The Durham Report released Monday is over 300 pages of documentation of the cooperation between the Democratic Party, the news media, and the FBI and CIA. The Clinton campaign paid for the Steele dossier, the FBI quickly figured out that there was no evidence to support it, and then the FBI offered its author $1 million of taxpayer dollars for any evidence at all. Which he could not produce. The FBI launched an investigation anyway, and the news media covered for them, while continuing to help the FBI bury the many and obvious crimes by Hillary herself. Lordy.

Powerline has some good stuff up about the Durham report already, including some responses from the news media, who played such an important role in this enormous political scandal. Even The New York Times acknowledged the damning findings of the report, but followed their recognition of the facts with this remarkable paragraph:

Mr. Durham’s 306-page report appeared to show little substantial new information about the F.B.I.’s handling of the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations impugning the bureau that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies had once suggested that Mr. Durham would find.

The so-called “dirty 51” who signed the absurd letter declaring the Hunter Biden laptop bore the earmarks of Russian disinformation should be stripped of security clearance and barred from any future policy-related positions.  History tells us that integrity in intelligence services is absolutely vital.  Weasels who seek favor or advancement by telling those in power what they want to hear do the country a grave disservice and should face sanctions because it is always disastrous:

• Cuban invasion plans? We are good to go, boss. The anti-Castro elements are fully operational.  The regime will fold like a cheap suit when the invasion begins. 

• The local support for the Viet Cong is paper thin. You are correct that a war of general attrition with lots of aerial bombardment is just the ticket. 

• It’s a slam dunk, sir. Saddam’s WMD development is now way ahead of where it was when we went in back in 1990.

First, those 51 guys (plus the additional nine unnamed super secret spooks and the execrable Mr. Blinken) prostituted their professional credentials to execute a partisan stunt and intentionally mislead the American voting public. Second, they made no attempt to examine or verify the materials and yet opined as if they had acquired enough information and analysis to make a professional judgment. Third, they have stuck to the brazen weasel position that if the Russians were to have done something it could have been similar to this actual scandal, therefore they did not really lie. 

Last night I had a dream that I never showed appreciation to Chazzan Berkowitz, and so I woke with the resolution that I would do so today.

I don’t come from a family of musicians. Though my maternal grandfather was a (non-observant) Yiddish storyteller who loved to sing at gatherings, none of my other grandparents had a musical bone in their bodies. Indeed, my father, who is still with us, is so distinctly atonal that when he sings, dogs howl. We had an old family friend who was a cantor. For years, he was in a coma, and we were told he was brain dead. My father would bring us along to visit him. My father sang to him, and the cantor, in a vegetative state, used to grimace in pain.

We’ve heard that adage about a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. How about a kid with a slingshot stopping his sister’s would-be kidnapper? Take a read:

Michigan State Police said in a news release that the 8-year-old girl was in her backyard when the alleged assailant came out of the woods, grabbed her and covered her mouth. Authorities said the girl’s brother, 13, hit the alleged attacker in the head and chest using a slingshot.

I’ve been interested in comments made by various public health officials reflecting total amnesia about events during Covid. The canard, actively promoted by the officials and known to be fictitious, that the vaccines prevented transmission, was a dagger in the heart of an already fragile social cohesion.  And now these officials are pretending to be mystified by the suggestion that they had anything to do with lockdowns, mandates, contact tracing, school closures, etc.

The people at Grabien have compiled a helpful retrospective to keep actual events and media perspectives from being memory-holed. Worth watching.

I’ve often written that leftism is better understood as a religion than as a political movement.  The ideology of the left is universally destructive, and thus makes no logical sense.  If you think about it.  Which leftists hope that you do not.  You just have to believe.

Religions remind their followers of important things through rituals.  My fellow Christians have many such rituals, such as The Lord’s Prayer.  Perhaps leftists could adopt something similar:

Our Father, who art in Washington, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Red States, as it is in Blue.
Give us this day our daily entitlements.
And forgive us our crimes, though we don’t forgive the crimes of others.
And lead us not into prosperity, but deliver us from freedom.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.

Yes, a bit of a poke-in-the-eye post, but I want this on the record for when Trump is the nominee and the NT wailing brigade goes full klaxon about how it’s Trump’s fault we can’t win in 2024.

I am not supporting or defending Trump per se. I do not feel that he will win the general. On the other hand, I certainly have no patience for the same people sneering the same “proof” offered last time.

Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty:

The Most Important Person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral–a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. . . . The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation. . . . What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?