re withholding any comment on the shooting of Rayshard Brooks until all the facts are in, but don’t discount the possibility the inflammatory language of BLM might have led Brooks to believe the mythology law enforcement waging war on Black males.  In the meantime, our advice would be, upon failing a sobriety test after being wakened by police while found asleep at the wheel in a fast-food drive-thru, DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, WRESTLE AWAY an officer’s taser while RESISTING ARREST, let alone point and fire it at the pursuing policemen while fleeing the scene.

We’ll leave you with this video from G. Trevor of the Milwaukee police chief following a 2014 police shooting in his city:

Powerful stuff: and yet, though six years have passed, the more things change, the more they remain the same, as two Sundays ago in Chicago provides the perfect example of what set Chief Flynn off.

This doesn’t make Rayshard Brooks any more…or less…deserving of death than George Floyd, but it DOES highlight the curious indifference to Black-on-Black homicides exhibited by those claiming a corner on outrage over slain Blacks.

Just sayin’!