Since its passage in the House of Representatives on 3 March, the H.R. 1 For the People Act of 2021 has been lauded as a major election reform and voting rights bill by Democrats. However, in the eyes of the GOP it's "an unconstitutional, reckless, and anti-democratic bill that could permanently damage our republic", as former Vice President Mike Pence described it in a tweet last week.
— To which Tom K says, "The Ship of State has sunk to the bottom of the sea...torpedoed by the crooked November 2020 election. Any 'permanent.. damage [to] our republic' would be • kicking a dead horse; or • putting lipstick on a dead pig; or • dropping depth charges on the wreck of the Titanic, but thanks for your concern Mr. Pence."
H.R. 1 is Not Actually About 'Voting Rights'
[T]he bill would assert federal control over a broad array of areas of American life far beyond the scope of elections and campaigns, writes the Cato Institute's Walter Olson:
· first, it "would require disclosure of the names of many persons who donate to organisations that engage in policy‐oriented speech", thus chilling free speech;
· second, it would require all US politics-related social media posts written by "agents of a foreign principal" – i.e. "any person outside of the United States" – to be accompanied by a disclaimer saying as much;
· third, "notwithstanding the status of the Article III judiciary as a separate and independent branch of government, the bill presumes to order the drawing up of a Supreme Court ethics code".
The latter issue deserves special attention given that in 2016 Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that the Supreme Court is based "on independence from political influence" which means that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to impose an ethical "code of conduct" on the judicial branch.
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from the Sputnik article
However, Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Accountability Centre (CAC) think tank, hailed Biden's pledge to create a "bipartisan commission of… constitutional scholars" that would produce "recommendations as to how to reform the court system" in her 10 February op-ed for The Hill. Wydra noted that Biden's commission is expected to consider the issues of the Supreme Court's "legitimacy and expansion", which evokes strong memories of last year's "court-packing" rhetoric.
While the bill's provisions appear to be nothing short of a "grab‐every‐power‐in‐sight" effort, the measure's proponents argue that the Supreme Court remains "the least accountable institution within our three branches of government".
At the same time, one must bear in mind that the attack on free speech and the First Amendment is limited to Trump supporters and people who dissent from establishment explanations; those who support the establishment enjoy free speech rights to the fullest extent, according to the former official.
Hence, selective shadow-banning, censoring, and removal of social media accounts by Big Tech as well as the mainstream media blackout of news casting a shadow on the establishment's political candidates and operatives.
The Democratic Party-proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (DTPA) also appears to be aimed at silencing and intimidating political opposition.
"The domestic terrorism bill can be used to criminalise dissent, thus preventing alternative explanations", the ex-official notes. "Without free speech there can be no democracy and no way for the people to hold the government accountable to law. It is a reversion to pre-modern times prior to the English Glorious Revolution of 1688".
…There's more to the story…
Rabbit Holes and Physicists
March 9, 2021
"For Arkani-Hamed morality arrives from the 'beauty' of the theory."
Beauty equals morality?
Semiramis cackles....
“The insights of the philosophers I studied seemed murky and inconsequential compared with the dazzling successes of physics and mathematics.”
—Then you weren't studying the right philosophers. Start with Being and Nothingness.
The article is titled "Rabbit Holes" and you should check it out if you like rabbit holes. There are a ton of good links on the page.
Great Strides for Freedom in American History:
— Don Wolt (@tlowdon) March 8, 2021
🔹1776: Declaration of Independence
🔹1791: Bill of Rights
🔹1863: Emancipation Proclamation
🔹2021: CDC grants limited freedoms to the vaccinated https://t.co/XENrhDnZKo
VOTE SECEDE HARDERER!
by
Fond as I am of at least some of those calling for it, secession is a non-starter. Big fat caveat: I’ve already declared myself all in for the nullification idea, and I still feel that way. But that doesn’t mean I have high hopes that it will work. Ultimately, the roadblock obstructing secession is simple: FederalGovCo absitively, posolutely WILL NOT let it happen without a fight. Ask somebody from the Confederate States of Americans how it worked out last time around. I see no reason to think that FederalGovCo’s position towards secession has mellowed; the roadblock still stands, as impassable as it ever was.
With nullification the same roadblock looms, but it is at least conceivable that a way could be found for the several states to pull it off without sparking a violent response. It’s a remote possibility to be sure, but a possibility nonetheless. I don’t have a whole lot of faith in it, but it does exist.
This is an excerpted from a much longer piece, continue reading at CF...http://coldfury.com/2021/03/07/vote-secede-harderer/
Personally, I would much prefer to live out my remaining days in a nation NOT riven by strife, deprivation, and calamity—grubbing for meager sustenance to fend off starvation; constantly sidestepping a ruthlessly despotic government as best I can; completely surrounded by bleating nitwits accepting of their own subjugation, in blissful ignorance of their ignominy.
I had hoped to die gently in my sleep, my loved ones close at hand to see me on my way. But NOOOOOO. LIKE it? RUFKM?!? Man, I am too old for this shit.
Trust me, I absolutely HATE that this conflict has been forced upon on us. But forced upon us it has been. We all knew this day would come. Now that it has, facts must be squarely and honestly faced. There are tough choices to be made. What do I truly, deeply believe in? Am I willing to fight for my beliefs—to die in defense of them, if I must? What is my duty—to myself, to my family, to my neighbor, to my country? What does duty, what does honor, require of me? When should I act, how will I know the time is right to act, and what actions should I take?
War is coming. It won’t be pretty, or easy, or brief. Victory for Truth, Justice, and the American Way is by no means assured. It is entirely possible (if not damned likely) that it will not end well, for anybody.
This is an excerpted from a much longer piece, continue reading at CF...http://coldfury.com/2021/03/07/vote-secede-harderer/ ..But do yourself a favor and skip the comments section.
The secession dustup continues
by
I remain convinced that secession, most likely nullification as well, can only ever be an entertaining topic for speculative after-dinner debate over brandy and cigars, if even that much. As a practical, real-world eventuality it is chimerical, a phantasmagorical will o’ the wisp that only serves to distract from the real problem we face, the fundamental, rock-bottom issue that must sooner or later be decided. I’ve written numerous times over the years about this problem, which Aesop identifies thusly:
This is an excerpted from a much longer piece, continue reading at CF...http://coldfury.com/2021/03/09/the-secession-dustup-continues/
Nobody serious is seriously considering secession. It’s like talking about winning the next election. They’re considering insurgency, revolution, and overthrow. I don’t want a piece of what used to be known as the U.S. of A.
For about the tenth time I’ve said it and posted it here:
I am so enamored of the republic that was, that I’ll not willingly part with a square foot of it to the communists. I want the whole damned thing back. Whether any of them survive the transition is a matter to me ranging from complete indifference, to active revulsion at the thought.
That isn’t secession. It’s cleansing.
France didn’t secede from Nazi Germany. America didn’t secede from Britain. And no place is seceding from the U.S. They’ll either win their independence, again, or roll over, give it all up, and wind up in the gulags featured in every communist state since ever. There’s no third option. And there won’t be any safe space unless it’s called Everything, because the other side has proven beyond all doubt that the one thing of which they are wholly incapable is to leave everyone else alone. Couldn’t do it in Korea. Couldn’t do it in Vietnam. And only brinksmanship and the threat of global thermonuclear war stopped it in Germany. Communists, like muslims, are the world’s original pugnacious busybodies, and the only successful remedy is removal in toto. —Aesop @ Raconteur Report
Amen. Broken-record time: Liberty and tyranny can NOT peaceably coexist. Ditto with free people and Communists. One of these things is not only not like the other; one of these things eternally seeks to strangle the other—to choke it out of existence, to eradicate it entirely. And that we simply cannot have. Which, all reverence for the First Amendment notwithstanding, means but one thing. Yet another of Mike’s Iron Laws, in the form of a Biblical rejiggering: Thou shalt not suffer a Communist to live. The tension between the absolutes represented by the idea of freedom of speech and thought and the necessity of seeing to it that our principles are not allowed to be used as the means of our own destruction is beyond ironic. But paradox is the way of things on this poor planet.
So be it, then. If it’s war to the knife they want, then it’s war to the knife they should damned well get. It’s impossible not to hear the creak and groan of A House Divided Against Itself, on its way to doing that thing such houses must inevitably do:
This is an excerpted from a much longer piece, continue reading at CF...http://coldfury.com/2021/03/09/the-secession-dustup-continues/ ..But do yourself a favor and skip the comments section.
NATIONAL DATA: The “Biden Rush” Continues—American Worker Displacement Soars As Immigrants Scoop Up ALL New Jobs.
Biden and the ‘Yellow Brick Road’
On March 8, 2021 Alastair Crooke wrote on Strategic Culture Foundation
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/08/biden-and-yellow-brick-road/
Biden intoned the sacred word ‘democracy’ over and over again at the Munich Security conference, including three times in his concluding sentence; but the mask already was stripped from America’s long-service, 1940s, moralising myth some time ago. Recent events in the U.S. have only served to underline ‘democracy’ as sham and to expose the bitter divisions lying beneath America’s skin.
[. . .]
[T]he Democratic “hold on Congress and the Senate is tenuous: A titular, razor-thin margin.
The American electorate wants Covid relief, economic recovery, and a return to a measure of ‘normality to life’, before any radical change be contemplated, especially since they have observed how over-investment in tech renewables brought California and Texas to the brink of collapse during the recent freeze-up. And thirdly, very close to half of the electorate, voted for Trump, and against the woke programme — especially in its cultural identity revolution iteration.
These are excerpts from a very long and interesting article at...https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/08/biden-and-yellow-brick-road/
The Top 10 Books of All Time
I have read thousands of books over the course of my life and I want to share with you what I consider to be the top 10 books of all time....
