It’s Monday, July 19th, 2021…but before beginning, we offer the conclusion to a recent column by Andy McCarthy, three short paragraphs of insightful commentary Conservatives would do well to heed: 

“…If Republicans are going to have any chance of stopping the ruinous Democratic reign by winning in 2022 and 2024, they must stop relitigating the lost presidential election of 2020. Trump will never let that go, but Republicans have to. Keep in mind: across the nation, down-ballot conservative Republicans significantly outperformed Trump — whereas in Georgia, Trump single-handedly cost Republicans the Senate seats they needed to stop Biden’s demolition of the economy and conveyor-belt appointment of woke-progressive judges and bureaucrats.

Donald Trump cannot win the presidency again. He is popular in a number of places, but poison in most others. The former president will never again have what he’d need to win a national election: the reluctant support of doubters who, for the sake of stopping Democrats, were willing to take a chance on his flawed character. Had it not been for Trump’s bizarre post-election performance, culminating in the disgraceful Capitol riot, congressional Republicans would be in a position to stop Democrats right now — we wouldn’t be looking at another three to six trillion dollars down the drain (along with a stealth amnesty plan, a potential federal takeover of elections, and anything else on the progressive wish-list that they can manage to slam past the Senate parliamentarian).

The reasons for Trump’s political rise and the many positive aspects of his presidency hold important lessons for Republicans. But those positive aspects mainly involved enabling conservative advisers and subordinates to implement policy — often against his instincts, which are not conservative. The future of the party has to be conservative. If the future is Trump, it will no longer be the conservative party, and it will be in the wilderness for a very long time.“

At the risk of offending some who still consider an individual as flawed and divisive as The Donald the answer to America’s problems, we’d offer the same advice Indiana Jones’s father gave him…

…as well as remind you the list of potential GOP candidates for 2024, including but not limited to…

…is one heckuva lot stronger and more Conservative…genuinely Conservative…than 2016.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, the great Victor Davis Hanson relates the term the Socialist animals far more equal than others no longer utter:

Class—the Word We Dare Not Speak

The Left does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth.

 

“How often during the last year of woke, have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?

Million-dollar-a year university presidents virtue signal on the cheap their own sort of “unearned white privilege.” Multimillionaire Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases. Former Black Lives Matter founder and cultural Marxist Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered—from one of her four newly acquired homes. Do we need another performance-art sermon on America’s innate unfairness from a Hollywood billionaire such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, or Oprah Winfrey—or a multimillion-dollar-per year Delta Airlines or Coca-Cola CEO?

During the 1980s cultural war, the Left’s mantra was “race, class, and gender.” Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has now increasingly dropped out. The neglect of class is ironic given that dozens of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.

Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion dollars. States like California have bifurcated into Medieval-style societies. The state’s progressive coastal elite can boast of some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line, explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.

California’s heating and cooling, gasoline, and housing—the stuff of life—are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and marquee universities—whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle class have no such insulation.

So why are we not talking about class?

First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment. The two parties are switching class constituents. Sixty-five percent of Americans making over $500,000 are now Democrats. Seventy-four percent of those who earn under $100,000 are Republicans. Gone are the days of working people voting automatically Democratic or Republicans caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.

…The Left does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for the middle class of all races.

…America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, now more likely ensures one power, influence and the good life. In the pre-Civil Rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.

The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are the real privileged, the coddled, the pampered—and sometimes the victimizers.“

Not “sometimes”; ALL the time.  Hells bells, if the likes of Patrisse…

…Cullors can amass sufficient wealth in four short years to purchase four homes, and Fat Stacey, despite what must be an incredibly massive monthly food bill, go from deeply in debt in 2018 to owning two homes today, there’s an awful lot of money to be by convincing a group of people they are unfairly and inequitably downtrodden and aggrieved, then pretending to advocate for them.

Turning from words you can’t speak to those you can’t write, Jim Geraghty offered this insightful observation in his Friday Morning Jolt:

“By the way, on that question of fascism, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday: “We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” And Facebook is presumably then removing them. People argue about the definition of fascism all the time, but one critical element is the suppression of freedom of expression and dissent by the government and private institutions operating in tandem. It is much tougher to make the argument, “Stop treating this like government censorship, Facebook is a private company and private entity, it can decide what material is acceptable and what material should be removed,” when Facebook starts making those decisions based on communications from the federal government.“

If Mark Milley would pull his head out of his a*s, put his country before his career for a moment and pay attention, he might come to comprehend which political party and President actually approximate the actions and policies of the Nazis, and appreciate the wisdom of one of our two greatest Presidents, as forwarded by Balls Cotton:

Speaking of General Milley, courtesy of American Thinker via James Nichols, Andrea Widburg suggests…

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is straight out of Dr. Strangelove

 

“In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the engine for the plot is Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, a United States Air Force general, who goes completely off his rocker and launches a nuclear weapon at the Soviet Union.  We may have our own, real-life General Ripper in the form of General Mark Milley, a product of the Ivy League and now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  However, unlike General Ripper, who had the Russkies in his sights, General Milley is pretty sure that you are the enemy…”

One of the women Bill Clinton raped has it right, as Juanita Broaddrick offers undeniable, photographic…

Sorry, but elevating Milley will always stand to Trump’s eternal discredit.

Since we’re on the subject of the discredited, former JCS chairman and Obama lackey Mike Mullen deserves special mention for stating as fact a feeling purportedly held by Mark Milley following the 2020 election:

“Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that it was “incredibly disturbing” that reports detailed a top U.S. general’s fears that Donald Trump, in the waning days of his presidency, would attempt to use the military to stage a coup or take action against Iran.

“I think the reporting, from what I understand, has been pretty accurate,” Mullen said on CBS’s “Face the Nation…”

Having neither first-hand knowledge of Trump’s state of mind nor any facts to support Milley’s “belief”, Mullen’s assessment is baseless hearsay and would never be admitted into evidence in a court of law.  He’s demonstrating a blind faith in a form of appeal to a false authority, akin to someone quoting an inaccurate news article appearing in an otherwise reputable source, then someone else saying the story must be true, its errancy notwithstanding, because they read it in the same supposedly reputable source.

It should also be noted Moon never weighed in on either the reporting or the “incredibly disturbing” nature of Hillary’s private email server, the Russian collusion hoax, his boss using all the resources of the federal government to spy on his successor or the contents of Hunter’s laptop.

It seems senior flag and general officers have very strict standards for expressing outrage.

Next up, writing at the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone details…

Joe Biden’s big lie

 

“Did you know that black people are not going to be allowed to vote in America anymore? At least in states controlled by Republicans. Sounds a bit unlikely, but that’s a conclusion you might have come to if you took seriously what President Joe Biden was saying in Philadelphia Tuesday.

Biden decried Republicans’ proposed changes in election laws as “the 21st-century Jim Crow assault” that tries “to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy.”

This is, to be polite, unhinged nonsense…”

As Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation explains, “There are a lot of partisan political issues out there, but election integrity shouldn’t be one of them. How can we verify every legal ballot, while also making sure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to vote? Here’s a hint: we’ve already done it.”

Hans is FAR too kind when he says it Dimocratic opposition to common-sense voter legislation makes one wonder at the motives of those opposed.  There’s NO DOUBT what their motives are: Winning elections through MASSIVE BALLOT FRAUD!!!

All of which puts 46* on a par with Jack Palance’s character in Shane…

…and certainly deserving of his fate.

And in International News of Note, the Morning Jolt outlines (with a little help from the incomparable Stilton Jarlsberg)…

Iran’s Giant Middle Finger to the Biden Administration

 

“At some point, the Biden administration will have to stop letting the Iranians urinate on its shoes while it’s inviting them to further negotiations about their nuclear program. Tehran is not interested in making concessions, and it is not interested in changing its behavior. The mullahs think the Biden administration is a bunch of naïve suckers, and they don’t really hide their contempt.

For starters, the U.S. must not make concessions to regimes that plot to kidnap American citizens who dare criticize that regime…

…Foreign policy can be complicated, but in the end, it boils down to incentives, deterrents, and consequences. Right now, the Iranians don’t even fear the consequences of launching a plot to kidnap an American citizen off the streets of New York for being an outspoken critic of the regime.“

Iran’s offer can be accurately summed up in this cartoon from Michael Ramirez:

And STILL 46* and his associate appeasers continue to treat with these barbarians as if their intentions were peaceful.

Meanwhile, just when you thought Liberal lunacy had reached the limits of even contemporary psychology, courtesy of Jeff Foutch, Salon‘s Amanda Marcotte takes it to a level far beyond current reality, as she reaches the incredible conclusion…

Of course the GOP is spreading COVID-19 for political gain — it’s been their playbook for decades

Before deliberately spreading COVID-19, Republicans boosted sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy

 

“After months of sliding downwards, COVID-19 transmission rates are now beginning to creep back up. The reasons for the backslide given in the media are often biological — lots of talk about how the delta variant is more contagious, for instance — but this surge was much more political. From the moment that President Joe Biden stepped into the White House, Republican leaders have understood that he will be blamed if the pandemic isn’t brought under control. And so they’ve set out to sabotage his efforts by encouraging their followers to risk their own health and reject getting vaccines in an effort to get the COVID-19 numbers up. 

The GOP’s pro-virus campaign has been wildly successful…”

Ms. Marcotte, a senior politics writer at Salon is perhaps better known as the author of the runaway non-seller Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself.  Though it’s too big to be a stocking stuffer, it’s the perfect means of igniting your yuletide glow.

Moving on, we offer a septet of specially selected items certain to appeal to inquiring Conservative minds:

(1). In an action clearly calculated to reclaim her Conservative credentials…and hopefully secure the Veep slot in 2024 should The Donald do the unthinkable and inadvisable…South Dakota governor Kristi Noem says she’s “counting” on Trump running again in 2024.

(2). Obviously possessed of more moral courage than Kristi Noem, the Russell County, VA school board voted unanimously to reject the state Education Department’s policy requiring not only teachers and administrators to call students by pronouns reflecting their chosen gender identity rather than what God assigned them at birth, but also permission to use whatever locker room or bathroom their psychotic condition dictates on a given day.

(3). The horrid harpy who stood outside a Virginia middle school last week and expressed the wish opponents of Critical Race Theory should die has resigned as Vice President of Training at the Virginia PTA.  However, she’s yet to resign her posts as Vice President of the Fairfax County NAACP or Vice President of Communications for the Fairfax County PTA.  In the meantime, we get the message both groups are sending by continuing any association with her loud and clear.

(4). A Facebook Oversight Board member, former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, said Thursday “free speech is not an absolute human right” when determining if content should be censored. “It has to be balanced with other human rights,” she said, without specifying which “other human rights” those might be, though the unfettered right to slaughter the unborn is undoubtedly among them.

(5). Writing at Best of the Web, in response to another federal prosecutor delaying the wheels of justice last year in favor of yet another Dimocrat, Jim Freeman rightly wonders Is There Ever a Good Time to Investigate Bidens?…or, for that matter, any prominent Progressive? 

(6). And in the Sports Section, Townhall.com‘s Leah Barkoukis tells us the NFL is doubling down on its social justice activism seen during the 2020 season and will play “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also referred to as the black national anthem, prior to the Star Spangled Banner before major events this season.

Like we needed another reason not to watch the NFL.

(7). Turning from things we can live without to people we don’t miss, the Navy recently held a christening ceremony for the USNS John Lewis, during which Nancy Pelosi, evidently knowing more about navel lint than naval vessels, observed, “It’s fitting that we honor John Lewis with this formidable ship, because John Lewis was a warrior.”  The Lewis is a non-commissioned replenishment oiler which carries only defensive weaponry.  As one wag observed, “A ship full of gas: How fitting for that bag of hot air.”

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

Then there’s these from Geoff Griffith…

…Balls Cotton…

…and the lovely Shannon:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap where we kicked it off, with a poignant piece in which the great Victor Davis Hanson offers a child’s introduction to the realities of life and death: 

A Child’s Garden of Animals: Barnicide

 

Can’t say why, but that brought a tear to our eye.  Perhaps because, like Roy Batty in Blade Runner…

…being far closer to the end than the beginning gives us a better understanding of the value of innocent life, regardless of genus and species.

Magoo

Video of the Day

Ron DeSantis demonstrates he’s (a) as combative as The Donald without the baggage and tweets; (b) fully in command of the facts; and, (c) speaks in complete, intelligible sentences. Trump needs to get out of the way and then campaign for the eventual Republican nominee, whomever it may be.

Tales of The Darkside

John Stossel reveals why many contemporary entrepreneurs have discovered what Naval Aviators in our time knew all too well: it’s often easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.

On the Lighter Side

Courtesy of our youngest Travis, meet Norm Hiccup: He’s the king…or, as in the case of the male New Zealand weightlifter and Connecticut sprinters who inexplicably take pride beating women and girls, QUEEN…of the unequal contest.