Author: VD

Congress is getting nervous

The House passes an amendment to the omnibus defense bill in an attempt to inhibit the President’s ability to invoke the Insurrection Act:

H. Amdt. 833 (Escobar) to H.R. 6395: To require certification be made to Congress when the President deploys active duty military within the United States during civil unrest by amending the Insurrection Act in Title 10, Chapter 13 of U.S. Code.

Alex Macris delves into the details, which amount to little more than the President will have to tell Congress why he’s doing what he’s doing, which is hardly a problem. And congressmen aren’t the only Swamp creatures getting nervous. So is the neo-trotskian’s chief rabbi, Bill Kristol:

Yesterday Barr suggested there were several things he wouldn’t do that Trump wanted him to do as AG ranging from appointing special counsels for Hunter Biden or election fraud, to giving a legal ok for seizing voting machines or for various types of Insurrection Act-type moves by the president. Can one be confident Barr’s successor as AG, Jeffrey Rosen, will also say no?

I’m told not. I’m told the very ambitious Rosen has pushed on earlier occasions for carrying out Trump’s will only to be stopped by Barr. And people who’ve worked with Rosen say they wouldn’t be surprised to see him, as AG, hasten to try to do Trump’s will. In the past, Rosen has been allied with some in the White House counsel’s office and others elsewhere in the White House who’ve been for going whole hog for Trump, as a friend put it. They’ve run up against resistance from Barr but also from WH Counsel Pat Cipollone.

The departure of Cipollone would be a signal, as one person put it, that “all bets are off.” I’m also reliably told senior military officials in the Pentagon are more, not less, alarmed than they were a few weeks ago when Mark Esper was fired. The new crew of Trump loyalists in the most senior civilian positions don’t seem there only to burnish their resumes, as one person put it. They’re trying to figure out, in coordination with people in the White House, “how to make things happen.” The senior military obviously retain considerable clout, to say the least. But the discussions they’re having among themselves are unprecedented–more sober and weighty than those of 1974 in the weeks before Nixon’s resignation. And the difference is that Jim Schlesinger was then Secretary of Defense, committed to checking an unstable and desperate president, not to helping one.

All of these alarms, one hopes and trusts, will come to nothing, or at least to not too much. And the coup, in the end, will fail. But that something more than we’ve seen so far won’t be tried–of that people aren’t so confident.

The first thing to look for is what, if anything, happens on Dec. 24.

Cipollone, by the way, is the lawyer who was identified as Patrick Byrne as being the lead surrender monkey among the President’s advisors. The media, too, appears to be increasingly nervous:

With Trump’s days in office dwindling, QAnon influencers have become increasingly restless and militant, urging him to #crosstherubicon, a reference to Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon river after the Roman Senate explicitly told him not to, effectively kick-starting the Roman civil war and Caesar’s dictatorship… The “Rubicon” hashtag wasn’t new to QAnon followers, who have repeatedly tweeted the phrase in the last week. But the hashtag had minimal success last week until Ron Watkins, who previously ran the message board and QAnon hub 8kun, posted a series of viral tweets Thursday and Friday about Caesar and crossing the Rubicon.

It is amusing to observe how those who think can keep themselves well informed by the mainstream media are always at least a month behind. In any event, the Congressional gambit will fail as long as President Trump refuses to sign it, due to the coming end of the Congressional term.

A pocket veto occurs when Congress adjourns during the 10-day period. The President cannot return the bill to Congress. The President’s decision not to sign the legislation is a pocket veto and Congress does not have the opportunity to override.

Arizona vote on certification

The first of the seven disputed sets of state electors may be resolved before January 6:

President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, joined Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” podcast this morning. During the interview, Giuliani said the Arizona legislature will attempt to pass a resolution tomorrow (Wednesday) to certify President Trump as the winner.

News spread like wildfire yesterday that Arizona lawmakers would make the attempt to declare Trump the winner today, but Giuliani said Arizona lawmakers did not have the votes today to make that happen. Giuliani said he’s hopeful Arizona lawmakers will be able to close the deal before Christmas.

It appears the state legislators are being provided information that they find sufficiently convincing to put some steel in their spines. And it’s now being reported publicly that President Trump is “preparing to fight back”, which is interesting in that it appears to indicate a change from simply refusing to concede:

Several members of Congress just finished a meeting in the Oval Office with President @realDonaldTrump, preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud. 

Banishing the Fake Pope

Disclose is reporting that a Vatican source claims Fake Pope Francis will stop pretending to hold the position he’s never held after Christmas.

One wonders if this might be related to a certain U.S. President crossing a certain river in Italy that isn’t the Tiber.

On Fairy Stories

Episode 17 of The Forge of Tolkien, ON FAIRY STORIES is now live on Unauthorized, featuring the newest Presidential appointee to the Federal Cultural Property Advisory Committee, Professor Rachel Fulton Brown.

In 1938, Tolkien gave a lecture at St. Andrew’s University on the topic of “fairy stories,” ostensibly meaning to explain what “fairy stories” were. In the course of the lecture, however, Tolkien spent more time explaining what they weren’t—travelers’ tales, beast fables, dreams, children’s stories—than, it would seem, explaining what they were. Why did Tolkien find it so hard to define fairy stories other than in the negative? What was he thinking of when he defined them not as stories about fairies, but as stories about “Faërie,” aka the Perilous Realm?

In this episode, Prof. Rachel Fulton Brown reads the published version of Tolkien’s lecture for clues about what Tolkien intended his own fairy stories to achieve. We pull back the veil of Fantasy to learn why real fairy stories have happy endings—and why our reading of Tolkien’s own stories has only just begun.

In service to the Beautiful

President Trump has been the only President to champion the Good, the Beautiful, and the True over the course of my lifetime. Whether he succeeds or fails – and I believe he will succeed – in his war with the Swamp, he has been the greatest U.S. President since Andrew Jackson defeated the Bank.

Policy. (a) Applicable Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public. They should also be visually identifiable as civic buildings and, as appropriate, respect regional architectural heritage. Architecture — with particular regard for traditional and classical architecture — that meets the criteria set forth in this subsection is the preferred architecture for applicable Federal public buildings. In the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.

(b) Where the architecture of applicable Federal public buildings diverges from the preferred architecture set forth in subsection (a) of this section, great care and consideration must be taken to choose a design that commands respect from the general public and clearly conveys to the general public the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of America’s system of self-government.

(c) When renovating, reducing, or expanding applicable Federal public buildings that do not meet the criteria set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the feasibility and potential expense of building redesign to meet those criteria should be examined. Where feasible and economical, such redesign should be given substantial consideration, especially with regard to the building’s exterior.

This is not a trivial matter. To stand against modern art and architecture is to battle for the soul of the nation, which has been enervated by the hateful, spirit-destroying ugliness pushed relentlessly by the Prometheans for decades. 

Feminists against women’s sports

Female athletes make it clear that they are more dedicated to radical ideology than to actual women’s sports:

Several amicus briefs were filed Monday in support of Hecox v. Little, a challenge to Idaho’s law banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports in school.

Tennis icon Billie Jean King, World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe and WNBA legend Candace Parker were among the more than 175 athletes who joined Athlete Ally and the Women’s Sports Foundation in signing a brief filed by Lambda Legal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief highlights the athletes’ beliefs in the importance of equal opportunity for girls and women to participate in sports at all levels. 

“There is no place in any sport for discrimination of any kind,” King said. “I’m proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love. The global athletic community grows stronger when we welcome and champion all athletes—including LGBTQI+ athletes.”

So be it. If equality is to be the standard, then logic dictates that all discrimination in sports be abandoned. Let men, women, and self-defined freakshows all compete directly against each other. That’s the fastest, most efficient way to get back to having all-men’s sports.

Red State revolt

It appears that Congress’s behavior in passing the revolting National Defense Authorization Act, which makes streaming a federal offense and hands another $500 million to Israel, $135 million to Burma, $86 million to Cambodia, $130 million to Nepal, another $1,400 million to Asian governments, and a paltry $600 to American citizens suffering from the government-imposed economic lockdowns, may be helping stiffen the resolve of the state officials to do their duty:

I’ve been in talks with state government officials over the past few days. Unlike congress, they have BALLS. There’s a plan in the works, and when it hits, it will be absolutely explosive. Sweeping through red America one state at a time like dominoes. If congress doesn’t do their job on the sixth, expect media and lib panic to hit previously unseen levels by the news cycle beginning Jan. 11 and escalate from there.

This tends to run counter to what I know of state officials, but the closer that the calendar – if not the actual probability – gets to the realization of what a Biden administration would actually mean for them, the more the emotional pressure on the state officials to do the right thing rather than simply accept the media narrative grows. It’s one thing to look at the reported election results and run through the gentlemanly, “well, doggone it, we tried” graceful defeat routine, it’s another to look soberly at how badly things are likely to become in short order if you go along with the fake status quo.

Especially when you can see your Blue State counterparts openly breaking the law.

The Michigan Secretary of State directed the county clerks to delete all their electronic voting records. Previous years electric records from 2018 and 2016 are still intact. By law all records are to be preserved for at least 2 years.

Christmas gifts from the VP

CodeMonkeyZ reports that President Trump is giving the 7 States in contention one more chance to clean up their fraud and get their State in order.

Dec 24: Pence is expected to tell state legislatures with dueling electors to immediately address the contention in their states to a resolution. States may: split electors, certify contested electors, conduct forensic studies, etc.

Jan 6: Not resolved? Throw out their electors.

And if a State doesn’t like it, then it can go complain to the Supreme Court. Where it doesn’t have standing anymore. 

He’s not listening

To the lawyers, the conceders, and the graceful-defeaters:

Big news coming out of Pennsylvania. Very big illegal ballot drop that cannot be accounted for. Rigged Election!

I expect regular releases of fraud-related news that will become increasingly difficult for the media to minimize and deny. This is analogous to a pre-assault artillery bombardment intended to weaken the enemy defenses.

It’s really not that complicated

 Patreon confirms that its lawsuit against the 72 Bears isn’t complex.

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that Plaintiff Patreon, Inc. does not oppose Defendants’ Motion to Designate Case as Not Complex, filed December 9, 2020.  The parties stipulated on October 7, 2020 that this case should not be designated as complex. 

So as I surmised at the time, the belated designation of the Patreon case as complex litigation was just a mistake by the Clerk of the Court rather than shenanigans on anyone’s part. That mistake has been corrected and the only real consequence of this is the delay of what is best understood as a motion to dismiss being heard by Judge Schulman from December 16 to January 20.

The result of that hearing are not seriously in doubt, since as the Legal Legion has explained it to me, Patreon’s lawyers have never grasped that California law generally does not permit two simultaneous iterations of the same proceeding in different jurisdictions. Their lawyers appear to have misunderstood the case law that permits questions of arbitrability to be heard by a court BEFORE an arbitration begins in much the same way that an arbitration award can be challenged AFTER an arbitration ends.

But, as Judge Schulman’s order on the preliminary injunction has already explained, the courts are not generally permitted to, nor can they reasonably be expected to, interfere with ongoing arbitration proceedings once they have begun. So, the most likely outcome is that Judge Schulman will throw the Patreon case out for being untimely, and tell them to challenge the awards in the future if they don’t like the way the arbitrations turn out.

Which they probably won’t. The fact that Patreon has recently changed its terms of use to preclude arbitration rather than mandate it, and has removed its illegal forced waivers of jury trials and class actions, would appear to provide a fairly reliable guide to how Patreon thinks the arbitrations are going.