Democrats Have Seceded From The Union. What's Next?

The election of 1860 was so traumatic for Democrats in the South that they began seceding from the union immediately afterwards.  But the Civil War did not start until April, 1861, when a dispute over who controlled Fort Sumter resulted in an attack by the South.  By the end of the war, 620,000 soldiers alone had died.

There's a meme that's been going around since Donald Trump's election that says, "Wow, I haven't seen Democrats this upset since we freed their slaves!"  At the risk of being melodramatic, I'd like to make the case that this is eerily perceptive.

I've written in the past that the Civil War was really about an entitlement mentality towards slavery. The South wasn't interested in abusing Africans for the sake of abusing them. It was about economics and preserving a lucrative economic system based on the slavery entitlement. The South did not want to lose its entitlement, and the Republicans, embodied by the newly elected Abraham Lincoln, were a direct and imminent threat.

Explaining secession in 1860 in terms of entitlement helps explain what is happening today with the Democrats and Donald Trump.  

Democrats have gotten used to a number of entitlements, and by entitlements I'm referring to anything of value that benefits one group at the expense of another.  Here's a partial list: 

• Unfettered access to borrowing and printing dollars for redistributive entitlements
• Either complete control, or at least filibuster control, of the federal government
• Bureaucratic control of the federal government
• Union control of the federal government
• Unanimous union support
• Unanimous support of the poor
• Unanimous support of minorities
• Unanimous support of immigrants
• Control of immigration policy     
• Citizenship not required for voting
• Control, or at least nominal control, of the Supreme Court
• So-called "sanctuary" policies which allow Democrat cities to subvert federal law 
• Support of the vast majority in media, academia, and entertainment. 

Donald Trump is a threat to each of these Democrat entitlements.  His unconventional, brash, improvisational, and ultimately successful ascension to the Presidency has gotten their attention.  So they are reacting. 

The Democrat response has been variously called a temper tantrum, a melt-down, a fit, a resistance, a civil disobedience movement, a protest, etc.  But what it really is, is secession.  

Unlike the South, which was a geographically distinct entity, the Democrats are spread throughout the country.  This is not a physical secession like the one in 1860, but more of a philosophical one. 

Democrats have seceded from the Constitution of the United States. 

Of course they would disagree and say they are actually defending the Constitution.  That's exactly what the South said in 1860.  

Here are some of the things prominent Democrats have done since Donald Trump's election, which mirror 1860 - '61:

• Civil disobedience and protests immediately after the election
• Claims of an illegitimate election
• Boycotts of the inauguration
• Civil disobedience and protests immediately after the inauguration
• Calls for removal, impeachment, and even violence
• Sabotaging the formation of a new government
• States and cities threatening to secede
• States and cities threatening to ignore federal law
• Violence against supporters

So, what's the next step?  Are we headed for Fort Sumter? 

Today, Democrats seceded from the entire process of advice and consent in the Senate committees, something never done on this scale in the U.S. before.   

Interestingly, the  battle of Fort Sumter happened about six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was sworn-in on March 4th, 1861.  We are still less than two weeks into Donald Trump's presidency.  

Islam: A True Story

In 1987, a friend of mine from college days, named Carl, traveled to Indonesia with an Israeli friend, named David. Israelis are permanently barred from pretty much all Muslim countries including Indonesia, but David was able to visit because he also had a New Zealand passport.

Carl wrote a letter home documenting his first impressions of Indonesia, and in it he said, "On arriving, I noted that they (the Indonesians) seemed to be laid back Muslims, which David implied was impossible."

As far as I know, David is still alive.  Carl died on 9/11.    

I bring this up in the context of Donald Trump's temporary pause in immigration from seven countries identified by Congress and Obama as state sponsors, or enablers, of Islamic terrorism.

Many Americans view Islam the way Carl did, as just another "laid back" religion.  And many, including the current President, have a more Jefferson, Adams, and David view.  Jefferson famously went to war against Islamic terrorism, and won.

President Trump appears to be in good company on this.

You're Fired!

President Trump fired his first public sector employee today, Sally Yates, an Obama appointee who was acting Attorney General due to Democrats delaying Jeff Sessions.  That makes today a good time to remind readers what I wrote in July 2015 about the prospect of a Trump presidency, which at the time I thought an extremely remote possibility:  

President Trump could accomplish from within the government what could never be accomplished from without:  namely the destruction and de-legitimization of the federal leviathan. 

Donald Trump could be the virus that infects and ultimately kills the progressive idea that government can and should micro-manage every aspect of your life.  Sure it sounds appealing when a silver-tongued community organizer gives you a one sided utopian vision to cling to,  but how many want to sign up for that same program when the guy who says “you’re fired!” becomes boss? 

Donald Trump holds people accountable.  That alone would stop totalitarianism in its tracks.  The only way the progressive takeover can continue is if a majority stays convinced they are getting a free ride in exchange for others losing their freedoms.  Trump will give no one a free ride, and everyone will be his subject.   

Make Donald Trump President, and inside of four years the electorate will be clamoring for limited government once again in America. 

Amen.  It may have only taken ten days!  

Trump Has A Point On Illegal Voting

Donald Trump continues to create firestorms by asserting he likely won the popular vote - if illegal votes are deducted.  Meanwhile, one of the reasons millions of women protested was that they asserted Hillary Clinton should rightfully be president because she won the popular vote. 

All of this raises some interesting questions. Did illegals vote? If so, how many? Could it be enough to swing the popular vote? And, should we even look at the popular vote? 

States that Issue Driver's Licenses to Unauthorized Immigrants 

2106 Election Results Map

The two maps above amount to prima facie evidence that Donald Trump has a point regarding illegals voting. Of the 13 states and districts (including Washington D.C.) that issue driver's licenses to unauthorized immigrants, 12 of them voted for Hillary Clinton. That's a whopping 92%!  

Only Utah bucked the trend, but that's because Utah requests a picture ID or equivalent, and the driver's license they issue to unauthorized immigrants is distinctly different from the one issued to citizens.   

This occurred during a year when the Democrat candidate won only 21 states (including D.C.), 12 of which, or 57%, were states that issue driver's licenses to unauthorized immigrants. The odds of this being a coincidence are astronomical.

It's not a coincidence. Democrats have been on a decades long mission to encourage unauthorized immigrants to come here and vote. The reason is simple; immigrants overwhelmingly vote Democrat. 

To further this along, Democrat President Bill Clinton signed a law in 1993 known as the Motor Voter Bill, which basically automated voter registration for anyone applying for a driver's license or other government benefit.  The loophole is that illegals are now registering to vote in massive numbers, particularly in states that issue them driver's licenses.  

Here's a picture of Bill Clinton signing the Motor Voter bill.  Notice the two people standing directly behind him?  They are Francis Fox Piven and  Richard Cloward, in the green and grey respectively, two radical Columbia University professors who advocated collapsing the U.S. by overloading it with dependents and immigrants.

And here is Barack Obama, who studied at Columbia University while Cloward and Piven held court there, answering  a question with only one correct answer.  The question is essentially, "should illegals be afraid to vote?" His answer should have been, "they shouldn't vote because it's illegal". That's not what he says though.

Link: HERE

So, should we even care about the popular vote?

Of course not. How many Trump voters stayed home in states like California, New York, and Illinois because they knew their votes were meaningless in states that hadn't chosen a Republican since cars had cranks? Both candidates would have run completely different races if the popular vote had been the goal.  You simply can't hold an election based on one set of rules and then scream foul when your candidate would have won based on some other hypothetical set of rules.

Think how this would work in sports.  The baseball World Series winner is determined by a best-of-seven series of games, and  this year the Chicago Cubs won four games to win the series. But in the popular vote of runs scored, it was a tie!  Sometimes the losing team outscores the winner over the whole series, but they still lose, and no one claims otherwise.

Same in football, where the only thing that matters is outscoring the opposing team at the end of an hour.  Sometimes the team that loses has more offensive yards, dominates the clock, completes more passes, forces more turnovers, etc. But they still lose.

So, how many illegals and non-citizens voted? There is absolutely no way to ever know because by Democrat design, voting is done almost entirely on the honor system.  No citizenship records are kept. That leaves only maps and circumstantial evidence - like this:

2106 Election Map Showing Democrat Concentrations Near Border Crossings and Routes

(Hat Tip: @Military4Trump on Twitter)

Perhaps the most telling aspect of voter fraud is that Democrats have worked tirelessly to allow it. They have promoted policies like loose registration, early voting, mail-in ballots, no photo I.D., no citizenship I.D., no oversight at polling places, and provisional balloting.  Meanwhile, Democrats have universally opposed every single proposal to ensure integrity in the voting system.

Donald Trump has a point, he should investigate, and he should work to ensure integrity in the voting system.  If not, he and every Republican from now on will lose the popular vote, and probably the Presidency as well.

Does Love Trump Hate?

I thought about writing a thoughtful piece about The Women's March, its causes, and ramifications. But I soon realized that a mass protest like this is little more than a live performance of a meme.  Or more accurately, multiple memes.  

So instead of a long thoughtful piece, for which a temper tantrum would be unworthy, here's the three big memes all rolled-up into one: 

   

Dear Trump Haters...

Dear Trump Haters,

Hatred is a counterproductive emotion.  It saps your energy, hurts you more than the target of your hate, and rarely results in anything positive.  Of course, if you disagree with policies and methods, you have every right and obligation to criticize and make counter proposals.  But raw hatred should not be part of the equation.  It makes you look unhinged, especially when the object of your hate hasn't even taken office yet!  

Look, you had eight years to demonstrate the superiority of liberal totalitarianism. It didn't work. Now it's time to give constitutional freedom a chance. Is that what Trump will bring? Who knows. That's certainly what his cabinet choices look like.  

So, let's give the new President a chance to enact his vision. If it turns out to be just another version of totalitarianism, then it's time to ramp up the protests. And I'll be right there blogging against it! In the mean time, try to be civil. That's what we, who opposed liberal totalitarianism, did when Obama was the new guy. You are looking very bad in comparison.  

And consider this:                 

P.S.  Your candidate didn't lose because of Russians, Fake News, James Comey, Julian Assange, Misogyny, Racism, Fox News, or any one of the lame excuses you have come up with.  Deal with it. You lost. Grow up.  

Will The Real Hitler Please Stand Up?

Update:  

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “While everyone was banging on about Trump being Hitler, Obama sent thousands of troops into Poland. The satire is writing itself these days.”  

(as per Glenn Reynolds at instapundit.com)  

Dieselgate Update

The Obama DOJ has charged six VW executives and arrested one in the diesel emissions scandal plaguing the German automaker.   In other news, Fiat Chrysler has also been accused of it's own diesel emissions cheating scandal.   Oh, and don't forget Mercedes, which is being sued over diesel emissions as well.  What's going on here?

Here's the upshot from a piece about all the diesel models NOT coming to the U.S. from a site called gas2.org:    

For those of you keeping score, then, that means Volkswagen’s diesels are out. Audi’s diesels are out. Mercedes’ diesels are, apparently, on the way out now, too. As it stands, Jaguar is the only automaker ready to sell 2017 model year diesels in the US. Sure, BMW and GM (nee Chevy) are both anticipating their diesels to be cleared for sale before the end of the year. But that still just leaves Jaguar in the here and now. One brand, compared with nine brands offering twenty diesel models in the US this time last year.  

In other words, passenger diesel is dead.  How GM, BMW, and Jaguar are able to continue selling them is a mystery that the others may want to solve.  For all intents and purposes, emissions laws, justified or not, have made passenger diesels in the U.S. illegal.

It's almost like a trap was set for these companies.  The government set impossible emissions standards knowing diesels couldn't meet them, and then they fine the living crap out of these (mostly foreign) companies when they get caught!

I'm reminded of the book by Harvey Silverglate, "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent." wherein he details how laws have morphed into oppressive micromanagement schemes that entrap all of us with often vague and unknowable parameters.

Car companies certainly knew what they were doing, but chose to cheat anyway because they were painted into a corner.  Businesses spend billions on R&D and cannot easily walk away from technology they spent years developing.  Somehow Europe, which runs largely on diesel power, was OK with the levels of NOX coming from these new "Clean Diesels".  Interestingly, only the U.S., which runs mostly on gas powered passenger vehicles, had a problem.

Bottom line is this:  If a majority of the companies selling diesels took the extraordinary risk of being fined, sued, arrested, and shamed in the public square instead of just walking away from the diesel business altogether, something was probably wrong with the emission standards.  Yes, I'm standing up for the cheaters, because at this point, I have zero faith in the U.S. government's ability to get anything right.        

Meryl Streep's Golden Melt-Down

And, no Meryl, Donald Trump did not make fun of a handicapped reporter's handicap.  He used that same exaggerated spastic gesture to mock Ted Cruz, as well as several other non-handicapped critics. It's one of his stock mannerisms when imitating critics.  Moreover, the handicapped reporter he was quoting at the time has a deformed hand, and is not spastic.

Watch here:

Russian Hacking? We've Seen This Movie Before...

The news today is that Barack Obama, with a fortnight left in office, has positioned U.S. special forces in Lithuania at the Russian border in a signal to Vladimir Putin that things like "hacking" our elections will not be tolerated.  Seems legit, right?

Except we've seen this movie before.  The difference is,  last time we weren't saber rattling with a nuclear power, and the administration didn't have a shelf life shorter than a ripe banana.  This is extremely dangerous and reckless behavior.   

Remember Benghazi?  This Russian hacking meme, and the responses to it, are just like what happened after Benghazi.  Back then, the ploy involved an anti-Muslim YouTube video instead of Russian meddling, but the goal was the same: divert attention to cover-up an ugly reality.  

There are always some "tells" with these tactics:  

• Instantaneous determination of the culprit.
• Unanimous talking-point buy-in from all Democrat operatives.
• Over-the-top denunciations of routine behavior.
• Convenient deferrals to the "intelligence community".  (Which, of course, has been thoroughly politicized in the Obama era.)
• Disproportionate and decisive remedial action taken.
• Inability to provide any proof.  
• Claims that proof exists, but exposing proof would jeopardize secret national security sources and methods.

Like Benghazi, there was an instantaneous determination of complicity after WikiLeaks began releasing DNC and John Podesta emails.  It took the Obama administration several years to finally figure out that Major Hassan, screaming "Alahu Akbar" while murdering U.S. military personnel, was actually committing an act of terror.  Yet somehow the administration knew instantly Russia, and specifically Vladimir Putin, was to blame for the emails.  The same administration that couldn't competently launch an Obamacare website with an unlimited budget and years to prepare, knew instantly and with absolute certainty that the easily disguised tracks of a phishing scam led directly to Vladimir Putin.  Does this add up?    

So unanimous was the adherence to this meme, that it became a standing joke whenever a Democrat operative was interviewed during the campaign.  The interviewer would ask a question about some innocuous topic, something like, "So, how's the food on the campaign trail?", and the op would figure out a way to squeeze in a reference to Russians meddling in our election! Anyone paying attention could tell this was a meme being pushed for political expediency...just like the Benghazi YouTube diversion.

Remember after Benghazi how every Democrat operative referred to the YouTube video as "reprehensible",  and then would go on to distance the U.S. government from having anything to do with it?  That was classic straw-man stuff, as no one ever claimed the U.S. government had anything to do with the video in the first place.  With this Russian "hack",  operatives have been using superlatives for how evil and against international norms this alleged hack has been.  Oh really? Not long ago, WikiLeaks disclosed the U.S. government was actually listening to Angela Merkel's cell phone! Now that deserved some superlatives.  And during the last election in Israel, Obama spent a pile of U.S. taxpayer money in an attempt to overthrow Bibi Netanyahu.  All of it wasted, of course. Yet somehow we are to believe Putin is doing something reprehensible?  Putin actually invaded a country recently, and Obama's response?  Nothing.  Remember Anna Chapman?  She was a real Russian spy with an entire spy ring living in the U.S. who got caught in 2010.  Obama's response? Nothing - except she was asked to leave.  Now someone figures-out Podesta's "ultra-secure" password is actually... "password", and Obama is expelling people and sending troops?  Does this make logical sense? 

The intelligence community was somehow coerced into mentioning the YouTube video as a possible irritant for the murders in Benghazi.  We now know that line was Bravo Sierra.  Similarly, the same intelligence community is now pedaling the line about Putin and the Ruskies.  Just as credible, and just as political as last time.  And in both cases, there were dupes in both parties who sincerely bought into the ploy.  

To make the Benghazi ploy look legit, Obama actually did imprison the hapless guy who made the YouTube video.   If only we had a first amendment or something to protect videomakers from being imprisoned for speech!  Oh wait...  Now we are invading countries and expelling diplomats to make the same diversional ploy look legit.  And to sabotage the incoming administration.  

In both Benghazi and the email hack there is a conspicuous lack of proof to support the diversions. And none is forthcoming in either case.  Obama promised a swift response after Benghazi, and then said,  "The perpetrators will be brought to justice!".  Remember how every major network was able to interview the perps within weeks, but it took the Obama military, with a budget in the trillions, years to get one alleged attacker and bring him stateside?  His trial is conveniently scheduled for 2017, long after the election of 2016.  He would certainly know if the attack was really a film critique, and I'm sure he was offered a great deal to publicly finger the video on 60 Minutes.  Of course, any serious observer would know that the compound in Benghazi was attacked on multiple occasions long before the offending YouTube video was ever put online!

In the case of Benghazi, one poor schmuck actually spent a year in prison to divert attention from a terrorist attack and get Obama re-elected.  Now it is a diversion to delegitimize and sabotage the incoming President who threatens to undo eight years of Obama's totalitarian liberalism.  This time the ploy has turned sinister and dangerous.  I sure hope Donald Trump can gracefully dance around all the landmines Barack Obama is putting in his path, because if not, real people could get blown up.

(UPDATE: The company that found the alleged Russian hack, and on which the entire intelligence community assessment rests, is a Google linked company with strong ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign.  CrowdStrike was funded by a division of Google, and Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Googles parent, was a staff member and advisor to the Clinton campaign.)