11DEC2019 – OCF Update

I didn’t post anything extra yesterday or today, just the Photo and Quote of the Day, because all the action was Monday.  All the rest is the spin going back and forth and honestly I’ve grown bored with that.  When Durham does something then I’ll remark on that.  As far as the impeachment jazz, ho-hum.

And I guess we’ll all have to wait for tomorrow for Boris and the Brexit election results.  Looks like he’ll win the day whether it’s a 28 seats or 68 seats majority, it’s more than enough to finish off Brexit.  If he still fails then it will reinforce the far right’s conspiracy theories.  But I am convinced Boris will get it done.  He may finesse a few things because he isn’t a social conservative but he will cut the cord with the EU.

As far as the Dem primary, there hasn’t been anything funny enough to mock lately.  But I’m sure it will errupt soon so hang in there for that.  I’ll start doing some Christmas stuff soon becuase I enjoy that.  And some more reviews and of course Star Trek continues.

So pardon the lull but I just don’t want to say the same things over and over.

U.S. Attorney Durham Disagrees

Here is the text of Durham’s reaction to I.G. Horowitz’s report:

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, December 9, 2019

Statement of U.S. Attorney John H. Durham

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff.  However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.  Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.  Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

For me the informative statement is, “last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”  Durham has the evidence and he’s going to find out who will be forced to take responsibility for abusing the FISA mechanism.  I wonder how soon the grand jury will be empaneled?  My longer-term readers know I am a vindictive so and so.  It would give me the greatest pleasure to hear that the lucky recipient of the Grand Jury’s attention decided to sell his fellow conspirators down the river.  Is it too much to hope for some action as a Christmas present?  Sigh.  Time will tell.

But the bigger picture is how this will impact the Democratic Primaries, the Impeachment Fraud and the 2020 Election.  Once again, I think we have to assume the Democrats are depending on the Media to downplay any negative impact from the investigation.

With respect to the primaries the biggest risk is for Biden.  If the overseas investigation touches on the Ukraine crimes then he won’t be the Democrat candidate in 2020.  I’m not sure Ukraine will actually show up in the investigation.  We’ll have to depend on Rudy Giuliani and the Senate to play up that angle.

As far as the Impeachment nonsense, it’s clear that the Attorney General’s investigation (through Durham) is what really caused the impeachment decision.  Possibly the Ukraine call was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Clapper and Brennan must be pretty scared.  But the Impeachment will be finished off pretty soon because if they don’t start soon it’s going to knock the various Senators running for president out of the race.  So possibly the investigation won’t get into high gear until the Senate exonerates the President.  Waiting that long is really annoying so I hope it’s not the case.

Finally, with respect to the 2020 election, if the investigation uncovers a true smoking gun, e.g., if one of the mid-level or higher conspirators turns state’s evidence, then President Trump will win in a landslide and the Republicans will end up with sizable majorities in the Congress.  If the investigation is only the normal trial of overambitious bureaucrats then the President will still win but more in line with his 2016 win.

So, let me end with an exhortation to Durham and Barr.  Hey boys, get to work!  Life is short and as one of my friends always says to me whenever I get excited about the Durham investigation, “it’s not enough unless they frog-march Comey and company out of their houses at 3am like they did to those poor guys whose only crime was they wouldn’t lie about Trump.”

 

Horowitz’s Report Available

The IG’s Russiagate Report has been published and is available

https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

Two of the recommendations seem to point at who Durham will be starting with:

The Department’s Office of Professional
Responsibility should review our findings related
to the conduct of Department attorney Bruce Ohr
for any action it deems appropriate. Ohr’s
current supervisors in CRM should also review
our findings related to Ohr’s performance for any
action they deem appropriate.

The FBI should review the performance of all
employees who had responsibility for the
preparation, Woods review, or approval of the
FISA applications, as well as the managers,
supervisors, and senior officials in the chain of
command of the Carter Page investigation for
any action it deems appropriate.

 

The first recommendation is specific to Bruce Ohr.

The second one is for the Carter Page FISA team.  Looks like those are the sacrificial lambs.  Barr and Durham, go get ’em.

 

post script – Durham says he has more and better info than the IG:

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ct/pr/statement-us-attorney-john-h-durham

 

Go get ’em Mr. Durham!

post post script

 

And Barr also says “not so fast!”

 

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-william-p-barr-inspector-generals-report-review-four-fisa

 

Go get ’em Mr. Barr.

 

08DEC2019 – OCF Update

This Thursday, 12DEC2019, is the British General Election.  Currently, the Tories are way ahead of Labour in the polls but the smaller parties will come into play if the Tories can’t get an overall majority.  But at least this week, finally we’ll know if Brexit will actually happen.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the IG’s report on Russiagate.  We’ve been told that it will be a nothing burger.  If that is the case it will make liars out of several of the sources we heard from last month.  Anyway, it’s about time it finally ends.  Durham better have something real and have it real soon.

The Pelosi Psychiatric Facility will be performing their Impeachment Follies next week also.  Meh.

Lots of stuff going on, hopefully lots of laughs.  Stay tuned.

 

The Alice in Wonderland Election

Four years ago, Michael Anton named the 2016 presidential election the Flight 93 Election.  The analogy was that voting for Donald Trump was the equivalent of storming the cockpit to attempt to stop the Democrats (and Republicans) from hijacking and crashing the Unites States of America.

Unexpectedly it worked.  And over the last few years we have seen just how apt the Flight 93 metaphor was.  But we have moved well beyond the analogy because although we may have wrested the cockpit out of the hands of the terrorists, the plane is still taking anti-aircraft fire from enemy forces on the ground.

Well, enough of that metaphor.  Let’s try a new one.  A few days ago I reviewed the current state of the Democrat Presidential Primary and I declared that the only way they could get me to watch them was if I thought I’d get a laugh out of it.  Creepy Uncle Joe could get me to listen to his Tales of Corn Pop or watch him bite his wife’s hand but I wasn’t interested anymore in watching their boring debates or commercials.

But on closer inspection I think maybe boring is the wrong word.  I think the correct word is painful.

Let me elaborate.  When Liarwatha or Bernie starts yammering about the Green New Deal or Medicaid for All, the disconnection from reality is actually painful to listen to.  A sane listener experiences a jarring cognitive dissonance.  It’s like someone is scratching his fingernails across a chalkboard or when you bite down on a sore tooth.  So, it would take quite a bit to get me to listen to this stuff again.

And the same thing occurred when the Schiff gang began their little sitcom around impeachment.  Listening to Pelosi’s minions pretending to be Watergate investigators is just too tedious and nonsensical to follow for more than a minute or two at a time.  One of my friends sent me a link to the testimony Jonathan Turley gave at the hearings.  He is the one “expert” that wasn’t an obvious hack trying to legitimize the Schiff kangaroo court.  I listened to his measured and balanced discussion of what kind of presidential actions would and would not amount to an impeachable offense.  I found him credible.  But I also realized that he would not influence opinion one way or another.  Forty percent of the country would agree with him, another forty percent would call him a liar and the last Twenty Percent would be “unsure.”  The needle wouldn’t even twitch.  So why should I watch this stuff if it makes no difference at all?  I mean I think it’s good for our side to put their side of the story out there to make sure the Twenty Percent hears both sides of the story but for me and my readers there’s no new information provided.

Which brings me back to what I was saying the other day.  The only possible reason to watch the Democrats is for entertainment value.  Creepy Uncle Joe or foaming at the mouth commies will have to pull out all the stops if they want me to tune in.  The denizens of the Island of Broken Toys will have to really try to get me to watch.  Maybe a three stooges slap fight between Joe, Petey and Bernie or a hair pulling cat fight between Fauxcahantas and Hillary might get me to view but not much else.  I mean after the Swalwell fart it has all, more or less, been done.

So here we are with a United States Presidential Election going on, hundreds of millions of Americans making up their minds who will wield the most powerful office of the most powerful nation that has ever existed.  The occupant of this office, an office that has as one of its responsibilities deciding whether to launch a thermonuclear strike with the planetary extinction capability of the US nuclear arsenal, will be chosen by this process.  And as the leading opposition candidates for that job we have Creepy Uncle Joe, Liarwatha, Bernie the Stalinist and Butt Pete.  There is no other way to characterize the situation but as a bizarro world scenario.  The classical description is Alice in Wonderland.  We have a normal observer, Alice, confronted by a world where everything is inverted and the normal rules of nature are suspended.  She struggles to cope with the inconsistency and outright madness but finds herself unable to do more than move from one absurdity to the next.  In this analogy no one would try to make sense of the Mad Hatter or the Queen of Hearts.  It would be futile.  Admittedly some people find this amusing but a steady diet of this sort of thing results in the experience I noted at the beginning of this essay, jarring cognitive dissonance.

To my mind the sensible way to address this election is to try and sway the Twenty Percent by highlighting the positive results and agenda of President Trump and exposing the absurd and dangerous positions and bizarre behaviors of his opponents.  This is what the talking heads on the Right need to do.  They need to pound away at Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and the Deep State that handed them this hot mess.  It’s up to Bill Barr and John Durham to connect the dots on what the Russia and Ukraine scandals are really about.  If it turns out that Hunter Biden was part of a bigger payday for the Obama administration then that will cook Joe Biden’s goose for sure.  But even without that I think we’ll see our side prevail in 2020.

For me this though this is not the mission.  I preach to the choir.  There’s no need to bang that drum.  You all know all this.  My job is to provide my opinions and hopefully amuse.  So, I don’t want to bore anyone with logical arguments as to why the Democrats are wrong about this or that policy position.  You all know they’re the enemy.  I don’t have to convince you.  What I need to do is find some interesting things to discuss about the world we live in and make fun of the evil cretins who want to make us Orwellian slaves.  And that’s what I’ll do, I will chronicle the evil, stupid, absurd and insane doings of the Progressives and their allies in the Media and the Deep State.  That is my mission in the Alice in Wonderland Election.  So down the rabbit hole we go.  Hopefully we’ll meet on the outside again after we wake from the nightmare.

 

05DEC2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Impeachment is Backfiring in the Midwest – Matt Batzel

It’s always nice to see some numbers that confirm what you think is going on.  Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan don’t seem to think Schiff is doing the country any favors.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/03/impeachment-is-backfiring-in-the-midwest/

 

 

Democrat 2020 Race – 04DEC2019 Update

Well here we are in December and Kamala Harris even ending her campaign is so boring I can barely bother to fake interest in watching her rip-cord speech.  And I shouldn’t have bothered.  She didn’t even cry or anything.  Sure, her face looked kind of spastic at points but that’s just her face.  Of course, she gave us the blather about fighting on and on for women and persons of color and colorful personal women but it looked like she was really connecting the dots hoping she can be Butt Pete’s running mate.  There just wasn’t any fun in the whole thing.

So, the highlights of the race in the last few weeks were:

  • Joe Biden and the details of the Corn Pop speech with his blond leg hair and kids playing with it in the pool.
  • Joe Biden’s No Malarkey Barnstorming Iowa Magical Mystery Tour Bus
  • Joe Biden tries to amputate his wife’s forefinger with his new shiny white dentures
  • Eric Swalwell farts on the Chris Matthews Show.

Well all right, that last one doesn’t count because Swalwell resigned a while ago.  But it actually was the funniest thing in the list.  Honestly, it’s starting to seem like even the Democrats know that they will lose in 2020 but feel like they have to hang in there just in case famine or pestilence breaks out to save them.  Unfortunately, they’re atheists and divine intervention wouldn’t take their side.

The other hope they hold is the Impeachment Show.  But it seemed to run out of gas and viewers last week and turning it over to Nadler doesn’t promise to improve things.  No, they’re going to have to try to hold the public’s interest on their own with debates and commercials and PBS and CBS specials.  But it’s hopeless.  The only non-boring actors, Biden and Sanders, are certifiable loons.  Creepy Uncle Joe gets weirder every time he opens his mouth and it can’t be long before he starts undressing on stage and challenges the audience to a wrestling match.  Bernie, on the other hand, will eventually slip up and reveal his deep longing for the return of Stalinist Russia and the good old days.

A month or two ago I threw in the towel on Joe being the candidate and assumed Liarwatha was the front runner.  But supposedly she imploded when people figured out the Green New Deal and Medicaid for All would actually mean the new tax rate would be 150% of total salary.  So now Butt Pete is “The Man,” sort of.  But let’s face it, none of them can win or even look like a realistic candidate for President of the United States.  And admittedly Donald Trump wouldn’t have seemed like a likely candidate for president a generation ago.  But the gap between President Trump and this Field of Losers from the Island of Broken Toys is disturbing.  I can only assume they’re saving the normal candidates for 2024.

All right, so that’s where we are.  Bloomfield and Patrick have joined the circus but more clowns are not going to change the equation.  I still hold out great hope that the Presidential Debates between the President and whichever midget is nominated will be a laugh riot.  But until then I’ll have to subsist on Biden gaffes and Swalwell gas.

 

War Pig’s Anecdotes on General Patton the Younger – Part 1

One of my very interesting readers, War Pig, was inspired by the General Patton quotes this week to provide a personal remembrance of General Patton the Younger in the comments.  On hearing that he had more stories I asked if he’d provide them and allow me to post them here.  He kindly agreed and here they are.

Some personal anecdotes about Major General George S. Patton IV (son of the WWII Patton).

General Patton the Younger (as we called him) was every bit as much of a firebrand as his father, and could be as spectacularly profane as his sire.

I was a young sergeant assigned to the 2nd Armored Division at Ft Hood, Texas in the middle 1970s. Patton commanded the division back then. He spent as much time as he could riding in his specially modified jeep and out of headquarters. You never knew when or where he’d show up. His jeep had a bar on his side for him to hold onto. He disliked sitting as he had a bad hip. He also had a flasher light and a siren installed. His driver was on leave for some reason and he called my brigade for a replacement. I was a counterintelligence agent and I was attached to the division artillery. The Command Sergeant Major wasn’t too fond of intel types so he tasked me to drive Patton for almost 6 weeks.

__________________________________________________________

As I have said elsewhere, Patton despised lieutenants. He said to me, once; “A private knows nothing and we expect him to do nothing more than to follow orders. Unfortunately, lieutenants also know nothing yet they are allowed to give orders. Without a good sergeant, a lieutenant is the most dangerous thing on the battlefield – to our own cause.”

Patton had a high regard for NCOs. But had little time for officers below Lt Colonel. He also trusted the troops, the enlisted men. My time driving for him was interesting, to say the least. He had a deep respect and care for the enlisted men under his command.

One day that summer it was a Black Flag day. It was so hot and humid that training was to be kept indoors if possible. The heat index that day was, I believe, 110 degrees. Of course, I drove Patton’s jeep as it was open-topped and we were moving. We were heading to corps headquarters for some briefing or another. As we were driving along Patton yelled; “Stop this f**king jeep!” I stopped as quickly as I could without throwing him head first over the windshield. Between two barracks was a platoon of soldiers doing close order drill on the dry grass. In the heat, on a black flag day. “Pull over there!” he yelled. I drove across the concrete median, over the sidewalk and up to the platoon on the grass. Patton’s jeep went where Patton said, and screw the traffic laws. In the shade stood a platoon sergeant, looking pissed off.

The lieutenant saluted but Patton yelled; “What the f**k do you think you’re doing? Where in hell’s your platoon sergeant and why isn’t he kicking your ass right now? Who’s your company – your battalion – who’s your brigade commander lieutenant?!”

The lieutenant tried to stammer out a reply but Patton was on a roll. “What the f**k are you doing? Answer me!”

“The platoon needed discipline, sir.”

About this time Patton saw the platoon sergeant. “Why aren’t you kicking his ass, sergeant?” To which the sergeant answered that he was ordered to stand aside.

“You!” Patton said to the lieutenant, “You will have yourself and your entire chain of command in my office at sixteen hundred. You got me?!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sergeant, you are now in command of this platoon until further notice. Dismiss the men.”

“Yes, sir.”

We went to the meeting/briefing/conference. We were back in Patton’s office before 16:00 Waiting outside were the lieutenant, his company commander, the battalion commander and the brigade commander. They were called into the office in order of seniority, the door was closed, and loud voices were heard. By the time the lieutenant was called in I was sitting by the door and could hear what was said. Patton was swearing up a storm and the young lieutenant was catching it for disobeying a training directive, putting his troops in danger of heat stroke, and refusing to listen to his platoon sergeant.

“Well, you’re f**king fired. Relieved of command of the platoon and a commanding general’s official letter of reprimand will be placed in your records.”

 

 

Cutting Through Idealism and Realism to Enact Change

During my Thanksgiving holiday I got into a discussion with one of my guests about the nature of American government.  The discussion arose out of a comment I made about a book I was reading.  I mentioned that the author believed that several modern conservative scholars were unbeknownst to themselves espousing moral relativism when opining about the Founding Fathers’ intent when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.  The discussion could have gotten into a relatively complicated discussion of the evidence of the Founders’ intent but was short circuited by a statement by my guest that all of these political theories were completely irrelevant because in the real world, government had nothing to do with principles or even the law but was rather a jungle of machine politicians handing out patronage to minions and enforcing the will of the powers that be.  I tried to make the point that even if human nature inevitably injects corruption into the real world having an ideal version of government as a map of what government is supposed to be is a means by which we can continuously correct the deviations that build up in our government.  Eventually the discussion broke down due to irreconcilable differences in point of view.  But it got me thinking about what is the correct way to handle practical problems in today’s political system.

After thinking about the obstacles to change it occurred to me that both honest and dishonest government presented both obstacles and opportunities for influencing government policy.  For instance, in Democrat run states, the politicians are often cynical crooks who have nevertheless learned to parrot the multicultural narrative to control the vote.  But these patchwork coalitions they represent are far from a united front.  Most of the constituencies have little in common and some are actually hostile toward each other.  This reality opens up opportunities to divide and conquer the “narrative” by appealing to the self-interests of some component of the gorgeous mosaic.  This worked clearly when a SuperPAC was able to get a Proposition to block Gay Marriage on the California ballot and minority voters provided the margin needed to pass it.

In places where Republicans are at least nominally in charge, holding these leaders’ feet to the fire is the way to go.  Never let them use fairness or kindness to allow some kind of insanity to take hold.  Where the Right has the advantage, it should maintain a stranglehold by any means necessary.  The ranks of elected officials should be scrupulously monitored for heresy and violators should be branded with an L for Leftist and cast out into the outer darkness never to return.  And it’s not only the right of the people in this area to let their leaders know what is going wrong.  It’s their duty and their best chance of keeping their environment sane.

But as far as the nuts and bolts of political life, I’ll admit that patronage and log-rolling are probably not things that can be eliminated.  Politics is a lucrative environment to swim in and honesty is even scarcer in political circles than it is in the business world.  That reality is never going to be permanently altered.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t push the politicians and judges to write their laws and decisions to serve our needs.  A crooked politician can push through a good law if he thinks his job depends on it.

And so, this brings me back to my original point.  Just because government is full of crooks it doesn’t mean we have to let them neglect the functions of government that can restrain Leftist insanity.  They can continue stealing their part from the Treasury if they will at least protect us from the people who want to steal our children’s lives and souls.

But in order to make that happen we have to be both realistic about what the people in government are really like and be idealistic in what we want our communities to be like.  Just because our mayor happens to be a degenerate doesn’t mean we will let him legalize depravity in our midst.  And equally just because a man is honest doesn’t mean he is safe as a mayor or president.  If he’s too idealistic and fears being called mean or a bigot then he can be convinced to do any horrible thing for the sake of being “fair.”  And the same goes for ourselves.  We have to be tough-minded enough to withstand the hysteria and venom that the Leftists and their allies in the Media will throw at us whenever they want to victimize us with some new social justice abomination.  But we can’t allow ourselves to become so cynical about government corruption that we give up on making government do its job.

So, is this realistic idealism or idealistic realism?  Either way works for me, as long as they can keep the perverts away from the kids.