Time for We the People to stand tall

Our rulers behave the way they do because nobody is stopping them. If not us, who? If not now, when?

At some point, one has to wonder how much more of this we ordinary Americans will stand for. Apparently, a lot. President Reagan must have wondered that when he asked these two famous questions.

Look around at the number of people still wearing obedience masks outside where they do no good. Even here in the Free State of Florida, public mask-wearing seems to be growing. Several Florida school districts are defying the governor's order not to require them of school children, even as normal people who think logically know that masks are nothing more than bacteria-loaded, disease-spreading garbage cans for the mouth, as WLBK radio host Jim Mason often points out. But nothing is surprising here. Your average high school chemistry student has more understanding of this matter than your average school superintendent bureaucrat with a doctorate in education. And certainly more than your average power-drunk school board member.

One of Dennis Prager's trademark lines is that the left destroys everything it touches. One reason is that the left attracts Democrat Party candidates who for the most part have never run anything, ever. Many of them, of whom we write frequently on these pages, have never held a job outside of leftist activism – including the 44th President of the United States.

Constitutional conservatives – and this does not include phonies like Mitt Romney – are busy working at jobs or running businesses that add actual value to the economy. Look at some of the Republicans running for Congress next year – including guys with their legs shot off fighting for their country. They will be challenging such luminaries as U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, a young naȉf with no discernible work history who would walk away with the part if he were ever to audition for Mr. Obamacare's next Pajama Boy commercial.

I earned both of my graduate degrees at public universities in Indiana and Kansas, so I'm not smart enough to fully understand why Americans keep plucking their political leaders from the bottom of the sludge pile.

I have an idea, though, and this is nothing new. The uninformed, low-information voter goes with the biggest promise – the most free stuff. In Addison Smith's Campus Reform interviews with students at George Mason University, students expressed mild displeasure with Biden's total failure as president. A couple of them suggested giving him more time, and one said he was unhappy because Biden promised to wipe out his student loan.

The most disturbing thread I weaved out of this video was that nobody suggested replacing Biden with a constitutional conservative. Nobody even suggested replacing him. The feeling seems to be, universally in fact, that of the 70 million or so who voted for Biden, most would pick another Democrat in the next election. Well, this didn't work out. Let's pick another Marxist Democrat and see if things get better.

In New York, an Air Force veteran and her daughter are living in their car because the CDC and the state, without legislation or constitutional authority, are allowing residential tenants to live rent-free all in the name of the Wuhan coronavirus. She's owed more than $23,000 from tenants who refuse to move out so that she can move in, CBS News reports.

“I don't understand how they can give my private property to somebody to live for free,” says Brandie LaCass. Simple enough question. We'd like to hear the government's answer but probably won't.

This is more than just one person being on the wrong side of government's choosing of winners and losers. If decrees by fiat like this are allowed to continue, it will be the end of private property rights – one of the pillars of a free society, and on which our constitutional republic was founded.

I wish not to irritate my friends, but in my world I hear a lot of griping but don't see much action. Complaining about conditions, my Army company commander used to say, is like wetting the bed. It relieves the immediate stress and gives a warm feeling, but sooner or later you have to get up and do something about it.

Short takes on the news

California Gov. Newsom praises a California and New York-published propaganda sheet controlled by the Chinese Communist Party for its “balanced news stories” and “journalistic integrity.” At an annual gala, Newsom also complimented the newspaper, Sing Tao, for helping to acclimate Chinese-Americans to living in California. Sing Tao's owners belong to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an arm of the CCP. The newspaper is registered in the U.S. as a foreign agent. – from a story at Just the News.

. . . JP Morgan Chase Bank closes Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's credit card and other accounts because his opinions don't agree with theirs, Human Events reports. “After careful consideration, we decided to close your credit cards on September 18, 2021 because continuing the relationship creates possible reputational risk to our company,” Chase told Flynn in a letter. Flynn has long been banned from Twitter for his constitutional political views.

Election fraud update

California's recall election is over before it begins, Dan Gelernter writes at American Greatness. How? The state's election law effectively allows anyone to vote: registered, not registered, illegal alien, minor children, dead people, the Seven Dwarfs at Disneyland, anyone.

“Mail-in ballots were automatically sent to every registered voter on August 16,” Gelernter reports. “Return postage is 'free,' pre-paid by California taxpayers. The registration deadline was August 30, but you can still register to vote 'conditionally' and cast your vote immediately, right up to and including on the 14th.”

By accepting ballots received up to a week past the nominal election day, California's rulers have “plenty of time to correct any 'mistakes' revealed by the initial vote tallying on September 14,” he writes. By “mistakes,” we take that to mean votes for Larry Elder, the leading Republican candidate to replace Gavin Newsom. Though we put little faith in election polls, expect some fireworks (but no change in the outcome) if Newsom survives. Polls show Elder with a sizable lead. Although Elder is black, the Newsom campaign calls him a white supremacist. . . .

Wisconsin election workers lost track of more than 82,000 mailed-in ballots in the November election, Fred Lucas writes at the Daily Signal. Citing a report by the nonprofit Public Interest Legal Foundation, Lucas notes that the lost ballots were “more than four times the margin of difference separating the two presidential candidates in the state.”

Data base

Among the equipment Biden abandoned in the surrender of Afghanistan were 2,217 Humvees, four C-130 transport planes, 350 combat helicopters, 358,530 assault rifles and 64,363 machine guns, making the Taliban among the world's most heavily-armed military operations, behind only the U.S., China, and Russia.

Today's quote

“I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning with two Marines at my door telling me my son was dead. We never thought in a million years that he would die for nothing! Nothing, because a feckless dementia-ridden piece of crap decided he wanted a photo op on Sept. 11.”

— Kathy McCollum, the mother of Lance Corp. Rylee McCollum, one of 13 US troops killed in a suicide bombing Aug. 26 at Kabul airport, to Andrew Wilkow on his radio program.

Correction of a correction

In a correction about Rep. Ronny Jackson in the Tuesday Morning column, we misspelled Dr. Jackson's first name. Further corrections will not be forthcoming. If there are still more errors, we will deny making them.