"I suppose we'll just have to abort Jason and Theresa, won't we?"

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The whitsun bride; a procession of children in a village street during Whitsun

Scene
Upscale house on Hamptons estate.
Players: Attractive middle-aged mother and father, parents of six children, having a glass of wine in the solarium.  She dressed in a gossamer silk dressing gown, he in casual dress, with cravat and smoking jacket.
About 8 PM, late spring with light, cool breeze ruffling the curtains.
Resuming an earlier conversation.

Why the Left Hates Trump: He's a MAN

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            Bête Noire

He is also a Christian white man.  But Donald Trump is not an ordinary man.  He's not a metrosexual coastie.  He's not neutered by sensitivity.  He thinks for himself, and if provoked, he's ready to do battle.  To fight.  He is fearless.  He's an individual who doesn't cave to the mob. He's a man of action.  He has not been feminized.  He sees the world as it is and deals with it.  Most unforgivably he is successful, creating a stunning contrast to the performance of his "betters".  He is a man's man; a deplorable's deplorable.  He articulates the thoughts, beliefs and emotions of America's functional and productive core.  He mentions God beyond what is required.

Fisa Judges: Incurious, Incompetent or Bent?

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My confidence in governments' legal goings-on (vis-a-vis private citizens) at the federal, state and local levels had been shaken long before the revelations growing out of the 2016 elections.  Readings I had done [1] over recent years had left me, if not cynical, highly skeptical of America's legal system. That skepticism, ranging from city, county and district courts to state and federal ones to include the U.S. Supreme Court and the often too-cozy collaboration between law enforcement and prosecutors.  In short, the growing political corruption of the justice system now appears to be a given.  Although I have long believed that to some extent justice is the handmaiden of power, I perceive that things worsen over time.  With that context in mind, the reader will understand why I pose the title question along with others.

The F.B.I. Came by Corruption Honestly

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Deval Kulsrestha  Lady Liberty

When I use the word corruption, I am thinking primarily of three elements: dishonesty; incompetence; and perversion of mission.  Ruin and rot.  Not unique among bureaucracies of every kind, corruption in the F.B.I. has been more aggressively concealed than any other I can think of, so that in the minds of most Americans, never having dealt in conflict with the agency, the F.B.I. is thought to be pristine.

Corruption begins with leadership.  If leaders didn't assume their offices already corrupt, then it begins with an organizational shift from mission to survival, self promotion, aggrandizement and growth.  Bureaucracies become paranoid over time, and decay typically begins with leaders who come to reward loyalty over competence.  That paradigm for success inevitably filters downward throughout the organization, excluding (perhaps) only the perennially virtuous and (perhaps) idealistic new-hires who have not yet learned how the game is played.

OANN Revisited (and Often)

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* (rev. 2/28/18)

About two years ago I wrote a short essay about One America News Network.  It was generally complimentary, and I welcomed it as a much-needed (though small in the cable world) competitor to an increasingly milqutoast Fox News.  In my view, OAN has improved on all fronts, while FNN has made marginal gains.  Of course a lot has happened since my earlier comments.

Media Suicide by Trump

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Whio-TV News Set  Ed! at English Wikipedia

For decades legacy media have been a kind of symphony orchestra that performed hymns to the Left. They played well, forte and were consistently perfect in meter and pitch.  But there is a new conductor in town, and he has provided scores with unfamiliar notation they haven't learned how to read.  What were once melodic concerts have become a cacophony that their former audiences are, increasingly, no longer willing to hear.

President Donald Trump, Heretic, Faces the Star Chamber

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Deplorable Men

I refer to his August 15 press conference where he had the unmitigated temerity to commit a heresy that cannot be forgiven.  He told the truth.  Worse, he spoke it directly to the high priests of the PC Marxist Church.  It took great courage, to be sure, but he must not go unpunished.

His Party brethren, including some closest to him, showed more discretion.  Not desiring to burn in Hell, they were quick to distance themselves from any deviation regarding church orthodoxy.  It was not lost on them that truth -- whether spoken of past or present -- is verboten.

While political correctness is cowardice masquerading as comity, it must be preserved.  How else to restore the good name of communism.  Shame on you, President Trump!

Deliver Us from Strange Children

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More and more I find myself taking a decidedly biblical view of the world.  A view informed by Old Testament wisdom, law and the Covenant.  That is especially true when I think of the Adolescent Rebellion of the 60's and 70's and the evils that followed (and continue to follow) in its wake.
I dwell also on the societal consequences of the interruption of generational continuity.  For America the break was, in the main, brought about WWII; for Europe (and broadly, Western social, literary, economic, academic and religious foundations) dissolutions were brought by the combination of World Wars.  Disillusion and cynicism, following great breakdowns of confidence in institutions, secular and divine.

Nationalism? Populism? Whoa, Nellie. Not So Damn Fast

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Those facile labels, in their generality -- their certitude -- smell of Leftist media, meme factories and think-tanks.  And they are unconsciously, yet eagerly embraced and repeated by fearful, ignorant, thoughtless and inarticulate eunoch Republicans.  "I don't know how to sort this stuff out on my own, so I appreciate the help.  Anyhow, if I had an original and contrary thought, I wouldn't think of arguing.  I don't want to look bad in front of my Democrat colleagues.  And how will I be seen in the media?"

To FBI Rank and File: Balls in Your Court?

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For a time the Bureau's politically tainted and cursory, pro-forma investigation of Clinton emails and the Clinton Foundation, was prominently in the news.  As the narrative goes, honest, dedicated, hard-working agents are hugely frustrated and angry on account of the fact that no one has been held accountable for what is manifestly criminal behavior.  Was Justice caught peeking?

Thank You, Donald Trump

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Mr. Obama, uncritically supported by the Democrat ship of fools who share his beliefs, regularly trots out some sanctimonious meme of Cultural Marxism, such as, "Americans are a [mindlessly, suicidally] tolerant people; it's WHO WE ARE!"  Despite his assertions, it is rapidly becoming apparent that opposing beliefs articulated by Donald Trump more accurately reflect WHO WE ARE.

Coming to Terms with Donald Trump

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When the 2016 political season moved into the primaries I was firmly committed to Ted Cruz.  My impressions of Donald Trump, though mixed, were not favorable on balance.  Mixed because, on the one hand, I saw Mr. Trump as just another example of culturally inbred Northeast elitist big government rent seekers; on the other, I was fascinated (and puzzled) by his ability to challenge establishment media PC sanctimony without serious consequences.  I haven't seen anyone do that -- acknowledging major differences in style and substance -- since Ronald Reagan.  

How Paul Ryan Made Me Fall In Love With Donald Trump

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Well, Ryan didn't do it all by himself; he had help from numerous of his colleagues in the Pathetic Party, whose pious, knee-jerk responses to Trump's P.I. remarks about the aggressive importation of unvetted Muslim immigrants are predictable and transparent.  Ryan, et. al., hasten to seek the nearest media platform to express collectivist-scripted outrage ahead of the Democrats.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they sing in unison.  Ryan helped me see the pattern and (belatedly) to discover the obvious.
A sizable contingent of the GOP is Leftist, if not consciously, then because of lifetimes of public indoctrination.  They allied with Republicans only because they are insufficiently radical to succeed among Democrats.

Round 'em Up, Head 'em Out: The Great Pro-Trespasser Canard

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Perhaps 'straw man' is more to the point.  Let's examine the pro-illegal immigration themes and memes.

P.T. Barnum and Donald T. Rump

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P.T. Barnum (Vanity Fair)

I will tell you, I have the Greatest Show on Earth.  The greatest; nothing could be greater.  Believe
me, the greatest!  It's amazing!  So might have said the P.T. Barnum of New York (New England) values and the perennial victim of a world that isn't fair.  I will tell you, it's not fair!  Believe me!

Donald Trump: More Balls Than Sense. And That Ain't All Bad

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Trump's critics tell us a lot more about themselves than the man they criticize.  John McCain and his love child, Lindsay Graham head a long list of pussified Republicrats who see a threat in anyone who dares to commit the heresy of truth-telling in public.  Donald Trump has joined Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and (too few) others.  At least for the moment.

Is It Time, Yet, to Inquire Whether Our President is an Islamist?

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When I say "is it time,yet..." I mean, has the mountain of evidence from which we can infer the President's affinity for the Muslim enemies of the West achieved sufficient mass that we now dare to violate the canon of political correctness and broach the question.  Too harsh?  How about 'Fellow Traveler'?

Looking back on the foreign policy decisions taken by this administration (a.k.a. Mr. Obama), I cannot discover one that has not favored Islamists at the expense of America and the free world; not one.  

The Redcoats are Coming! The Redcoats are Coming! Shelter in Place!

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Paul Revere

Living under the care of a nanny has its place among some of our children, but, continuing the relationship after a child has reached adulthood, would be strange at the very least.  And if the nanny is a psychopathic Amazon shrew, and the former child has been intimidated beyond any dream of self-assertion, that relationship has become bizarre.  Sick.

Thinking of Revere, Dawes and the Minute Men, one can hardly avoid the sense of shock in drawing the contrast between 18th Century American patriots' passion for independence and 21st Century New Englanders cowed into submission in the trail of the Boston bombing.  Or, more recently, the lack of protest from New Yorkers "ordered" to stay in their homes in anticipation of the blizzard that wasn't.  Shelter in place has become the watch-phrase under the tyranny of the nanny state over the growing herd-like fearfulness of so many of today's Americans.

OANN: Good News

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Graham Ledger

The new, upstart One America News Network (OANN) is certainly worth a look -- in my view, an extended look.  One could say, painting with a fine brush, that Fox News Network (FNN) owns the conservative message for TV viewers; it is to television what Rush Limbaugh is to radio.  Fox has become enormously successful because it has enjoyed the distinction of being the only news and opinion TV outlet for conservative voices.  Which is not to say that it is a good or intellectually consistent outlet.  The Marxist ruling class (the Institutional Left) may rail against Fox as an instrument of right-wing extremists.  And from their perspective it is.  From my own it is nothing of the kind.  A generation ago Fox would have been seen as politically centrist, and that's how I see it today. *

Federal Government Lurches Toward End-State Dysfunction

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Bloat and Mission Creep

End-state bureaucracies eventually crumble when four conditions obtain: 1. confusion about or deliberate perversion of mission (purpose, policy); 2. alienation of markets or constituents; 3. ever-expanding maintenance costs; and 4. institutional arrogance that forecloses adaptive change from within.
But even in a clearly moribund and declining state, inertia of scale may prolong their existence for long periods. In these times they are deceptively fragile and unable to survive crises of their own making.  That would seem to be the condition of several agencies of the federal government -- State, EPA, Justice, BATFE, Agriculture, Education, DHS and, most recently brought to public attention, CDC.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Glocks

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The Left seems to have convinced themselves that firearms have somehow acquired their own agency.  That they have the power to act independently of human beings.  Or, as Bob Owens says, in his entertaining article they are believed to have cargo cult properties that -- via magic -- take possession of persons who touch guns and cause them to make murder and mayhem.  But I find myself wondering if, instead, gun haters don't bring the "possession" to the gun and not the other way round.  Breaking that down, what people often bring to the gun is a combination of fear, hostility and the illusion of superiority.  I'll get to that later, but now I want to discuss the simple fear of guns.

Dealing With ISIS and Other Enemies in the Middle-East

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Kemal Atatürk

[Updated on 10/16]

Erdoğan and Obama

Now, I think, is the time for America to "lead from behind", or follow from the front(?) or essentially continue to do almost nothing.  We should arm the Kurds and support them (and only them) from the air with special forces ground support.  Not more, beyond playing the role of dishonest broker among the major powers: the Arabs, the Turks and the Persians.  About this, more later.

Keeping in Touch with his friend Rouhani

This Administration Really Is the Most Transparent in History

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Not, perhaps, in the way Mr. Obama intended convey, but transparent none the less.  The prime metrics for transparency are consistency and predictability based on past performance.  We know what has been done and what will be done.  There are no secrets.  All actions/initiatives are and will be:
1.  Lawless and corrupt
2.  Dishonest and unaccountable
3.  Totally politicized
4.  Anti-capitalist
5.  Afro-centric
6.  Pro-Islamist
7.  Anti-Semitic

In the matter of transparency, what more could we hope for?

----------------
The reader will note that I didn't list incompetence.  This is a highly competent administration.  Charges of incompetence are generated from within as an instrument of disinformation -- used as an excuse and smokescreen to conceal pernicious intentions and strategies.

Ukraine. Once Again Obama Strikes Fear in the Heart of Vladimir Putin

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Tall tales and humor often have a way of putting human foibles into perspective.  Beyond that they may project them upon a larger stage.

I am reminded of an old but instructive yarn.  After the passing of years, I may remember it imperfectly, but the gist of the tale remains in tact.

Once upon a time when the old West was being settled there lived a rancher, his wife and two adolescent children.  They had staked out and improved a sizable spread of fertile grassland, stocking it with cattle and horses.  The rancher had built a sturdy pole house and dug a year-round well that furnished sweet, clean water. The family was happy and self-sufficient.

Throw the RASCALS Out

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No Honest Man

There is a school of thought that advocates turning over federal and state legislatures in a clean sweep.  The reasoning, as I understand it, is that there comes a time in the life of a congressman that his loyalties turn from his constituents toward his own and his party's survival.  The legislative body follows the model of bureaucracies in which the desire for increased power eventually trumps the mission -- the protection of turf becomes equivalent to the protection of self.  There may be some superficial merit to this argument, but until the time arrives when all politicians are certifiably corrupt, there is greater merit in the exercise of prudence.