Interesting Items 04/17

Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.  Enjoy –

In this issue –

1.  Catholics
2.  Insurrection
3.  Ford
4.  Mandate
5.  NM
6.  Bragg
7.  Death
8.  Manifesto

1.  Catholics.  Catholics are the latest target of the Harris – Xiden anti-Christian jihadis.  Not content with the damage done by a leftist Pope, the anti-Christian bigots had themselves quite the week. 

• First comes from our old friends, the FBI, who are now developing sources inside Christian churches and Catholic dioceses as part of their effort to combat what they call domestic terrorism, a remarkably elastic term which used to mean Bad Guys doing bad things.  In the FBI’s and Do(In)J’s world today, this means anyone who is not completely onboard with whatever dreck is coming out of democrats and their media enablers.  Internal documents released by House Judiciary Committee show that the FBI is using churches as what they call “new avenues for tripwire and source development.”  Mainline Catholic parishes are singled out and specifically targeted.  Think of the fraud committed on the body politic and the rule of law by FBI informants leading and orchestrating the Whitmer kidnapping, their still unacknowledged leadership and participation in Jan 6, and their 50+ informants in the Proud Boys for a clue where this is going to be going.  The FBI is thoroughly corrupt and needs to end up like Carthage did after Rome got through with them.  Sooner would be better than later.
• Not to be outdone, the Pentagon’s hostility to Catholics ramped up nicely Easter Week as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center issued an order removing Catholics from the facility, replacing them with secular chaplains (I am confused how a chaplain can be secular, but what do I know).  The move was timed to honor Jesus rising from the dead. 
• Finally, we have Western Michigan University not renewing the contract of a former prof who reconciled his Catholic beliefs and former homosexuality.  The prof was an adjunct music prof at the university since 1999.  He wrote a few pieces 2017 – 2018 about reconciling his homosexuality with his Catholic beliefs.  The thing that got him fired was agreeing with Catholicism, something double plus ungood with the LGBTQWTF wokesters at the school.  He never mentioned either his sexual orientation or his religious beliefs while on the job.  He was essentially fired for his stated beliefs written five years ago.  The prof filed a lawsuit against the university for violating his first amendment rights to free speech.  I expect him to win the lawsuit.

2.  Insurrection.  These days, insurrection is in the eye of the beholder, for the political left can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and however they want with impunity, while those of us on the political right are lawn mowed by a highly politicized (In)Justice system at least at the federal level.  Last week, a protest led by three democrat House members during a debate on gun control took over the floor of the chamber, complete with Al Sharpton bullhorn.  The leaders were two black members and a white woman, and invited what appears to be a prepositioned mob in the gallery down to the floor of the chamber.  Happily, the Republican majority took a vote and expelled two of the three members, both the black men.  The woman dodged expulsion by a single vote, which was an unforced error by the majority, instantly opening the door to accusations of racism.  The woman whined for her seat and the majority showed mercy, which she instantly exploited by finding the first camera she could find and claim the expulsions were all race-based, as the majority left her in place.  Sadly, the majority did not instantly hold a follow-on vote to expel her following her reptilian display of cold-blooded race baiting.  The event was instantly picked up by the Usual Suspects all of whom got to talk about their favorite topic for the rest of the week, white racism.  By week’s end, one of the members had been reinstated, though still unapologetic.  I take this as a good sign, with a Republican majority finally fighting the political wars using the same tools as they democrats use.  Consider it a baby step.  There will be others.  They will improve.

3.  Ford.  This story is a couple weeks old.  Ford announced it would be phasing out AM radios from its passenger vehicles.  They will remain in commercial vehicles.  There is no information on what they are going to be doing with FM radios.  This follows the actions of BMW and Tesla not to include AM radios in their vehicles.  Our Side went into high dudgeon, blasting the announcement as an attack on talk radio, which trends hard right.  If that is correct, it is also an attack on sports radio which tends to the left.  The public safety guys got involved pointing out that it would also shut down public safety broadcasts, all of which is correct to some level.  I take an alternate view.  I think this announcement is more of an acknowledgement of where the radio business is going, satellite and podcasts, than anything else.  Satellite receivers have been in vehicles for over half a decade.  Like streaming, all the content is out there.  Like satellite (and streaming) the problem is figuring out where to find it.  Public safety notices are already available on smartphones and those smartphones are able to connect to the entertainment systems of newer vehicles.  I think concerns are overblown, although I would most certainly expect the Other Side to use this avenue of attack against talk radio if they could figure out how to get it done.  Problem with that is taking out AM radio doesn’t make their problem go away. 

4.  Mandate.  The latest attack vector by the Harris – Xiden greens is a mandate to replace two thirds of all internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2034, a decade from now.  The vehicle for this is new tailpipe emissions standards that will effectively phase out ICE vehicles.  The new standards are cute, putting a cap on the total emissions sold by any single automaker each year.  Nothing like this has ever been attempted in the 150-year long history of automotive history, which up until half a century ago relied on the marketplace and racing to drive technical development and sales.  As usual, we have California to thank for this brane fart, with their requirement that 100% of all new cars sold be carbon free by 2035.  Cali’s rules tend to ripple out to the rest of the country, like it or not.  The other attack on ICE underway at the state and local level is to ban construction of new gas stations. 

5.  NM.  I mentioned this a few weeks ago.  Alaska US Senator Dan Sullivan went after Interior Secretary on the floor of the Senate, accusing her of favoritism in the issuance of permits to explore and produce oil and natural gas on federal lands.  While Deb Haaland and the rest of the Harris – Xiden gang of greens have systematically gone after oil and natural gas permitting here in Alaska, she has been very, very good to her home state of New Mexico.  Sullivan noted that NM received 52% of all permits to drill on federal land since Haaland took office in 2021.  Things are so bad that NM now produces nearly 3 x more oil and natural gas than Alaska does.  No word how many of these permits are awarded to Haaland’s fellow Puebla tribal members.  I am still working to develop that information.  It is instructive that the green Secretary of the Interior is busily shutting down oil and natural gas exploration on federal lands nationwide while simultaneously taking very good care of her home state.  Apparently, NM has figured out how to do this without emissions, or at least Halland would like us all to think so. 

6.  Bragg.  Like the political left did 50 years ago during Watergate, the political left including the WH is fully involved in the Alvin Bragg prosecution of Donald Trump.  Former O’bama / Holder Do(In)J federal attorney Matthew Colangelo was tabbed by Bragg to lead the indictment team.  Colangelo was (in)famous for leading Holder (In)Justice attacks on attempts at the state level to clean up elections.  He often lost, though not before costing the states millions of dollars to defend themselves.  He is back to his old tricks with the Trump indictment, as Bragg is funding the effort with federal funds.  Note that while Trump is the first former president to be indicted, this happened before to a sitting VP, Spiro Agnew, who took a plea bargain and resigned before a trial was held.  Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance hired a former federal prosecutor in private practice to lead his effort.  The lawyer defended Robert Torricelli (D, NJ) from campaign finance charges.  Two other Manhattan lawyers were lent to the effort from the same NYC well-connected democrat law firm.  The head of the firm topped the list of Biden fundraiser, bundling at least $100,000 for the campaign.  The two Bragg lawyers who secured convictions of Trump CFO returned to the law firm, at least for a little while.  Under Stalin, Laverntiy Beria, his secret police chief described his work “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”  Democrats in NYC have morphed this to “Lend me your top attorneys to show me a crime”, which is not a positive step in judicial conduct.  Works pretty good in lawfare, though.

7.  Death.  When the government and self-proclaimed experts get together to “improve” things these days, we should always look at that “improvement” skeptically and start purchasing firearms.  Last week’s news comes from an attempt to revise the official definition of death passed in the 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act to revise what is called brain death to allow easier and quicker harvest of organs.  Doctors have increasingly tried to determine brain deaths and pull the life support plugs.  Families of the patients don’t like this a lot and have been fighting back in court, much to the distress of the hospitals and doctors involved.  Solution?  Change the definition to make that little difficulty go away.  How sweet.  The new definition is simply an unresponsive person, for example a person on a ventilator with a beating heart.  The revision also does not use the term irreversible, nor does it include any loss of whole brain function.  Additionally, the proposed change does not include a requirement for informed consent before initiating brainstem – reflex testing.  In some of these cases, the test itself is both dangerous and permanently damaging to a brain-injured patient. 

8.  Manifesto.  It has been over two weeks since the Nashville Police and the FBI promised to release the trans shooter’s manifesto.  It is supposedly being reviewed by the FBI.  Over that time, we have had leaks from the FBI to media that there was really no manifesto at all, rather a series of rambling writings indicating no clear motive.  Media treatment of these sorts of events is entirely driven by political concerns.  If the shooter is the wrong race, gender or religion (and you know what those are), the story will be quickly buried.  If it is advantageous to any leftist political campaign, we will hear about it incessantly for weeks.  Individual details are selected for publication while others are conveniently memory-holed.  I expect what is in the manifesto is damning to the ongoing attempt to mainstream trans and use it as one of the democrat’s 2024 campaign structure.  Who knew that giving hormones and psychotropic drugs to unstable teens was a bad idea?

More later –

• AG