It’s Wednesday, July 1st, 2020…but before we begin…regarding John Roberts siding with the Penumbras Emanating from William O. Douglas’s sphincter on the recent Louisiana abortion decision, Townhall.com‘s Cortney O’Brien observed…

“But it was Roberts’s vote on this Monday morning that convinced conservatives he will never be on their side, and regret that President George W. Bush ever uttered his name.“

Truth be told, it was Robert’s vote which caused Conservatives to regret they’d ever heard the name BUSH!

Meanwhile, as this meme from Shannon cautions…

…it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

And given the abysmal performance Joe Biden put on earlier today, when it comes to November, the fat lady hasn’t even begun to warm up; wait until he’s forced to answer some unscreened, chin music questions.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, courtesy of New York Magazine‘s Intelligencer via Speed Mach, Andrew Sullivan…(yes, for those who know him, that Andrew Sullivan) wonders aloud of his fellow travelers…

You Say You Want a Revolution?

“One of the things you know if you were brought up as a Catholic in a Protestant country, as I was, is how the attempted extirpation of England’s historic Catholic faith was enforced not just by executions, imprisonments, and public burnings but also by the destruction of monuments, statues, artifacts, paintings, buildings, and sacred sculptures. The shift in consciousness that the religious revolution required could not be sustained by words or terror alone. The new regime — an early pre-totalitarian revolution imposed from the top down — had to remove all signs of what had come before. The items were not merely forms of idolatry in the minds of the newly austere Protestant vision; they also served to perpetuate the rule of the pope. They could be occasions for treason, heresy, and sin.

The impulse for wiping the slate clean is universal. Injustices mount; moderation seems inappropriate; radicalism wins and then tries to destroy the legacy of the past as a whole. The Taliban’s notorious destruction of the great Buddhas of Bamian in Afghanistan was a similar attempt to establish unquestioned Islamic rule. “Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to Allah that we have destroyed them,” Mullah Mohammed Omar explained. This was the spirit of Paris in 1789 as well. “If we love truth more than the fine arts,” the Enlightenment figure Denis Diderot remarked, “let us pray to God for some iconoclasts.” (He was also the lovely chap who insisted that “humankind will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” And in the French Revolution, of course, he almost got his way.) The Romans, for their part, eventually decided that the only way to govern Jews was to physically destroy their Temple in Jerusalem.

Iconoclasm is not just vandalism and violence. It is a very specific variety that usually signifies profound regime change. That’s why the toppling of old Soviet monoliths in the 1989 liberation of Eastern Europe was so salient. They were important symbols of that sclerotic Soviet empire’s power. And for true revolutionary potential, it’s helpful if these monuments are torn down by popular uprisings. That adds to the symbolism of a new era, even if it also adds to the chaos. That was the case in Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when the younger generation, egged on by the regime, went to work on any public symbols or statues they deemed problematically counterrevolutionary, creating a reign of terror that even surpassed France’s.

And Mao’s model is instructive in another way. It shows you what happens when a mob is actually quietly supported by elites, who use it to advance their own goals. The Red Guards did what they did — to their friends, and parents, and teachers — in the spirit of the Communist regime itself. They murdered and tortured, and subjected opponents to public humiliations — accompanied by the gleeful ransacking of religious and cultural sites. In their attack on the Temple of Confucius, almost 7,000 priceless artifacts were destroyed. By the end of the revolution, almost two-thirds of Beijing’s historical sites had been destroyed in a frenzy of destruction against “the four olds: old customs, old habits, old culture, and old ideas.” Mao first blessed, then reined in these vandals.

Similarly, in late-19th-century Russia, much of the intellectual elite also found themselves incapable of drawing a line when it came to revolutionary behavior — and so they tolerated violence that eventually swept everything away in terror. Even though they were the elite, the intelligentsia regarded the wealthy as the real rulers and salivated at the prospect of dethroning them. As the Russian-history professor Gary Saul Morson told The Wall Street Journal: “The idea was that since they knew the theory, they were morally superior and they should be in charge, and that there was something fundamentally wrong with the world when ‘practical’ people were.” Welcome to the New York Times newsroom in 2020.

Revolutionary moments also require public confessions of iniquity by those complicit in oppression. These now seem to come almost daily. I’m still marveling this week at the apology the actress Jenny Slate gave for voicing a biracial cartoon character. It’s a classic confession of counterrevolutionary error: “I acknowledge how my original reasoning was flawed and that it existed as an example of white privilege and unjust allowances made within a system of societal white supremacy…Ending my portrayal of ‘Missy’ is one step in a life-long process of uncovering the racism in my actions.” For Slate to survive in her career, she had to go full Cersei in her walk of shame. If you find this creepy, but don’t want to say that out loud, just know that you are not alone…”

Here’s the juice: the vast majority of those advocating “revolution” don’t even begin to comprehend the real ramifications every Socialist revolution has entailed, while the controlling minority, like Robespierre, Marat, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot before them, truly relish the prospect:

France, during:

The Kulaks, before:

the Kulaks, The New York Times stories to the contrary notwithstanding, after:

The Great Leap Forward according to ChiCom propaganda…which, incidentally, might have been prepared by contemporary American Dimocrats:

The Great Leap Forward as experienced by some 45 MILLION not-so-fortunate or well-fed Chinese:

Cambodia, before:

Cambodia, after:

We could add photos from other examples of contemporary Workers’ Paradises…including, but not limited to, Cuba, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam or Venezuela…but we figure you, quite literally, get the “picture”!

Speaking of those condemned to repeat history because, thanks to Progressives’ takeover of America’s public education establishment, they never learned it in the first place, courtesy of The Daily Caller via James Nichols, former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr relates how, with each passing panic…

‘The Dumbest Generation’ Grows Even Dumber

“In 2008, Mark Bauerlein wrote “The Dumbest Generation, How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.” Judging by events in the intervening dozen years (and especially in recent months), it appears that Bauerlein’s assessment was premature and perhaps even too kind.

Bauerlein correctly identified overreliance on the internet and social media (then still in its infancy) as the primary culprits for Millennials losing their ability to think, learn and communicate coherently. What his analysis perhaps did not anticipate is the number of adults who have come to encourage, empower and support Millennials in these efforts. It is almost as if adults in government, the news media and academia are competing with Millennials for the title.

Consider, for example, the issue of providing college students with “safe spaces,” where they can shelter from the horrors of people, ideas and principles they consider “offensive.” The students may be the ones pushing for these accommodations, but it is the adult college administrators who cave in and make it happen.

Young protesters in Seattle may “occupy” a sector of that once-respected city; they may scream “police brutality” and call for the police department to be “defunded.” Their demands, however, would amount to little were it not for the city’s clueless Mayor Jenny Durken, who lauded the young occupiers as “patriots,” and her namby-pamby police chief, Carmen Best, who decided that barricades which had protected one of her department’s precinct headquarters should be removed as a “gesture of trust” to the mob…”

But there’s dumb, and then there’s just plain ignorant, as personified by Indiana’s Mike Braun, who not only makes no sense whatsoever, but doesn’t seem to grasp what the rest of us have known for some time: namely Black Lies Matter is a funding conduit… 

…for the Dimocratic Party.  Too bad Tucker didn’t educate him as to that fact; the look on Braun’s face would have been worth having to endure his drivel.  That people like Braun could ascend to such high office makes us think we should have entered politics.

Since we’re on the subject of those possessed of highly questionable judgement achieving undeserved positions of prominence and power, as FOX News informs us, a…

Washington Post editor’s deleted tweet claims white women ‘lucky’ others are ‘not calling for revenge‘

Any question, were this womyn of any other race, she’d by looking for alternative employment?!?

Turning now to what, given its limited life-span and population, may well have been the most statistically dangerous six square blocks ever to exist on the planet, FOX News also informs us the…

Latest Seattle CHOP shooting kills 16-year-old boy, critically wounds 14-year-old boy

“…Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said it marked the second death of an African-American victim in the area. The first death associated with the CHOP came June 20 when 19-year-old Horace Lorenzo Anderson was shot and killed.

Monday marked the fourth shooting linked to the CHOP zone.

“It’s very unfortunate that we have another murder in this area identified as the CHOP,” Best said Monday. She elaborated that they were African-American victims “at a place where they claim to be working for Black Lives Matter but they’re gone. They’re dead now. And, we’ve had multiple other incidents — assaults, rapes, robbery, shootings — so this is something that’s going to need to change.”…”

More importantly, at least as regards the only Lies which seem to Matter, both victims were,…uh,…BLACK!

In a related item again from FOX News…

Man critically injured in CHOP shooting says he was the victim of a racial attack

Then there’s this just in from the inevitable product of Progressive politics, as a…

(BLACK) Chicago man killed 2 (Need we add, BLACK) teens after they asked how tall he was

“…Laroy Battle, 19, reportedly opened fire on Jasean Francis, 17, and Charles Riley, 16, in a back ally around 5 p.m. on June 20 after they and a friend walked home from buying candy at the store — following a brief encounter with the suspect.

…The teenagers, described as “very good kids from really excellent families,” were reportedly asked by their mothers to buy candy at the store. They didn’t know Battle, but after asking about his 6-foot-3 height, he reportedly followed them out and fired nine rounds at the teenagers, police said.

Francis was shot in the back, chest and left hand, while Riley was shot in the back and left leg. Both were taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where they were pronounced dead, according to the station. The third teenager was not struck.

…The suspect –­ who had three previous arrests and one previous conviction for unlawful use of a weapon –­ admitted that he was the person seen on camera but failed to offer a motive in the fatal shooting, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Riley and Francis were among 12 minors struck by gunfire during a violent Father’s Day weekend that saw 104 people shot in the city, the paper reported…”

‘Cuz nothin’ sez “Gangsta” like cappin’ a couple o homeboys who axed ya yo height!

Otherwise known as The Nation’s…

Where Black lives manifestly DON’T matter!

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

Then there’s this from Jeff Foutch…

…one each from Gary Hentz…

…Joe Flood…

…and Ed Hickey…

…as well as a final offering from Mark Foster…

…which we took the liberty of modifying slightly for greater accuracy:

Finally, we’ll call it a day with yet another sterling example of Progressive hypocrisy, as…

Yale president reportedly says school not considering name change despite namesake’s ties to slave trade

Elihu Yale’s precise role and views on slavery and slave trading remain disputed

As, quite possibly, would be the status of his endowment…along with that of other prominent Eli alumni…were the university ever to forsake his name.  As G. Trevor, one of THE MOST distinguished Eli alums ever noted, Yale president Peter Salovey has only himself to blame for the dilemma with which he finds himself faced, as it was HE who in 2017 renamed Calhoun College to Grace Hopper College, stating at the time…

“The decision to change a college’s name is not one we take lightly, but John C. Calhoun’s legacy as a white supremacist and a national leader who passionately promoted slavery as a ‘positive good’ fundamentally conflicts with Yale’s mission and values.”

Yeah,…THAT’ll fly…like a one-winged duck.

Magoo