Five Quick Things: Consent of the Governed - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Five Quick Things: Consent of the Governed
by
Rep. Adam Schiff (Wikimedia Commons)

With apologies to Mandy Patinkin, let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

1. They’re poking the bear. It isn’t wise to poke the bear.

In his 1937 book A History of Political Theory, George Sabine collected the views of many political theorists on consent of the governed. Within those pages, Sabine quoted from an earlier work by French theologian Theodore Beza, Vindiciae contra tyrannos, which held that “The people lay down the conditions which the king is bound to fulfill. Hence they are bound to obedience only conditionally, namely, upon receiving the protection of just and lawful government … the power of the ruler is delegated by the people and continues only with their consent.”

In short, abuse your power and you won’t like what happens.

We’re starting to see the ground shake a little bit under the feet of the wannabe dictators in charge of too many state and local governments. That’s only going to continue.

There’s the Shelley Luther case in Dallas, in which a local tin-pot clown of a judge named Eric Moyé, who has an immaculate academic resume to go with a history of personal violence and a virulently partisan Democrat bias, demanded that an owner of a hair salon not only close her business but bend the knee and apologize to the politicians she had defied in keeping it open. Luther politely but forcefully told Moyé that he was the one who could get bent, and he promptly slapped her with a contempt of court citation, a $7,000 fine, and a week’s jail sentence.

All hell broke loose in Texas over the Luther case, and a day later the state Supreme Court had sprung Luther after Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott had separate conniption fits over Moyé’s judicial dipsomania. A GoFundMe installed for Luther’s legal fees and other needs topped the half-million dollar mark by Thursday as an outraged public voted with their PayPal accounts.

This came after the people in Michigan gave the finger to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another clown drunk on power, over her recent misrule in the form of armed protests in that state’s capitol. A lawsuit in Minnesota seeks the end of that state’s economic shutdown. California is beginning to descend into civil unrest. And so on.

Yes, there are polls showing these overbearing dunces have popular support. But let’s remember something. All of these “Karens” who parrot what they hear on the six o’clock news and attack their neighbors for being outside? Those aren’t leaders. They’re followers. They follow the loudest voice they hear, with the zeal of the newly converted. And the Karens will flip very quickly once their fear of the effects of an economic shutdown and the loss of their own convenience and liberty begin to outweigh their fear of catching the coronavirus.

That point is approaching. The smarter politicians at the state and local level will relent before it does and therefore escape the wrath of the public. The less-intelligent ones, the Ralph Northams and Phil Murphys and Whitmers of the world, won’t.

New Orleans mayor LaKaren Cantrell (that isn’t her real name, but it might as well be), has ordered all major events in that city canceled until next year. At issue now is whether or not she’ll permit the Saints, a legitimate Super Bowl contender in Drew Brees’ last year before he ascends to the broadcast booth, to hold home games in the Superdome. Thursday the NFL released its 2020 schedule — in Week 1 Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers come to New Orleans and in Week 3, just after the Saints help the Raiders christen that new stadium in Las Vegas, it’s Aaron Rodgers and the Packers coming to the Dome.

Wanna see some action? Watch Cantrell try to cancel those two Saints home games. She won’t just fail to do so — she’ll be lucky to survive the experience. It’s been quite some time since tar, feathers, and a rail were applied to an American politician, but this?

As I’ve said, we need a few political scalps as a result of the recent miserable experience. We’re getting closer to seeing that bill paid. Just wait.

2. Out like Flynn.

So by now you know all about the floodgates opening in the Mike Flynn case. He’s had the case dropped against him, finally, amid the release of documents showing a mountain of malfeasance on the part of the FBI and Justice Department — perhaps most notably by the adulterous pair of villains Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who conspired to railroad him when they knew Flynn had done nothing wrong. That led President Trump to declare Thursday the Flynn travesty was evidence of “treason” by “human scum” at the FBI, a statement that was not wrong.

Not to mention that Adam Schiff has been forced to release transcripts from his Russia investigation, and those weren’t exactly awesome for the Democrats. In them, top Obama officials confessed they had  “no empirical evidence” the Trump campaign was in cahoots with Russia during the 2016 election.

Today, it’s expected yet another bomb will drop:

President Trump’s top spy chief reportedly has a “satchel” of documents related to the Russia investigation that could be released as early as Friday.

After the House Intelligence Committee released dozens of witness transcripts from its investigation into Russian election interference on Thursday, Fox News chief White House correspondent Ed Henry reported two sources told him acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell is prepared to unveil additional documents that will show how Chairman Adam Schiff and other investigators “knew for a long time there was no collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin “even though they kept saying they had direct evidence.”

Multiple Obama administration officials, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, told investigators behind closed doors that they had not seen “empirical evidence” showing members of the Trump team were conspiring with Russia to meddle in the 2016 election, according to the newly released transcripts.

Attorney General William Barr received a separate “satchel” of documents, Henry said in a report Friday evening on Tucker Carlson Tonight as Fox News aired video that a producer took of Grenell personally delivering them to the Justice Department.

Henry noted that his sources would not say precisely what was in the satchel, but they expect the contents could be made public as early as Friday.

The reporter also said that while a senior administration source told Fox News previously that Schiff was in “panic mode” about the House Intelligence Committee witness transcripts, the California Democrat may be “even more panicked” now.

I’ve heard from a couple of friends in the know in D.C. that this month will be a pretty ugly one for Clapper, Brennan, and Strzok, but that was based on things coming out of John Durham’s investigation and potential indictments he might hand down. This deluge of documents exposing the Obama administration’s Watergate-style attempts to sabotage a duly elected successor could lengthen that list considerably.

Let all of them burn. We are far too polite in this country at the moment, but as H. L. Mencken said in a less-polite era, every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. Now that our collective suspicions about Obama’s pinstripe-suited thugs have begun to be confirmed, that black flag ought to fly high, and mercy for the Obama gang ought to be given a stay-at-home order.

Up against the wall, you porcine bastards.

3. Thank you, Kayleigh McEnany.

By now you’ve surely seen the video of new White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, who was formerly a Fox News pundit, in her initial press briefing. McEnany got a predictably snarky question from one of the Democrat propagandists in the seats, something about how she had said President Trump wouldn’t let the Wuhan virus make it to our shores, and while she admitted that take didn’t age well, she then proceeded to spout off, machine-gun style, a host of headlines by legacy media outlets of a similar vintage that were a whole lot more off-base than she was.

In short, the woman was prepared.

Not to diminish McEnany’s leadoff dinger, but today’s legacy media ain’t what they used to be. It’s hard to imagine anybody giving that kind of what-for to Sam Donaldson, for example. On the other hand, while Donaldson was unquestionably a rascal in his own right, he was at least committed to some semblance of bipartisan hardassery. This current crop, the Acostas, Paula Reids, and Yamiches of the world, you can see coming from a mile away.

Or Peter Alexander, who works at NBC News, which has become even worse than the Clown News Network nobody watches because nobody’s at the airport these days.

A couple weeks back, I wrote a column about the bait-and-switch job the politicritters pulled on the American people, initially selling the shutdown as necessary to “flatten the curve” and keep the health-care system from being overloaded with coronavirus patients. RealClearPolitics put that piece up essentially side by side with an op-ed by NBC News chairman Andy Lack about how “journalism is winning” in the age of the ChiCom virus despite Trump’s attacks on it.

What a joke.

Turns out Lack’s self-gratifying public takes masked what was really going on at NBC, which it appears will result in a Lack of a job in his household:

Soon-to-be former NBC News Chairman Andy Lack won’t be with the company come June, but it appears his trail of scandal and controversy isn’t going away anytime soon, as the New York attorney general reportedly is investigating the company for alleged sexual harassment issues on Lack’s watch.

NBCUniversal shocked media watchers on Monday when it issued a press release announcing a major shakeup at the company. Lack’s exit was buried behind news of the company’s restructuring and the bonafides of the promoted executives.

The fourth paragraph of the release simply said, “Lack has decided to step down and will transition out of the company at the end of the month,” with zero glowing quotes about his time there.

“Andy Lack’s tenure running NBC News was an abysmal failure, there is no other way to put it,” Fox News’ Howard Kurtz said on Tuesday. “It was defined by the world-class debacle involving his refusal to air the rock-solid reporting of Ronan Farrow on the criminal sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein.”

Pppppfffffzzzz.

What a joke. How do clowns like that end up running a major news network? And we’re supposed to defer to that?

Sic ’em, Kayleigh.

4. Keep Tuesday nights open, and keep your American Spectator subscription current.

In case you missed it, Tuesday night I was a guest on the weekly American Spectator subscriber call, which was the fastest hour in video conferencing. If you were on hand, it was a rollicking good time — we covered everything from Chinese bioweapons to The Last Kingdom to the effects of late-stage dementia on presidential performance.

Participation in these events requires a current American Spectator subscription, which of course all of you have — because none of the readers of this column would be so flighty and fair-weatherish not to have plunked down for. It’s well worth the time. There is nothing on TV on Tuesday nights, and you are not allowed to leave your abode, so you’re literally a captive audience.

If I understand correctly, Daniel J. Flynn will be taking my place in the hot seat for next week’s call. You have a high bar to clear, Flynn!

5. How’s this for a book review?

We’ll keep this one short and sweet. I’m telling you guys, but I’m telling everybody:

McKay’s work is excellent. Part one of Perdition is another “can’t put down” book. Absolutely one of the best books I’ve ever read. Great story line; super character development.

Can’t wait for Parts 2, 3, and 4, and the other books to follow.

That’s an Amazon review of my latest novel Perdition, Part One. All the reviews are like that.

Yes, it’s available for you to download on your Kindle. As is Animus, the first book in the series. Perdition, Part Two, by the way, is available for pr-order — it’ll be downloadable on May 14. All the cool kids are grabbing their copies. And you’re one of them … right?

Scott McKay
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Scott McKay is a contributing editor at The American Spectator  and publisher of the Hayride, which offers news and commentary on Louisiana and national politics, and RVIVR.com, a national political news aggregation and opinion site. Scott is also the author of The Revivalist Manifesto: How Patriots Can Win The Next American Era, and, more recently, Racism, Revenge and Ruin: It's All Obama, available November 21. He’s also a writer of fiction — check out his four Tales of Ardenia novels Animus, Perdition, Retribution and Quandary at Amazon.
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