Author: VD

That’s not an accident

It’s not even a hacked car, given the description.

#HarrisonDeal car exploded (witnesses heard the explosion over a mile away).  Vehicle left as molten metal, engine block ejected 50-60 yards away.  That’s not an accident. That’s a car bomb disguised as an accident.

– Land of the Free

Unlike most people, I have actually crashed a car, set it on fire, and seen the fuel tank explode. 

It wasn’t even a crash per se, it just an unfortunate accident when I went off the road in a road rally in a 1977 MGB during the midst of a serious summer drought. Once the car came to a halt, unharmed, we heard something crackling underneath us and very soon after, smelled smoke. The catalytic converter had set the very dry field alight. A soon as I realized the car was stuck, we promptly bailed and ran toward the nearest farmhouse. 

The fireman arrived too late to do anything about the car, but they did manage to prevent the fire from engulfing the whole field or endangering any homes. When the gas tank exploded, it wasn’t like a bomb blast and it didn’t do anything more than blow the trunk cover up, with a dull crump that sent a brief stream of very black smoke up amidst the regular grey smoke from the fire. It didn’t even blow the cover off entirely, and MGB’s are essentially made out of tin.

Neither gasoline nor diesel explode in a manner resembling movie effects. They ignite and they burn, to be sure, but they don’t explode. So whatever made the Deal car explode so violently, it wasn’t anything that one would normally find in a civilian automobile or truck.

However, I doubt the engine block could have been ejected that far and I haven’t seen that in any of the eyewitness accounts. The amount of explosive required to do that would have been unlikely to leave any survivors in the other vehicles, which suggests someone is confusing that detail with details from Michael Hasting’s “accident”.

Anyhow, this suggests that the President should make his move sooner rather than later, lest the innocent suffer. And from the strategic perspective, a demonstrated inability to protect those around the elected officials who are already afraid to do their duty is not going to convince them to do it.

The legislatures have the power

Literally, the plenary power required to decide, absolutely and unilaterally, which presidential electors are appointed. The Supreme Court doesn’t have it. The voters, legitimate and fraudulent, don’t have it. Only the state legislatures do, no matter what the Fake News and the fraud-defending lawyers try to tell you. From The Tree of Woe, Alexander Macris explains the legal and historical truth of the matter:

What does “plenary power” mean? Plenary power is the most powerful authority that the Constitution grants to any branch of government.

According to Wikipedia, plenary power is “a complete and absolute power to take action on a particular issue, with no limitations. In U.S. Constitutional law, a plenary power is a power that has been granted to a body or person in absolute terms, with no review of or limitations upon the exercise of that power. The assignment of a plenary power to one body divests all other bodies from the right to exercise that power, where not otherwise entitled. Plenary powers are not subject to judicial review in a particular instance or in general.”

According to Justipedia, “Plenary power is an absolute power that is complete and allows for the holder to make unilateral decisions regarding a certain subject.”

By using the word “plenary,” the McPherson Court is stating that the state legislatures have complete, absolute power over the appointment of electors. Full stop.

McPherson is an old case, but it has been repeatedly upheld. In Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, No. 00-836, Op. at 4 (Dec. 4, 2000), the Court wrote:

In the selection of Presidential electors, the legislature is not acting solely under the authority given it by the people of the State, but by virtue of a direct grant of authority made under Art. II, §1, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution. Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, No. 00-836, Op. at 4 (Dec. 4, 2000)

This direct grant of authority “operates as a limitation upon the State in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power.” Bush, supra, at 5 (quoting McPherson, 146 U.S. at 25).

State courts may not invoke even the state constitution to circumscribe this state legislative power. Bush, supra, at 5, 7.

Bush v. Gore (2000) cited McPherson and Chief Justice Rehnquist, in his concurring opinion, expanded further:

There are a few exceptional cases in which the Constitution imposes a duty or confers a power on a particular branch of a State’s government. This is one of them. Article II, § 1, cl. 2, provides that “[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” electors for President and Vice President…

In McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892), we explained that Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, “convey[s] the broadest power of determination” and “leaves it to the legislature exclusively to define the method” of appointment. 146 U.S., at 27…

[I]n a Presidential election the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail…

More recently, in DNC vs. Wisconsin State Legislature, 592 US __ (2020), Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that stated:

Article II expressly provides that the rules for Presidential elections are established by the States “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” §1, cl. 2 (emphasis added). The text of Article II means that “the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must prevail” and that a state court may not depart from the state election code enacted by the legislature. Bush v. Gore, 531 U. S. 98, 120 (2000) (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring); see Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Bd., 531 U. S. 70, 76–78 (2000) (per curiam); McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 25 (1892). In a Presidential election, in other words, a state court’s “significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question.” Bush v. Gore, 531 U. S., at 113 (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring). As Chief Justice Rehnquist explained in Bush v. Gore, the important federal judicial role in reviewing state-court decisions about state law in a federal Presidential election “does not imply a disrespect for state courts but rather a respect for the constitutionally prescribed role of state legislatures.”

So, to summarize:

  • The US Constitution grants the power to direct the manner by which presidential electors are appointed to the state legislature.
  • This grant of power is plenary, e.g. complete and absolute. The state legislature’s clearly expressed intent must always prevail.
  • The grant of power is exclusive to the state legislature. The state courts cannot overturn the state legislature on these matters.

Based on the above, there is no question whatsoever that the state legislature can appoint the presidential electors if it wants to. And, historically, state legislatures have done so dozens of times – in fact, 7{3aedcb51dac2fbb83a885d32b07950f3050377138d02430f831f0a3ede84357a} of all presidential electors in US history have been directly appointed!

Read the whole thing. It is not merely a compelling case, it is a conclusive one. And it makes legal roadkill of the ludicrous Lawrence Tribe in the process, which is nice.

The state legislatures have the duty and responsibility to take matters into their own hands and address this unprecedented assault on the electoral system and the U.S. Constitution. And they should recall that if they don’t, the President has the moral duty and the Constitutional responsibility to hold them accountable for their failure.

Banning the banners

 Mailchimp is banned by Slickstack

Starting immediately, SlickStack has begun warning WordPress sites that have MailChimp software installed that we will begin banning it by default at some point in the near future.

(Note: users are always free to install their own plugin blacklist.txt file, instead of using the default one.)

This is in accordance with our official goals of maximizing free speech and website portability, and helping users to avoid implementing services or extensions that will likely present conflicts later on in their website’s life cycle, esp. regarding stability, security, or portability.

Over the past few years, MailChimp’s “leftist” activism and Orwellian censorship has gotten more and more bold. Among many others who have been arbitrarily banned for political reasons include Stefan Molyneux, March for Trump, VICE founder Gavin McInnes, and Alex Jones, and even a random women’s issues blogger named Emma.

Ironically after Alex Jones was banned, his InfoWars emails are now being powered by the Amazon AWS cloud, meaning that the smaller independent MailChimp is literally just pushing users into Big Tech services instead, or creating totally new IaaS services from the ground up, like Parler, Gab, and many others.

At long last we have the answer to the question of who will watch the watchers. Apparently, smaller independent watchers upon whom the watchers have begun to rely. 

Mailvox: stick and carrot

 A reader has a theory:

I’ve had this theory for a while and I figure I should put it out there on record in case it turns out to be right. My theory is that you two are attempting to take over the script. I don’t know if you are doing it consciously or subconsciously.  Either way you get equal credit because you are following your true inner beliefs/instincts in terms of what you believe needs to be said/heard. 

Vox is the good cop providing hope, morale, and a path to victory for Trump. Owen is the bad cop who is mocking and shaming Trump relentlessly into action. Vox is using the carrot. Owen is using the stick. It doesn’t matter if the masses hear either of you, it only matters if Trump does. If he believes in your collective ability to predict the future then he will put a lot of stock into the two roads that you are showing him are in front of him.

You aren’t writing the script, you are guiding the script. If this has openly been your plan from the  beginning then that is pretty incredible. If you don’t realize this is what you are doing then perhaps it is worth considering.

For my part, I don’t think the God-Emperor pays any attention whatsoever to anything that Owen or I do, say, write, or think. Sure, there are people on Team Trump who are aware of my thoughts and incorporate them into their analyses, but if there is one thing we know about Donald Trump, it is that he is his own man and he answers to no one but Jesus Christ.

I don’t play a role. What you see here is not the totality of me, but for better or for worse, it is an accurate representation. As for Big Bear, I think he is even less prone to playing a part than I am; personalities aside, I have considerably more control over my public output than he does by virtue of our preferred media. 

Pentagon purges

The God-Emperor puts more loyalists in place. For, you know, the transition….

Purge continues at the Pentagon with Trump team abruptly firing Defense Business Board members, installing Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, as multiple retired military Trump supporters like Mike Flynn and Scott O’Grady call for martial law and overthrowing election.

Oh noes! Lawsy, whatevah shall we do about this blatant disrespect for fake democracy? Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, the newly purged Pentagon is blocking visits to U.S. military intelligence agencies by the Biden transition team.

But no worries. I’m sure they will arrange to accommodate them at Gitmo.

SG and IG down

Don’t know why yet. The techs are on it.

UPDATE: Arkhaven and Infogalactic are back up. SocialGalactic should be back up soon.

UPDATE: SocialGalactic is back up too.

Converging the stock markets

There will be no avoiding the corporate cancer for those who seek public financing:

US stock exchange Nasdaq has warned listed companies they must appoint at least two “diverse” directors to their board – a ‘self-identified’ female and an “underrepresented minority” or LGBTQ person – or possibly face delisting.
Nasdaq revealed its plan to turbocharge diversity on its exchange in a proposal filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday. 
Under the proposed new rules, not only will all listed US companies be required to “publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding their board of directors,” but “most” companies would have to either appoint “diverse” board members or explain why they hadn’t done so in a letter. 
The mandatory addition of “one [director] who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as either an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+” appears to leave room for Rachel Dolezal-style “self-identification” as something other than white, male, or straight – a potential loophole for companies that prefer to keep their current boards. Non-US companies and small firms would be permitted to appoint two female directors instead.
Listed companies would be required to publish their diversity stats within a year of the SEC adopting Nasdaq’s proposal, and be required to have “one diverse director” within two years of implementation. Depending on company size, they would have four or five years to comply with the two-director requirement. Those who fall short can escape delisting only “if they provide a public explanation of their reasons for not meeting the objectives.”

The reason this is NASDAQ and not the NYSE is because the companies in the DOW and the S&P 500 are, for the most part, established companies that have already been converged. Companies that list on NASDAQ are much younger and haven’t necessarily been saddled down with the diversity anchor, which would give them a competitive advantage.

Diversity in the board necessarily implies future diversity in the workforce, as the top priority for women and minorities in any organization is almost always to bring in more of their own kind. 

It’s getting ugly in Georgia

 Sure, it could be a coincidence. But, as we know, there are no coincidences.

A campaign team member for Sen. Kelly Loeffler was killed in a crash on Interstate 16 in Pooler on Friday.

The Pooler Police Department confirmed that Harrison Deal, who was from Bulloch County, was killed in the crash on eastbound I-16 near Pooler Parkway on Friday at about 10 a.m. Pooler Police responded to the scene and found three vehicles on fire.

Deal was killed in the crash. Three other people were treated at the scene for minor injuries.

Harrison Deal was dating Georgia Governor Kemp’s daughter Lucy and was a student at the University of Georgia. He was a field rep for Sen. Loeffler, and had interned for Sen. David Perdue in 2019.

It appears someone really, really does not want to see the Georgia vote audited. But the threats don’t appear to be working everywhere.

Letter from over 76 members of the PA legislature asking Congress to reject PA’s electors.  The focus is on multiple violations of Article II, Sec. 1, Cl. 2 by the Democrat Governor and Democrat Secretary of State.

It’s a good start, although I tend to doubt the Democratic House is going to be receptive. If I were the God-Emperor, I would not rely upon either the courts or the legislatures to do the right thing. This is a burden that falls to him, and to him alone. 

What those who are being threatened would do well to consider is this: if you are frightened of them when they are not ruling openly, imagine how much worse things it will be if they are permitted to do so. And remember Matthew 10:28.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Correcting Clausewitz

Or rather, correcting the famous mistranslation of Clausewitz:

As Mark Twain reputedly quipped, it’s not so much what we know that gets us in trouble; it’s what we know that just ain’t so. How much of what we know about martial ventures is wrong? In the naval sphere, for instance, it’s common knowledge that Alfred Thayer Mahan instructs commanders never to divide the fleet. Except he doesn’t. Once upon a time, it turns out, historians took to quoting other historians quoting Mahan to that effect. Over time the quotation — in reality, someone’s bowdlerized version of his ideas about concentrating naval strength — took on an air of authenticity and authority. “Never divide the fleet” endured as a truism despite its flimsy provenance. And it drowned out Mahan’s real ideas through constant repetition.

This is about more than salvaging a long-dead maritime strategist’s reputation. Faulty or outdated ideas can carry real-world repercussions. Acting on them creates a garbage-in/garbage-out effect that bedevils strategic endeavors. Nor is the problem confined to one apocryphal maxim from Mahan. We all know, don’t we, that strategic grand master Carl von Clausewitz defines war as “the continuation of policy by other means” (italics in original). Except he doesn’t. Read in the original German (insert favorite Hitler joke here), Clausewitz’s masterwork On War proclaims — uniformly — that war is a mere continuation of policy “with other means” (mit anderen Mitteln), or sometimes “with the addition of other means” (mit Einmischung anderer Mitteln). Nowhere in On War or his prefatory notes does the Prussian write “by” other means.

Yet this false quotation refuses to die. “By,” “with,” who cares? Well, any student or practitioner of warfare should. Substituting a two-letter for a four-letter word makes a big difference in how Westerners conceive of war. And as Clausewitz teaches, grasping the nature of war in general — and of the particular war we’re contemplating — constitutes the first, most fundamental, most crucial act of statecraft. Get the basics wrong and grim consequences follow.

It’s actually a rather serious mistake, and such an obvious one that it tends to suggest it was intentional. And given that I speak sufficient German to be clear on the difference between “bei” and “mit”, I feel very mildly embarrassed to have occasionally resorted to the mistranslation, although my excuse of never actually having read Clausewitz in the original.

Magic Dirt: a correction

Unlike Nature, The New York Times, and many other publications, The Other McCain doesn’t hesitate to correct his neologistic history in his article on Planners and Their Plans:

CORRECTION: “Magic Dirt Theory” is a phrase coined by Vox Day, specifically referring to the belief of open-borders enthusiasts “that all immigrants will magically become Real Americans, real life nephews of their Uncle Sam, reborn on the Fourth of July by virtue of geographical relocation, thereby instantly negating of all of their racial, ethnic, religious, political, and cultural traditions.”

While I’ve never been concerned with conceptual credit, I do understand that the assiduous avoidance of properly crediting me and other dangerous badthinkers by the mainstream media is part and parcel of their attempt to render us invisible to the mainstream. While they can’t stop the stronger ideas from eventually percolating through into the culture, they can at least prevent us from being anointed Important Public Intellectuals in favor of lesser thinkers like the laughable Richard Dawkins, the lunatic occultist Jordan Peterson, and the utterly unoriginal propagandist Ben Shapiro, to say nothing of the diverse nonentities who can barely construct a coherent sentence in the process of regurgitating the latest social justice pieties.

That’s why corrections like Robert McCain’s are important, and why it is a good idea to call out mistaken and omitted attributions. Because these mis- and non-attributions are simply another form of media gatekeeping.

When one contemplates how my historical argument contra the atheist meme “religion causes war” destroyed it to the extent that virtually no one even tries to appeal to that once-popular argument pushed by Messrs. Harris and Dawkins anymore, one can perhaps begin to understand why the intellectual gatekeeping is so assiduous. But the truth has a way of routing around its would-be imprisoners; with zero advertising, zero social media presence, and the full weight of Big Tech thrown against it, this blog nevertheless had 5.7 million pageviews last month and is currently on track for 7 million more in December.

UPDATE: “The Republican Party is now the Magic Dirt party.” – Neon Revolt