Nick Searcy’s documentary about the Jan. 6 “insurrection”

 

At PJ Media, Victoria Taft previews Nick Searcy’s film (released last November) Capitol Punishment, a documentary about the January 6 “insurrection” in DC.  You can watch the documentary online – click on the link at the end of the article.  Here’s Ms. Taft’s preview:

Actor Nick Searcy's Movie 'Capitol Punishment'
Is the Best Documentary
 About Jan. 6. He'd Know, He Was There.

Nick Searcy was at the huge Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., and was so unnerved and shaken by what he saw that day that he made a movie about it. The actor/producer/director’s movie, Capitol Punishment, is the most complete story about that day and its aftermath that anyone has attempted to date. It’s a must-watch, even if you think you know all there is to know about that day.

Searcy is here to say that you don’t. He says it with a knowing wink and a rueful laugh.

The actor, who stars opposite former Mandalorian actress Gina Carano in the upcoming film Terror on the Prairie and who’s appeared in some of the biggest Hollywood movies, including The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, Moneyball, Cast Away, and Fried Green Tomatoes and co-starred in the hit television FX series Justified, knows something about stagecraft.

But he was stunned at the stage-crafted events of Jan. 6.

“Everything that we are being told [about Jan. 6] is a lie and Americans are being persecuted to support that lie,” says Searcy who features national security experts in the film who attest that the assault on the Capitol for political ends “was years in the making.”

Searcy’s idea for the movie with filmmaker and director Chris Burgard began when the two men attended the Jan. 6 rally because they “believed the election had been stolen” stolen from Donald Trump. Searcy told me on my Adult in the Room Podcast that they figured any story they told would be about the typical anti-Trump media malpractice. But, he told me, that idea went out the window when they witnessed agents provocateur pretending to be Trump supporters.

After the rally, Searcy and Burgard began to see footage of police admitting rally-goers and protesters into the Capitol Building, video of Antifa provocateurs changing clothes between black bloc and MAGA clothes, and video of a notorious Leftist militant who trains activists in violent tactics and who worked with government workers to take over D.C. buildings beginning on Election Day. In the documentary, Searcy shows an organizing Zoom call in which professional protest provocateur, Lisa Fithian, urges her co-conspirators during a Zoom call to shut down the Capitol. She told them, “we are going to be in crisis but we want it to be one that we’re creating. Whoever’s got the guns can win. Let’s take over the buildings.” Her tactics look an awful lot like what happened on Jan. 6.

Searcy is unsparing in his treatment of these questionable activities leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, and the prosecutions of people who were either invited into the Capitol or who stepped over an imaginary line where a fence delineating a no-go zone had been taken down by early provocateurs such as Ray Epps. You’ll hear of the FBI raids at their homes, the handcuffing of their children, and the inside story of the life of Ashli Babbitt from her husband, Aaron.

He is outraged about the Trump supporter’s shooting inside the Capitol. He wants answers to his questions about why Lt. Michael Byrd “just shot her” without warning. “If he was going to stop people from coming in,” he asked me, “then why didn’t he train his gun on the people who were breaking windows right in front of him? There was no evidence that she had a weapon, there was no reason to think she was a threat. … Those windows had been broken out and he could have said something at that point [as a warning] ‘if you come through that window I’ll shoot.'”

And who was in front of him breaking the windows? John Sullivan, another Antifa/BLM provocateur who stood next to Babbitt, urging her and others to go through the broken windows and into another part of the Capitol. He recorded and live-streamed her killing.

Related: Democrats Want Jan. 6 to Be a Holy Day for Their Dark Church
Searcy believes organizers “wanted a bigger massacre.”

“That’s the real cynical view of that killing, is they wanted more people dead,” he said.

Lives lost. Lives ruined. A president’s legacy muddied. And a government arrayed against them. Searcy tells it all.

He says the question isn’t whether you believe that he convincingly lays out the case; it’s how you could believe the FBI, Justice Department, and political actors are incapable of pulling off such a caper. He points to the Russian “collusion” hoax and other incidents in his movie as exemplars of such gaslighting and perfidy by the feds.

Searcy’s film was released in November, and one wonders how such a quality product was conceived and produced in under a year.

The first anniversary of Jan. 6 passed in ignominy, complete with stage-crafted Washington outrage, but don’t forget the real story.

Watch Capitol Punishment online.

Source here. Wow.  Share this with you family and friends – including those who believe that Ray Epps is a loyal Oath Keeper.

# # #

Josh Mandel or Mike Gibbons for U.S. Senate ?

 

This blog previously reported on two candidates for the U.S. Senate, Jane Timken and Josh Mandel – to replace retiring RINO Rob Portman.  Both campaigns are attempting to run on President Trump’s coat-tails.  This was the envelope containing the first solicitation from Mandel's campaign a month or two ago:

Apparently the Mandel campaign has now backed off, as Mr. Trump’s name does not appear in his most recent solicitation, which our household received last week. But instead of having Trump’s name (and implied endorsement) on the envelope, look at what’s at the top of his letterhead:

"America First" appears prominently --  twice -- on President Trump’s office website here. 

Some Ohio liberty groups are endorsing Mandel. Cleveland Tea Party traditionally does not state a preference until after the primary, but prior to the primary, we would not support Mr. Mandel’s candidacy; see also here. We’re still looking at Mike Gibbons.

# # #

Trump rally July 3 -- 8pm at Sarasota: livestream link

 

Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, holds a major rally in Sarasota, FL on Saturday, July 3, 2021 at 8:00PM EDT.  Right Side Broadcasting Network is livestreaming here.

# # #

Josh Mandel's Senate campaign: not a good look

 

American Greatness has the update:

More Trouble For Josh Mandel:
Fundraising Staff Quits Over “Toxic Environment”
Created By Staffer Mandel Is Dating 

As the Republican senate primary in Ohio heats up, there’s more trouble for candidate Josh Mandel. Several women working on his campaign fundraising team have quit citing a “toxic environment” created by the fundraising director Rachel Wilson. Campaign manager, Scott Guthrie, says that the Mandel and Wilson have been dating since August, 2020.

Mandel is still fielding awkward questions arising from a messy divorce last year. The divorce was settled some time in 2020 (Mandel had the record sealed by the court) so it’s unclear if Mandel was dating Wilson while he was still married to his former wife, Ilana Shafran Mandel. Either way, women on his finance staff say that working for his girlfriend was untenable.

. . .

The report concludes:

Mandel’s base of support has been with social conservatives especially in northeast Ohio around Cleveland. Many have already had enough and have aligned with other candidates. The combination of a rolling series of personal problems – many believe that the problems that led to his divorce were behind him dropping out of the senate race in 2018 – and fundraising staff leaving en masse only complicate matters for Mandel in a competitive race.

Full report is here.  This blog has previously posted on Mr. Mandel and candidates Jane Timken and Mike Gibbons, here, here, and here.

# # #

 

UPDATE: Ohio Congressional race

 

Seth McLaughlin at The Washington Times reports:

Trump-backed Max Miller targets ‘so-called Republican’
in Ohio congressional battle

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez is akin to a car that has been deemed a lemon.

That’s according to Max Miller, the Republican who launched a primary challenge against Mr. Gonzalez after former President Trump called for the scalps of GOP lawmakers like Mr. Gonzalez who supported impeachment following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Mr. Miller says voters in Ohio’s 16th Congressional District were sold on the idea that Mr. Gonzalez would fight for them in Washington, but have buyer’s remorse after discovering his brand of politics is out of sync with Trumpism and the MAGA movement. 

“I have no other interest in doing this other than to serve the people of the 16th District and get an ‘America First’ conservative in Congress and get one who is a so-called Republican out,” Mr. Miller told The Washington Times.

The 32-year-old former Trump aide became more of a household name in February when Mr. Trump gave him his “Complete and Total Endorsement!” and warned that Mr. Gonzalez does not represent the “interest” or “heart” of voters in the district.

Mr. Trump is set to sing the challenger’s praises Saturday at Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, marking his first campaign-style rally of the 2022 election cycle.

Full report at The Washington Times is here. Previous CTP post on the Saturday June 26 Trump rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds is here.

In other news, outgoing Ohio Senator Rob Portman is in the news again.  Here's the headline over Matt Vespa’s Townhall column:

GOP Senators Mobilize to Stop Largest Gun Confiscation
 and Registration Attempt in History Under Biden

. . . Oh, who are the two Republicans who refused to sign onto this communique? That would be Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Susan Collins (R-ME). 

# # #

Fun poll from National Pulse

The National Pulse just published a fun poll:

A massive National Pulse reader poll has revealed an overwhelming majority of the America First base want a return to the White House for President Donald Trump in 2024, while the MAGA faithful appear to have completely out of love with former Vice President Mike Pence.

Asked, “Who Is Your Preferred Republican for 2024?”, a whopping 67 percent chose President Trump. In second place is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on 17 percent. In third on just three percent is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The rest of the field was as follows:

1. President Trump (67%)
2. Governor DeSantis (17%)
3. Mike Pompeo (3%)
4. Nikki Haley (3%)
5. Senator Rand Paul (2%)
6. Other (2%)
7. Senator Ted Cruz (2%)
8. Senator Tim Scott (1%)
9. Governor Kristi Noem (1%)
10. Senator Tom Cotton (1%)
11. Senator Josh Hawley (1%)
12. Vice President Mike Pence (0%)

A total of 31,152 individuals voted in the poll over the course of three weeks.

I would have thought that Nikki Haley would be tied with Mike Pence.

# # #

Mike Pence is not Presidential material

 

Drew Allen at American Greatness explained why, in his view, Mike Pence is not Presidential material.  Mr. Allen compared the contested election of 1876 to November 2020:

A stalemate ensued for three months in 1876 as both Democrats and Republicans refused to give in. The contested states sent competing electors to Washington, D.C. In 1876 this was unprecedented. But the Republicans of 1876 didn’t cave as Mike Pence did. When it came time to certify the electoral votes in 2021, Pence remarked, “When the Joint Session of Congress convenes today, I will do my duty to see to it that we open the certificates of the Electors of the several states, we hear objections raised by Senators and Representatives, and we count the votes of the Electoral College for President and Vice President in a manner consistent with our Constitution, laws, and history. So Help Me God.”

. . .

Over 120 members of Congress voiced their objections to electoral certification.  Here is what Pence then said:

“It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence declared. But Pence didn’t support and defend the Constitution. He revealed that he wasn’t willing to fight for the Constitution. 

The full article by Mr. Allen is here.  Constitutional conservatives have crossed Mike Pence off their list. 

# # #

Media losing power?

 

Glenn Reynolds, a/k/a Mr. Instapundit, makes a good case:

Media’s censorious gatekeepers are mad —
because they’re losing power

With Donald Trump out of office and de-platformed, you’d think mainstream media gatekeepers would be happy. You’d think wrong.

Though the media-Big Tech regime is doing its best to silence opponents and seize control of the high ground, the news from within is grim. They aren’t happy with how things are going. 

That’s because they know they’re losing. Some are losing audiences and revenues. But more important, they’re losing control of the narrative.

And since control of the narrative, and the power and self-importance that accompany that control, is the most important thing in their lives, they can’t be happy.

Consider the cri de coeur of Washington Post public editor Hamilton Nolan, inspired by Tesla’s decision to scrap its media-relations department. How could that happen?

Nolan knows how, and that’s what bothers him: Tesla scrapped its media-relations department because the media don’t much matter to it. Tesla has plenty of ways to get its story out without relying on the media, and that makes the media much less important — and much less powerful. And it’s the power part that hurts the most.

. . .

I hope it’s true.  Read the rest here.

# # #

A Tsunami of Hate

 

David Horowitz is always worth reading or listening to.  Yesterday, he had a piece at FrontpageMag addressing the wide political divide in America.  Here’s part of what he has to say:

The problem is not that we disagree. We are not suffering as a nation from healthy disagreement. We are suffering from a Tsunami of Hate emanating from the Democrat Party that seeks to demonize, criminalize and extinguish dissent from the 75 million supporters of Donald Trump. It is now official Washington dogma that to question an election result – something the congressional Democrats have done in the face of every Republican presidential victory since 2000 - is now “insurrection” and “domestic terrorism,” or the incitement thereto, and needs to be prosecuted and suppressed.

You can’t have a democracy if this is the attitude of a party that controls all three branches of government, is enabled by a corrupt and compliant media, and is determined not just to defeat, but to humiliate, destroy and expunge from the record an ex-president who is supported by a greater segment of the American electorate than any American leader before him.

There is Democrat-sponsored legislation pending that would prevent any public building or artifact, even a “bench” from being named after the 45th president of the United States. There is a farcical witch-trial to impeach the same villain even though he has left office and is now a private citizen. There is even Democrat talk of stripping Trump of his pension, despite the fact that he gave his entire $1.6 million salary as president to the American people - something no president before him has done. If ever there was a public lynching, short of stringing the victim from the nearest tree – and there are no lack of leftwing calls for that – the Democrats’ unrelentingly vindictive assault on the defeated Donald Trump down to the last petty detail is it.

But what is in effect a total war is not merely a war to cancel Donald Trump. If it were, it would be reprehensible enough, but not a threat to the nation itself. This demonic hate directed by the Democrat Party towards Trump is also hate for the 75 million Americans who voted for him. And there is no shortage of reminders of that. Ordinary Americans in all walks of life who happen to think that Trump’s presidency – which included record employment and record economic growth, delivered benefits for all Americans, particularly American minorities, secured America’s borders, defeated America’s terrorist enemies and led to an unprecedented reconciliation between Arab nations and the State of Israel – was a worthy achievement are treated as social pariahs, have their careers destroyed and (shades of the Kremlin) are regarded as mentally unfit and in need of deprogramming.

In a March 2020 interview with Axios, James Clyburn – the third ranking Democrat in the House and the political figure most responsible for Biden’s primary victory - raised the specter of Hitler when speaking about Trump, calling the president a racist and likening modern-day America to Germany during the Nazi Party’s rise to power. “I used to wonder how could the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist,” said Clyburn. “But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how. And that’s why I’m trying to sound the alarm.”

A Tsunami of Hate – not “divisiveness” – is the root cause of our political crisis and the most existential threat we have faced since the war to end slavery.

Read the rest here.

# # #

Jon Voight on Keeping the Faith

It’s a 10-minute video by Jon Voight, with a few minutes of President Trump’s “most important” speech on election integrity inserted in the middle.  We all need some encouragement and inspiration these days.

# # #

Build Back Better aka the Great Reset

 

   

James Delingpole publishes at Breitbart, frequently on climate change propaganda and British politics.  I don’t consider him an alarmist or an ideologue.  So I am alarmed at his report about The Great Reset.  Here’s the opening:

Build Back Better.
This is the slogan of the New World Order – aka the Great Reset.

You hear it often these days intoned — in the manner of dutiful Stepford Wives — by everyone from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Prince of Wales to Canadian blackface artiste Justin Trudeau and, inevitably, Joe Biden who has adopted it as his campaign slogan.

About the only leader you won’t hear using it is Donald Trump because he recognises its true significance. Build Back Better is the code phrase for one of the most terrifying and dangerous, globally co-ordinated assaults on liberty and prosperity in the history of mankind. If the plan succeeds, the world you inhabit will be unrecognisable, your children will have no prospects and your life will barely be worth living. Build Back Better means totalitarian rule by a global, technocratic elite – as constrictive and immiserating as life under fascism or communism. This hideous New World Order is the Great Reset.

It sounds like a conspiracy theory but the people behind it are perfectly open about it.

Mr. Delingpole then provides chapter-and-verse on The Great Reset.  His column concludes:

#WhyAreTheyDoingThis has become a popular hashtag on Twitter for the increasing number of people concerned at the extraordinarily draconian and often scientifically inexplicable policies being adopted by governments the world over to deal with Coronavirus.

The Great Reset may be the answer.

And if it is the answer — and so if so many world leaders are on board — then my view is that there is only one man in the world who can save us from it.

That man is Donald Trump.

It’s why, in my view, this presidential election is probably the most important political event anyone alive will live through.

On the outcome depend our liberty, our prosperity, our civilisation.

The full report, and it is frightening, is here.

# # #

Democrat Projection

 

A.F. Branco cartoons at Legal Insurrection

I first came across Caroline Glick ‘s columns at The Jerusalem Post. Over the weekend, Instapundit linked to her post at her own website.  It’s an excellent essay, and it concludes:

And this brings us to Democrat projection. Since the impeachment hearings last January, Democrat lawmakers and aligned media have been pushing the claim that Trump will refuse to accept the election results if he loses. Just as Trump is repeatedly asked whether he condemns white supremacists, he and his campaign advisors have been asked repeatedly by reporters whether he intends to concede if the results of the election are not in his favor. At Tuesday’s debate, Wallace continued the practice. He asked the candidates to pledge to accept the election results.

Biden quickly agreed. Trump refused to play the sucker’s game.

The President noted that the Democrats still haven’t accepted the results of the 2016 elections and tried to oust him from power through false allegations of collusion with Russia that Clinton invented while working with Russia. He also pointed out the ease with which mail-in votes can be, and allegedly already are being falsified by Democrats.

It is impossible to know how the election will pan out or when, if ever, the true results will be known. What is clear however is that if you want to understand who the Democrats are and what they are doing, all you need to do is look at what they are accusing Trump and his colleagues of being and of doing.

Read the rest here.

# # #

Dr. Ronny Jackson on President & Mrs. Trump

Via PJ Media:

# # #

Boos for Gov. DeWine

 

Paula Bolyard at PJ Media reports on the Trump rally in Dayton and his introduction of Gov. Mike DeWine:

President Trump, as is customary at these events, introduced Republican Gov. Mike DeWine at his rally in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday—only to have the audience loudly boo the governor, who had imposed a statewide masking order in July that has been wildly unpopular with the president’s base.

“We’re joined today by a real good friend of mine, somebody that’s been with me from the beginning and I’ve been with him from the beginning, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine,” the president began. “Where’s Mike?” he asked, to a spattering of applause. Trump looked around, seemingly unable to spot DeWine in the crowd—and then the boos began. “What’s that all about?” he quipped, looking a bit confused. “He’s opening up,” Trump said, trying to defend the governor. “He’s a good man.”

The rest of the report is here.  President Trump describes Gov. DeWine as “a good man”?  The Ohio Governor who keeps moving the goalposts on mask mandates and onerous regulations that hamper opening up businesses?  Gov. DeWine seems to have been enjoying his role as a petty tyrant.  Not good.

# # #

The Great COVID-19 Hoax

photo credit: Milwaukee Independent 

Some skeptics probably rank man-made global warming/cooling as the world’s Biggest Hoax.  Alicia Colon nominates the COVID-19 lock-down and related control tactics (think: face masks) as the Biggest Hoax.  Both hoaxes are all about money and power.  Her article “Falling for the Biggest Hoax in History” at American Thinker begins:

It will probably take months if not years for the truth of the Covid-19 pandemic to emerge, but when it does will any politician take responsibility for the lies and disinformation or the damage this hoax caused this great nation? I don’t think so, but what it did prove was what happens when the Democrats are in charge. They may not be in the White House but it is the House that wields the power over legislation and our money.  Couple this power with the useful idiots in the mainstream media to promote the widespread hysteria, and we then had the total capitulation of a frightened nation that accepted an unprecedented total lockdown of its existence. Shame on us.

Further into the article:

In previous severe flu seasons, there were much higher death rates yet there were no mandatory lockdowns.  Why do I call this pandemic a hoax?  The only reason why politicians, especially the Democrats in charge, pushed for shutting down the economy was because economic destruction was their ultimate goal. Trump’s strong economy, low unemployment numbers for all Americans was a real obstacle to a Joe Biden victory. Democrats have seized on this pandemic because they never let a crisis go to waste.

Americans have been gaslighted. We can’t take anything reported by the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, MSNBC, the Drudge Report and the Alphabet Networks as gospel because it’s all designed to frighten and delay the recovery. . . .

Read Ms. Colon’s complete article here.

# # #

Hanson on “Biden: The Great and Powerful”

 

The great Victor Davis Hanson explains the bizarre Biden campaign in “Biden: The Great and Powerful” at American Greatness.  From the article:

So the lightweight Biden was reflated as a sort of centrist hot air balloon to be used to float the hard-Left basket carriage beneath across the election defining line.

But fusion/collusion is not just a matter of a Potemkin veneer. Biden’s agenda is a fantasy creation. His role was to save the party from Sanders, win suburbanites, and pander to the party’s socialist sympathizers of Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement. That is an impossible task because today’s Democratic Party is a conglomeration of squabbling tribes and looney agendas. 

Biden is now ordered to keep still on the issues of the day, because what he once said to get nominated and please the Left would lose him the election. He wants to defund the police, but not to defund the police. He wants to phase out fossil fuels and end fracking but not to end fracking in Electoral College-rich Pennsylvania. 

The rioting, Biden insists, is due to police brutality but not due to it entirely. Trump’s COVID policies killed thousands, but Biden’s own bromides are either identical or would be less effective. 

And on and on, as Biden is made to wink and nod to the Left that his only role is to get them elected before collapsing at the finishing line. 

The media thinks this will work, and so owns the project. Biden will stay sequestered, visit a key state occasionally, pop out of the plane to say he is “barnstorming” Michigan or Wisconsin and then fly back into his Biden bunker for more Zoom puff interviews—and hope progressive polls show that he can endure weekly bleeding until November 3.

Every four or five days the media will blast the airways with, “Trump is ripping out mailboxes,” “Trump won’t concede and will have to be forcibly removed,” “Trump insulted our war dead as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’ as he hid from the rain to keep his hair dry.” Most recently Bob Woodward’s book queued up for its turn of 72 hours of smears, right after gab-bag Jeffery Goldberg’s anonymous sources faded out. 

Will this joint project of progressive ideologues of the Democratic Party and the major media work? 

Read the complete article here. 

# # #

Katie Hopkins on Breaking Back In

 

 photo from the Front Page article

Katie Hopkins is a much-needed breath of fresh air and a shot in the arm.  She’s been censored, abused, and quarantined, but she is traveling in the US, and her report “Breaking Back” at Front Page Magazine starts off:

The time for asking permission is over. Waiting for approval has to be a thing of the past.

It’s a way of thinking that has served me well in recent weeks breaking back into the USA and beginning a rolling speaking tour across the States. My mission is to support Donald J. Trump. But I have been taught by my audiences that there is something far more important to do. My mission is to gather people together and remind ourselves who we really are. And we are the side of love, laughter and light.

The things I am learning along the way have given me a burning new faith and optimism which perhaps can only be gleaned by being amongst people and by defying the very rules that seek to keep us apart.

Brits are currently banned from the USA - even those with visas. It is not a Muslim ban (although my country will be a Muslim majority in twenty years). It is a corona ban, on the basis that inflated British COVID death rates made the British Isles appear as the epicenter of some infernal plague. We have ‘The Science' to thank for that.

It became impossible to sit at home as a passive observer when everything we know and love is being fought for on the other side of the Atlantic. At some fundamental level, I needed to be a part of this fight. I needed to break back into America.

There is no way to overstate the significance of the election faced by American people in November.

The 2020 Presidential election is a tipping point for Western Civilization. It marks the last stand of the right against the very wrong, of law and order against anarchy and chaos, and democracy over socialism. It is not political but biblical in proportion.

. . .

Read the rest here.  What a pick-me-up.  

# # #

That’s a wrap: RNC

 

Most of you probably watched most or all of the conventions.  Over at PJ Media, several contributors were live-blogging, and Bryan Preston’s closing comments were spot-on:

President Trump closed out the greatest speech of his career and the strongest political convention either party has produced since I have been watching political conventions. 

Both parties faced numerous logistical and structural problems thanks to the COVID pandemic. The Democrats allowed COVID to confine them to crummy Zoom calls, empty speeches in dark and empty rooms, cloying and shaming rhetoric, and a depressing spirit.

The Republicans tore up the script and came up with a better one, that had no time for hacks and grifters. It brought real Americans with real stories forward. It showcased American history and pride. It showed us Fort McHenry. It unabashedly supported citizens, public safety, the possibility and joy of redemption, the agony of loss, the power of unity, and our nation's role in the world. 

The RNC convention could have been blighted by COVID as the Democrats' was. But the parties have a different character. The Democrats sank into the mire because that's who they are. The Republicans rose above it because that's who we are. Democrats want Americans as victims. Republicans want Americans as victors. 

# # #

DNC convention aftermath: a diagnosis

 

Charles Schulz cartoon via Pinterest.com

The DNC virtual convention was apparently obnoxious, filled with liars and scolds, etc. The reports I read made me glad to have had the TV on another channel.  The post-convention wrap-ups have been both entertaining and alarming.  This post mortem by Julie Kelly at American Greatness starts off:

A healthy political party—just like a healthy individual—has certain traits and habits that nourish overall wellness. A diversity of interests, a sense of humor, a curious mind, a measured temperament, and an occasional endorphin-release from physical activity are just a few things that contribute to the fitness of a human being. The same kind of characteristics should be found on a collective scale in a thriving, muscular, and stable political party.

None of those qualities, however, can be detected in the present-day Democratic Party. 

For all the squawking about Donald Trump’s alleged unfitness for office and insistence that the Republican Party is populated with zombie-like Trump cultists, in reality it is the Democratic Party that needs an extended stay at a detox facility to cleanse its sickly mind and body.

The party’s ailments have been on full display this week. Look no further than the freakish music video that closed out the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Billy Porter, a gay black Broadway star, and geriatric Steven Stills of Crosby, Stills, and Nash teamed up to remake Stills’ 1966 classic, “For What It’s Worth.”

The video was a performative display of the party’s schizophrenia: A white ’60s counterculture icon and a Dracula-costumed POC LGBTQ activist offering an inharmonious version of a Vietnam-era tune as the official anthem for the candidacy of a feeble establishment codger and his unaccomplished cackling sidekick quickly shredding their faux moderate façade in fealty to the party’s lunatic fringe of America-hating nihilists.

Somebody call a doctor.

The Democratic Party is not well. Joe Biden is neither mentally nor physically healthy enough to run the country, yet the party remains in denial. Biden’s conduct should raise all sorts of red flags but party stalwarts are hellbent on dragging him across the finish line in November in an almost cruel act of selfishness.

While Democrats willfully ignore Biden’s fragility, the party is fixated on every move, utterance, and tweet from Donald Trump in a way that any mental health professional would diagnose as obsessive.

Their rage often is expressed in alarming public outbursts. From tearing up a State of the Union address to threatening to “impeach the motherfucker” and calling for “unrest in the streets” against Trump supporters, the Democratic Party is controlled by emotionally unstable people who behave more like mad stalkers than rational adults.

They have one hallucination after another. For three years, Democrats rocked back and forth wrapped in a collusion straightjacket mumbling about the Russians(!) and lighting candles for Special Counsel Robert Mueller. One Democratic leader made up phone conversations between Trump and the Ukrainian president; one presidential candidate pretends to be Native American.

Now, metal mailboxes disappear before their very eyes.

. . .

Read the entire column here.

# # #

Irrelevant Dinosaurs

image credit: Daily Kos

At American Greatness, Liz Sheld takes aim at the GOPe, a/k/a establishment Republicans, including those addressing the Democrat convention this week:

“Democrats electrify party base with showcase of irrelevant dinosaurs 
(i.e., Bill Clinton and John Kerry)”

. . . Politics is first and foremost about who has power (elected officials, deep pocket corporate interests and their influencer flacks) and who doesn’t.  Since Trump is an outsider, the industry and it’s soldiers can’t cash a bank of IOUs they would normally have on a professional politician. It’s better for these fake Republicans and their auxiliaries to be in the minority of a status quo system. In fact it’s better for all the establishment Republicans to be the minority of a status quo system, they would much rather lose the White House and both chambers so they can be king of the losers. It’s easier for them, they don’t have to do anything, they have no responsibility and can always point to their helpless position as a minority as cover for their ineffectiveness.

But the nerve of these traitors, turning on the people who voted for them while pretending to represent their interests is astronomical. How many people who voted for John McCain (59,948,323 votes) also voted for Donald Trump (62,979,879)? I’m guessing a lot and those people probably thought McCain was going to advance mutually held political positions he pretended to have. Alas, it was always just a sham, these Republicans speaking at the DNC were never about conservative or classical liberal positions, they were only using a gimmick to get their power and that’s why the country delivered a throat punch to the political establishment named Donald J. Trump. At the same time it’s sickening to see but also refreshing that voters have an opportunity to see exactly how these politicians play which is for their own power grab, relevancy and the big bucks of their corporate patrons.

Read the rest here.

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