Archive for June, 2022

Between the last day of Pintastic NE 2022, interviews, as much pinball as I could squeeze in before the machines were taken away, the drive home, and Mass last evening and uploading the final videos I didn’t get a post up yesterday nor did I comment on the Dobbs decision.

Now that I’m home with a night’s sleep let’s do a quick five thoughts about the Dobbs Decision.

  1. If there was ever a time to say: “Thank you Mitch we owe you one” it’s now. No Matter How much the GOP base might be angry with Mitch McConnell on other things no GOP legislator is more responsible for this result. None of this is possible without his willingness to:
    • Stop the Garland nomination in its tracks
    • Retaliate against Harry Reid for ending judicial filibusters
    • Push Judges including Trump SCOTUS picks
  2. Of course if we’re going to thank legislators we also have to thank Harry Reid who often claimed to be pro life and ironically turned out to be the single most important man in the Senate to get this going. Without out him nuking the filibuster for judicial appointment at the urging of Obama Mitch McConnell does not nuke it for SCOTUS allowing Trump to get through three justices that the left would have filibustered till the cows come home. Yes it meant that the left was able to seat Ketanji Brown “What’s a woman I’m no biologist” Jackson and perhaps other radicals like her but if that’s the price of killing Roe we’ll take it. Without his action Mitch’s prophecy never comes through, cue the video:
  1. Of course the primary person we have to thank is Donald Trump Not only did he push forward conservative Judges but when Ruth Bader Ginsberg died less that 50 days before the election he was ready to roll with Amy Comey Barrett getting her approved with only a week to spare. Can anyone think of any other GOP president who would have been willing to do so? If you had told me in 2000 that Donald Trump would do this, I would not have believed you, but the Hermit of Loreto would have. I guess Mitch’s Prophecy was not the only one that was fulfilled last Friday:

Capoverdi asked him in English if he was Thomas [Zimmer], and the two had a delightful conversation. When Trump was elected, Dr. Curran called and told him that, back in the 1980s, Tom Zimmer said he had received a “premonition” and that “a certain man would lead America back to God”—and that man would be none other than Donald J. Trump.

“The millionaire playboy from New York?” the incredulous doctor is said to have asked Zimmer.

“Yes,” the Hermit of Loreto responded, adding he was so sure Donald Trump would become a great spiritual leader of America that he wrote his name on a brick and had it placed in the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Holy Door after the Jubilee so Trump would receive blessings from the many Masses that would be said in the Vatican.

Ever wonder why the left’s hatred of Trump boarders on the demonically insane? This is why
  1. One can not stress enough how critical to this day the courage of Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch Barret and Kavanaugh in this ruling. The leak of Alito’s draft opinion was specifically used to try to intimidate them. The left openly threatened their lives (and are still doing so) with one person already facing attempted murder charges while protestors continue to harass them at home in violation of federal law. All the while Democrat leaders were either silent or encouraged such action and the Democrat AG who once was nominated to sit on the court did nothing to enforce the law. If they had caved not only would the rule of law be threatened in this country forever but it had the real possibility of turning our cold civil war into a warm one and generating an actual insurrection rather than the fantasy being advanced by the left in the house.
  2. Finally an odd thing that my family members have seen on facebook as been the incredible rage of people who loudly proclaim that they don’t want to associate themselves with anyone who is happy about this decision or posted anything to celebrate it. I actually find this amusing in the sense that my family members are all Catholics who regularly go to church and regularly receive the sacraments including confession. That there are people who are friends and associates of them who are shocked that such people who openly practice their religion actually believe what the the faith teaches seems a tad odd. In fairness if they only get their news from CNN & the MSM perhaps they figure that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and all the other public Catholics who consider faith a coat to remove if it becomes uncomfortable or inconvenient to their power the norm.
Blogger at the border

By John Ruberry

There is speculation that Illinois’ Democrat governor, J.B. Pritzker, is considering a run for president. A visit last week to New Hampshire is his first clue. 

But Pritzker, a billionaire scion of the family that owns the Hyatt Corporation, faces reelection for governor this fall. I’ll be voting for the Republican candidate, and I of course dearly hope whoever the GOP entry is in November will make Pritzker a one-term governor. 

There are many reasons to be against Pritzker for governor–and president. Let’s get started on why.

Gerrymandering. As a candidate in 2018, Pritzker vowed several times to veto gerrymandered legislative maps. He lied. Unless you are an aficionado of Cubist art or a Democrat activist, the 2021 census remaps, are a disgrace to democracy.

Budget. Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, when Republican George H. Ryan–yeah, Ryan was a bad guy–was governor and there was a GOP majority in the state Senate. In one of his first ads for his reelection campaign, Pritzker claimed the Prairie State’s budget is balanced. It’s not, unless you figure in trickery and federal COVID-19 bailout money. With a Republican majority a near certainty in the US House, Pritzker and the Democrats can’t count on bailout cash for Illinois’ next budget. 

Crime. While I’ll concede that governors don’t have much control over local law enforcement, if you think crime is bad in Illinois now, just wait until New Year’s Day, when Illinois’ no-cash bail law goes into effect–after the general election votes are counted this autumn. There are still instances when judges can lock up accused criminals. But of course, big time crooks also commit small time crimes. Petty crooks often move on to become big-time crooks. Cook County’s state’s attorney is Kim Foxx, a George Soros-funded pro-criminal so-called prosecutor. If Pritzker has ever criticized Foxx, I missed it. Pritzker signed the no-cash bail bill into law in February of 2021. If it’s such a good bill, then why didn’t no-cash bail go into effect immediately?

Last year Cook County, which included Chicago and it’s where I live, recorded over 1,000 murders for the first time since 1994.

COVID. The lockdowns in Illinois were among the longest and most severe. But his wife, M.K., and his daughter spent two months in Florida in the spring of 2020. Florida’s lockdown policies were less stringent. Pritzker claims that his family were in Florida before the pandemic was declared. But the governor didn’t reveal that information until two months later.

Stagnant population. Illinois had lost population, according to the US Census, every year since 2014. Or had it? But like late night ballots arriving in big-city polling places, the Census Bureau said, wait, no, Illinois gained population between 2010 and 2020. But growth, such as it is, can rightly be called anemic. 

Corruption. Until it appeared that the US Attorney’s office for Northern Illinois was finally closing in on Boss Michael Madigan, who was for decades the most powerful Democrat in the state, Pritzker was silent on the Illinois Democratic Party chair and longtime state House speaker. Only after a surprisingly lackluster 2020 general election for Prairie State Democrats did Pritzker issue a half-hearted call for Madigan to resign as speaker. The Boss failed to win reelection as House speaker last year and then he quickly resigned as Illinois Dem party chair. 

Three months ago, Madigan was indicted on numerous racketeering charges by the feds. Illinois is generally considered one of the most corrupt states in the Union. Even the Washington Post agrees. What is Pritzker doing to fight criminality by Illinois public officials? I can’t see any evidence that he is doing anything.

Toilets. Pritzker and his wife own two mansions on Astor Street on Chicago’s North Side. Allegedly looking for a property tax break, M.K. had the toilets removed from the one that Illinois’ future first couple didn’t live in. Then she had that mansion declared “uninhabitable,” so the Pritzkers could score that tax break. The Pritzkers later paid Cook County back the money from that sleazy move.

In 2019, Chicago’s NPR affiliate reported that the toilet scam was under federal investigation.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Renaming the Stennis is dumb

Posted: June 25, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

If you don’t follow the U.S. Naval Institute, you could be forgiven for not knowing that there are a lot of articles written by Naval Officers thinking about the future of seapower. Some are good, some are not, but the fact that we continue to have officers that at least think about the future is a good sign. Unfortunately, the USNI articles have morphed from thinking about integrating cyber in future maritime conflicts to increasingly focusing on cultural issues. The latest in this string of articles that includes delving into the LGBTQ culture of Newport, RI, and looking at the Confederate connections in the Naval Academy is a proposal to rename the USS JOHN C STENNIS (JCS).

The JCS is named after Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, the last Democrat Senator from that state and one of the longest serving Senators in US history. Senator Stennis has an interesting history, and LCDR (ret) Reuben Green focuses on racist comments that he made in 1956 along with his criminal behavior as trial prosecutor in Brown vs Mississippi. The fact that John Stennis was racist isn’t up for debate, and neither is the fact that racism is wrong. The notion that to correct this we need to rename the JCS when she pulls in for a refit though is stupid.

Anytime we name anything after a human being, its going to cause controversy. The Navy named a replenishment oiler after Harvey Milk, who took plenty of controversial actions, including outing the homosexuality of a Marine that acted to save President Ford’s life for his own political gain. We also have a USS Gabrielle Giffords, who voted in favor of limiting sales of assault weapons, which more than a few military members own and use without issue in their personal lives.

Any human being we’re going to name ships after is going to offend someone. Should we rename the USNS Maury, who despite contributing much to the study of weather and oceanography, fought in the Confederate Navy? Or the USNS Cesar Chavez, who advocated against immigration? Should we look deeper into the Kennedy family, which has plenty of skeletons in the closet and has two ships named after John and Robert Kennedy?

There are two ways to solve this. The first is to try and pick completely non-controversial names. We can name ships after battles, cities, states and even fish (which might include bumblebees if you’re a resident of California). The other option is to continue naming ships after people, with the understanding that sometimes these people will let you down. Especially with an increasing digital trail that follows everyone, its likely that anyone in the future will have said something controversial that was captured in a video, social media post or a published article.

This brings up a larger question: As a society, can we accept that people are multi-faceted and will have things we both like and dislike about them? I want to answer “Yes” to this question. While Martin Luther King Jr. had extra-marital affairs that I don’t agree with, he should be celebrated for his work in desegregating America. I can accept that Matthew Maury was a brilliant scientist that advanced our understanding of weather and oceanography while also disagreeing with his choice to serve in the Confederate Navy.

We become less human when we attempt to create binary heroes that are all good or all bad. Renaming the JCS would open the door to renaming other ships, creating a very political process that will sway depending on who is in power, and is a door best left shut.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

I interviewed Todd Tuckey of TNT Amusements on day one of Pintastic NE 2022