Lt. Col. Vindman is a tool

I mean that Army Lt. Col. and National Security Council staffer Alexander Vindman is being used as a tool by House Democrats, not that he is trying to do so - although the evidence that he is trying is not absent, see below.

The impeachers are accusing Republicans of attacking Vindman's service and patriotism. Funny thing is, I have not seen any such attacks, I have seen only Democrats' accusations of them. But let's humor them:

Pick the one, single officer whose patriotism is off limits to any possible criticism.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
Maj. Tulsi Gabbard

But back to Vindman. I have some pointed comments about him and his testimony yesterday to Congress. I will only offer my own bio as a founding for what I am writing here.

Today the AP reports, Colonel testifies he raised concerns about Ukraine, Trump. And in the first paragraph (my boldface):

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defying White House orders, an Army officer serving with President Donald Trump’s National Security Council testified to impeachment investigators Tuesday that he twice raised concerns over the administration’s push to have Ukraine investigate Democrats and Joe Biden.

That alone shatters his credibility with me. Officers do not get a choice of what orders they get to obey. The Supreme Court of the United States wrote in Parker v. Levy, 1974, “An army is not a deliberative body. It is an executive arm. Its law is that of obedience. No question can be left open as to the right of command in the officer, or the duty of obedience in the soldier.”

The armed forces' Manual for Court Martial, the instruction of how to implement the statutes of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, states plainly, “the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”

The Manual also puts a soldier's obligation to obey this way: "An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate."

Yet Vindman disobeyed his order not to appear before Congress simply because he wanted to. His entire credibility is utterly shattered and his willful disobedience reveals him as a partisan hack in uniform.

This officer is being hailed as a hero because he placed country above Trump etc. etc. as required by his oath of commissioning in which swore to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." His advocates skip right over the part where he also swore, "I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter...."

I took the same oath of commissioning that Vindman took, and in my view he clearly violated it in doing what he did. The "duties of the office" absolutely include obedience to the orders of the President and officers within his chain of command, unless they are clearly and unarguably illegal. Difference of opinion does not count.

According to the AP report of his testimony, not once - not. one. time. - did he raise any Constitutional issue with the phone call or ever claim  - again: not. one. time. - that Trump's conversation ever constituted an illegal order to him that he had no choice but to refuse.

All of Vindman's dissent with the content of the phone call is over policy.

“I was concerned by the call,” Vindman said, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine.”

He has no authority as a military officer or as an NSC staffer to assess whether a policy position of the president is "proper." He has absolutely zero authority to oppose a president's position regarding US support of Ukraine or any other nation. Foreign policy belongs solely within the White House as advised by the State Dept. The NSC has no charter - and therefore neither does Vindman - for original formulation of US foreign policy.

Vindman, or any other military officer, is completely free to disagree privately with administration policy or the orders he is given, I encountered that myself many times in my military career. But that means exactly bupkus. The "duties of the office" remain unchanged: to execute directives and orders and to carry out policy to the best of an officer's ability.

He [Vindman] wrote, “I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security.”

That is of course pure speculation. And even if entirely correct, it is irrelevant to the discharge of his duties. Let me emphasize again: Lieutenant-colonels do not set policy and absolutely have no business even considering "partisan politics" in the performance of their duties. That is literally not his problem.

BTW, I can read his ribbons, too, and this is by no means a "highly decorated" lieutenant colonel. He holds the Combat Infantry Badge, signifying that he served at least 30 days in a designated combat theater occupying an infantry personnel slot. Which one would expect since he is an infantry officer, but the CIB is awarded for being physically present in theater, not for seeing actual combat. That he also holds the Purple Heart (for IED wound in 2004, when he would have been a junior-grade officer) would indicate that he did see combat. He also was awarded the Ranger tab, which is not a decoration but an achievement (and a very difficult one, too). So his creds are no better than ordinary for an infantry LTC.

The top two ribbons in his photo in the AP article are, viewer's left to right, the Purple Heart and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. In the second row are a single Army Meritorious Service Medal, then Army Commendation Medal. After that a series of "place" ribbons, denoting service in certain deployment areas of the world, but not linked to doing anything there but getting off the plane. Literally, if you show up you will get the ribbon. (I have some of them, too.)

But there is not one combat decoration there except the Purple Heart. The MSM is not very impressive, actually. I have three myself; they are normally awarded at the end of a tour as a "thanks for being here" award, sometimes though rarely for outstanding achievement. I am sort of curious why he has only one Army MSM; the single Defense MSM would come from service on a joint-service assignment. (I have a different joint-service ribbon.)

That said, dummies do not get assigned to either joint staffs or the NSC. So he is unquestionably a smart man, but IMO he definitely went outside his lane in his reaction to the phone call. And definitely  in appearing before the committee.

Update: Here is Lt. Col. Vindman's opening statement to the committee. IMO, it's a nothing burger. And with the actual transcript of the call made public a month ago, what did Vindman tell Congress that they didn't already know? Nuthin'.

Update: A retired officer who knows Vindman personally has some choice words.

And a retired Army lieutenant colonel explains why he had Vindman, then a major, step outside for some private, one-way counseling of what professional conduct means, during a Combined US-Russian exercise in Germany.

Update: Alex Vindman’s Impeachment Testimony Completely Rested On His Personal Opinions

Either by choice or force, you will conform

The Totalist Party again reveals itself in Nancy Pelosi's latest utopian nightmare, the "Equality Act," which will remove freedom of conscience from everyone who will not toe the Leftist line. Read the whole thing.

You want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump.

Inauguration Protesters Plan To Destroy Property And Disrupt Balls

On the day of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration protesters are planning an anti-capitalist march, road blockades and disruptions to inauguration balls. The protests will likely include property destruction, a source with intimate knowledge of the protest plans told The Daily Caller Friday.

The blockades are not limited to roads but will also be at every security checkpoint, the source said. The source added that the protesters blockading each checkpoint will represent a different liberal cause such as climate change or money in politics.

A group called #DisruptJ20 is the most active in the planned protests for the inauguration.

And what is the point of all this? It is not to nudge the Trump administration toward moderation, and the demonstrators know it. The rank and file (the "useful idiots" to the organizers) are gripped by what Lee Harris described years ago as "fantasy ideology," in a different context, and which he described this way:

My first encounter with this particular kind of fantasy occurred when I was in college in the late sixties. A friend of mine and I got into a heated argument. Although we were both opposed to the Vietnam War, we discovered that we differed considerably on what counted as permissible forms of anti-war protest. To me the point of such protest was simple — to turn people against the war. Hence anything that was counterproductive to this purpose was politically irresponsible and should be severely censured. My friend thought otherwise; in fact, he was planning to join what by all accounts was to be a massively disruptive demonstration in Washington, and which in fact became one.

My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason — because it was, in his words, good for his soul.

What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.

And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy — a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view — for that would still have been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability. Thus, when he lay down in front of hapless commuters on the bridges over the Potomac, he had no interest in changing the minds of these commuters, no concern over whether they became angry at the protesters or not. They were there merely as props, as so many supernumeraries in his private psychodrama. The protest for him was not politics, but theater; and the significance of his role lay not in the political ends his actions might achieve, but rather in their symbolic value as ritual. In short, he was acting out a fantasy.

It was not your garden-variety fantasy of life as a sexual athlete or a racecar driver, but in it, he nonetheless made himself out as a hero — a hero of the revolutionary struggle. The components of his fantasy — and that of many young intellectuals at that time — were compounded purely of ideological ingredients, smatterings of Marx and Mao, a little Fanon and perhaps a dash of Herbert Marcuse.

For want of a better term, call the phenomenon in question a fantasy ideology — by which I mean, political and ideological symbols and tropes used not for political purposes, but entirely for the benefit of furthering a specific personal or collective fantasy.

That is their fantasy, that they are heroes of the revolutionary struggle. But what about the leaders and organizers? Trust me: somewhere, and not in the open, are the suits whose idea this really is. What motivates them?

Money, of course. That's their objective and they have no fantasy about it: "You want a demonstration in Washington? Pay me." They may have even voted for Trump, not because they agree with him or like him - quite the opposite - but because how could you turn out 100,000 misguided, fantastical ideologues on Jan. 20 to protest Hillary Clinton? Who's going to pay for that?

Follow the money and you'll learn why this demonstration is really laid on.

Piers Morgan (!) piles on Meryl Streep

If you watched the Golden Globes awards last night (and really, why would you?) then you saw actress Meryl Streep lauch and anti-Trump tirade that not even Piers Morgan could stomach.

And do you notice what an incredibly diverse group of actors and actresses they are?

"Help! Help! I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!" Read the whole thing.

But another problem is that Donald Trump personally took to Twitter (my, does that get old) to counter-attack, calling Streep "overrated" and sending other darts and arrows.

Donald, here is my unsolicited advice: SHUT UP! You're going to be the doggone president in only 11 days, fer cryin' out loud. For gosh sakes, try, at least try to be presidential. Besides, unlikely figures like Piers are taking your side anyway:

... let’s move to what Streep said next: ‘Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.’

At this point, I laughed out loud with incredulity.

Not at the words themselves, which are laudable.

No, it was at the hypocrisy.

You’d be hard-pushed to find an industry that encourages more disrespect and violence than Hollywood.

A place where rich powerful people make billions of dollars by regularly pandering to the lowest common denominators of sexism, racism, homophobia and misogyny.

And happily exploit ever more hideous, graphic violence to make a fast, easy buck. [Yes, that's the Hollywood gun culture - DS]

And seethe from every tinsel-encrusted pore with the very kind of nasty, power-based bullying that Meryl Streep claims to be so incensed by in Trump.

So great though her censorious words indisputably are, they would be perhaps better directed at her own back yard. 

To highlight just one example of Streep’s shocking hypocrisy, what about the 2003 Oscars when she leaped to her feet and gave child rapist Roman Polanski a standing ovation after he was announced as winner of Best Director for The Pianist?

There is a reason that presidents are supposed to act as if they are above the fray, Donald. It's because the fray does not suit the office. Stop snitfully twittering personal defenses and mind the store.

Update: Heh!

The Congress affirms Trump's election

The US Senate and House, meeting in joint session with Vice President Joe Biden presiding, has just confirmed Donald Trump as the president-elect and Mike Spence as vice president-elect.

Four Democrat "faithless electors" voted for Republicans

When the electoral college convened yesterday to vote, three electors in Washington state, pledged to Hillary Clinton, actually voted for Colin Powell. And in Colorado, where by law electors must vote according to the statewide popular vote (which Hillary won), one Democrat elector voted for John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio and who ran for the Republican nomination for this election.

There were two other Democrat electors who voted for someone other than Clinton. In Washington state a fourth elector voted for a local American Indian gentleman and in Vermont an elector voted for Bernie Sanders.

There were two Republican faithless electors, both from Texas. One voted for John Kasich and the other for Ron Paul.

So Republicans garnered more faithless-elector votes from Democrats than they did from Republicans.

Maureen Dowd: Hillary's Participation Trophy

Yes, it's from Maureen Dowd of The New York Times! Can the apocalypse be far behind now?

Here is a short primer for the young protesters. If your preferred candidate loses, there is no need for mass hysteria, canceled midterms, safe spaces, crying rooms or group primal screams. You might understand this better if you had not received participation trophies, undeserved grades to protect your feelings or even if you had a proper understanding of civics. The Democrats are now crying that Hillary had more popular votes. That can be her participation trophy.

Read the whole thing, there's more. And remember, it appears in The New York Times!

Why we have the Electoral College in 2016

The Los Angeles Times: "The electoral college has always been the wrong way to choose a president." Because racism!

And I'll bet you didn't know this, but the LA Times does:

The electoral college is enshrined in the Constitution, but that doesn’t necessarily make it constitutional. 

Wow, let's have some fun here:

• The freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution, but that doesn’t necessarily make it constitutional.
• The right of the accused to remain silent is enshrined in the Constitution, but that doesn’t necessarily make it constitutional.
• Freedom of the people peaceably to assemble is enshrined in the Constitution, but that doesn’t necessarily make it constitutional.

Where would you stop?

However, the LA Times' snit fit of an editorial is demolished, IMO, by one simple fact: "Clinton's Popular Vote Win Came Entirely From California."

Overall, Clinton received 2.8 million more votes nationally than Trump. In California "she got a whopping 4.3 million more votes than Trump." But:

Popular vote total:Trump: 62,958,211
Clinton: 65,818,318
_________________
Clinton: + 2.8 million 

Popular vote total outside California:Trump: 58,474,401
Clinton: 57,064,530
_________________
Trump: + 1.4 million

Update, Dec. 21: Final tally shows Trump beat Clinton by 3 million votes outside of California and New York.

Another way of looking at it:

Since the electoral college meets to cast its votes today, here are a couple of observations about this election.

First, despite the Democrats' insistent claims that Clinton won the popular vote, in fact no candidate won the popular vote because no one garnered, nationally, 50 percent plus one of the total votes cast. If we had in place the exact system that the losers of this election say they want, Clinton still would not be taking the oath on January 20 because absent both an electoral college and a majority of the vote, the US House of Representatives would elect the next president.

Second, electing a president on nothing but the national vote total means that California and (to a lesser extent) New York would decide every election. It is exactly a tyranny of the majority that the founders wanted to avoid.

We cannot let only one or two states select a president every four years, effectively disenfranchising the rest of the country. The electoral college is working just as it is supposed to.

Update: The generally Democrat-friendly MarketWatch piles on, too: The electoral college "prevented a single region (in this instance, a single state) from overruling the verdict of the more populous and diverse nation."

Donald Trump’s election is difficult for many Americans to accept, but there is no good reason to question its democratic legitimacy. For better or worse, Trump won the presidency by constitutional and sensible democratic rules that guided both campaigns and were known to any politically conscious citizen. He also won the national popular vote cast outside of the single state of California. Moreover, Clinton won all of California’s 55 electoral votes despite the fact that 4.3 million of the state’s voters voted for Trump. That big winner-take-all advantage for California’s Democrats and Clinton was certainly felt, but it wasn't enough to override her losses in many other states.

Under our electoral-vote system, American voters elected a national president, not California’s choice. It is in the nation’s interest for Democratic Party’s leaders and for Clinton voters to fully recognize the legitimacy of the election as they had urged Trump to do after the third presidential debate.

The Electoral College system worked as it should. It did not “misfire.” The election’s outcomes were ultimately about what Americans wanted and what they did not want — not about electoral mechanics.

The electoral college ensures that we have a nationally-elected president, not regional or even single-state one.

Obama: Democrats didn't show up for election

CNN: "Obama says Democrats lost by not showing up"

Woody Allen, et. al.: "The world is run by people who show up."

When you've lost The Nation . . .

 Why Are the Media Taking the CIA’s Hacking Claims at Face Value?

Despite the CIA’s uninspiring record for the past 70 years, the media are defending the agency for all it’s worth. 

... serious questions remain over the veracity of the CIA’s finding. After all, several aspects of the Times and Post reports that actually undermine the dominant narrative of “Russian interference” are often carefully cropped out of the mainstream media’s portrayal of the controversy.

For example, The Washington Post noted, almost as an aside, that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks,” while the Times reported that the RNC had “issued a statement denying that it had been hacked.” Indeed, the FBI has yet to make a determination on whether the RNC was hacked, something that the RNC itself denies.

The lack of clarity over whether or not the Russian government hacked the RNC is a critical part of the story, since the CIA’s “secret assessment” that alleged that the Russians interfered in the election in order to elect Trump was, according to a US official who spoke to Reuters this week, “based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked.”

Meanwhile, much of the media has ignored the rather salient fact that the FBI is by no means in agreement with the anonymous and secret CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the election in order to help elect Donald Trump.

Nor, for that matter, is the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), which has declined to endorse the CIA report.

Yet the media are treating these rumors - for that is all they are - as gospel truth. Because Narrative.

Update: Slate, no friend of Donald Trump for sure, piles on, too:

The “leaked” CIA concerns over Russian meddling were quite clearly leaked deliberately by the CIA itself, an organization not exactly famed for its commitment to the truth; they’re the conclusions of an investigation that hasn’t even happened yet and on which there’s no consensus even among the gang of petty Caligulas that calls itself the intelligence community. 

"The CIA" did not conclude the Russians interfered with the election. There was a figure claiming to
be a CIA insider who said so to The New York Times, who cited this person anonymously and apparently without verifying his bone fides. The FBI is not in agreement, nor is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But that's okay because Narrative.

U.S. Representative calls for secession convention of states

US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has called for a Constitutional Convention of States to amend the Constitution so that California and other blue states can get out from under a Republican-dominated federal administration - secede, in other words.



There is already a vocal secession movement in California. It was there before November's election but has been amplified since then.

How it will be done henceforth

Pinched from American Digest.

Don't you love the way Russia rigged the election?

President-Elect Donald Trump's Pick of General Mad Dog Mattis Is His Best Choice Yet

Mattis, like Trump’s CIA choice of Rep. Mike Pompeo, is known to be a man who will have no problem standing up to Russia and Vladimir Putin. He is firmly on the side of Speaker Paul Ryan when it comes to the Russian leader and his aggression in Syria and on the borders of NATO.

The pick of Mattis, a huge supporter of traditional American defense doctrines such as support for NATO, Russian containment and opposition to the Iran nuclear ‘deal’, has reassured many national security minded conservatives anxious about Trump’s perceived closeness to Russia.

James Mattis, the "Warrior Monk"

So, we are told by the Left, Russia hacked the Democrats' emails, released them through Wikileaks, and ruined Hillary Clinton's chance to be the next president because Putin and Trump are business buddies and they both hate NATO. Or something.

In fact, they rigged the election so skillfully that Trump won the electoral college vote but Hillary won the popular vote. Now, that is some kind of talented computer hacking there!

And Putin, that clever bear, winds up with two of the most talented and knowledgeable opponents of Russian expansionism in the whole United States as the secretary of defense and the CIA director.

Those Russians are so devious.

When you've lost The New Yorker

The Recount Road to Nowhere - The New Yorker:

A candidate needs two hundred and seventy Electoral College votes to win the Presidency. Trump has three hundred and six, and Clinton has two hundred and thirty-two. This includes sixteen for Trump from Michigan, where his victory, by ten thousand votes, was certified this afternoon. Wisconsin has ten electoral votes, and he is ahead by about thirty thousand; Pennsylvania has twenty, and the lead is seventy thousand. A recount would have to reverse the results in all three states to get Clinton to two hundred and seventy. And, as fivethirtyeight.com noted, this has never happened in cases where the margins are as large as those in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania; even Michigan would be at the edge of past experience. (It is worth noting that Jill Stein won enough votes in Michigan and Wisconsin to account for Clinton’s losses there.) Stein’s Wisconsin application lists a number of reasons for a recount, most of which are paraphrases of a single thought: the Russians might, just might, have fixed the election—after all, they hacked John Podesta’s e-mail. Added to that is the general observation that electronic voting systems are, in any state, theoretically hackable. That amounts to saying that no one should really trust any results. 

It's all about the mawney, you see, of which Jill Stein has pocketed almost $7 million for the recount effort alone, multiples more than she raised in the last several weeks of the campaign. And delegitimizing Trump's upcoming electoral college victory, hence delegitimizing the entire Trump administration.

Update: And The Week concludes in The Delusional Melodrama of Jill Stein,

Ballot integrity and voting infrastructure aren't the reason for Stein's stunts. Neither is the election outcome. Stein just wants to keep imposing herself on the national stage, eating up time and resources from state governments in order to raise money from suckers unhappy with Trump's victory and feed her own delusions of relevance. Shame on her, and shame on those egging her on.

They always resort to violence, redux

As you know, the Left is in a fury over the fact that the electoral college will meet next month to officially make Donald Trump the next president. Long submerged in magickal thinking for most any important topic, this issue is no different.

But remember, too:

Everywhere in history, any time the Left has lost, it has turned more violent. Violence always underlies their means. As I have posted, the party that claims it is all about peace and love never shrinks from beating the crap out of its opponents or even murdering them. That won't change come January 20.

So now, right on schedule, come the death threats against individual electors.

“I’ve had people talk about shoving a gun in my mouth and blowing my brains out. And I’ve received dozens and dozens of those emails. Even the non-threatening-my-life emails are very aggressive.”

Banerian isn’t making it up:

The Detroit News verified one message containing a death wish and another containing a death threat, in which the person told Banerian he would “put a bullet” in his mouth. Banerian said he deleted the rest of the emails and messages “because as you can imagine they’re clogging up my email.”

The same thing is happening to electors in other states. 

Because that is what the Left does, always.

The Progressive Bubble Takes Shape

SNL nails it:



HT: American Digest

America's low-intensity civil war

And he's not the only one: "Film Director and Writer Paul Schrader Calls for Violence to Protest Against Trump"

I have spent the last five days meditating on Trump's election. Upon consideration, I believe this is a call to violence. I felt the call to violence in the 60's and I feel it now again. This attack on liberty and tolerance will not be solved by appeasement. Obama tried that for eight years. We should finance those who support violence resistance. We should be willing to take arms. Like Old John Brown, I am willing to battle with my children. Alt right nut jobs swagger violence. It's time to actualize that violence, Like by Civil War Michigan predecessors I choose to stand with the black, the brown and the oppressed.

Schrader is a washed-up Hollywood figure  who quickly received this Twittered response.

All this aside, though, Schrader is not at all the only one calling for violence against Donald Trump, his forthcoming administration and those who voted for him.

Then there's this from Instapundit: Who Pays for the Anti-Trump Demonstrations/Riots?

The sacking of Portland is, so far, only the worst of what is happening across the country. There’s plenty more, accompanied by chants of “Love Trumps Hate” alternating with”Kill the Police.” Not very gentle stuff for supposed peacemakers. But perhaps they were only imitating their leader. Further, supposed neo-Nazi graffiti linked with Trump’s name are being reported by the MSM, which, not surprisingly, makes no serious attempt to determine if they are real or the work of provocateurs. (In most cases, I’m betting on the latter.)
The operative question, however, is just who pays for this mayhem and what do they want. Asra Nomani posted a list of 100 supporters of the Trump Protests on Twitter. You will recognize many names. 33 out of the 100 received money from one man, referred to at the link in proper Twitter syntax as @georgesoros.

I have already posted about the Left's fantasy that the electoral college will magically decide to vote for Hillary. But now they've gone beyond and are actually threatening electors:

According to reports out of Idaho and elsewhere, Clinton supporters have obtained Electoral College voters’ personal information and are harassing them with calls, Facebook messages, emails and even home visits, encouraging them to become “faithless electors,” and change their Trump votes to Clinton votes.

And they aren’t being kind about it: “A lot of ’em use bad, rough language,” said Layne Bangerter, one of Idaho’s electors. “Nothing I feel intimidated over. But we’re watching it very closely. They’ve got our home phone numbers, our cell numbers, our emails, our Facebook. We’re just getting an orchestrated barrage from the left.”

“They attack my religion, they attack my politics, they tell me that I must be a terrible father, I must be a terrible American, they use foul language — every swear word,” Bangerter said.

Which led Sarah Hoyt (whence the link) to respond,  “Do you want a civil war?  That’s how you get a civil war.”

More here.

Technically speaking, a civil war is one fought over who shall control the single, central government of a nation. The 1930s' Spanish civil war is a perfect example because both armies were fighting over who would govern the entire nation. What we call the American Civil War was not actually that; it was a war of secession. The CSA was not fighting to control the American central government but to separate from it altogether.

What these harassments and the post-election riots are about is control of the central government - and the insurrectionists are using violence to achieve their goals. Don't think that just because the electoral college will vote and Trump's inauguration will take place that all this will suddenly fade away like magic.

Everywhere in history, any time the Left has lost, it has turned more violent. Violence always underlies their means. As I have posted, the party that claims it is all about peace and love never shrinks from beating the crap out of its opponents or even murdering them. That won't change come January 20.

Update: Scott Alexander writes, in a lengthy essay I think everyone, right or left, should read:

Among the stories I was able to confirm on moderately trustworthy news sites that had investigated them somewhat (a higher standard than the SLPC holds their reports to) are ones about how Hillary supporters have beaten up people for wearing Trump hats, screamed encouragement as a mob beat up a man who they thought voted Trump, knocked over elderly people, beaten up a high school girl for supporting Trump on Instagram, defaced monuments with graffiti saying “DIE WHITES DIE”, advocated raping Melania Trump, kicked a black homeless woman who was holding a Trump sign, attacked a pregnant woman stuck in her car, with a baseball bat, screamed at children who vote Trump in a mock school election, etc, etc, etc.

Update: Austin Bay: "Identifying electors and then attempting to intimidate them into switching their votes is an ipso facto effort to overturn a national election." That is, an attempt to control the national government, the very definition of a civil war. Read the whole thing.

The Left's electoral college magickal thinking

The Left thinks that they can persuade dozens of electoral college electors to change their upcoming votes to make Hillary Clinton the next president.

A Change.org petition, now signed by more than 4.3 million people, encourages members of the Electoral College to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton when the college meets on Dec. 19. The petition argues that Donald Trump is “unfit to serve” and that “Secretary Clinton WON THE POPULAR VOTE and should be President.”

“If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win,” the petition states. “However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay! We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton.”

This is sheer nuttery, of course, since electors are selected in the states by their own political parties and the chances of an elector (of either party) not voting for the candidate of his/her party that won the state's election are indeed remote. In fact, 31 states legally require electors to vote for the winner of the election in the state, although the penalties for voting otherwise are hardly onerous.

Technically, of course, electors may vote for whomever they want to. However, what the petitioners overlook or ignore is that the voting by the electoral college is not in fact the last act of determining who will take the oath of office on Jan. 20.

The E.C.'s  vote must be confirmed by the US Congress to become official and binding. Congress has met for several decades in joint session for this purpose on Jan. 6 at 1 p.m. Each electoral vote is counted and confirmed by two tellers of each party and the final tally is announced by the president of the Senate, the vice-president of the United States.

Congress has never overturned the vote as tallied and announced. But it has had the authority to do since 1887 under provisions of 3 U.S.C. 15. Members of Congress may object either to individual votes or to state votes as a whole. The objectioners' cases are heard under strict time limits and the Congress decides whether vote is accepted or not.

So the change.org petition is just more evidence of the magickal thinking of the American Left.

More:

Robert Curry explains why The Electoral College Is Brilliant.

Key dates as explained by the National Archives:

December 13, 2016

States must make final decisions in any controversies over the appointment of their electors at least six days before the meeting of the Electors. This is so their electoral votes will be presumed valid when presented to Congress.

Decisions by states’ courts are conclusive, if decided under laws enacted before Election Day.

December 19, 2016

The Electors meet in their state and vote for President and Vice President on separate ballots. The electors record their votes on six “Certificates of Vote,” which are paired with the six remaining Certificates of Ascertainment.

The electors sign, seal, and certify six sets of electoral votes. A set of electoral votes consists of one Certificate of Ascertainment and one Certificate of Vote. These are distributed immediately as follows:

• one set to the President of the Senate (the Vice President) for the official count of the electoral votes in January;
• two packages to the Secretary of State in the state where the electors met—one is an archival set that becomes part of the public record of the Secretary of State's office and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes;
• two packages to the Archivist—one is an archival set that becomes part of the permanent collection at the National Archives and Records Administration and the other is a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes; and
• one set to the presiding judge in the district where the Electors met—this is also a reserve set that is subject to the call of the President of the Senate to replace missing or incomplete electoral votes.

December 28, 2016

Electoral votes (the Certificates of Vote) must be received by the President of the Senate and the Archivist no later than nine days after the meeting of the electors. States face no legal penalty for failure to comply.

If votes are lost or delayed, the Archivist may take extraordinary measures to retrieve duplicate originals.

On or Before January 3, 2017

The Archivist and/or representatives from the Office of the Federal Register meet with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House in late December or early January. This is, in part, a ceremonial occasion. Informal meetings may take place earlier.

January 6, 2017

The Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes. Congress may pass a law to change this date.

The Vice President, as President of the Senate, presides over the count and announces the results of the Electoral College vote. The President of the Senate then declares which persons, if any, have been elected President and Vice President of the United States.

If a State submits conflicting sets of electoral votes to Congress, the two Houses acting concurrently may accept or reject the votes. If they do not concur, the votes of the electors certified by the Governor of the State on the Certificate of Ascertainment would be counted in Congress.

If no Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides for the House of Representatives to decide the Presidential election. If necessary the House would elect the President by majority vote, choosing from the three candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each state having one vote.

If no Vice Presidential candidate wins 270 or more electoral votes, a majority, the 12th Amendment provides for the Senate to elect the Vice President. If necessary, the Senate would elect the Vice President by majority vote, choosing from the two candidates who received the greatest number of electoral votes. The vote would be taken by state, with each Senator having one vote.

If any objections to the Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing and be signed by at least one member of the House and one Senator. If objections are presented, the House and Senate withdraw to their respective chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law.

The party of peace and love beats the crap out of its opponents

Apparently public school administrators think it is perfectly okay for high-school students to cut classes to march on school grounds to object to the country holding a fair and free election.

And as we have seen time and time again, supporters of the party of peace and love turn violent when they see an Other.

Hundreds of students from Richard Montgomery High School were carrying signs reading, “Love Trumps Hate,” and chanting near the Rockville courthouse on Maryland Avenue in a protest that began at about 10 a.m. when a 15-year-old boy wearing one of the Trump campaign’s “Make American Great Again” hats was attacked by about four students.

The group surrounded the teen, punching him repeatedly, then threw him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly in the ribs. It is not yet clear what led up to the incident.

“They jumped him and beat him up pretty bad,” Max Stucky, a bystander who witnessed the attack, told WTOP.

Such physical assaults are hardly rare. Meanwhile, rioting continues by people who also do think that American should have free and fair elections. And also meanwhile, defeated candidate Hillary Clinton and serving President Barack Obama have both steadfastly refused to denounce the violence.

Slate's chief political correspondent writes that "There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter," which rhetorically isn't far from "the only good Trump voter is a dead one." But that seems already to be an operating standard: In New York City Saturday, a man was shot to death on the street after he joked about voting for Trump.

Folks, we may well be on the verge of a low-intensity civil war for the next four years. In 2011, a former London police chief warned about we are seeing because Britain was seeing plenty of it already.

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame. ...

They are essentially wild beasts. ... They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others. ...

A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the ‘feral children’ on his patch — another way of describing the same reality. ...

The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.

So as a little bit of comic relief - and who couldn't use that? - here is Reason wondering just what everyone is so upset about. After all, if Trump does all the terrible things the Left says he will, won't that make him just like someone else they know?

Why is this man laughing?

For more than 40 years, Esquire magazine featured this photo of Richard Nixon in its annual Dubious Achievements section, accompanied by the headline, "Why Is This Man Laughing?"

Photo taken at the moment Richard Nixon learned
he had clinched the 1960 Republican nomination.

So who is laughing now?

Why is this man laughing? Maybe he saw the video below.