Those pesky unwoke birds
The Friday Letter / No. 547 / June 30, 2023
Updated with clarification and a typo correction at 8:59 a.m. ET
Tra-la-la, twiddle-dee-dee-dee there's peace and good will.
You're welcome as the flowers on Mockingbird Hill
It's the end of June, and right outside my office window is a shrub that is home to a mockingbird family. Mockingbirds rule here, and the neighborhood is exploding with exciting new life. Three babies sit impatiently in the nest just five feet from my desk, mouths wide open demanding breakfast. Mom and Dad fly in and out with the Uber Eats orders.
They are helpless dependents now, but they'll soon fly the coop and live on their own. It always works this way.
At the back of the house a robin couple has built a nice protected home under the gutter downspout. There, the expectant mother and father take turns tending the nest, keeping the tiny blue eggs warm. They stay focused on the job at hand, unfazed by world events or the racket of my politically-incorrect gasoline lawnmower.
Which brings us to Pride Month. Seriously?
With all the nonsense swirling around us, from our corrupt rulers to the assault on our institutions by fellow Americans who hate us, it's a blessing to live and work around normal creatures. Birds don't support deviancy or corruption. Everybody just gets up each day and works without complaint, building nests, gathering food, raising the young, keeping the grub worms from killing the grass.
They wage war only when necessary, as I once witnessed a squadron of blue jays dive bomb my toothless old cat Bill after he had taken out, without provocation, one of their own. Otherwise they tend to their own affairs and leave everyone else alone.
Ann Landers once told her readers, “Make someone happy today. Mind your own business.”
It's too bad that a tiny but loud mob of sexual deviants has desecrated so much of our culture and sullied our institutions. We can't even have normal months any more – Black History Month, followed by Women's History Month (started by the Socialist Workers Party), then on to Juneteenth, a non day if there ever was one, and now Pride Month. So three full months of our year belong to special interests, while we have to suffer the insufferable.
For the entire month of June we are subjected to a vile, twisted theology glamorized by the President of the United States flying the radical homosexual flag in front of the White House next to the American flag. Talk about desecration.
If somehow we forget who is in charge, we are periodically treated to the image of a sexual deviant cross-dressing transvestite (and father of two) who wears a female admiral's costume as an official of the U.S. Public Health Service.
We can only wait in breathless anticipation for someone to demand – and get – Transgender Month, Euthanasia Month, Black Lives Matter Month, George Floyd Month, George Soros Month.
Someone in my family who shall remain anonymous suggested we have a Normal Month. That would be a fine lead-in to December and the celebration of Advent, Christmas, and Hanukkah, if that is still allowed.
So let's celebrate Normal Month for all the normal people. I like that idea. In fact, freshman Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas has made such a proposal, calling for July to be “American Pride Month.” Bring it on.
Short takes on the news
Breitbart
Samuel Alito is the only Supreme Court Justice to dissent from the 8-1 SCOTUS ruling that allows Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to continue refusing to deport “certain” criminal aliens when they are released from serving time in state prisons for other crimes.
We place “certain” in quotation marks because all aliens who enter the country illegally are by definition criminals.
Justice Kavanaugh, who often seems joined at the hip with Chief Justice Roberts in writing liberal opinions, wrote the majority opinion. The court ruled that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing in their suit to force the federal government to enforce federal immigration law.
We’d like to know more about any American citizen or political jurisdiction not having standing to challenge the federal government to enforce its own laws.
The Daily Signal
The Supreme Court tacks quietly leftward as Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett and even Gorsuch increasingly join liberal Chief Justice Roberts in handing victories to Democrat activists.
Assessing the sleaze factor
Democrats don't have a monopoly on sleaze and insider trading.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem wants you to believe she is a conservative. She wears bluejeans and a cowboy hat and throws out all the right buzzwords about independence and self-reliance. Right now she's hiding under the bed while surveyors from a private pipeline company, protected by armed security guards, invade private farm and ranch land, destroying crops and the trees that serve as windbreaks for the livestock.
The Federalist reports that Summit Carbon Solutions is preparing eminent domain lawsuits to seize private land for a 2000-mile-plus pipeline that aims to capture CO2 emissions and store them underground. The process is called carbon sequestration. Its purpose is to take advantage of tax incentives for reducing a corporation's carbon footprint. Even the leftist Guardian newspaper and wacko-left Greenpeace call the scheme a scam.
South Dakota, ignoring the 5th Amendment's protection against taking private property for private use, allows eminent domain seizures to proceed until the lawsuits are settled. Last year the Republican-controlled Senate killed legislation that would have solidified property owners' rights.
Although Noem campaigned for property rights in her first election in 2018, understanding her refusal to stand with the farmers and ranchers isn't difficult. “Summit Carbon Solutions, an Iowa-based firm backed by South Korean investors, was a 'Platinum Sponsor' of Noem’s second inauguration,” The Federalist reported. Here is a longer excerpt:
Noem’s son-in-law Kyle Peters is also a registered lobbyist for Gevo, a “Colorado-based renewable chemicals and advanced bio fuels company.” Last summer, Gevo bought 245 acres near South Dakota’s Lake Preston to build a jet fuel plant. In February, the company partnered with Summit Carbon Solutions to handle the new plant’s CO2 emissions. Peters published a post on LinkedIn celebrating a legislative day at the state capitol five months ago, around the same time lawmakers in the upper chamber torpedoed legislation to protect farmers from eminent domain.
Noem-watching conservatives are only surprised that she appears to have her eye on higher office. Certainly, we hope, not as a Republican. Her dossier includes veto of legislation that would have prevented boys from playing on girls school sports teams. She flipped her original position of support under pressure from the Chamber of Commerce, the NCAA, and the radical left homosexual lobby.
Introducing the Friday Letter Civics Test
You could become a high school civics teacher, or even a Friday Letter contributor. Multiple Choice.
Question 1. Which famous American said the following?
“Government's first duty is to protect the people, not ruin their lives.”
A. Ronald Reagan
B. Stormy Daniels
C. Pee Wee Herman
D. Kamala Harris
Question 2. Which famous American said the following?
“I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed what we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled.”
A. George Washington
B. Ronald Reagan
C. Kamala Harris
D. Benjamin Franklin
Question 3
“When we talk about children of the community, they are a children of the community.”
A. Kamala Harris
B. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
C. Florence Nightingale
D. Candice Owens
Question 4
“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference.”
A. Kamala Harris
B. Hillary Clinton
C. Joe Biden
D. Harry S. Truman
Question 5
“I discovered, for the first time but not the last, that politicians don’t care too much what things cost. It’s not their money.”
A. Kamala Harris
B. Donald Trump
C. Barack Obama
D. Joe Biden
Answers:
1- A
2- C
3- A
4- D
5- B
Scoring:
5 correct (100%). You are qualified to be a Friday Letter contributor.
4 correct (80%). With supervision, you may be allowed to vote.
3 correct (60%). You are qualified to write for Politico.
2 correct (40%). You are qualified to write for the New York Times.
1 or 0: You are brain dead and must not be allowed to vote or operate heavy machinery. But you are allowed to host a show on MSNBC.
Recommended
"The GOP Needs to Regroup to Face Potential New Challengers”
Maurice Richards at American Greatness
Biden and Harris won't likely be on the Democrat ticket, Richards predicts. Look for Bleach-Bit Hillary and a little known black Democrat who checks all the party's race-bigoted boxes to replace them.
“Durham Drama”
Lloyd Billingsley at American Greatness
How AG Bill Barr sabotaged President Trump and mocked the Rule of Law
Headlines of the week
Babylon Bee
“OceanGate Offers 20% Off Coupon for Next Tour”
“Biden Dons Feathered Headdress to Welcome Indian Prime Minister”
Quote for today
“Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky.
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.