Ready, fire, aim
The Friday Letter / No. 543 / June 2, 2023 / June 6 is D-Day plus 79 years
Democrats may very likely keep the presidency and the U.S. Senate because they understand the first principle of warfare: Know thine enemy.
With no measurable dissent, Democrats identify the enemy as constitutional government, national sovereignty, secure borders, individual liberty, self-reliance, the rule of law, military dominance, equal justice for all as outlined by the Founders, and economic opportunity.
Republicans are split: Some of them identify Donald Trump as the enemy. Some of they identify Ron DeSantis. Uniparty Republicans – liberals who support no-chance candidates like Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, and Larry Hogan – don't like either of them. These irreconcilable differences portend four more years of a corrupt, senile president and, in all likelihood, the end of national two-party politics.
It is truly astonishing to hear smart conservative political commentators yammer on and on about the “disastrous” roll-out of the DeSantis campaign, as if a technical glitch has any significance. Even Clay Travis keeps talking about it as if it were meaningful, which it isn't.
On his radio show with Buck Sexton Tuesday, Travis did note, correctly, that Trump needs to focus his message on the future, not the past, and not at DeSantis. DeSantis gets this part, aiming most of his fire at the proper target, Biden.
For his part, Trump seems confused about his own position on the Disney flap. A statesman who wants to show voters he is above the fray would say Disney is an important matter that the Florida governor is handling well. Trump might be surprised at how that kind of message would help spiffy up his image.
Trump could also reap dividends by pledging to support the Republican nominee and calling on the others to join him. He need not worry that the nominee will be anyone other than himself or DeSantis.
Instead, we keep hearing the DeSanctimonious nonsense. And Trump's dissing of his loyal former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany may begin to turn the tide as Republican voters take note of his increasingly irrational behavior.
Election fraud update
Maricopa County delivered just enough ballots to hand Arizona's 11 electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020. Afterwards, the Republican-led legislature had the opportunity to have the state take control of Maricopa's corrupt election apparatus, but chose not to.
This helped result in Kari Lake's loss of the governorship in 2022. She filed a lawsuit that was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who decreed that Lake failed to present “clear and convincing evidence or a preponderance of evidence” of voting fraud.
Actually, evidence of Maricopa's long history of election corruption is well established.
In 2020, Biden was awarded 1,672,143 votes (49.4%) against Trump's 1,661,686 (49.0%). Let's look at this margin of 10,457 votes, which wasn't established until long after Fox News had declared Biden the winner only minutes after polls had closed.
New investigations reveal that 5,295 voters who voted in Maricopa County also voted in one other county using “the same first, middle, last name and birth year,” Just the News reported this week.
Worse, Maricopa produced more than 200,000 ballots “with signatures that did not match voter files and were counted without being reviewed.”
The 2024 Republican nominee will have little chance of winning Arizona, a situation wholly preventable had the Republican-controlled legislature done its job.
If Trump is the nominee, Georgia may be out of reach as well, as he can expect no help from the state's anti-Trump zealot governor and secretary of state. If Republicans are serious about saving this country as they so loudly claim, they had better get on with it. I don't see that happening.
Dearth of happy news, explained
About two years ago, a close friend said he stopped reading the Friday Letter because it is too negative. He wants to be uplifted, not depressed.
I understand. I wish this could be more like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, but as Rush Limbaugh used to say, I live in Realville. If life were so simple, the worst news of the past few days would be that I can no longer in good conscience eat at Chick-fil-A. Consider:
Just the News reports that D.C. Police arrested Michelle (Micki) Witthoeft on Memorial Day for destruction of property and simple assault – for breaking the strap on a bullhorn and shoving an anarchist who was taunting her with vulgarities.
Witthoeft and others were demonstrating on behalf of her murdered daughter, Ashli Babbitt.
This is not this dangerous criminal's first arrest. Earlier this year she was collared for trying to place flowers at the Capitol on the second anniversary of Ashli's murder by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd. Witthoeft was charged with failing “to obey an order” and “blocking and obstructing roadways.”
Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was unarmed during her participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the Capitol, and was not causing vandalism.
The charges against Babbitt's mother were later dropped, but Byrd, who shot Babbitt through an open window in the unprovoked attack, has never been charged with her murder. He was never placed on leave for the usual investigation that follows a police action shooting, and he remains on the force.
Video of the Monday incident shows a vocabulary-limited anarchist getting into Witthoeft's face, hurling obscenity-laced insults and calling her a domestic terrorist. The anarchist was not arrested.
While Michael Byrd remains uncharged with willfully shooting Ashli Babbitt to death, former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin is doing 22-plus years for his role in the accidental death of George Floyd. Let's review this.
Chauvin was convicted of murder after he placed his knee – stupidly but under department protocol – on Floyd's neck. Does anyone believe that Derek Chauvin decided, while trying to corral a violent, drug-crazed felon, to intentionally kill him? How does that contribute to one's career?
Yet Chauvin was convicted of murder by a jury that included a white-hating black woman who announced before hearing a single word of evidence that she would vote to convict. Why that conviction hasn't already been overturned only remains not a mystery because of the venue.
Chauvin contributed to Floyd's death only in moving it up by a few hours at most. With a fatal level of fentanyl in his system, Floyd was going to die that day in 2020, with or without Derek Chauvin's help.
Wisdom from an Elder statesman
The leftstream press describes Larry Elder as “a right-wing political commentator.” That's because he supports all the things the left hates (see paragraph 2 above).
California voters had the chance to replace their Marxist, fanatical governor with Mr. Elder in 2021 and declined. Now he's running for president. He knows he can't win – he said as much. But he sees his candidacy as a megaphone for preaching the need for black kids to have fathers in the home. Today, 75 percent of them don't. Then he revealed something of his character like I have never heard from a politician or anyone else:
“My father was a World War II vet. He served on the island of Guam. He was a Marine. My older brother, late older brother, Kirk, was in the Navy during the Vietnam era. My little brother Dennis actually served in Vietnam in the Army. I'm the only one who didn't serve, and I don't feel good about that. I feel I have a moral, religious and a patriotic duty to give back to a country that's been so good to my family and me. And that is why I am doing this."
Short takes on the news
Great moments in hypocritical pontificating, or, Gee, Chick-fil-A, we're going to miss you. Testing the limits of pious hypocrisy, former CEO Dan Cathy said in a video three years ago that white people should be forced to shine black people's shoes. The video resurfaced after the public learned that Chick-fil-A, which touted itself as a pro-family Christian corporation, has hired a vice president of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” In the video, Cathy, the son of Chick-fil-A's founder, said the world needs to have a sense of shame, embarrassment, and “an apologetic heart.”
Sorry, Dan, I have nothing about which to feel shame or embarrassment. No black man has ever shined my shoes. (I don't even shine my own.) You blew this one. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” is code for “Christians and whites need not apply,” and everyone knows it. So long.
Recommended reading
“The GOP's Festival of Losers”
Kurt Schlichter at Townhall
In this piece from May 22, the former Army colonel said Republicans must crush the left if the country is to survive. This week, Bill O'Reilly said the same thing. Schlichter says we have only two choices: Trump or DeSantis.
Quote for today
“I have sympathy for men and women who believe they were born the wrong (sex). But common sense makes it clear that not everything is for everybody. A boy who thinks he’s a girl doesn’t get to compete in girls’ sports. That’s life. No different from how I’ve long thought I would look great in size 32 skinny jeans. They’re not for me. They don’t fit.” – Jason Whitlock, at The Blaze
Headline of the week
The Babylon Bee
“Chick-fil-A Now Training White Employees to Say 'My Privilege'”
To contact Steve: stephencombs@substack.com. The Friday Letter is published in the op-ed section of USSA News. See updated versions at our website, fridayletter.us.