Category Archives: Politics

Animal’s Daily Stupid Idea News

Before I get into today’s topic, check out the first episode of my new series, License to Kill, over at Glibertarians.  And if you like my fiction work, you can find a whole bunch of it here (publisher) or here (Amazon).

I have discussed, from time to time, how stupid the whole idea of “muh reparations” is.  It’s pleasing to see that California voters agree, returning some stunning poll results in reply to the once and former-Golden State’s  idiotic California Reparations Task Force Report.

The majority of California voters oppose offering cash reparations to the descendants of African American slaves, a new poll has found.

Fifty-nine percent of California voters oppose cash payments, while 29% of voters support the idea, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll that was cosponsored by the Los Angeles Times. A total of four-in-ten respondents reported they “strongly” oppose cash reparations.

The poll comes after Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill in 2020 that established the California Reparations Task Force, which was launched to explore how the state could lead the nation on a potential reparations program.

Do I really need to point out that slavery was never legal in California?  Not to worry; America’s own walking “hair products for men” spokesman, Gavin Newsom, has an explanation:

“As a nation, we can only truly thrive when every one of us has the opportunity to thrive. Our painful history of slavery has evolved into structural racism and bias built into and permeating throughout our democratic and economic institutions,” Newsom said at the time. “California’s rich diversity is our greatest asset, and we won’t turn away from this moment to make right the discrimination and disadvantages that Black Californians and people of color still face.”

What an utter and steaming load of absolute codswallop, balderdash, flapdoodle and poppycock.

There is no justification – none – for paying reparations for slavery to people who have never been slaves, after taking the money away from people who have never owned slaves.

Have there been injustices in the past?  Yes.  If not, there’s a good chance I’d be living now in the Scottish Highlands, given that several of my Jacobite ancestors wouldn’t have found it necessary to flee to the New World to keep the English from removing their heads.  Examples abound, but for some reason no one talks seriously about reparations for the Irish for all the years that the English literally treated them as second- or third-class citizens.

Let’s be honest:  California Democrats are, as politicians in general always do, pandering to a certain demographic (which one is left as an exercise to the reader) to implement one of the most transparent and egregious vote-buying schemes in modern history.  Rightly, it seems, California voters are seeing through the scam.

Whether this overstep will result in California voters spewing the Democrat Party out of their mouths is another issue; frankly I’m not too sanguine about that prospect.

Rule Five Postal Service Friday

Article 1, Section 8, clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution contains only these words:

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

This gives Congress (Article 1) the power to establish a postal service, one of the few actual enumerated powers of the Imperial government.  But the question is this:  Does this clause actually require that the government set up and run the postal service?  Or can that clause’s requirement be fulfilled by a third party?

I found this interesting; at American Thinker, David D. Schein (who clearly doesn’t think much of the postal service) thinks we can do away with the Imperial post offices altogether.  He makes some good points.

The USPS has been an ocean of red ink. A 2021 Forbes article headline pretty much sums up the status quo: “Why The U.S. Post Office Is In Trouble – 678,539 Employees And A $9.2 Billion Loss In 2020.”

There is a saying that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Maybe it is time for real changes at the good old post office. Because Americans are sending dramatically less first-class mail, the USPS is taking in less money. In the private sector, that means time to cut staff, cut services, or increase the cost of the services that make up the volume of services the public is requesting. Increasing the cost of a first-class stamp is sort of like the saying about “rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”

Proof that the current USPS mess is still controlled by politics is the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act. This is a bipartisan bill that essentially doubled down on what the USPS is still doing wrong today.

For starters, it requires continuation of six-day delivery. Proponents cite appealing, but out-of-date phrases, like “serving rural communities.” But the Internet is available virtually everywhere in America. Given that most mail today is junk mail, regardless of location in America, it’s doubtful anyone is sitting waiting for their mail delivery these days.

Speaking as someone who lives in one of those rural communities, it’s true that we’re not as dependent on the postal service as we would have been in, say, 1775, when the first postal service was established.  While our local post office is something of a community center, as most folks hereabouts aren’t on a route and so have to go into the actual post office to get our mail, there are other outlets for posting bulletin boards, and while we often catch up on local gossip while waiting in line to pick up parcels, there are other outlets for that, too.

But here’s where Mr. Schein and I part ways:  On what needs done.  His plan (abridged for post length; please do go read all of it.)

  1. Bulk rate mail and packages must increase in cost to match the USPS overhead.
  2. Cut delivery to four days a week.
  3. Does the USPS really need to compete with FedEX and UPS? Many do not trust the USPS actually to deliver things overnight.
  4. Stop kowtowing to the postal unions.
  5. Privatizing the USPS is not a likely approach. However, the idea over 50 years ago was to get the politics out of the USPS operation. It’s time to really do that.

My thoughts, on each piece:

  1. This makes a certain amount of sense. There are now alternatives, after all, to the postal service for bulk mail and packages; let the market decide.
  2. Not too sure about this. FedEx and UPS provide six day a week service, and in some locations, seven; why can’t our post offices manage five and a half?
  3. Yes, they should absolutely compete with FedEx and UPS.  Furthermore, make that competition have some teeth; Congress can authorize FedEx and UPS to carry first-class mail, something they are not now allowed to do.
  4. All government unions, everywhere, should be proscribed by law. There is a deep and abiding conflict of interest here, where government unions negotiate their contracts with the very pols whose campaigns they help underwrite.
  5. This is not only a likely approach, but the most efficient one.

Honestly, the post office is a branch of government that, while it is actually described in the Constitution, has outlived its usefulness.  Authorize FedEx, UPS and other third-party companies to carry first-class mail, surround it with (minimal) requirements for said service, and Congress will have met its obligations under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7.  We will have more efficient delivery of mail and packages, and the Imperial government will be shed of an inefficient, bloated, money-losing leviathan.

Seems like a win-win to me.

Animal’s Daily Impeachment News

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – er, it’s beginning to look a lot like Speaker McCarthy is taking the idea of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden a little more seriously, which would be an early Christmas present for many Republicans.

The signals coming from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are that his Republican majority will soon launch a formal impeachment investigation. The final decision hasn’t been announced — and an investigation is still a far cry from a full House vote. But setting up an impeachment committee is an essential first step. Most of his caucus wants to take it.

Most, but not all. The reservations of some Republicans and the calculations behind them are why McCarthy has moved slowly. The speaker’s problem is more than rounding up votes. The other problem is the investigation carries real risks as well as benefits.

An investigation, of course, involves the use of some tools that the House GOP currently doesn’t have at their disposal:

The biggest benefit is a technical, legal one. It gives House investigators the power to compel testimony and documents from all Executive Branch agencies, even the most reluctant, as well as private parties. According to the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice’s in-house legal advisor, “The House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation” in order to compel testimony and document production. With that committee, they can go to court directly to demand compliance. 

As somebody once said, this is a big fuckin’ deal.

Assuming that the investigation reveals what we all think it will, and assuming that the House does go ahead with impeachment proceedings and succeeds, the entire thing will come to a screeching halt once it reaches Chuck Schumer’s sweaty hands over in the Senate.  Unless the impeachment uncovers something horribly egregious (likely) and the Democrats find some last, shrinking vestiges of their integrity and call off one of their members to be Goldwater to Biden’s Nixon and implore him to resign (unlikely), nothing more will happen.

It’s not about propriety any more. It’s not about honesty.  It’s not even about not tolerating overt corruption.  It’s all about The Side, True Believers, and until we somehow deal with that mind-set, everything else matters not a jot.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

Last Monday was, of course, Labor Day, and while I tend to shy away from too much serious discussion on holidays, I did come across a good piece on some disturbing trends.  I thought it was worth highlighting here.

Unfortunately, the evidence is clear that working-aged men are not doing well at all. Across the board, they are suffering a generational decline in quality jobs and falling out of the labor force in staggering numbers. These problems have grim consequences, not just for men, but for women, children and our nation as a whole. 

Read the whole thing.  Give it some thought.  Now then…

On To the Links!

What could possibly go wrong?

Biden Family Business Boomed After Joe Attended Key Dinners

Probably not.

Here’s the thing; I don’t think Joe Biden knows he’s lying. I don’t think he’s mentally competent enough to understand the difference.

Of course they are.

Radioactive boars.  Yes, really.  See the full write up at the RedState link below.

I Had a Helicopter Mom. I Found Pornhub Anyway.

Of course they don’t want to solve the problem. There’s too much money to be made perpetuating it.

Navajo Leaders Challenge Chaco Canyon Drilling Ban.

Mark my words: Nothing will come of this.

Likely, yes. Inevitable, no.

MSNBC’s War on Truth.  That’s something of an understatement.

No.  All civilizations are not equal.

The Weekend at Bernie’s Presidency continues.

That’s gonna be one hell of a struggle.

I Left Out the Full Truth To Get Published at Nature

My RedState Stuff:

Note:  Thanks to a really good suggestion that I should have thought of myself, I’ll now start noting here which of these are VIP (pay-walled) stories.

If Biden Backs out of the 2024 Race, Who Can Take His Place?

Nick Begich Announces Another Run for Alaska’s Sole House Seat

The Myth of Nonviolent Crime

Radioactive Boars Threaten Europe

Alaska Board of Education Votes to Exclude Biological Males From Girls’ Sports

Is America Under the Thumb of a Shadow President?

Making Super Potatoes More A-Peeling

Homeless Squatters Trash Closed Motel in Casper, Wyoming

GOP Senator JD Vance to Introduce Bill Banning Federal Mask Mandates

Eric Swalwell to Appear at Juneau Fundraiser for Mary Peltola

VIP Stories (Pay-Walled):

Firearms Researcher Dr. John Lott: FBI Is Deliberately Misleading Americans on Defensive Gun Use

Sunday Gun Day VI – Five Rifles You Should Shoot Before You Die

What Is Labor Day All About?

A 98-Year-Old Nazi, Captured: Who Shall Answer For Evil?

This Week’s Idiots:

Salon’s Heather Parton (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

CNN’s Nicole Hemmer is an idiot.

The Nations’ John Nichols (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

CNBC’s Scott Cohn is an idiot.

MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem is an idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

The daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont (Repeat Offender Alert) is still an old fool, and an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

Bob Dylan, America’s Songwriter, has crossed a lot of genres in his sixty-plus year career.  Folk, rock, gospel, even country (see his album Nashville Skyline) and more, the Maestro covers them all.

One of my favorite bits of his work almost takes the form of a hymnal, that being the 1967 song I Shall Be Released.  Here, then, is that tune; enjoy.

Animal’s Daily National Treasure News

Before we get into today’s post, check out the final chapter of Blood and Gold over at Glibertarians!

Now then: National Treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson has brought us another essay on what the political Left has wrought on our nation.  Read the whole thing; Dr. Hanson always brings us the straight goods.

In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.

With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bicoastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.

The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual leftwing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.

After getting elected through temporarily pivoting to racial ecumenicalism and pseudo-calls for unity, they reverted to form and governed by dividing the country. And then the two left the White House as soon-to-be mansion living, mega-rich elites, cashing in on the fears they had inculcated over the prior eight years.

This is always the pattern.  Hold office for a few years, meet a few far-Left expectations, espouse the horrors of socialism, then retire to one (or several) waterfront mansions.  The Obamas have been particularly egregious, still hectoring us over ‘climate change’ while residing much of the year in Cape Cod and Hawaiian homes seemingly inches above the supposedly-rising waterline.

But it’s important to point out that it’s not just the Left that does this.

This, True Believers, is why as much of the power these people wield must be stripped from them, for the survival of the Republic may well depend on it.  Through their power and influence they grow monstrously rich without producing anything of value in return; while the Biden Crime Family’s shenanigans are in the forefront of public notice at the moment, they are as much symptom as cause.

Devolve government.  Return the Imperial City to its Constitutionally mandated structure.  Return most political functions to local structures.  Then, and only then, will the influence these people – Left and Right – and the power they wield over us be reduced.

Animal’s Daily Backup Plan News

In what should come as the least surprising story in recent political history, Democrats are apparently wondering about the probability of having to replace senile President Biden or incompetent VP Harris before the 2024 election.

During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’s Good Morning America aired the morning after the Republican presidential debate, former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said of the 2024 race: “Well, first of all, a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. You know that and I know that. There is no way that Joe Biden is going to finish his term. I think Kamala Harris is going to be the next president — and that should send a chill up every American’s spine.”

Haley got some predictable pushback from the left-leaning Stephanopoulos — and later, others in the mainstream media who have been running cover for President Biden — but you might be hard-pressed to find an experienced Democratic operative knowledgeable about behind-the-scenes matters who doesn’t agree with Haley on one or both counts. Most in the media know that many Democratic power brokers don’t want Biden to run again but are panicked over the thought of Harris replacing him as the party’s nominee going into 2024.

With regard to Biden, Haley was referring to his age (80), apparent frailty, perceived cognitive issues and verbal gaffes.

This is downright schadenfreudalicious, if you’re at all to the right of the Democrats, by which to say, to the right of Leon Trotsky.  Why?

Because the Dems have no back bench.

They can literally come up with no one with any name recognition that could win the election.  Gavin Newsom? He’s destroyed California, and the GOP has the receipts.  Kamala Harris, as noted, is a babbling incompetent who only achieved political prominence atop Willie Brown’s penis.  Pete Buttigieg? Don’t make me laugh.  Bernie Sanders?  Any of the Squad?  They’re all kookoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I really wouldn’t want to be in their shoes right now.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

We have family visiting from the Lower 48, so the weekly links may be a bit on the thin side.  But we’ll try to make sure that, even if the quantity drops off a little, the quality remains the same!

Now then…

On To the Links!

Trump Indictments: The Charge Is the Fraud

Hawaiian business owners slam Biden(‘s handlers) non-response to Maui fires. Never underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to fuck things up.

Related:  This should come as a surprise to no one.

President Biden’s Haplessness Isn’t Funny Anymore

If this isn’t the understatement of the week, it will do until a better one comes along.

Hint:  They are leaving blue states and going to red states.

New York City Rat Problem so Bad Now They’re a Tourist Attraction

This guy is a frickin’ hero by any standard.

No shit, Karl.

China’s growth may be over.

Of course Joe the Plumber was right about Obama.

My RedState Stuff:

The State of America – Are We Too Late?

Raccoons in Germany Have Started to Steal Beer

The Legacy Media and the Coup Du Publique

Americans Could Be Limited to Two Beers a Week

Trump Appears in a Swedish Steak

Defanging the Three-Headed Monster Wrecking Our Economy

Sunday Gun Day V – Five Shotguns You Should Shoot Before You Die

Rock Legend Alice Cooper Angers Trans Activists, Gets Canceled by Makeup Company

America Has a Critical Shortage of Skilled Workers

The Pipsqueak 5.56mm, the AR-15, and Relative Power Levels

We May Hold Him Deer, but He’s a Thief All the Same

Vox Reporter Calls for Government-Subsidized Fake Meat Research

This Week’s Idiots:

MSNBC’s Michael Cohen (Repeat Offender Alert) is an idiot.

The Nation’s Joan Walsh is an idiot.

Maureen Dowd beclowns herself.

If President Biden(‘s handlers) listen to the daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont, he’s dumber than we thought.

The Hill’s Glenn Altschuler is an idiot.

Paul Krugman (Repeat Offender Alert) remains a cheap partisan hack, and an idiot.

Vox’s Julieta Cardenas is an idiot.

This Week’s Cultural Edification:

I’ve been a fan of Bob Dylan since the mid-Seventies, when my hippie brother first got me listening to his older acoustic work. What a lot of people don’t realize about America’s Songwriter is that he’s still working, still touring, and still turning out some pretty great music.  In 2012, he released the album Tempest, which included the fun, rollicking tune Duquesne Whistle.  The video is pretty fun to watch, too.  Here it is; enjoy.

Animal’s Daily Lawfare News

Before I begin, check out the latest chapter of Blood and Gold over at Glibertarians!

Now then: A scumbag Florida attorney is suing to try to get former President Donald Trump removed from Florida’s 2024 ballots.  No matter what you think of Donald Trump, this is bottom-feeding lawfare of the first water.

A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Oh, for the love of Pete.

Here’s the relevant clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The “insurrection or rebellion” statement refers to members of the former Confederacy, not a former President whose politics a lawyer finds icky and whose fans staged not an insurrection, not a riot, but at most an act of hooliganism after being allowed into the Capitol by the Capitol Police.

If this ever appears before a judge, the proper response from said judge would be to throw the case out with prejudice and toss Mr. Caplan in the pokey for ninety days for contempt of court due to wasting everyone’s time.

But we don’t live in normal times.  This kind of thing is just going to get more common, and more aggravating.  A major housecleaning of the legal system is in order.

Goodbye, Blue Monday

Goodbye, Blue Monday!

Thanks once again to Pirate’s Cove, The Daley Gator, The Other McCain, Whores and Ale and Bacon Time for the Rule Five links!

National Treasure Dr. Victor Davis Hanson has weighed in on the Biden Crime Family, and as always, he’s worth the time to read.

Despite years of Biden family and media disinformation, we are finally learning that President Joe Biden really did fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin for looking into state corruption involving the oil company Burisma and Hunter Biden — and ultimately Joe Biden himself.

As vice president, Biden, in his own words, bragged that he had threatened to cancel the deliverance of American foreign aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was dismissed.

So what is Congress to do now — un-impeach and exonerate an innocent impeached Donald Trump, and instead impeach a guilty Biden for essentially the same allegations?

After all, the Left redefined the impeachment bar in 2019 as leveraging foreign aid to Ukraine to benefit one’s political career.

And that is exactly what Joe Biden did to ensure his son could continue to raise millions for the Biden family with foreign governments, while being shielded from political consequences.

Of course, and now the word is slipping out, because there’s just no keeping it quiet any more. But that doesn’t mean the Bidens will see any serious consequences over it. Oh, Hunter may end up being the fall guy, with a few months in a Club Fed and a fine to pay that will result in him sitting at the easel for a few days to produce some more daubs that well-connected and wealthy donors will pay tens of thousands of dollars for. But that’s all that is likely to happen. It’s become apparent the GOP has no stomach for an impeachment, and with the Democrats controlling the Senate, there will be no removal from office.

Equal treatment under the law is dead, and has been for some time.

Dr. Hanson is right, as are many other honest journalists and scribes, to point out the legion malfeasances of the Bidens. But that doesn’t mean anything will come of it. Nothing will. After all, Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I, Dowager Empress of Chappaqua, still walks free, and the escapades of the Clintons were nearly – not quite, but nearly – as blatant as the Bidens.

It’s a sad pass we’ve come to when someone like Dr. Hanson has become a voice crying out in the wilderness.

Rule Five Political Violence Friday

In our current-day “everything is politics” times, it seems a larger number of people are willing to use violence to gain political advantage than there have been for some time; Issues & Insights has some thoughts.

The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats’ June survey of 3,543 adults has produced a lot of data noise but it also includes some useful information. Of course the media want to ring the bells over one finding in particular: an increase in the percentage those who agree that “the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” According to the project, in early April only 4.5% of those polled agreed with that statement. By late June, though, it had risen to (a rounded-up) 7%, “the equivalent of an estimated shift from 12 million to 18 million American adults.”

The media-wide implication is that the growing support for using force to put Trump back in the White House is fueled by the extremism (and dare we say “semi-fascism”?) of Republicans and MAGA followers. A prime example of this bias is found in the headline over a story in The Hill. It reads “More say violence could be necessary to restore Trump to White House.”

But as always, there’s more to the story, and there’s much more than The Hill’s implication, which should come as a surprise to no one.

Democrats’ inclination to use violence to achieve their goals was also seen in the results of other questions:

  • More than 16% of Democrats think force is justified to restore the federal right to abortion.
  • More than 22% Democrats agree that “the use of force against the police is justified to prevent police brutality against black Americans and other minorities.”
  • More than a quarter of Democrats would approve of the use of force “to protect the voting rights of Black Americans and other minorities.”

The gist of it?  The Left is more willing to engage in violence to further political goals than the Right.

That anyone would have to do a “study” to determine this is just a bit ridiculous.  Remember the summer of 2020, when COVID lockdowns went out the window so people could riot, loot and burn to protest the death of a misogynistic drug addict?  Over a billion, maybe close to two billion, in property damage due to vandalism, arson, rioting and looting.  Oh, the Left will say “but it was insured,” as thought that justifies burning people’s small businesses that they spent lifetimes building.  Oh, and at least twenty-five people were killed, and around sixty thousand police officers were assaulted.

Now the Left points at the January 6th, 2021 event, which caused at most a tad under two million dollars, and the only fatality was an unarmed Air Force veteran shot in the neck by a panicked Capitol Police officer, who never faced any consequences for the act.

There’s just no comparison.

The AntiProfa and Black Lives Matter groups have been responsible for most of the violence.  Oh, yes, there have been some arrests.  But if you think it’s over, wait until next year, and watch the reaction if a Republican wins the Presidential election.

Especially if that Republican is Donald Trump.

We have some interesting times ahead.