Posts Tagged ‘5th Circuit Court of Appeals’

2024 Pre-Election LinkSwarm

Monday, November 4th, 2024

Tomorrow it’s finally election day, so here’s a small pre-election LinkSwarm:

  • “Fifth Circuit Ruling Restores the ‘Day’ to Election Day. Court finds federal law requires mail ballots to arrive by Election Day and preempts state laws to the contrary.”

    A ruling by a federal appellate court returns the “day” to Election Day in at least three states including Texas.

    The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion Friday that federal law requires mail ballots to arrive by Election Day and preempts any state laws to the contrary.

    Opinions issued by the Fifth Circuit set precedent for the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, but the court’s ruling is expected to have national impact.

    The Republican National Committee and Mississippi Republican Party sued in January to challenge a Mississippi law that counts mail-in ballots that arrive up to five days after Election Day.

    Mississippi changed its election laws during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to extend the acceptance period for absentee ballots.

    “Federal law requires voters to take timely steps to vote by Election Day. And federal law does not permit the State of Mississippi to extend the period for voting by one day, five days, or 100 days,” stated Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, writing on behalf of a three-judge panel:

    If only we could get blue states outside the Fifth Circuit to obey those guidelines…

  • Final poll shows Trump ahead in every swing state.
  • Watch the opponent, not the polls.

    Presently, the Democrat nominee’s presidential bid exemplifies why understanding what a campaign is doing is the best barometer of how a candidate is performing with the electorate—not a poll.

    On the micro-level, one can view the Harris campaign’s targeting of individual constituencies, which have traditionally comprised integral parts of the Democrat coalition. From young African-American men to Hispanics to Arab-Americans to Jewish-Americans, the Harris campaign’s assumed, almost unanimous, and necessary support has been lacking. As a result, we see not only an increase in her campaign’s messaging to these constituencies, we see the surreal hectoring of young black males—and males, in general—by surrogates, such as the Obamas. Asking voters to support your candidate indicates your campaign is okay; urging voters to support your candidate indicates your campaign is troubled; criticizing voters as not being “man” enough to vote for your candidate indicates your campaign is cooked. Other targeted messages abound within the Harris campaigns, including the emphasis on increased federal spending within the African-American community (in one of the most patronizingly racist appeals imaginable); abortion (though it is hard to imagine those who believe abortion is the overriding issue not already voting for the vice president); and the big lie about “Project 2025” being Donald Trump’s post-election agenda—all of which are designed to unite and rally a presently eroding and unenthusiastic Democrat voter base.

  • “Democrats undermined by radical agenda. If Kamala Harris loses, she can reflect on her party’s mania for progressive ideas on immigration, policing and race.”

    t wasn’t so long ago that progressives were riding high in the United States. Their radical views set the agenda and tone for the Democratic Party and, especially in cultural areas, dominated discourse. Building in the 2010s and cresting at the start of this decade with the Black Lives Matter protests and the heady early days of the Biden administration, few of their ideas seemed off the table.

    Defund the police and empty the jails? Sure! Abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalise the border? Absolutely! Get rid of fossil fuels and have a Green New Deal? Definitely! Demand trillions of dollars for a “transformational” Build Back Better bill? We’re just getting started! Promote DEI and the struggle for “equity” (not equal opportunity) everywhere? It’s the only way to fight privilege! Insist that a new ideology around race and gender should be accepted by everyone? Only a bigot would resist!

    In reality, a lot of these ideas were terrible and most voters outside the precincts of the progressive left itself were never interested in them. That was true from the get-go but now the backlash against these ideas is strong enough that it cannot be ignored. As a result, politics is adjusting and the progressive moment is well and truly over.

    Astute observers on the left acknowledge this, albeit with an undertone of sadness. So how did the progressive moment fall apart? It is not hard to think of some reasons.

    Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it. When Joe Biden came into office, he immediately issued a series of executive orders loosening the rules for handling illegal immigrants, a move that was applauded by progressives.

    The predictable result was a surge in illegal immigration and the diffusion of these immigrants into overburdened cities, which caused a spike in negative sentiment towards Democrats for letting the situation get out of control. This has resulted in huge advantages for Donald Trump and the Republicans that have continued even as the Biden administration moved in mid-2024 to tighten the border and Kamala Harris runs commercials promising to be tough on border security.

    The Democrats should have seen this coming. Polling over the years has consistently shown overwhelming majorities in favour of more emphasis on border security. And now voters are increasingly open to draconian restriction measures. An astonishing 62 per cent of voters in a June CBS News survey supported starting a “new national programme to deport all undocumented immigrants currently living in the US illegally”. Progressives’ failure to understand this reality is a big reason why the progressive moment is over.

    Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was another terrible idea and voters hate it too. In the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the climate for police and criminal justice reform was highly favourable. But Democrats blew the opportunity by allowing the party to be associated with unpopular slogans like “defund the police” that did not appear to take public safety concerns seriously. Democratic non-white and working-class voters tend to live in areas that have more crime and are therefore unlikely to look kindly on any approach that threatens public safety.

    A survey conducted for my new report with Yuval Levin, Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition?, confirmed the strength of these sentiments. By 73 to 25 per cent, voters backed keeping police budgets whole in the interests of public safety over reducing them and transferring money to social services.

    Among non-white working-class voters there was a 30-point margin against reducing police budgets, which ballooned to 50 points among moderate to conservative working-class non-whites, the overwhelming majority of this demographic. By contrast, white college-grad liberals favoured reducing police budgets by 20 points. That tells you a lot.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • Democrats are the party of voter fraud: “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that hundreds of noncitizens are on Iowa’s voter rolls. And yet, incredibly, the DHS refuses to share who these individuals are with state officials.” Let’s hope its only hundreds…
  • Trump’s closing argument:

  • Trump is winning the Minnesota cookie count two to one.
  • Diddy’s Ex-Girlfriend Urges Americans To Trust Her Judgment.

    • If you haven’t already voted early, be sure to locate your voter registration card and get ready to go off to the polls tomorrow.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Texas | 4 Comments »

    5th Circuit Yanks Case From Clinton Appointee

    Thursday, October 17th, 2024

    Commenter LBK alerted me to this, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just yanked a case from Clinton appointee Janis Jack that she had presided over for thirteen years.

    A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered the case of M.D. v. Abbott be reassigned, in addition to vacating a contempt order [Clinton appointee Janis] Jack entered.

    The panel released a 36-page opinion that found Jack has shown an extensive and well-documented pattern of antagonism toward the State of Texas and its counsel, and a bias favoring plaintiffs who have strived for years to get the state to comply with orders for timely investigations into abuse allegations.

    Although the panel recognized Jack’s institutional knowledge and the complexity of the civil case, the court said, “It is necessary to reconsider the continued adversarial nature of this proceeding.”

    Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones, in her analysis of the history between Jack and the Texas agencies she oversees, also strongly indicated Jack erred in not recognizing the state has been “substantially compliant” in recent years with the court’s orders.

    The opinion, anticipating reassignment, gives notice to that regardless which jurist inherits the case, “as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies.”

    Jones said it is not appropriate “for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree.”

    The Department of Family and Protective Services, in a prepared statement, said, “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit recognized the significant efforts DFPS and HHSC have invested in serving the children and families of our state. We remain committed and are grateful to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature for their continued support in furthering the well-being of our most vulnerable Texans.”

    TDFPS is hardly free of sin. At one point Abbott had to instruct them to stop requiring Critical Race Theory classes. Somehow I have a feeling that wasn’t something Jack objected to…

    Yetter Coleman partner R. Paul Yetter, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and appellee advocate during the Aug. 5 oral argument, has worked the case since it was first filed.

    “We respectfully disagree with the panel ruling and will ask for reconsideration by the whole circuit,” Yetter said, adding the case will stay with Jack at least until the reconsideration petition is decided.

    When litigation began, Jack’s role involved addressing abuses within the entire foster care program and more than 10,000 children.

    In 2014, Jack issued her ruling after trial and the remedial measures were appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Although the Fifth Circuit provided the state some relief in a series of orders over a period of years, Yetter said the merits of the case have been thoroughly adjudicated and the focus has been on compliance for the past five years.

    The issues before the appeals court this time are primarily focused on 38 unresolved cases involving children with intellectual disabilities that are in the state’s permanent custody.

    Wait, 13 years and $100,000 in fines over 38 cases? I would imagine that most of them have aged out of the system by now. Every life is sacred, but $100,000 a day in fines for 38 cases seems…disproportionate.

    Speaking in Jack’s defense, Yetter argued the judge has been “incredibly patient” with the state for the past seven years, and the Fifth Circuit did not credit Jack where she praised state officials on progress made.

    “There’s been improvement, and she’s called them out and praised state officials for that,” Yetter said.

    In an amicus curiae filed by Alexander Dubose & Jefferson attorney Marcy Hogan Greer on behalf of National Disability Rights Network, Center for Public Representation, New Disabled South, and Disability Rights Mississippi, Greer argued Texas has continued to fail foster children with intellectual disabilities.

    The Texas Health and Human Services Commission created a special “Provider Investigations” unit to investigate alleged abuses of children with disabilities “who are often incapable of advocating for themselves,” but that unit “has been plagued by incompetence, ineptitude, insensitivity, and backlog,” Greer noted.

    Texas appealed a Jack contempt order in April that came with a $100,000-a-day fine. The Fifth Circuit stayed the fine and late Friday vacated it with the reassignment order.

    The actual decision is here, and near the end it notes:

    We take no position on issues that have not yet matured into appealable orders. However, as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies. Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 453, 129 S. Ct. 2579, 2597 (2009) (“[T]he longer an injunction or consent decree stays in place, the greater the risk that it will improperly interfere with a State’s democratic processes.”); United States v. Mississippi, 82 F.4th 387, 400 (5th Cir. 2023)(“Micromanagement, enforced upon threat of contempt, does not reflect the principles of comity” in prison context.). Nor, under the federalist structure created by the Constitution, is it appropriate for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree. Horne, 557 U.S. at 448,
    129 S. Ct. at 2593–94 (“Federalism concerns are heightened” where “a federal court decree has the effect of dictating state . . . budget priorities.”).

    Nor are federal judges even suited, by training or temperament, to manage institutions, personnel, or the provision of vital state services, even if counselled by monitors. In this case particularly, the integrity of oversight may have been further put at risk by the trial court’s creation of a “fund,” based on plaintiffs’ attorneys’ foregoing their court-approved fees, that the court may evidently disburse at its discretion. Federal judges should not be personally allocating resources from the state’s taxpayers for purposes not directly tied to and controlled by the state itself in order to abide by a court decree.

    Indeed.

    I’m sure there probably were some significant cases of abuse at the heart of the case, but 13 years seems like a ridiculously long time for a case to drag on (though far from the longest).

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    Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Another Texas Win Against Transsexual Mandates

    Tuesday, September 3rd, 2024

    Texas Attorney General has won yet another victory against the Biden Administration’s social justice regulatory overreach, this one against transsexual health care mandates.

    The State of Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton have been granted a nationwide stay against the Biden administration’s new rule that would defund federally-funded healthcare providers found to be refusing patients “gender transition” procedures.

    The Biden administration announced a rule change last April under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), described as seeking to hold the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) “health programs and activities to the same nondiscrimination standards as recipients of Federal financial assistance.”

    On August 30, U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle ruled in favor of Texas and Montana, ordering that the modification of the Affordable Care Act at issue is precluded from implementation across the nation.

    “Here, federal agencies are attempting to impose a sweeping new social policy by manipulating and perverting the statutory text that constrains them,” Kernodle wrote in his opinion.

    “Nothing in these statutes authorizes HHS — or any federal official — to require healthcare providers to perform novel “gender-transition” procedures or force States to subsidize them.Texas and Montana seek a stay or preliminary injunction to prevent the irreparable harm that will undoubtedly follow. The Court grants the States’ request.”

    Snip.

    Texas and Montana sued HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra in June for allegedly requiring “healthcare providers and States to perform and pay for so-called ‘gender-transition’ procedures — or else lose federal funding.”

    The filing asserted that the new rule would “defund healthcare providers across the country who refuse to perform or pay for experimental, unproven, and potentially dangerous ‘gender transition’ procedures.”

    Montana and Texas were then both granted a statewide stay the following month, banning the application of the new HHS rule.

    The victorious states then requested a nationwide stay in order to extend the relief granted by the court against the HHS rule across the country.

    Paxton reacted to the stay, saying in a release, “When Biden and Harris sidestep the Constitution to force their unlawful, extremist agenda on the American public, we are fighting back and stopping them.”

    “By blocking this destructive policy, which would have forced taxpayer-funded hospitals to conduct unproven and dangerous ‘gender transition’ procedures, Texas has delivered a major victory for Americans across the country.”

    For anyone that thought the Democratic Party’s creepy love of child transsexism was a passing fade, the Biden Administration’s institutional determination to mandate child mutilation services into law should belay that naive hope. It also indicates that the evil ObamaCare has wrought on America’s health care is far from over. Fortunately, the vast majority of ordinary Americans have not fallen prey to this madness, and Paxton et al. have put a stop to this particular transsexual madness for now.

    Also, any appeal will be heard in the Fifth Circuit Court, which has previously frowned on the Biden Administration’s previous attempts to mandate transsexism by judicial fiat.

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    Posted in Democrats, ObamaCare, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm For January 13, 2023

    Friday, January 13th, 2023

    Fallout from the House speaker’s race, Biden busted for mishandling classified files, more blue state teachers raping their students, Cadillac’s EV breaks into double digit sales, and the Imelda Marcos disco musical! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Kevin McCarthy finally wins Speaker of the House race on 15th vote after offering concessions to the House Freedom Caucus.
  • How is McCarthy doing? Early signs are encouraging. “The House of Representatives passed a new rules package Monday that overhauls the way it functions by putting up more barriers to congressional spending and creating a more deliberate process for passing legislation, which were key demands of the more conservative members of the Republican Party.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
    

  • Shot: Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw calls members of the House Freedom Caucus “terrorists” for opposing Kevin McCarthy for speaker. Chaser: “Freedom Caucus Member Mark Green Beats Dan Crenshaw in Race to Chair Homeland Security Committee.”
  • Heh:

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

  • “After 15 Grueling House Speaker Votes, America’s Long National Nightmare Can Finally Begin.”
  • “Nation In Shock As Politicians Show Up To Work 4 Days In A Row.”
  • After the whole absurd raid on Trump because “OMG he has classified documents/nuclear codes/eleventy!!!!” it turns out that Biden kept at least two different batches of classified documents in insecure locations.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) used Thursday morning’s press briefing to criticize the Department of Justice’s handling of the issue.

    “They knew this happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public,” McCarthy told a scrum of reporters on Capitol Hill.

  • A whole lot of Chicago teachers are sexually abusing the children in their care. 

    Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher reported 470 sexual complaints against Chicago Public School employees from students in 2022.

    “The report details students being abused, groped, groomed, assaulted and threatened by school officials.

    “One investigation found a former Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a 16-year-old high school student for a year. When he learned there was an investigation, the staff member threatened to kill the girl and her family if she cooperated with investigators.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • More on the same subject.

    The teachers’ union in Chicago, Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers, so praised by Joe Biden, has done nothing and said nothing about it so far as I can tell, and I did look, focusing instead on promoting critical race theory into the school system. Left unsaid is that the union ensures that firing any of these teachers involved in this activity is virtually impossible. Chicago’s public schools’s firing rate of bad teachers owing to their union membership, as of a few years ago, is 0.1%.

    What’s vivid here amid all this widespread predatory behavior from the teaching classes, which like Harvey Weinstein, are prolific campaign donors to Democrats, is that the low outrage factor stands in sharp contrast to the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, which was ordered by courts to pay billions in reparations to the victims, has seen its leaders publicly apologize for the abuses, and has many programs now to prevent child abuse by perverts in authority. This activity was evil and inexcusable and rightly punished.

    As for the more widescale abuse now seen in Chicago’s public schools, along with comparable scandals in the Los Angeles public school system, and other bad cases in New York and other blue cities, well, crickets. The perversion has gotten out of control in Chicago and the story barely makes the national news. 

  • “West Virginia Law Restricting Sports By Biological Sex Is Constitutional.”
  • How Biden’s inflation is destroying family budgets:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Federal appeals court strikes down bump stock ban.

    A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire.

    In a 13-3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), acting under “tremendous” public pressure, short-circuited the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as “machineguns,” which are illegal to possess. The court said ATF did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

    Damn straight it doesn’t.

  • Pentagon ditches Flu Manchu vaccine mandate. Where do the wrongly discharged sue to get their careers back?
  • This is what a real pro-natalist policy looks like: “Hungary addresses falling birthrates by exempting moms under 30 from income tax for life.” More:

    Hungary has taken several measures in recent years to encourage its citizens to have more children, including three years of paid parental leave and state-funded daycare.

    The country previously suspended income tax for moms with four or more children, but this new policy specifically encourages women to have children sooner, which in the long run means a higher likelihood of having more children overall.

  • Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs executive order banning Critical Race Theory in state schools.
  • Israel hit Syria again, and I heard just about nothing about it. Ukraine has really pushed Syria out of the headlines.
  • Speaking of Ukraine, Russia has largely captured the salt mining town of Soledar, though at a high cost in man. And good luck checking those hundreds of miles of salt tunnels for partisans…
  • “Tesla plans Houston-area expansion with large new industrial site in Brookshire…Little is known about Tesla’s plans, but the Fortune 500 company signed a lease late last year for about 1.03 million square feet at 111 Empire West, part of the 300-acre Empire West Business Park in Brookshire.” A bold move, considering how radically car sales have dived this year.
  • Other EVs update: “GM delivers record Cadillac Lyriq deliveries in Q4 – 12 per month.”
  • “Sequel to The Passion of the Christ about to start filming.” This is pretty much obligatory:

  • “David Byrne, Fatboy Slim Disco Musical ‘Here Lies Love’ Sets Broadway Debut. The musical, which has had a long journey to Broadway, centers on the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.” They say the mirror ball shine bright on Broadway… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Celebrity Who Travels On Private Jets And Collects Luxury Sports Cars Says You’re The Reason For Climate Change.”
  • “Experts Say They Don’t Know What Thing Is Causing Everyone To Suddenly Collapse, But It’s Definitely Not That One Thing.”

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Military, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, video | 2 Comments »

    Texas Sanctuary City Ban Upheld

    Saturday, March 17th, 2018

    There was a boatload of non-federal-Government-staffing-decisions news this week, and I’m still catching up on it.

    One of the bigger items: The federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Texas’ “sanctuary cities” ban:

    Texas law is clear: “The Texas Constitution prohibits a city from acting in a manner inconsistent with the general laws of the state. Thus, the legislature may, by general law, withdraw a particular subject from a home rule city’s domain.”

    Snip.

    The plaintiffs have not made a showing that they are likely to succeed on the merits of any of their constitutional claims except as to the enforcement of Tex. Gov’t Code § 752.053(a)(1)’s “endorse” provision against elected officials. The foregoing discussion demonstrates there is no merit in their remaining arguments, and none of the other challenged provisions of SB4 facially violate the Constitution. Accordingly, we AFFIRM in part the district court’s preliminary injunction, VACATE in large part and remand with instructions to DISMISS the vacated injunction provisions.

    Now let’s see if we can just get those Democratic Party enclaves to obey the ruling…

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    Posted in Border Control, Texas | 6 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 15, 2017

    Friday, December 15th, 2017

    Another week, another abbreviated LinkSwarm. I’m running out of year and a variety of tasks (including work) keep crowding more extensive blogging out.

  • Gallup poll shows support for decreasing immigration holding steady. (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus’ Twitter feed.)
  • More on that same poll (also via Kaus):

    An overwhelming majority of Hispanics opposes increasing immigration, but their position is entirely unrepresented in the Democratic party. It seems possible that the Democrats will throw away a winnable Senate seat in Alabama because they have nominated a pro-abortion extremist against a Republican who has been credibly accused of sexual assault and ephebophilia (probably better that you don’t look that up).

    Even ten years ago, Democrats were willing to nominate candidates who were culturally conservative (or at least willing to pretend to be culturally conservative) in order to replace conservative Republicans with somewhat-more-liberal Democrats. What changed?

    The first thing was the alleged coming of the “emerging Democratic majority,” which was supposed to be brought about by demographic change and a larger nonwhite share of the electorate. This Democratic majority has been a little late in arriving, but that isn’t the only important part of the story.

    Many liberal whites wanted to be rid of the culturally conservative, economically liberal, working-class white voters whom Democrats had courted in the previous decade. Upper-middle-class whites were embarrassed by these people. After all these centuries of white privilege, they never managed to get into a good school—or even a state college—and now they were making demands about trade and immigration.

    One of the themes that emerges from Shattered (a chronicle of the Clinton campaign) is that the Clinton operation didn’t want to make a strong play for working-class white voters in swing states. The Clintonites thought these voters were disposable. It was left to Barack Obama to point out that he had done better than Clinton in many heavily working-class white areas, because he had done those voters the courtesy of treating them as though they were as important as any other American.

  • Paul Ryan to retire?
  • Little appreciated is the fact that Ryan is also an expert fundraiser.
  • Former Massachusetts Democratic state senator Brian A. Joyce arrested on 113 counts, including “mail fraud, theft of federal funds, money laundering, scheme to defraud the IRS, 20 counts of extortion, seven counts of money laundering, and conspiracy to impair the functions of the IRS.” How did he do all that? He’s a coffee achiever! (Seriously. Read the story.)
  • The hard-left sorts over at Counterpunch are not at all impressed with the myriad serial flavors of liberal Trump Derangement Syndrome:

    This initial post-election propaganda was understandably somewhat awkward, as the plan had been to be able to celebrate the “Triumph of Love over the Forces of Hate,” and the demise of the latest Hitlerian bogeyman. But this was the risk the ruling classes took when they chose to go ahead and Hitlerize Trump, which they wouldn’t have done if they’d thought for a moment that he had a chance of actually winning the election. That’s the tricky thing about Hitlerizing people. You need to be able to kill them, eventually. If you don’t, when they turn out not to be Hitler, your narrative kind of falls apart, and the people you’ve fear-mongered into a frenzy of frothing, self-righteous fake-Hitler-hatred end up feeling like a bunch of dupes who’ll believe anything the government tells them. This is why, normally, you only Hitlerize foreign despots you can kill with impunity. This is Hitlerization 101 stuff, which the ruling classes ignored in this case, which the left poor liberals terrified that Trump was actually going to start building Trump-branded death camps and rounding up the Jews.

    Fortunately, just in the nick of time, the ruling classes and their media mouthpieces rolled out the Russian Propaganda story. The Washington Post (whose owner’s multimillion dollar deal with the CIA, of course, has absolutely no effect on the quality of its professional journalism) led the charge with this McCarthyite smear job, legitimizing the baseless allegations of some random website and a think tank staffed by charlatans like this “Russia expert,”who appears not to speak a word of Russian or have any other “Russia expert” credentials, but is available both for television and Senate Intelligence Committee appearances. Numerous similar smear piecesfollowed. Liberals breathed a big sigh of relief … that Hitler business had been getting kind of scary. How long can you go, after all, with Hitler stumbling around the White House before somebody has to go in there and shoot him?

    In any event, by January, the media were playing down the Hitler stuff and going balls-out on the “Russiagate” story. According to The Washington Post (which, let’s remember, is a serious newspaper, as opposed to a propaganda organ of the so-called US “Intelligence Community”), not only had the Russians “hacked” the election, but they had hacked the Vermont power grid! Editorialists at The New York Times were declaring that Trump “had been appointed by Putin,” and that the USA was now “at war” with Russia. This was also around the time when liberals first learned of the Trump-Russia Dossier, which detailed how Putin was blackmailing Trump with a video the FSB had shot of Trump and a bunch of Russian hookers peeing on a bed in a Moscow hotel in which Obama had allegedly slept.

    This nonsense was reported completely straight-faced, and thus liberals were forced to take it seriously. Imagine the cognitive dissonance they suffered. It was like that scene in 1984 when the Party abruptly switches enemies, and the war with Eurasia becomes the war with Eastasia. Suddenly, Trump wasn’t Hitler anymore. Now he was a Russian sleeper agent who Putin had been blackmailing into destroying democracy with this incriminating “golden showers” video. Putin had presumably been “running” Trump since Trump’s visit to Russia in 2013 to hobnob with “Russia-linked” Russian businessmen and attend the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. During the ensuing partying, Trump must have gotten loaded on Diet Coke and gotten carried away with those Russian hookers. Now, Putin had him by the short hairs and was forcing him to staff his Manchurian cabinet with corporate CEOs and Goldman Sachs guys, who probably had also been videotaped by the FSB in Moscow hotels paying hookers to pee on furniture, or performing whatever other type of seditious, perverted kink they were into.

    Before the poor liberals had time to process this, the ruling classes launched “the Resistance.” You remember the Pussyhat People, don’t you? And the global corporate PR campaign which accompanied their historic “Womens’ March” on Washington? Do you remember liberals like Michael Moore shrieking for the feds to arrest Donald Trump? Or publications like The New York Times, Salon, and many others, and even State Satirist Stephen Colbertaccusing Trump and anyone who supported him of treason … a crime, let’s recall, that is punishable by death? Do you remember folks like William Kristol and Rob “the Meathead” Reiner demanding that the “deep state” launch a coup against Trump to rescue America from the Russian infiltrators?

    Ironically, the roll-out of this “Russiagate” hysteria was so successful that it peaked too soon, and prematurely backlashed all over itself. By March, when Trump had not been arrested, nor otherwise removed from office, liberals, who by that time the corporate media had teased into an incoherent, throbbing state of anticipation were … well, rather disappointed. By April, they were exhibiting all the hallmark symptoms of clinical psychosis. This mental breakdown was due to the fact that the media pundits and government spooks who had been telling them that Trump was Hitler, and then a Russian sleeper agent, were now telling them that he wasn’t so bad, because he’d pointlessly bombed a Syrian airstrip, and dropped a $314 million Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb on some alleged “terrorist caves” in Afghanistan.

  • Intelligence Leaks Reveal Erdogan Regime Arming Criminal Turkish Gangs in Germany.” He’s just a barer of light and joy all around… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Where was that explosion on the “Arab Street” all those “experts” warned us about if President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?
  • Sweden has an antisemitism problem, but refuses to admit it’s a result of its Muslim refugee problem.
  • Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. Is it working? Mostly. But it’s not a cure-all. Interesting piece.
  • How Jennifer Rubin turned into Dana Milbank. (Hat tip: Dr. Milton Wolfe’s Twitter feed.)
  • Police: “This man is a rapist!” Judge: “Were you just going to ignore the 40,000 texts from the alleged victim asking for sex?”
  • Senior Hamas leader arrested. Good.
  • Did a Long island woman launder money to the Islamic State using Bitcoin? (Hat tip: Director Blue.) (And let me apologize for ruining your previously Bitcoin-free LinkSwarm…)
  • More on the Wisconsin John Doe Witch Hunt.
  • Everyone’s favorite Tweeter, Texas Supreme Court justice Don Willett, was confirmed to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Congrats, Justice Willett!
  • As was former Texas Solicitor General James Ho.
  • With Ho’s appointment, President Donald Trump broke broke the all-time record for first year judicial appointments.
  • This week’s winning pervert in the Sexual Harassment Sweepstakes is… senior Disney music executive Jon Heely. Now I feel even more conflicted about Devo 2.0.
  • Seven woman have now accused 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski of sexual harassment.
  • Speaking of sexual abuse, I really hope these horrific “blind” sexual abuse allegations against unnamed Hollywood celebrities are untrue. If not, life in prison for the perpetrators is too good for them…
  • Russia has a new stealth fighter, the Su-57. Too bad for them its engines won’t be ready until 2027… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • (screamingheadline)RUSSIA TROLLS BOUGHT ADS BEFORE BREXIT!!!! (in small type) All of 97¢ worth. And Slashdot thought this was worth a entire post.
  • “Net Neutrality” scrapped, Slashdot hit hardest:

  • The top-ranked restaurant in London, The Shed at Dulwich, is so exclusive it doesn’t exist. (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)

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