California's Thought Police get official status
The Friday Letter / No. 540 / May 12, 2023
Updated at 9:33 a.m. to clarify terms of the election suit settlement in Pennsylvania. Updated at 10 a.m. with addition of quote from Jeffrey Katzenberg“The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police,” Winston Smith explains to the lover who would betray him in Orwell's 1984. “It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.”
Though they've been around for some time, the Thought Police now have official, taxpayer-funded status in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Civil Rights Department have launched a hotline for residents to snitch on their neighbors and family for “hate acts.” A hate act is anything that offends anyone on the left: refusing service, derogatory name calling, and bullying.
Our own Friday Letter correspondent Jake Phake worries that his 8-year-old daughter will soon be arrested for sticking out her tongue at a boy on the school playground. Stay tuned for further developments. Derogatory, according to the Thought Police website, is whatever the offended victim says it is. As reported at The Blaze, “hate acts” don't need to include violence. Here is more from the website:
"A hate incident is a hostile expression or action that may be motivated by bias against another person’s actual or perceived identity. Perpetrators may be motivated by different discriminatory biases, including, but not limited to; (sic) bias based on race, color, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender, including gender identity."The website says the new department won't share information with law enforcement unless the complainer requests it or “if needed.” It doesn't say who will decide if the information is needed.
California has fallen so far off the grid that the nation should have a serious discussion about removing it from the Union. California is a drag on our freedoms, our culture, our very sovereignty.
Just about every rule, law, or dictate that comes from this governor and the California State Legislature turns to something you wouldn't want to step it. From its embrace of illegal alien murderers, diseased and mentally ill homeless people, punishing taxes on wealth creators, ridiculously stupid promises of millions of dollars to black people on account of one thing only – their skin color – and onerous abridgment of 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, California shows clear signs of end-stage decay.
Others may disagree, but I see no hope for California. Voters had the chance to remove their sick, twisted governor and replace him with Larry Elder, and they chose to maintain the status quo. Good for them. Let them do this on their own.
Short takes on the news
WTVF
An uninvited guest at the home of a Murfreesboro, Tenn., man has some time to think about ways to improve his job performance now that he's sitting in the city jail. He and his partner didn't do so well when they broke into the home, tased the family dog and threatened to kill the homeowner's son.
The homeowner heard some commotion and greeted the intruders with several doses of hot lead from his firearm. Kevin Ford, 52, expired at the scene. His now former business partner was found hiding out at the Salvation Army. He was treated and released to the local slammer to await trial for a series of felonies.
Meanwhile, the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal ran an editorial calling for gun control in response to the mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school in March that could have been short-circuited had any staff member been armed.
American Thinker
Phony is as phony does. John Kerry, arguably the most insufferable hypocrite ever to fill the atmosphere with his “global warming” CO2 gasbaggery, exceeded only by his irrelevance, suddenly “found” the medals he famously ditched into the river in 1971 to protest the Vietnam War. He was seen wearing them at King Charles' coronation.
The Blaze
Two men canvassing a Philadelphia neighborhood on behalf of local candidates got into an argument, and one of them shot the other dead. Both were armed. They were working for an organization called One PA, a leftist group that supports Democrat candidates who promise to end gun violence in the city.
The Blaze
The wussification of America. Explaining that “There's definitely consumer appetite for that,” Levi's introduces a “gender fluid” clothing line. And this explains why real men wear Wrangler's.
Daily Mail
Milestones. The world's oldest dog, Bobi, celebrated his 31st birthday Thursday on his farm in Portugal, with 100 guests coming from around the world for the occasion. His family attributes the Rafeiro de Alentejo's longevity to living in a peaceful environment and eating human food.
Erasing inconvenient history
The American Battlefield Trust tells us that Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was a Louisiana-born author, civil servant, politician, inventor, and the first prominent general of the Confederacy.
Trained at the U.S. Military Academy, he served with distinction as an engineer in the Mexican-American War. After brief service as West Point superintendent, he, like General Lee, joined the Confederacy. He commanded the defense of Fort Sumter at the start of the Civil War and later led his troops to win the First Battle of Bull Run.
“His arguably greatest achievement was saving the city of Petersburg, Virginia, and thus also the Confederate capital of Richmond, from assaults by overwhelmingly superior Union Army forces in June of 1864,” his biography reads.
In April 1865 he and his commander, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, convinced Confederate President Jefferson Davis to end the war. The remaining forces surrendered to Gen. Sherman. After the war, Beauregard returned to Louisiana, where he became wealthy and died in 1893.
Today, Beauregard Street is a major Alexandria thoroughfare. Buckling to the hysteria caused by the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, the city has begun to rename all streets named for Confederate soldiers. The city plans to rename about five streets a year at an eventual cost of between $150,000 and $820,000. Ask us to guess and we'll put the final tab at the higher number (or more).
More from 1984: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. . . In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it.”
Election fraud update
Judicial Watch has won a small but significant victory against voting fraud in Pennsylvania with a lawsuit settlement that requires the commonwealth to remove 178,000 dead voters from its registration rolls. The question remains whether this will prevent a repeat of the fraud that cost Trump Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes in 2020.
The settlement has other required reforms as well but does nothing to stop the unconstitutional practices of 2020. Then, Pennsylvania violated its own election laws by allowing early voting, mail-in balloting, and ballot harvesting, all prohibited there. The legislature and governor agreed in 2019 to make these changes in the law, but election law in Pennsylvania can only be changed by constitutional amendment.
Pennsylvania was further aided by the refusal of both its state supreme court and the U.S. Supreme Court to block the illegal practices. Unless one of the courts agrees to revisit the case in the future, those unconstitutional practices will continue.
Recommended reading
“Savor Trump's Electoral Landslide – Until the Phantoms Vote”
Jay Valentine at American Thinker
“DOJ Strategically Timed Political Arrest to Coincide with Press Conference Detailing Evidence of Biden Corruption”
Shawn Fleetwood at The Federalist
Quote for today
“The president has shown that he’s 80 years young and brings with him the wisdom and knowledge and experience that he has shown during the past two years. He is fit and engaged and has a high level of energy.”
— Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, predicting that contributions from leftist megadonors will exceed the $1 billion they gave to Biden’s 2020 run, quoted at Breitbart News
Headline of the week
Fake news you can trust from Babylon Bee:
“George Santos Arrested, 534 Members of Congress Still At-Large”
To contact Steve: stephencombs@substack.com. The Friday Letter is published in the op-ed section of USSA News. Ask your friends to read the Friday Letter and sign up for a free or voluntary paid subscription. It's easy: Just go to fridayletter.us.