"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.

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.

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!

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?"

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.  

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.

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.

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. *

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.

Defund Obamacare? Let's Begin by Defunding the RNC

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Tea Party in Boston Harbor

Those who are often called RINO's by conservatives and libertarians (and a few Libertarians) are, in fact, real Republicans.  They are the party, and not in name only.  Among the many things they have in common with Democrats (but for different reasons) is a visceral hatred of Tea Party conservatives and their allies. We are talking about 'establishment Republicans' -- who dance at the end of the RNC's [1] strings and those of the rent-seeking Chamber of Commerce and other business

Ted Cruz

lobbyists.  But there is another class of Republicans who are reliably conservative.  Besides establishment and conservative Republicans, there are the not-altogether-predictable "swingers" whose principles yield to the pressure of political winds.  How can we isolate these factions within the Party without being long-winded or circumspect?

There is no Serious Problem -- Social, Political or Economic -- that is not Either Caused by or Made Worse by Big Government

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The Course of Empire Destruction (Thos. Cole, 1836)

For a number of years now I have been posing the title statement as a question.  In print and in conversation.  Crickets and bullfrogs; the query might just as well have been rhetorical.  Few have responded, and no one has ever offered an apposite answer. Big-government types occasionally make an attempt, but only after they've changed the question to suit a prepared answer. The most common response, for example, is to reply that government does some things right, which I've never denied and which is entirely outside the scope of the question.

He's a Lying Son-of-a Bitch: Rotting the Soul of a Nation

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Pinocchio

The casual reader, seeing the title of this essay, will probably (and in short order) supply one or more names to fit the specification.  He may also expect the writer to name the best-known offender and his acolytes; he'd be wrong. In this essay I set out illustrate the general and alarming erosion of American civil society's moral and ethical standards.  Particularly in regard to the virtue of honesty in civil society, and by extension, government..

Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the Rule of Law (Part I)

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Hydra

I begin with a brief reprise of a subject about which I have written at length [1] -- the pernicious consequences of any comprehensive reform. I have argued always for incremental reform. Comprehensive reform – by its nature – has two serious weaknesses. The first is hubris; the second, obfuscation and legal murkiness that creates the certainty of mischief.

"Comprehensive": Cover For Central Planners

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Alter to Reason

Comprehensive legislation -- whether emanating from a city council or the US Congress -- is bound to be destructive.  The differences lie only in limits of hubris and the scale of harm. At the moment I'm thinking of the push for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, the recent fiasco of healthcare reform and proposed "grand bargains" to reshape the economy.   I believe the principle applies universally.

Incremental legislation, by contrast, is more targeted, manageable, easily understood, simple and transparent.  Its outcomes and costs are less difficult to predict. When mistakes are made they are easier to remedy.  On the other hand, incremental is harder than comprehensive.  Since incremental initiatives will be elements in a larger (comprehensive) scheme, they will require careful planning, sequencing, coordinating and prioritizing.  Once implemented and evaluated in action, an element may indicate the need to revise parts of the plan not yet launched.

What Is An Assault Weapon?

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Simple answer: it is a totalitarian term of art.  But the skewing of the language by the Left to serve their purposes of aggression and control should neither surprise nor trouble us; it's who they are and what they do.  What is troubling is that conservatives uncritically accede to the terminology and thus to the premises of our enemies.   We should immediately and instinctively correct the usage to "defense weapons" (better still, "defensive firearms"), and when there is a mass killing simply point out that a defensive firearm fell into the wrong hands -- most often the hands of persons who are mentally ill.