Category Archives: Republicans

Why Libertarians Should Shrug-Off Memo Mania

Democrats, Donald Trump, Iraq, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Republicans

A NEW ESSAY, “Why Libertarians Should Shrug-Off Memo Mania,” is at the Mises Institute’s Power and Market blog. An excerpt:

First came the Republican memo, courtesy of the Republican House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes. Their memo detailed the surveillance abuses against one Carter Page, enabled by a kangaroo court which was strengthened immeasurably by the old Republican-Party boss, George Bush.

Bush II had fortified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and the Stupid Party greased the skids for the expansion of FISA infractions. Following Barack Obama’s lead, Republicans have reauthorized the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which has resulted in the “incidental” collection of the communications of American citizens, and likely served as an impetus for prosecutions.

Enter Rep. Adam Schiff, Democrat from California. He and the other Democrats on the House intelligence committee have now presented their distillation of the counter case, namely that the “FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page” were all justified. Well of course.

Media eminences—Republican Mark Steyn, for instance—have accused the Democrats of assaulting the rule of law. The libertarian, however, might wish to avoid wading into an intra-party fracas. Why intra-party? Because the Democrats and the Republicans of DC share most of their political DNA.

Am I saying libertarians have no dog in the fight over whether “Hillary Clinton and the DNC funded the [dodgy] dossier that was a basis for the Department of Justice’s FISA application”?

Do we not care that the “venerated” FBI “had abused its surveillance authority and relied improperly on politically motivated sources—namely former British spy Christopher Steele who had been paid by Fusion GPS, a private intelligence firm hired first by conservative underwriters and then retained by Democrats during the 2016 campaign”?

Precisely.

Put it this way: What libertarians should care about is that the “America’s political police”—the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its malignant offshoots—is being thoroughly discredited by its most enthusiastic advocates. This is of a piece with the creative destruction generated, inadvertently, by Donald Trump.

Moreover, the meta-perspective argued for here relies on a recognition that America is regularly convulsed by episodes of mass, hysterical contagion.

What is “hysterical contagion”?

Sociologists explain it as the spread of symptoms of an illness among a group, absent any physiological disease. It provides a way of coping with a situation that cannot be handled with the usual coping mechanism.

Arguably, the Trump-Russia “collusion,” “obstruction of justice” probe and the attendant frenzied behavior and belief-system it has engendered meets the definition of mass hysteria. With an exception: This particular form of mass madness involves a meme, a story-line that catches on and sticks. In particular, it is the emotional pitch with which the Trump-Russia collusion group-think is delivered, day in and day out, that has gripped and inflamed irrational, febrile minds. …

… READ THE REST.  Why Libertarians Should Shrug-Off Memo Mania” is at the Mises Institute’s Power and Market blog.

And at the Ron Paul Institute.

 

 

 

Beware, City Slicker Republicans; The Democrats Are Running ‘Prairie Populists’ In The Dakotas

Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Republicans, States' Rights

The Economist: “The Democratic brand is often toxic in rural America, where it is seen as a party of coastal elites. But Western voters seem willing to pull the lever for the right kind of Democratic candidate.”

In South Dakota, where “Republicans hold overwhelming majorities in both of the state legislative chambers; and Donald Trump won nearly twice as many votes as Hillary Clinton in 2016,” the Democrats are running “country politician” and former rodeo champion Billie Sutton for governor.

Sutton, who was “was paralysed from the waist down” in a rodeo accident, identifies “The main divide in South Dakota politics” as “not between Democrats and Republicans but between urban and rural regions.”

In the general election Mr Sutton will probably face either Kristi Noem—who has spent the last seven years in Washington as the state’s sole House of Representatives member—or Marty Jackley, who has spent nearly a decade as the state’s attorney general.

For obvious reasons, these are Sutton’s “dream opponents.”

Mr Sutton is a pro-life, pro-gun, church-going Democrat, just as Heidi Heitkamp—a Democratic senator from North Dakota—supports fracking and the Keystone oil pipeline. They are less prairie populists than prairie pragmatists, focused on kitchen-table issues and connecting to individual voters rather than joining the partisan vanguard.

Source: “A Democrat With A Chance In South Dakota.”

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Nancy Pelosi Genuinely Overflows With Hatred For White America. It’s No Act, Or Love Of Cheap Labor

Democrats, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Race, Racism, Republicans

Botox-brain Nancy Pelosi celebrated her grand kid for wishing he were brown, black, anything but white. Did Republicans respond, as they should’ve, with non-stop mention of Pelosi’s hatred of whites? Did the GOP do the right thing morally and strategically?

Hell no. Hate on honky all you like, if it’s up to Republicans.

Laura Ingraham (not worth watching) whimpered only that Pelois was playing racial politics, or something milquetoast and mild and neutral. Pathetic.

Naturally, treason is not a concept establishment conservatives (except for Tucker Carlson) would conjure for the eight-hour performance by House Minority Leader Pelosi on the floor, all for Dreamers (non-citizen, illegal immigrants). Punching is for Winners, which is what Democrats will be when voters realize winning is on the wane.

Then there is the tired assertion or mantra repeated ad nauseum by conservatives: money. It’s money that makes Democrats like Pelosi and other “social-justice” interests betray their American constituents.

It’s not. Mere money is not the main motivator for dotty fools like Nancy Pelosi, who genuinely overflows with hatred for white America. If only conservatives quit reducing everything to labor costs.

RADICAL LIBERALS LIKE NANCY and Mark Zuckerberg ARE TRUE BELIEVERS!!!

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NEW COLUMN: Whodunit? Who “Meddled” With “Our Democracy”?

Constitution, Democracy, Democrats, Founding Fathers, Republicans, Russia, States' Rights

“Whodunit? Who ‘Meddled’ With ‘Our Democracy’?” is the current column, now on WND.COM. Sorry to disappoint. There will be none of the usual hyperventilating partisanship here …

An excerpt:

Republicans have revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) treats Americans not as citizens, but as subjects to spy on. I’d expect nothing less from a Court created and perpetuated by George W. Bush and his Republicans.

But, what do you know? Following Barack Obama’s lead, President Donald Trump and his Republicans have renewed FISA Section 702, which, in fact, has facilitated the usurpations the same representatives are currently denouncing.

Also in contravention of a quaint constitutional relic called the Fourth Amendment is Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller has taken possession of “many tens of thousands of emails from President Donald Trump’s transition team.” There is no limit, seemingly, to the power of the special counsel.

Look, we’re living in a post-Constitutional America. Complaints about the damage done to our “democracy” by outsiders are worse than silly. Such damage pales compared to what we Americans have done to a compact rooted in the consent of the governed and the drastically limited and delimited powers of those who govern.

In other words, a republic. Ours was never a country conceived as a democracy.

To arrive at a democracy, we Americans destroyed a republic.

The destruction is on display daily.

Pray tell where-oh-where in the US Constitution does it say that anyone crossing over into the US may demand and get …

… READ THE REST. “Whodunit? Who ‘Meddled’ With ‘Our Democracy’?” is now on WND.COM.