Must-Read

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled (too late) that the use of more than 500 ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election violated state law.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/11/dissent-in-wi-ballot-drop-box-victory-highlights-much-bigger-issue-our-top-jurists-dont-care-about-election-integrity/

At the link, Margot Cleveland of The Federalist points out what this court got right that other courts around the nation refused even to look at. She also notes how disturbing it is that the ruling was only 4-3, with the dissenting judges parroting the Democrat mantra that the only public good is “increased voting,” with not a word of concern for election integrity or ensuring a fair and trustworthy election process. Without public trust in our elections, government by the consent of the governed cannot survive.  

Tuesday's J6 hearing: more lying about election, "insurrection"

“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

--- Mark Twain

We couldn’t help but think of dirty diapers while watching Tuesday’s January 6 committee hearing. These committee members, not even one real Republican among them, need to be changed as soon as possible for congressional representatives who really care about preserving our system and finding out the truth. What happened Tuesday might have been the most shameless political travesty ever televised, bringing us smack into banana republic territory.

Of course, you know –- because they’ve admitted it –- that this whole mess is about driving a stake through the heart of President Trump so he wouldn’t think of running again, can’t win if he does run, and is utterly destroyed in historical accounts. To do this, they have to choreograph their hearings, reading from teleprompters and cherry-picking previously recorded testimony. There is no defense allowed, no other viewpoint and no cross-examination, even of the few witnesses who do appear live and are led through their testimony. That renders these hearings essentially worthless.

The committee also takes it as a given that election fraud simply did not happen --- and that even an admission of the possibility is tantamount to insurrection itself. This requires us to believe that all allegations of fraud were thoroughly investigated and dismissed, when it's not true. So let me say this: Neither you nor I can conclude with certainty that the election was stolen, but we can’t say it wasn’t, either. NO ONE can. In states where the margin of victory was a mere sliver –- in Georgia, for example, or in Arizona, where it came down to about 11,000 votes statewide –- it might be easy to win by fraudulent means.  Given all the variables and the things we know took place, I’d be more surprised to learn that this didn’t happen than that it did.

President Trump was and is convinced that it did.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently ruled that the Mark Zuckerberg-funded, unmanned drop boxes broke state election law. How many ballots were affected? How many “mules” really were stuffing boxes? How many fake votes were harvested from nursing homes? We don’t know. We will never know. In very close battleground states, there is just no telling what the real count was. And we WILL lose “our democracy” if we don’t fix the system so it’s transparent and verifiable. We’ve got a midterm election coming up in a few months; we should be fixing the bugs in the system instead of wasting time with this shameful political theatre.

Mollie Hemingway authored an outstanding book called RIGGED, detailing the many ways in which the 2020 election was corrupted. On July 1, after Cassidy Hutchinson’s inaccurate testimony, she wrote about how the January 6 committee is furthering its election dogma, in a commentary called “The J6 Show Trial Is Lying About Election ‘Fraud.’” Her piece is well worth reviewing --- a must-read if you haven’t seen it --- because it especially applies to Tuesday’s hearing.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/01/the-j6-show-trial-is-lying-about-election-fraud/

As Hemingway said, “Turning questions about the many problems with the 2020 election into a crime is the kind of thing that is done in third-world countries...It is horrific to see it happening here.”

News accounts of the hearings mostly present at face value what committee members say, as if that told us “what we learned.” Hemingway is right: committee members have been repeatedly lying and “assuming facts not in evidence.” This means you, Jamie Raskin, Liz Cheney and chairman Bennie Thompson.

Everyone who has come to the witness table since Day 1 needs a thorough cross-examination. Personally, I’d like to see them questioned by a “dream” panel consisting of Ted Cruz (for his interrogatory skills), Jim Jordan and Jim Banks (the two Republicans Speaker Nancy Pelosi kept off the committee), Mollie Hemingway (for her knowledge of actual election fraud) and Kash Patel (ditto, and also for his knowledge of FBI/DOJ activity). They should subpoena Pelosi and perhaps DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. Now THAT, I’d watch from beginning to end.

Perhaps the witnesses who most needed cross-examination were members of the Oath Keepers who testified Tuesday. Their testimony was so subjective that there was nothing to be learned about what Trump had actually done or intended to communicate to them, if anything. But it served the committee’s purposes. In fact, one Oath Keeper was apparently testifying as part of his plea agreement, and I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when they were working with him on his testimony.

Yesterday, we brought you the story of a leaked internal FBI document that showed their CHS (confidential human source) had told them the KC Proud Boys had no plan to enter the Capitol and/or subvert the election certification. If these were actual fact-finding hearings, we’d be hearing more about this aspect of January 6. REVOLVER NEWS has determined the government documents are authentic and is investigating as well, with “much more to come.” In the meantime, here’s what they say.

https://www.revolver.news/2022/07/developing-proud-boys-fbi-confidential-human-source-in-recent-leak-is-same-informant-referred-to-in-earlier-nyt-piece/

Here’s what founder and president of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, had to say from his prison cell when he saw the story...

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/prison-cell-oath-keepers-founder-stewart-rhodes-responds-explosive-report-government-operative-proud-boys-group-jan-6-audio/

At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Liz Cheney announced that President Trump had attempted to contact an upcoming witness, saying that “this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.” She simply accused him in the hearing room, with no evidence, no word about who the witness is, nothing. I think she might have graduated from the Adam Schiff School Of Law. Still, it might be enough for our current attorney general to indict the former President for witness tampering.

Committee member Jamie Raskin preferred to stay out of that after the hearing, saying he had no details about it and did not know which witness Cheney meant. (Wouldn’t he know if this had really happened?) He said the committee was trying to “send a message that witness tampering is a crime.” Oh, I see –- sending a message by accusing someone of witness tampering. What slimeballs.

Yes, I know, it’s a little out of character for me to call people names. If you think I’m going too far using that word, you obviously didn’t watch yesterday’s hearing.

…………………………

CNN’s Jake Tapper hosted former UN Ambassador and Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton to discuss the hearings, no doubt expecting Bolton to beat up Trump on the air. And he did, sort of. But even though Bolton still referred to 2020 election fraud as “the lie,” he also said the committee is undermining its case by going too far with all its “opining.”

He also said Trump had not meant to overthrow the Constitution, but just “to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try and redo the issue.” The topper: He said he KNEW Trump hadn’t planned a coup, because he’d helped plan those himself a few times (“not here”) and knows what’s involved. Not kidding; he really said that.

https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2022/07/12/john-bolton-casually-admits-to-jake-tapper-that-he-has-planned-coups-and-what-trump-did-aint-one-n593708

………………………….

Finally, Margot Cleveland has a MUST-READ commentary about the particularly egregious tactics being used by this committee.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/12/exclusive-jan-6-committee-is-using-innocent-americans-assertion-of-their-constitutional-rights-as-proof-of-guilt/

They’re “asking inappropriate questions about their fellow Americans’ beliefs and associates,” she says, in a way that brings to mind Sen. Joe McCarthy’s infamous anti-Communist tactics, and they’re “publicly portraying witnesses who exercise their Fifth Amendment rights as guilty.” She wrote this on Tuesday before that day’s hearing --- I wonder what she'll say now.

The attorney for one of the groups questioned, 1st Amendment Praetorian, told Cleveland that the committee refused to let anyone in the room record the proceedings in any way. Leslie McAdoo Gordon said that while witnesses called before DC federal grand juries can obtain a transcript of their testimony, this committee refuses to allow their targets to obtain transcripts. Cleveland says McAdoo Gordon told her that “the committee’s hiding of their transcripts serves to cover their lies and to control the narrative of the show trial, but it also allows the Jan. 6 Committee to hide the wildly inappropriate questions it poses to witnesses.”

She means questions such as “Do you believe in QAnon?” “Do you believe that Joe Biden is the legitimately elected President of the United States?” And that’s just the beginning –- they want information about donors, financial status and activities that are not relevant to January 6 and not the business of the government.

This will never stop unless it’s exposed for what it is.

Trans politics in Pennsylvania

Is this one of those Governors the Democrats think would be better to run for President than Joe Biden? Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf just vetoed a bill to bar biological males from competing in women’s sports. He called it “discriminatory against marginalized youth,” accused its backers of “hate,” said they should be ashamed of themselves, that he would never stop fighting for “fairness,” and that banning these biological male trans athletes from women’s sports was an “incredibly harmful” policy.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pennsylvania-gov-wolf-veto-transgender-sports-gop-pledges-fighting-fairness

I’d like to poll the female athletes on what they think is unfair and incredibly harmful.

Explo ‘72

50 years ago in June, I attended Explo ’72 in Dallas, TX—a gathering of over 100,000 young Christians from all over the world for a week of evangelistic training, music, and spiritual encounters with other mostly student Christ followers.  It was sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ and co-hosted by Dr. Billy Graham.  It was a seminal event in what was called “The Jesus Movement” of the late 60’s and early 70’s in which millions of young people turned from the emptiness of drugs, alcohol, and so-called sexual liberation to find a more meaningful life in Biblical standards, personal morality, and most importantly a profoundly personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Many of us who found ourselves a part of the Jesus Movement or as some called it the Jesus Revolution were in some ways refugees from frustrating experiences with legalistic churches that provided rigid rules of behavior that were considered right/wrong, but with no instruction as to the power to live up to such standards.  Through small groups sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ all over the world and the massive event of Explo, there was nothing less than an explosion of spiritual energy happening that started beyond the church but which ultimately had a dramatic impact on the church. 

The best description of Explo 72 was that it was Woodstock for Christians.  On the final rally held outdoors on a hot Saturday afternoon, over 250,000 people gathered for a day of contemporary Christian music and a message by Billy Graham.  Back in those days, there wasn’t really a definition of Contemporary Christian Music—it was rock and roll but with Biblical and Godly lyrics.  It would later become its own musical genre, and sadly become as commercialized as any other genre of music, but in the day it was raw, organic, and unfiltered but unapologetically prophetic and without doubt straight on Gospel message. 

Explo was life-changing for me and best I can determine most all of the other 100,000 youth who gathered in Dallas.  This past month, a 50th Reunion of those who attended was held at the very scene of the original—the Cotton Bowl just outside of downtown Dallas. 

I was supposed to be there—I had flights and hotel booked and registered.  But American Airlines canceled my flight just hours before I was to go.  I couldn’t make it, but participated by Zoom at one of the sessions.  Not the same as being there, but memories from 50 years ago flooded my soul with reminders of a crossroads in my own life that steered me a very different direction that I could have gone.  I was from a small town of about 8000 people.  To be in an event with 100,000 people was overwhelming.  There were more people in line for the restroom on any given moment than even lived in my hometown!  And one particular moment was definitive for me on the Friday night of Explo.  Billy Graham spoke on the importance of each of our lives being light in a dark world.  We had been handed a small candle when we entered the stadium that night and told to hold onto it.  At the end of his message, Dr. Graham asked that all the lights in the Cotton Bowl be turned off.  It was suddenly pitch dark.  He then lit his candle from the stage and turned to Dr. Bill Bright the CEO of Campus Crusade to light his candle.  They in turn lit the candles of 2 others and the 4 became 8; then 16, and then 32, 64, and beyond.  Every second, the number of candles doubled so that in a short time over 100,000 candles illuminated the Cotton Bowl so that the orange glow of the flickering flames was so bright that people living in the Cotton Bowl neighborhood called the Dallas Fire Department to report that the Cotton Bowl was on fire.  Actually it was, but not like they were used to.  While the image of 100,000 candles lighting up the Cotton Bowl was a sight I’ll never forget, it was another sight that proved to be life-changing for me that evening.  When the lights were all turned off, and Billy Graham lit the single candle, he told us that the darker things were, the more impact happened from the tiny light of a small candle.  That moment it was as if God reminded me that the world I lived in was dark and separated from God.  I felt inadequate, unprepared, insignificant, and unimportant in such a time and place.  But then and there, I was reminded that even a small light in darkness has an impact.  Before that night, I doubted I would ever amount to much or do anything important.  That moment changed that, and I believed that God actually wanted to use me and that he could.  I was never the same.  And 50 years later, I still pray that little light of mine will always shine.