Weekly report to friends of Montgomery County by Peter Huessy November 18, 2024
The report this week highlights my essay on what has happened so far re the race for the White House and Congress, as well as the most serious national security implications of the election and the cabinet choices by the new President.
A very interesting open apology from Naomi Wolf—I urge everyone to read it.
The next essay is about the end of the nut-job era—i.e., the crazy woke policies of the Democrat party.
An assessment of how Congress, with a 16% approval rating, can be reformed.
A list of the ten key reasons why Trump won the Presidency.
And finally, from Michael Ramirez on the election results.
Congress and The Trump Trifecta
The political outlook is now clear; the Republican party won the Trifecta, electing Trump as President with 312 electoral votes, winning the Senate 53-45-2, and the House at a projected 222-113.
Republican House candidates Rep Duarte and Rep Steel are leading their respective races in California by 2800 and 350 votes. Begich is leading in Alaska by 9400 votes; and Rep Meeks is leading by 800 votes in Iowa with 98% counted. Four other close races are led by Democrat candidates.
The Presidency: The new President received 75.9 million votes (so far) or about 1.7 million more votes than in 2020, when he received 74.2 million votes; while VP Harris received slightly less than 73 million votes, which is 8+ million less than Mr. Biden received in 2020.
In the Senate, there were 4 races where Republican candidates came close---losing three races in Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan by 21,000, 24,000 and 29,000, respectively. If the Senate candidates had received the same number of votes as President-elect Trump, all four seats would have been won by the R candidate, so Republicans would have won 57 seats, the most Senate seats for the Republican party for the past 92 years--we had 57 seats prior to the 1932 election between Hoover and Roosevelt and 53 seats under President Reagan in 1981, flipping 12 Senate seats held by incumbent Democrats.
Even more important, third party libertarian and conservative candidates in three of the 2024 races---Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan---took enough votes from the R candidate to swing the election to the Democrat incumbent, (ranging from 40,000-70,000 votes).
Third party candidates almost always help defeat the party they claim to be “helping” or “reforming,” whether Senate or House or for the Presidency. Senate candidates in the four States received a total of 475,000 fewer votes ranging from 75,000-220, 000 fewer votes than Trump per state. In three states 160,000 votes went to third party conservative candidates, the latter being sufficient to shift three of the seats to the Democrat incumbent.
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Commentary on What to Expect for US Security Policy in Next Administration
The commentary on the election of former President Trump re the future of foreign and security has run the gamut with most of the national security criticism about the nomination of Peter Hegseth for Secretary of Defense and Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence and the assumed diminution of US support for Ukraine.
However, the appointment of Rep Waltz as National Security Adviser, John Ratcliffe as Director of Central Intelligence and Senator Mark Rubio as Secretary of State indicate that top supporters of helping Ukraine have prominent places in the administration as well as being top critics of China and for a strong national defense and strong nuclear deterrent.
Hegseth is geared to reverse the recruiting shortfall and get rid of the DEI woke policies in the Department, as well as to markedly improve the efficiency with which the DoD operates. (It is often not mentioned but the young voters that Trump won decisively placed effective/efficient government as one of their top objectives/goals.)
Gabbard is the most concerning re nuclear deterrent issues. Her voting record https://www.peaceaction.org/legislator/tulsi-gabbard/ from her time as a representative from Hawaii (2017-2021) indicated a string anti-nuclear view; part of this weekly report is a long list of votes against various nuclear modernization efforts, including the USAF cruise missile or LRSO. Gabbard’s biggest concern is that she believes Putin is nit bluffing with respect to using nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine. The former House member believes that any such use of nuclear weapons would be an uncontrollable escalation that would lead as Annie Jacobson argues in her book “Nuclear War: A Scenario” to all out nuclear war and nuclear winter and the end of humanity. Senator Rand Paul endorsed the choice of Gabbard while also explaining that North Korea pursued nuclear weapons because of the threats against the regime by the United States over many decades.
Foreign Affairs, the Journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, (CFR) is now pushing legislation that requires the President to consult with a specific set of top cabinet members and advisers before being authorized to use nuclear weapons. The underlying and not very subtle message is the claim that the new administration will be guided by reckless or impulsive decisions. One news article claimed the former President had contemplated the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea. Senator Rand Paul endorsed the nomination of Gabbard as well.
One CFR essay took a different approach than the Journal usually does. The US needs to restrain the extent to which it sends forces overseas and prioritize our security objectives, which is what President-elect Trump campaigned on. The author thought such an approach was realistic, not isolationist, and consistent with that the American people voted for, and consistent with US security needs. He did call for less US presence in Europe and the Middle East and more force deployments in the Pacific and Asia.
Scott Jennings Reminds CNN Panel America ‘Just Voted Against The Expected Washington Pick’ While Defending Hegseth
Republican strategist Scott Jennings called out panelists who questioned President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to nominate Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, reminding them that Americans “voted against” Washington insiders.
Hegseth, a “Fox and Friends” weekend co-host who served in the National Guard for 20 years and made multiple combat deployments, was announced Tuesday night as Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon. Jennings said that the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the attempt to deploy a mobile pier in Gaza called the insiders’ competence into question.
“Does anybody have confidence in the current leadership of the Pentagon and the way the defense situation has been operating for the last several years?” Jennings asked the panel. “I mean, from the Afghanistan pullout, which was an extreme debacle for which no one was held accountable, we’ve had spy balloons flying over the United States, we built the $300 million pier as a public relations stunt which wound up killing an American service member.”
“I would say I’ve had just about enough of the so-called ‘insiders’ running the Defense Department, I think we ought to give Pete Hegseth a chance.” Jennings continued, prompting journalist Carl Bernstein to ask, “You think that’s about insiders?”
Jennings referenced the thirteen service members who were killed in an Aug. 26, 2021 bombing as American forces were evacuating from Kabul, as well as a pier built to deliver relief supplies to Gaza, which cost taxpayers over $230 million and was operational for just a few weeks, during which one soldier died of injuries sustained while operating the pier.
“All the criticism of him is that he is not the expected Washington pick and I am just saying to you that the American people just voted against the expected Washington pick,” Jennings responded. “He has 20 years in service, Afghanistan, Iraq, two Bronze Stars, Princeton, Harvard. Yes, he is on TV, but so are the rest of us. I think he ought to be given a chance.”
Trump previously announced that former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe would be nominated as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and that Republican Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, a former Green Beret, would serve as national security advisor.
Reagan and Trump: Political outsiders who won over the American public By Scott Walker - Read More and
Historic victory: The fall of the left and the rise of forgotten Americans By Jason Meister - Read More
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Trump Makes Major Hire for Department of Homeland Security, Taps Governor Kristi Noem
President-elect Donald Trump has picked South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday morning…In January, Noem released a joint statement in support of Texas Gov. Greg Abbot (R-TX) taking state action to secure the border. Homeland Security, which manages U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), will be key in fulfilling Trump’s promise to close the southern border and reform America’s broken immigration system.
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Why Did Trump Win?
When Vice President Kamala Harris got thumped in the presidential election about a week ago, the liberal media were shocked.
After the drubbing, the legacy media — which have become virtual cheerleaders for the Democratic candidate — turned introspective, searching for signs they missed.
They missed everything. The results of the election were no surprise to millions of Americans, who bet some $300 million on the result, with nearly two-thirds backing former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. But the media never saw it — and even in their postmortem, they got a lot of things wrong.
Here are the top 10 reasons Ms. Harris lost the 2024 presidential election:
1. The Bidenconnection
Ms. Harris just couldn’t distance herself from the very unpopular President Biden. Voters — a record number of whom voted for him in 2020 — had soured on his handling of nearly everything. What’s more, in one of the biggest disasters of her campaign, when asked on “The View” what she would have differently from her boss in the last nearly four years, she said, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” That wasn’t what voters wanted to hear.
2. The Trump trap
Attempting to paint Mr. Trump as extreme — or, in the words of many liberals, a new Hitler — fell flat because voters were too busy painting him as an economic Picasso. He had been president for four years and didn’t do any of the heinous things Democrats said he would do if reelected. Voters were too smart to have the wool pulled over their eyes.
3. The economy, stupid
With the economy being the top concern, voters saw Mr. Trump as the better candidate to help struggling Americans. While the economy has stabilized a bit, many Americans are still reeling from soaring prices that occurred on Mr. Biden’s watch. One preelection poll found the economy was most important for two-thirds of voters.
4. Turnout disaster
In 2016, Mr. Trump got 62.9 million votes while Hillary Clinton got 65.8 million votes; 137.1 million Americans voted. In 2020, Mr. Trump got 74.2 million votes while Mr. Biden got 81.2 million votes; 158.6 million Americans cast ballots. But everything changed in 2024: Mr. Trump got 75.4 million votes to 72.3 million votes for Ms. Harris; total votes, 150.5 million. There’s no other way to slice it: Millions of Democrats stayed home.
5. Immigration conflagration
Immigration issues under Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris made Mr. Trump look like a border hero. There were endless reports of the soaring number of foreigners crossing the border illegally, aliens charged with committing violent crimes and cities spending millions of dollars to take care of them. As border czar, Ms. Harris visited the southern border just once. It was clear that solving the crisis was not a priority for her.
6. Untested and untried
One old-time member of the club famously described the vice presidency as “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” While it has been a launchpad to the presidency in the past, vice presidents are often out of the spotlight, sent to the funerals of foreign leaders. What’s more, Ms. Harris was already deeply unpopular even in her subordinate role — one 2021 poll put her favorability rating at just 28%.
7. Women just said no
Ms. Harris’ strategy was to focus on women and abortion, almost going so far as to claim women would be forced into back alleys if Mr. Trump became president again. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump zeroed in on men — particularly young ones — with precision, making big gains among Generation Z. Exit polls showed Ms. Harris got the votes of 54% of women, down from 57% for Mr. Biden.
8. Courting the wrong crowd
Ms. Harris aimed to woo dissatisfied Republicans, but they were more committed to their couches than crossing the party line. She trotted out GOP former Rep. Liz Cheney on the trail, which no doubt miffed the hard-core left. It didn’t help that Dick Cheney, a former vice president, also backed the Democrat.
9. Middle East missteps
With Mr. Biden unable to stop the Israel-Hamas war, Ms. Harris found herself unpopular among Arab and younger voters, many of whom back claims that Israel is committing genocide. One exit poll showed 66% of Jews voted for Ms. Harris, while 32% voted for Mr. Trump. Ms. Harris tried to walk a political tightrope: supporting a longtime ally in Israel while courting Americans who back Palestinians. But she didn’t pull it off.
10. Dodging the media
In her 107 days at the top of the Democratic ticket, Ms. Harris didn’t hold a single news conference. She and her team decided to sit down almost exclusively with friendly media, dodging the melee of an hourlong presser with professional journalists. While Americans may not care that much that she didn’t face an adversarial press, they knew her well enough not to vote for her.
Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and on X @josephcurl.
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Dear Conservatives, I Apologize
My "Team" was Taken in By Full-Spectrum Propaganda
Mar 09, 2023
There is no way to avoid this moment. The formal letter of apology. From me. To Conservatives and to those who “put America first” everywhere.
It’s tempting to sweep this confrontation with my own gullibility under the rug — to “move on” without ever acknowledging that I was duped, and that as a result I made mistakes in judgement, and that these mistakes, multiplied by the tens of thousands and millions on the part of people just like me, hurt millions of other people like you all, in existential ways.
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But that erasure of personal and public history would be wrong.
I owe you a full-throated apology.
I believed a farrago of lies. And, as a result of these lies, and my credulity — and the credulity of people similarly situated to me - many conservatives’ reputations are being tarnished, on false bases.
The proximate cause of this letter of apology is the airing, two nights ago, of excepts from tens of thousands of hours of security camera footage from the United States Capitol taken on Jan 6, 2021. The footage was released by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson [https://www.axios.com/2023/03/08/mccarthy-defends-jan-6-footage-tucker-carlson-fox-news].
While “fact-checkers” state that it is “misinformation” to claim that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was in charge of Capitol Police on that day [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/27/fact-check-nancy-pelosi-isnt-in-charge-capitol-police/8082088002/], the fact is that the USCP is under the oversight of Congress, according to — the United States Capitol Police: [https://www.uscp.gov/the-department/oversight].
This would be the same Congress that convened the January 6 Committee subsequently, and that used millions of dollars in taxpayer money to turn that horrible day, and that tragic event, into a message point that would be used to tar a former President as a would-be terrorist, and to smear all Republicans, by association, as “insurrectionists,” or as insurrectionists’ sympathizers and fellow-travelers.
There is no way to unsee Officer Brian Sicknick, claimed by some Democrats in leadership and by most of the legacy media to have been killed by rioters at the Capitol that day, alive in at least one section of the newly released video. The USCP medical examiner states that this Officer died of “natural causes,” but also that he died “in the line of duty.” Whatever the truth of this confusing conclusion, and with all respect for and condolences to Officer Sicknick’s family, the circumstances of his death do matter to the public, as without his death having been caused by the events of Jan 6, the breach of the capitol, serious though it was, cannot be described as a “deadly insurrection.” [https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/medical-examiner-finds-uscp-officer-brian-sicknick-died-natural-causes] Sadly, though the contrary was what was reported, Officer Sicknick died two days after Jan 6, from suffering two strokes. https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/capitol-police-officer-brian-sicknick-died-of-natural-causes-after-suffering-two-strokes-day-after-jan-6-report/
There is no way for anyone thoughtful, even if he or she is a lifelong Democrat, not to notice that Sen Chuck Schumer did not say to the world that the footage that Mr. Carlson aired was not real. Rather, he warned that it was “shameful” for Fox to allow us to see it. The Guardian characterized Mr. Carlson’s and Fox News’ sin, weirdly, as “Over-Use” of Jan 6 footage. Isn’t the press supposed to want full transparency for all public interest events? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/mar/07/biden-medicare-taxes-desantis-trump-2024-live-updates] How can you “over-use” real footage of events of national relevance?
Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate minority leader, did not say the video on Fox News was fake or doctored. He said, rather, that it was “a mistake” to depart from the views of the events held by the chief of the Capitol Police. This is a statement from McConnell about orthodoxy — not a statement about a specific truth or untruth. [https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5060662/senator-mcconnell-calls-tucker-carlsons-depiction-january-6-attack-mistake]
I don’t agree with Mr. Carlson’s interpretation of the videos as depicting “mostly peaceful chaos.”[https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3887103-tucker-carlson-shows-the-first-of-his-jan-6-footage-calls-it-mostly-peaceful-chaos/] I do think it is a mistake to downplay how serious it is when a legislative institution suffers a security breach of any kind, however that came to be.
But you don’t have to agree with Mr. Carlson’s interpretation of the videos, to believe, as I do, that he engaged in valuable journalism simply by airing the footage that was given to him.
And remember, by law that footage belongs to us — it is a public record, and all public records literally belong to the American people. “In a democracy, records belong to the people,” explains the National Archives. [https://www.archives.gov/publications/general-info-leaflets/1-about-archives.html]
You don’t have to agree with Carlson’s interpretation of the videos, to notice the latest hypocrisy by the Left. My acquaintance and personal hero Daniel Ellsberg were rightly lionized by the Left for having illegally leaked the Pentagon Papers. The New York Times was rightly applauded for having run this leaked material in 1971. [https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1435/daniel-ellsberg].
I do not see how Mr. Carlson’s airing of video material of national significance that the current government would prefer to keep hidden, or Fox News’ support for its disclosure to the public, is any different from that famous case of disclosure of inside information of public importance.
You don’t have to agree with Mr. Carlson’s interpretation of the videos, to conclude that the Democrats in leadership, for their own part, have cherry-picked, hyped, spun, and in some ways appear to have lied about, aspects of January 6, turning a tragedy for the nation into a politicized talking point aimed at discrediting half of our electorate.
From the start, there have been things about the dominant, Democrats’ and legacy media’s, narrative of Jan 6, that seemed off, or contradictory, to me. (That does not mean I agree with the interpretation of these events in general on the right. Bear with me).
There is no way to un-hear the interview that Mr. Carlson did with former Capitol police office Tarik Johnson, who said that he received no guidance when he called his superiors, terrified, as the Capitol was breached, to ask for direction. [https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-talks-exclusively-key-capitol-police-officer-ignored-by-jan-6-panel-amid-footage-release]
That situation is anomalous.
There is always a security chain of command in the Capitol, at the Rayburn Building, at the White House of course, and so on, which is part of a rock-solid “security plan.” [https://www.dhs.gov/news/2014/09/30/written-testimony-usss-director-house-committee-oversight-and-government-reform].
There are usually, indeed, multiple snipers standing on the steps of the Capitol, facing outward. I made note of this when I was researching and writing The End of America. There is never improvisation, or any confusion in security practices or in what is expected of “the security plan,” involving “principals” such as Members of Congress, or staff at the White House. I know this as a former political consultant and former White House spouse.
The reason for a tightly scripted chain of command and an absolutely ironclad security plan in these buildings, is so that security crises such as the events of Jan 6 can never happen.
The fact that so much confusion in security practice took place on Jan 6, is hard to understand.
There is no way to not see that among the violent and terrifying scenes of that day, as revealed by Mr. Carlson, there were also scenes of officers with the United States Capitol Police accompanying one protester who would become iconic, the “Q-Anon Shaman”, Jacob Chansley - and escorting him peaceably through the hallways of our nation’s legislative center. [https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-lawyer-qanon-shaman-says-jan-6-footage-wasnt-shown-client-calls-prison-sentence-tragedy].
I was oddly unsurprised to see the “Q-Anon Shaman” being ushered through the hallways by Capitol Police; he was ready for the cameras in full makeup, horned fur hat, his tattooed chest bare (on a freezing day), and adorned in other highly cinematic regalia. I don’t know what Mr. Chansley thought he was doing there that day, but so many subsequent legacy media images of the event put him so dramatically front and center — and the barbaric nature of his appearance was so illustrative of exactly the message that Democrats in leadership wished to send about the event — that I am not surprised to see that his path to the center of events was not blocked but was apparently facilitated by Capitol Police.
A point I have made over and over since 9/11 is that many events in history are both real and hyped. Many actors in historic events have their agendas but are also at times used by other people with their own agendas, in ways of which the former are unaware. Terrorists and terrorism in the Bush era are one example. This issue was both real and hyped.
“Patriots” or “insurgents” (depending on who you are) entering the Capitol can be part of a real event that is also exploited or manipulated by others. We don’t know yet if this is the case in relation to the events of Jan 6, or to what extent it may be the case. That is where a real investigation must come in.
But as someone who has studied history, and the theatrics of history, for decades, I was not at all surprised to see, on Mr. Carlson’s security camera footage, the person who was to become the most memorable ‘face’ of the ‘insurrection’ (or the riot, or the Capitol breach) — escorted to the beating heart of the action, where his image could be memorialized by a battery of cameras forever.
There are other aspects of the Jan 6 breach that seemed anomalous to me from the start. I study the relationship in history of buildings such as The White House and the Capitol, to the US public; I follow the way in which the public is either welcomed into or barred from these structures.
In the media furor around Jan 6, it was erased from memory that the White House itself and the Capitol too have always been open to US citizens and foreign visitors. The interior of the Capitol is open to the public. These are public buildings.
The US government website, Visitthecapital.gov, explains that anyone can watch Congress in session; tickets to the gallery are available from one’s Representative. [https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/visit/know-before-you-go/watching-congress-in-session] You can also enter the Capitol, show ID, and visit the Exhibition Hall. Passes to the gallery are issued to foreign visitors right when they walk in: [https://www.senate.gov/visiting/common/generic/visiting_galleries.htm].
Massing peacefully at the Capitol and other public buildings, and indeed entering the Capitol to observe the legislators at work, is part of our rights and inheritance as citizens, and this use of our First Amendment right to assemble has a long history.
The Gallery -the upper balcony that surrounds the legislative action — was constructed in 1857 in order to allow the public to watch their legislators and to listen to debates. Even before they had a vote, women had recourse to a “Ladies’ Gallery;” and African Americans also joined observers in the gallery, after Reconstruction.
Newly enfranchised African American citizens, thronging the interior of the Capitol building after Reconstruction, were depicted in Frank Leslie’s periodical:]
In 1876 and 1877, massive, raucous public crowds thronged the Gallery to observe the outcome of a contested Election — between Rutherford B Hayes and Samuel J Tilden.
This, above, is the Electoral Commission of 1877, with the public crowding the gallery, as the outcome of the contested Rutherford/Tilden Presidential election was decided. [https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/looking-back-the-electoral-commission-of-1877]
January 6’s narrative, via the Democrats in leadership, is a departure from our history (and from our Constitution) in messaging to the nation the novel theme that the public is categorically forbidden to enter the Capitol, and that the Capitol is the province of legislators alone.
This is simply not true.
The Capitol is not a sealed space exclusively for legislators, but it is one that is supposed to, and indeed was constructed to, welcome and host the public, in an orderly way.
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We should not be encouraged to forget this.
Indeed, inaugurations themselves have been open public events in which the US citizenry simply entered the building for the celebration; this tradition lasted from President Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801, to 1885.
Things got very chaotic indeed in 1829. “On March 4, 1829, Andrew Jackson upholds an inaugural tradition begun by Thomas Jefferson and hosts an open house at the White House.
After Jackson’s swearing-in ceremony and address to Congress, the new president returned to the White House to meet and greet a flock of politicians, celebrities and citizens. Very shortly, the crowd swelled to more than 20,000, turning the usually dignified White House into a boisterous mob scene. Some guests stood on furniture in muddy shoes while others rummaged through rooms looking for the president–breaking dishes, crystal and grinding food into the carpet along the way. […]
The White House open-house tradition continued until several assassination attempts heightened security concerns. The trend ended in 1885 when Grover Cleveland opted instead to host a parade, which he viewed in safety from a grandstand set up in front of the White House.” [https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jackson-holds-open-house-at-the-white-house].
And inaugurations were not the only occasions in which US citizens approached or entered their public buildings in Washington.
The Bonus Army, which massed in the summer of 1932, during the Depression, to claim the financial “bonus” promised to veterans who had served in World War I, is an example of citizens assembling peaceably at the Capitol. When I was an undergraduate, we were taught that the Bonus Army sat on the steps of the Capitol and lobbied the legislators who were entering and leaving the building. I remember from my history textbook, images of crowds seated on the Capitol steps in 1932.
“[M]ore than 25,000 veterans and their families traveled to Washington, DC, to petition Congress and President Herbert Hoover to award them their bonus immediately. Fortunately for the marchers, Pelham Glassford, the local police chief and a veteran of the war himself, made accommodations for this influx, including the creation of an enormous camp in the Anacostia Flats […]. Glassford understood that Americans had an inherent right to assemble in Washington and petition the government for the “redress of grievances” without fear of punishment or reprisals. […]
On June 15, the House of Representatives passed the new bonus bill by a vote of 211 to 176. Two days later, some 8,000 veterans massed in front of the Capitol as the Senate prepared to vote, while another 10,000 assembled before the raised Anacostia drawbridge. The police were anticipating trouble because of the large crowds. The Senate debate continued until after dark. […]
When it appeared that the bonus would not be paid, many of the marchers refused to leave, and President Hoover ordered the Army to evict them. Using tear gas, tanks, and a troop of saber-wielding cavalry commanded by Major George S. Patton, U.S. Army chief of staff General Douglas MacArthur drove the marchers out of Washington and burned their main camp on the Anacostia Flats.”[https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-bonus-army]
I mention the massing of the Bonus Army on the Capitol steps in 1932, to note that the dominant narrative around Jan 6 today, often implies that it is an act of violence or of “insurrection” simply to march en masse peacefully to the Capitol.
But we should be wary of allowing history to be rewritten so as to criminalize peaceful, Constitutionally-protected assembly at “The People’s House.”
The violence of Jan 6 and its subsequent service as a talking point by the Democrats’ leadership, risks its use also to justify the closing off of our public buildings from US citizens altogether.
This would be convenient for tyrants of any party.
Leaving aside the release of the additional Jan 6 footage and how it may or may not change our view of US history —- I must say that I am sorry for believing the dominant legacy-media “narrative” pretty completely from the time it was rolled out, without asking questions.
Those who violently entered the Capitol or who engaged in violence inside of it, must of course be held accountable. (As must violent protesters of every political stripe anywhere.)
But in addition, anyone in leadership who misrepresented to the public the events of the day so as to distort the complexity of its actual history — must also be held accountable.
Jan 6 has become, as the DNC intended it to become, after the fact, a “third rail”; a shorthand used to dismiss or criminalize an entire population and political point of view.
Peaceful Republicans and conservatives as a whole have been demonized by the story told by Democrats in leadership of what happened that day.
So, half of the country has been tarred by association, and is now in many quarters presumed to consist of chaotic berserkers, anti-democratic rabble, and violent upstarts, whose sole goal is the murder of our democracy.
Republicans, conservatives, I am sorry.
I also believed wholesale so much else that has since turned out not to be as I was told it was by NPR, MSNBC and The New York Times.
I believed that stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian propaganda. Dozens of former intel officials said so. Johns Hopkins University said so. https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Biden-Story-Russian-Disinformation-Dozens-Former-Intel-Officials-Say&qpvt=Biden-story-russian-disinformation-dozens-former-intel-officials-say&FORM=EWRE
“Trump specifically cited a “laptop” that contained emails allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden,” said ‘CNN Fact-Check,’ with plenty of double quote marks. [https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_036fb62c-377f-4c68-8fa5-b98418e4bb9c]
I believed this all — til it was debunked.
I believed that President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia — until that assertion was dropped. [https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/]
I believed that President Trump was a Russian asset, because the legacy media I read, said so [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book].
I believed in the entire Steele dossier, until I didn’t, because it all fell apart. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63305382].
Was there in fact an “infamous pee tape”? So many other bad things were being said about the man — why not? [https://www.businessinsider.com/christopher-steele-trump-pee-tape-probably-exists-2021-10]
I believed that Pres Trump instigated the riot at the Capitol — because I did not know that his admonition to his supporters to assemble “peacefully and patriotically” had been deleted from all of the news coverage that I read. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-11/trump-team-hoping-peacefully-and-patriotically-will-be-shield]
Because of lies such as these in legacy media — lies which I and millions of others believed — half of our nation’s electorate was smeared and delegitimized, and I myself was misled.
It damages our nation when legacy media put words in the mouths of Presidents and former Presidents and call them traitors or criminals without evidence.
It damages our country when we cannot tell truth from lies. This is exactly what tyrants seek — an electorate that cannot know what truth is and what is falsehood.
Through lies, half of the electorate was denied a fair run for its preferred candidate.
I don’t like violence. I do believe our nation’s capitol must be treated as a sacred space.
I don’t like President Trump (Do I not? Who knows? I have been lied to about him so much for so long, I can‘t tell whether my instinctive aversion is simply the habituated residue of years of being on the receiving end of lies).
But I like the liars who are our current gatekeepers, even less.
The gatekeepers who lie to the public about the most consequential events of our time — and who thus damage our nation, distort our history, and deprive half of our citizenry of their right to speak, champion and choose, without being tarred as would-be violent traitors - deserve our disgust.
I am sorry the nation was damaged by so much untruth issued by those with whom I identified at the time.
I am sorry my former “tribe” is angry at a journalist for engaging in —- journalism.
I am sorry I believed so much nonsense.
Though it is no doubt too little, too late —
Conservatives, Republicans, MAGA:
I am so sorry
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Restoring Confidence in Congress: Will the House Come to Order?
By most metrics – a 16 percent job-approval rating, failing to deliver budgets much less conducting itself in a stately manner – the US House of Representatives isn’t living up to the Founding Fathers’ ideals. So Senior Fellow Brandice Canes-Wrone, founding director of the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions, joins former Illinois congressman and Hoover Distinguished Visiting fellow Daniel Lipinski and Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen to discuss Revitalizing the House: Bipartisan Recommendations on Rules and Process – a new report that recommends ways to re-empower House members and committees and restore some semblance of the democratic process.
Listen to the episode here.
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End of the Nutball Era
COMMENTARY
By Neil Patel
November 14, 2024
Tuesday night's results were definitive enough to give hope we may have just closed one of the worst chapters in American history. The political lesson of the Trump era has been glaringly obvious since he first came down the escalator: The system does not work for too many people, and those people want change. Instead of acknowledging this simple and clear fact, with all the implications it entails, America's elites descended into a decade of insanity.
First, they tried like crazy to come up with any excuse for the first Trump win that didn't require introspection or accountability. It must've been a divided primary field or the Russians or Mark Zuckerberg or the worst excuse: The American people who had just elected Barack Obama were now a bunch of racists. Everyone had their own scapegoat, none really grounded in reality.
Second, and more importantly, the issue set that grew out of the collective effort by establishment leaders of both parties to build an anti-Trump coalition will go down as the most insane in American history. People are upset about the economy, the waste, the corruption and the wars; the anti-Trump coalition's response to that included policies that are going to look worse and worse with age, including:
No. 1: A war on merit. Decision-making in academic admissions and even corporate hiring is now heavily weighted toward immutable characteristics like race, gender and sexual preference instead of merit. It's not hyperbolic to say this leads to the end of America as we know it.
No. 2: A war on free speech. The government and corporate efforts to blame social media for Trump, and therefore to regulate free speech, are Orwellian. Google search is rigged in favor of left-wing results. Besides X, major social platform algorithms are rigged to suppress independent-minded speech. This is just un-American. The fact that the Twitter files showed government officials promoting this censorship takes it to the next level.
No. 3: Breaking the immigration system completely and purposely. It was already horrible and in need of reform, but there is zero doubt that the people who raised their hands for open borders in the Democratic presidential debate purposely ended Trump policies to let in tens of millions of people with zero effective screening. Many D.C. Republicans went along with a sham border bill that would have enshrined insane levels of illegal crossings in order to lock in Ukraine funding, their real priority. The devastating impact of these policies on our economy, community and security was borne most directly by lower-income Americans of every race.
No. 4: Encouraging racial division and even rioting, including major multinational corporate funding of lunatic Marxist-led groups like Black Lives Matter.
No. 5: Extreme policies on transgender issues to the point that men are literally beating up girls in sports and children are undergoing life-altering sex changes before they're old enough to get a tattoo.
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Peter Huessy is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee. Since 1981 he has been President of Geo-Strategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland. He was a former special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and consultant to the US Air Force. He can be reached at [email protected]
